gHacks technology news » internet

Web Browser Backup Software FavBackup Updated

Martin — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:32:10 +0000

FavBackup allowed Windows users to backup web browser specific settings. The program was easy to use and supported most major web browsers. Some things were not perfect like missing support for custom or multiple user profiles, portable browser support or the disk and computer memory usage during backup jobs. The developer of FavBackup has recently upgraded the backup software to version 2 which addresses most of the issues that users had with the software.

The jump to version 2 of the web browser backup software brings support for Opera 10 and Flock 2.5 (next to the already existing support for Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 2.9 to Firefox 3.6, Google Chrome 1 to Google Chrome 4, Safari 3 and 4, Opera 9 and Flock 3). This should cover the most used web browsers in the Windows operating system.

One of the great additions in FavBackup 2 is support for portable web browsers. It is now possible to select a custom location for the user profile for Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, Safari and Flock. It is furthermore possible to select any of the identified profiles of the supported web browsers directly.

Other changes in this release are the new ribbon interface, a progress bar, different themes for the backup program, 40% less computer memory usage and minor bug fixes. The new additions make FavBackup 2 a recommended program for web browser backups, especially if multiple different web browsers are installed and used in a computing environment.

Tags: backup software, explorer++, favbackup, firefox backup, google chrome backup, internet, Internet Explorer Backup, opera backup, portable software, web browser, web browser backup, windows software

Internet Monitoring Software Internet Logger

Martin — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:21:03 +0000

Monitoring Internet traffic can be useful in certain situations. These Internet monitors can for example be used to analyse the programs and data that get transferred at a specific point in time. The SoftX Internet Logger monitors the Internet traffic on the computer system once it is running. It will log the traffic of all users and create a directory structure based on the username, date and applications that have been used.

Information about the software programs are directly taken from the process list and the data is stored in text files. This means that system administrators who want to analyse the traffic need to either do it manually or use a software program to do that.

The Internet logger does not provide any options which is a bit unfortunate because of the following reasons. The first reason is that there is no way of filtering applications that should not be logged by the application, the second that the logs can grow quickly. The Internet monitoring logs are saved in text files which grow depending on the traffic of the software applications. It can happen that the log file of a heavy traffic application (like utorrent or another bittorrent application) grows to a few hundred Megabytes after less than an hour. That’s obviously problematic if the Internet monitoring software has been configured to run all day long.

SoftX Internet Logger is a free Internet monitoring software that is available at the developer’s website.

Tags: internet, internet logger, internet monitoring, software monitor, softx internet logger, traffic monitoring, windows software

How To Download Files From The Internet The Secure Way

Martin — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:46:52 +0000

Everyone who uses an Internet connection is downloading files from there. It can be automatic file transfers like downloading new emails or filling the browser cache when opening new websites but also manual downloads of pictures, videos or programs. The most dangerous type of downloads are program executables as they can infect a computer system easily if the user has no precautions in place. The following article will give users of every experience level some guidelines at hand on how to download and handle files that are downloaded from the Internet.

It all begins at a website or server. This is the starting point and it might be a good idea to start validating that server before even thinking about downloading files from there. This can be done manually by performing some searches in search engines but also automatically with browser add-ons or plugins like Web of Trust, McAfee’s Site Advisor and a plethora of other respected programs including local security software that can also check websites and servers.

The second step involves downloading the file to the local computer system. There is not a lot that can be done here in this step. The only defense are security software programs that are installed on the computer system that should scan the file and report back to the user if they believe it to be malicious. Cautious users can also use one of the many online virus scanners to upload the file and scan it online. Services like Virus Total scan the files with more than a dozen different up to date antivirus engines resulting in a more precise analysis of the file.

Another option is to check the hash values of the downloaded files to make sure that they have not been tampered with. This only makes sense if the developer is displaying the values on a trusted website.

It is pretty safe to assume that the file is safe and can be executed on the computer system if it did pass the tests. There is however a last step that can be done to add the extra mile of security: Virtualization. Programs like Sandboxie or VMWare Player make it possible to execute programs in a closed environment for testing purposes. The benefit of this approach is that they cannot harm the rest of the computer system if they should be malicious.

Did we leave something out? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: file downloads, files, internet, malicious software, Security, security programs

Benefits of Programming in Ruby

Melanie — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:54:09 +0000

There are several programming languages that to-be programmers (or current programmers) can choose from. For first-time programmers, choosing a programming language can be difficult. There are many programming languages that are dying out, just aren’t popular, or are just generally hard to learn. It would be a shame for any first-time programmer to purchase books to learn a language to find that it is too difficult. It would also be a shame to learn a programming language that has no application at work. Ruby is a great programming language because it offers a great feature called Ruby on Rails. Rails is a web framework that can be used by programmers to speed up development.

The programming language, Ruby, was created in the mid 1990’s in Japan, by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto. Ruby is based on Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp and was written to create a programming language that, according to Matsumoto, “was more powerful than Perl, and more object-oriented than Python.”

One of the goals of Ruby is to allow the simple and fast creation of web applications. The language itself satisfies this goal. Because of this, there is much less tedious work with this language than many other programming languages. Ruby is also free of charge. It is also free to copy, use, modify, and distribute. Since Ruby can be modified, programmers can make necessary changes and can code without feeling restricted. Another feature of Ruby is its mark-and-sweep garbage collection which allows programmers the ability to code without having to worry about the need to maintain reference counts in extension libraries. Also, if an operating system allows for it, Ruby can dynamically load extension libraries. Ruby currently ranks as the 9th most popular programming language in the world. There are many online guides where Ruby programmers to-be can learn how to program in Ruby.

Ruby on Rails, often simply called Rails, is an open source web application framework that was designed for Ruby by David Heinemeier Hansson and was released in July 2004. Ruby on Rails makes use of an object relational mapping layer known as the ActiveRecord. Because of this, programmers do not have to specify database column names in class definitions. Rails will retrieve this information on its own from the database based on the class name. Rails also has a testing framework built in which allows programmers to write test cases which helps them create more reliable, robust code.

Tags: coding, internet, programmning, rails, ruby, ruby on rails, web dev, web development

Wireless Network Scanner inSSIDer

Martin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:23:00 +0000

The wireless network scanner inSSIDer can be used to quickly scan the area for wireless networks. The software program works well with Windows Vista and Windows XP (even the 64-bit editions) and can quickly display all wireless networks in the vicinity. A network adapter has to be selected to start the scanning. All discovered wireless networks are then added to a table in the same interface which lists information like their MAC address, SSID, channel, security and network speed.

Graphs are shown below the table that visualize the signal strength of the selected wireless networks over time. It is possible to select some or all of the wireless networks and observe their performance.

The visualization can help the user troubleshoot the wireless network. It could for example be that all or most of the wireless networks in the area are concentrating on specific channels for the communication. It could then help to switch to one of the transmission channels that are the least used in the area to improve the speed and performance of the wireless network.

InSSIDer is an Open Source software program that might be useful for users who want to troubleshoot, optimize or configure their wireless networks. Beta 1.2 of the program has been released a few days ago and is available for download on the developer’s homepage.

Tags: inssider, internet, network performance, Open Source, windows software, wireless network analyzer, wireless network scanner, wireless-network

Load Websites On Schedule

Martin — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:39:29 +0000

Loading websites on schedule might come in handy in a few situations. The Firefox add-on Tab Timer offers this feature by allowing users to configure websites that should be opened at a specific time in the future. Possible scenarios where this feature might come in handy are opening websites while on break, shopping for gifts before anniversaries or birthdays, opening eBay auctions before they end or looking up the weather report in the morning.

The configuration of Tab Timer is pretty straightforward. All that needs to be done is to select a date, time, frequency and website in the program’s interface. Each website that has been configured this way will then be opened automatically at the exact point in time.

Date and time can be added using the built in calendar. The frequency in which the websites are opened can be switched from once – which is the default option – to daily or weekly. Tab Timer is an interesting extension for Firefox that is compatible with Firefox 1.5 to 3.0. It is possible to force compatibility with Firefox 3.x.

Tags: firefox, internet, load websites, mozilla, schedule, tab timer, web browser, website timer, websites

Computer Security Myth: Defeating Keyloggers With Onscreen Keyboards

Martin — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:57:51 +0000

I recently came upon a few articles that once again offered the computer security tip to use onscreen keyboards to defeat keyloggers. Most of these tips are suggesting to install an onscreen keylogger or make use of the default one of the operating system to defeat keyloggers while making transactions on the Internet or working with sensible data.

The theory that keyloggers can be defeated with onscreen keyboards is unfortunately a computer security myth. It is definitely true that some keyloggers, especially those that only record the keys that the user enters on the computer computer keyboard, can be defeated with onscreen keyboards.

There are however advanced keyloggers which make a screenshot of the onscreen keyboard while it visible on the computer screen and which record the mouse movements on the system. It is then a matter of simply reconstructing the mouse movement to know exactly what a user typed on a computer system.

There is only one 100% way of defeating keyloggers and that is to not use computer systems for sensitive information. That’s not always practicable and it is possible to reduce the chance that keyloggers are installed by running good antivirus programs.

Tags: computer keyboard, computer security, internet, internet security, keyloggers, onscreen keyboard, Security

Make The Web Your Notebook with WebNotes (With 50 Pro Invites)

David Pierce — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:45:49 +0000

I’m a student. I’m also a writer, a researcher, and a number of other things that all seem to involve a ton of research. Particularly that student thing. An increasing number of us, regardless of what we do, rely on the Web to get information, do research, and get work done.

For most of us (at least for me), that research involves the fun little dance of switching between Microsoft Word and the Internet, constantly reading, writing, losing my place, cursing the world, crying uncontrollably, and then getting back to work. But I digress.

One of the best tools out there, of the many I’ve tried to avoid that vicious cycle, is WebNotes. I use it constantly as a student and a professional, and it offers the most features and best usability of any application out there.

WebNotes, at its most basic, is an annotation tool. The first step is to install the toolbar (which works in Firefox and Internet Explorer), or the bookmarklet (which works in pretty much every browser, but with a couple fewer features). When you visit a website, the WebNotes software lets you can either highlight the text on the page, or make sticky notes with comments on the page. Everything you annotate is automatically added to your WebNotes organizer, for easy access later.

Once you’ve annotated a few pages, check out the WebNotes organizer. From there, you can either see the Web pages in their original form, view your highlights and comments on top of the page, or see only your markups. You can also search through your highlighted text and annotations, which makes finding that killer quote you came across an impressively easy proposition.

You can share notebooks, or individual notes (the organization and filing features of WebNotes make sharing them easy), which makes WebNotes great for collaborating on research within a group. There’s no emailing files necessary, no trying to figure out which version is most up-to-date; instead, all your research lives in one constantly-updated place.

For the more professional users, there’s the ability to create a “Report,” which is a well-designed aggregation of all your notes and highlights on a given subject. I’ve used it for giving presentations, or just summarizing research to someone else – it’s much more useful than I initially thought it would be.

The bottom-line of WebNotes is that it streamlines all your research. One, everything goes into one place, meaning there’s no hunting through twelve different Word documents to find what you want. Two, there’s no copy and paste – just highlight or comment, and everything gets saved automatically. The best thing about WebNotes, though, is that it lets you avoid the inevitable hunt through a page you know is useful, but that you can’t for the life of you figure out why.

A few weeks ago, WebNotes launched a “Pro” version, which adds some serious functionality to WebNotes. The biggest update, at least in my own use, is that WebNotes Pro lets you highlight and comment on PDF files. Particularly in school, I do a ton of reading PDF’s, and hate changing between the PDF and Word constantly so I can take notes. With WebNotes, that’s all avoided, and PDF markups go right into my organizer. (If you love the idea of PDF markup, but don’t want to use all that WebNotes has to offer, give Foxit Reader a look – it’s got all the markup love you could want.)

The Pro version also offers better support, and Multi-Color highlighting. It’s aimed squarely at professionals and students who do a lot of research from a lot of different sources, and WebNotes wants to be the source for all your research and informational bookmarking. For me, personally, it’s become indispensable in both cases.

The Pro version costs $9.99/month, but there’s a 50% discount for students who use the promo code “student101″. For gHacks readers, however, there’s an even better deal:

3 FREE months of the full, WebNotes Pro interface. The first 50 people to click this link will get three months free of the Pro features, to test to your heart’s content.

If you don’t want the added features (and the price tag), you’ll be reverted to the free version of WebNotes – which is pretty great itself – after three months is up.

What do you think of WebNotes? Is there a better application out there?

Tags: annotation, internet, notebook, online service, organizer, research, webnotes

Opera Will Reinvent The Internet On June 16

Martin — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:14:49 +0000

At least that’s what they claim. If you visit the Opera Freedom teaser page you are greeted with an image of a cloud that is split in half by a lightning bolt and the text “15 years of browser innovation. On June 16th at 9:00 a.m (CEDT), we will reinvent the Web”. While that is not lots of information about the product or service that the Opera team is announcing it is definitely a bold statement.

If you look at the source code of the web page you get two additional hints. The first is located in the metatags which reads “The Web is your browser. Discover how fast and fun the Web can be” while the second is located as a comment in the html “We start our little story with the invention of the modern day computer. Over the years, the computers grew in numbers, and the next natural step in the evolution was …”.

Taken those two hints into account it is pretty safe to say that Opera will reveal a web browser in the cloud. It is not entirely clear how users are going to access that web browser, could be by using some sort of launcher that the Opera team is providing. Could also be a hybrid web browser that is being launched locally but gets most of its data online.

I could be completely off though but the cloud image seems to hint at this direction as well. Anyone got another interpretation for what Opera is going to announce on June 16?

Tags: cloud computing, internet, opera, opera browser, opera freedom, web browser

Read Deleted Wikipedia Pages On Deletionpedia

Martin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:57:55 +0000

Many users think that nothing gets ever deleted on Wikipedia. There might be some heavy editing going on from time to time but deleting pages? If you visit the website Deletionpedia you will soon realize that Wikipedia pages get regularly deleted. Pages in this case meaning the page including all of its contents.

Deletionpedia provides a mirror of these deleted pages so that they can still be accessed by interested users. The website offers for example pages like “2008 United States presidential election controversies and attacks”, “Elvis Sightings” or a “list of female basketball players”. Searching for some of the phrases on Wikipedia will lead the visitor to a more general page that covers the topic. A search for “Blood Angels” will for example open the Space Marines (Warhammer 40,000) on Wikipedia while Deletionpedia still offers the original Blood Angels Wikipedia entry.

Most Deletionpedia pages contain links to the deletion discussion on Wikipedia which can shed some light on the deletion motives. Some pages contain additional information that the page is going to be transferred to another Wiki in the future.

Deletionpedia is an interesting project that currently hosts more than 60.000 Wikipedia pages that have been deleted. Interested users can browse Deletionpedia by various parameters including date of deletion, by number of revisions or editors.

Tags: deletionpedia, encyclopedia, internet, Online Services, wikipeda tips, wikipedia

Wolfram Alpha Gets Its First Core Update After Launch

Martin — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:54:25 +0000

One thing that many webmasters and users do not like is that search engines keep them in the dark when they update their search engine, be it search engine algorithm changes or other updates. The Wolfram Alpha team seems to have felt the same way as they decided to release information about the first core update after the launch of the new search engine on their blog.

The blog lists the major changes of the core update mentioning in the end that about 1.1 million data values have been affected by the search engine update. Most of the changes listed in the blog post add new searches or information to the search engine. This includes for example the updates to some European countries like Slovakia, regions (like Wales), country borders (India, China..) but also more interesting comparisons (USA deficit vs. UK), combined time series plots of different quantities (population Germany gdp) and additional ways of searching for information and data entries.

There is obviously still a fundamental different between the information that are provided by Wolfram Alpha and classic search engines like Google Search, Bing or Yahoo Search. The developers are however on a good way to fill a gap that most users were probably not aware of until they discovered that they could use Wolfram Alpha in a certain way to compute information that would take lots of manual work otherwise.

Still, the search engine is limited and it sometimes depends on the phrase if it understands the search query.

Tags: data, google search, internet, search, search engine, wolfram alpha, yahoo search

The Most Dangerous Web Search Terms

Martin — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:54:25 +0000

Which search terms would make it on the list if you would have to compile a list of the ten most dangerous web search terms? Most users would probably add search terms like warez, cracks and sex when asked to compile a top ten list. A recent McAfee study on the other hand came to a completely different conclusion. The ten most dangerous web search terms are everyday search terms that cannot be connected easily with malicious intent. The top spot is occupied by searches for Screensavers, followed by free games, work from home and Rihanna with Barrack Obama, the iPhone and Taxes in the list as well. It should however be noted that the top 10 list is made up of categories and not single search terms.

These search terms are more dangerous than, lets say warez, because most users know that warez can lead to malicious software quite easily while they most likely do not suspect the same from these popular search terms.

The McAfee researches searched for more than 2600 popular keywords examining the first five pages of results across five popular search engines with McAfee’s Site Advisor technology. The top 50 most dangerous search terms in the US were listed in the research paper as well. The phrase “word unscrambler” is taking up the top spot followed by lyrics, myspace and free music downloads.

The researches discovered that lyrics and free made up the two most category-specific risks on the web these days. The research paper can be downloaded directly at McAfee.

Tags: dangerous search, internet, Search Engines, search terms, searching, Security, web search

Remote Server Monitoring Software DreamSys Server Monitor

Martin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:29:38 +0000

DreamSys Server Monitor, once a commercial remote server monitoring software, is now available as a free download from the developer’s homepage. The user still needs to enter registration information after installation. They are however available on the homepage without the need for registration or any other kind of data grabbing. The Server Monitor application can be used to monitor servers over a network or the Internet.

The system administrator starts by adding new servers that should be monitored to the application. Required information are a unique name, the server address and the monitoring type. Available monitoring types are TCP / IP, Ping or Services. Additional information might be required depending on the type selected. A TCP / IP monitoring for example requires a port that can be added in the same interface.

The events and notifications that can be configured are quite extensive. Events can be configured for positive and negative results. Positive results – meaning the remote server is up and running – are limited to playing a sound or running a command while negative results (server down) include the additional options to reboot the computer or start a service.

Three notification types are available. The administrator can be informed by email, message box or net message.

Specific parameters for every server can be configured in the Configuration View tab. It allows the user to change the monitoring interval, configure the connection timeout, set the mail server and enable the logging of events.

DreamSys Server Monitor can be used as a Internet or network monitoring software. It lacks some of the features of advanced monitoring applications that offer website or database monitoring but could be enough for administrators who do not need that functionality.

Tags: dreamsys server monitor, internet, network, Network Monitoring Software, remote server monitoring software, server, server monitor, Server Monitoring Software, windows software

Configure Firefox To Only Open Whitelist Websites

Martin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:45:42 +0000

The best way of controlling which websites are opened in a web browser is to block all of them except those that are listed on a custom whitelist. This does require work at the beginning when websites are added to the whitelist but reduces the level of control that has to be imposed on the user once the whitelist has been filled with domains. This can not only be practicable for companies or organizations who want to restrict Internet access to a handful of selected websites but also for parents who want to protect their children from the dangers of the Internet without giving them the feeling that they under total control.

ProCon Latte is an add-on for the Firefox web browser that can block access to all websites except those that are listed in the whitelist. While the add-on provides access to many additional features like word based filters this article concentrates on using it to block all websites except whitelisted ones. The options of the add-on contain a form that can be filled with whitelisted urls. It is also possible to import a list of urls that should be added to the whitelist or right-click the current page and select the option to whitelist it.

It would not be a very good protection if anyone would be able to add new pages to the whitelist. This is where the password protection of the application comes into play. Once password protected only authorized users – those that enter the password correctly – can make changes to the add-on’s options. Several options are available to increase the security further by hiding the extension from the tools menu and status bar, preventing it from being disabled or uninstalled and by locking about:config so that it cannot be accessed.

Only two settings have to be changed in the options to add the security. The user has to check the Block All Traffic option in the Main Filter tab which will block all but whitelisted traffic. Then the whitelist has to be enabled by checking the Enable Whitelist box in the Whitelist tab. This is also the location to add new sites to the whitelist. Lastly the password has to be added by clicking on the Set Password button in the General tab.

Parents are probably best of to fill the whitelist together with their children by asking them about the pages that they like to view and telling them that they need to ask the parents if they cannot access a page so that the page can be enabled if appropriate.

A small notification bar will appear on top of pages that are not in the whitelist. Users with the password can override the limitation by entering the password to continue.

Is the application fool proof? Smart children might try and delete it from the user profile directory or edit the preferences so that the extension would not get loaded anymore. That’s however easily noticeable and only possible if access to the system itself is not restricted. Other possibility include booting into a live CD or using another web browser that is installed on the system.

Tags: firefox, firefox block traffic, firefox children, firefox whitelist, firefox-add on, internet, mozilla-firefox, protect children, web browser, whitelist

Opera Turbo

Martin — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:07:31 +0000

Opera positioned itself as one of the marketing leaders in web based compression software solutions with their Opera Mini web browser which utilized Internet traffic compression to reduce the load time on mobile devices. This was achieved by sending all network traffic through specifically crafted Opera servers which compressed the traffic before it was send to the client’s mobile device.

Opera Turbo builds up on the experience that the Opera development team gathered during the development of Opera Mini. The new service will be officially announced at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. The information that can be gathered from the available whitepaper suggests a broader service that allows businesses to run Opera Turbo servers which will manage the compression for their clients. Internet traffic will be routed through Opera Turbo servers which compress it and send it to the clients. The browsers on the client side will also compress any data before it is send to the Opera Turbo server which unpacks it before it is send to the actual destination.

According to the whitepaper Opera Turbo will be able to compress network traffic by up to 80%. The benefits of Opera Turbo should be obvious. The service will save businesses bandwidth, speed up web surfing for clients and reduce costs thanks to the reduced bandwidth requirements. The main Achilles’ heel of Opera Turbo is the requirement to use Opera software to make use of the technique. Opera currently has a web browser market share of about 1% which means that about 99% of all Internet users will probably never be able to test Opera Turbo. Existing Opera users on the other hand might be able to benefit from Opera Turbo as Opera has the intention to utilize the technique into the Opera web browser and Opera mobile browser.

Tags: browser, internet, opera, opera browser, opera mini, opera turbo, web browser

Network Traffic Balancer

Martin — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 11:23:47 +0000

Maximizing the download rate of an Internet connection might be a good way to download a file the fastest way but it can put a strain on all other network and Internet activities in that time. A user wanting to play an online game while downloading with full speed will notice high ping rates which is not desirable. It can also lead to disconnects or temporary load errors in general.

One way of dealing with this situation is to run a traffic balancer to ensure that the other activities are not affected by the downloads or uploads.

Netbalancer (via To The PC) is not limiting the bandwidth of the applications directly. It is instead changing the network priority of applications to control the Internet traffic. The network priority of a software that is demanding lots of bandwidth would be reduced by Netbalancer to ensure that other applications with a higher priority get their share of the bandwidth.

By default all network priorities are set to normal and it is up to the user to modify them. This usually means that applications like P2P clients, ftp clients or others that download and upload files continuously are reduced from normal to low. It could also mean to raise the network priority of an application to high to prioritize it.

The main interface looks similar to a process viewer. It displays all running processes of the computer system, their priority, incoming and outgoing traffic, the number of connections and additional information.

A right-click on any row will bring up a menu with options to change the network priority of a process or to allow or block its Internet traffic completely. There is also a handy button in the toolbar for all of these options plus the ability to block all network traffic.

A severity level can be configured in the options. The speed difference between low, normal and high priority can be set. Netbalancer might be the right application for users who regularly download or upload data while working with other applications that need bandwidth as well.

Tags: bandwidth, internet, internet traffic, netbalancer, network priority, network traffic, Network Traffic Balancer, traffic balancer

Baresite Makes Mobile Browsing Affordable

Martin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:49:07 +0000

Only a minority of cell phone owners have access to a data flatrate. Most have to cope with utterly insane pricing schemes and pay per Megabyte transferred. If you are old enough to remember; That’s how the first Internet Service Providers handled business when the Internet became popular in the Nineties.

Some cell phone owners have a free data contingent per month before they have to pay for additional data transfers. The fees are usually ridiculously high for a Megabyte of data and cell phone owners who do not have another choice have to make sure that they optimize the data transfer.

A good way to optimize the traffic is to use services like Baresite. Baresite basically removes the unnecessary parts of a website before sending it to the client. It acts like a proxy server that alters every page to reduce the amount of data that gets transferred from and to the clients device.

The device is usually a cell phone but it could very well be used with desktop PCs since many users have to cope with slow connections or data tariffs there as well.

Baresite uses a basic optimized website for mobile devices. It provides access to two forms which can be used to load websites / feeds or search on the Internet. One interesting feature of Baresite is the automatic feed discovery. RSS feeds will be displayed instead of the original website if a site offers that functionality. RSS feeds have the advantage that they are faster to load because they usually come without any graphics or multimedia.

The Preference contain some important parameters that some users might want to change. Images can be turned off in here. It is also possible to change the default search engine from Google to Yahoo, Live or ASK.

The very same menu contains options to switch between full and partial feeds, select the number of history items that are displayed on each page or if the forms should be displayed on every page.

Everything will be saved without registration. It is possible to set favorites for easier access on the next visit. There is even an option to access the full browsing history. The service that is offered by Baresite is ideal for users on slow connections or users who have to pay per Megabyte. It can be used to access information rapidly.

Tags: baresite, cell phone browsing, cell phone service, cell-phone, data rate, internet, mobile phone, strip websites, websites

Internet Connection Check

Martin — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:16:57 +0000

It can sometimes be complicated to check if an Internet connection is still alive. Sure, modem or routers usually display information about the Internet connection and might reveal if it is still up but they are sometimes not in the same room or even house. Some users would like a software based way to check if an Internet connection is still alive.

A software program called Is It On by Erightsoft, the makers of the popular video converter Super, can do that. It is a small portable application for most Microsoft Windows operating systems that can check the status of a connection in a heartbeat and displays a green or gray light depending on the status.

The interface of the software application is as basic as it can get with virtually no settings available at all. It displays three items under Network Status: Direct Active Internet Connection, Lan Connection and Behind Intranet Network Proxy.

Depending on the type of Internet connection of the user’s computer it will display green lights if the connection is active, gray lights if the connection is not (currently) active. Is It On will automatically detect changes to the network status and display the information in a matter of seconds in the program’s interface.

The interface has been designed to be always on top with no option to minimize the window or reduce its size. That’s probably the greatest weakness of the application. It would be nice if the application’s interface could be reduced so that only the lights are shown. Moving it to the Windows System Tray with an option to automatically notify the user of status changes to the Internet connection would be another nice feature.

Tags: check internet, erightsoft, internet, internet connection, internet software, is it on, portable software, windows software

Barebone Web Surfing With Finch

Martin — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:40:37 +0000

We have featured some articles in the past that explained how to reduce the bandwidth usage while surfing the Internet which is important for users who have to cope with a monthly bandwidth limit and those who are stuck with slow Internet connections. (Reduce Opera Bandwidth Usage and Use The Opera Mini Browser On A PC are two that come to mind)

Finch tries to achieve a similar goal. The web service acts pretty much like a web proxy with the difference that bandwidth reduction and not anonymity is the top priority. Finch will not load CSS files, no images and no scripts. Stripping a website of most of its contents reduces its size tremendously. The size of the New York Times homepage is reduced by 94% when using Finch.

This method has some serious disadvantages though. Many websites become unusable. Finch does not support scripts which are required by some to function properly. Cookies are not supported as well which meaning logins won’t function properly as well.

Finch works best on static websites or those that function without scripts and cookies. Running the website through Finch will reduce the bandwidth that is transferred which means a speed gain and reduction of the monthly transfer rate. It’s on the other hand nothing for users who spend most of their time on social sites.

Tags: bandwidth, connection speed, finch, internet, internet speed, low bandwidth, proxy, transfer rate, web proxy

Open DNS

Martin — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:03:45 +0000

My Internet Provider decided to capture data that I entered in a browser’s address bar that could not be resolved to an Internet address and provide me with their own search interface instead of the default one that I enabled in the browsers. This is one of those sneaky moves that makes me want to run away from the provider as fast as I can even though I’m perfectly happy otherwise.

They did provide a switch in the user control panel to disable that feature again but this is again a company that is forcing the user to take action for something that they changed.

Open DNS has been covered before on this website and I just want to remind everyone that Open DNS can be used to get rid of search boxes from your provider. Setup of Open DNS takes a few minutes at most and should be doable for everyone.

By using the service you start using the Open DNS servers instead of the ones from the Internet Provider. DNS meaning Domain Name System which is responsible for “translating” domain names into IP addresses.

Open DNS provides additional advantages such as phishing protection (that is not slowing down your computer), parental controls, typo corrections and shortcuts. Shortcuts work like Firefox keywords, you basically assign a phrase to an url and can use the phrase to open the website.

Tags: dns, domain name system, internet, internet provider, ip, ip addresses, open dns, websites

gHacks technology news » internet

Web Browser Backup Software FavBackup Updated

Related posts

Internet Monitoring Software Internet Logger

Related posts

How To Download Files From The Internet The Secure Way

Related posts

Benefits of Programming in Ruby

Related posts

Wireless Network Scanner inSSIDer

Related posts

Load Websites On Schedule

Related posts

Computer Security Myth: Defeating Keyloggers With Onscreen Keyboards

Related posts

Make The Web Your Notebook with WebNotes (With 50 Pro Invites)

Related posts

Opera Will Reinvent The Internet On June 16

Related posts

Read Deleted Wikipedia Pages On Deletionpedia

Related posts

Wolfram Alpha Gets Its First Core Update After Launch

Related posts

The Most Dangerous Web Search Terms

Related posts

Remote Server Monitoring Software DreamSys Server Monitor

Related posts

Configure Firefox To Only Open Whitelist Websites

Related posts

Opera Turbo

Related posts

Network Traffic Balancer

Related posts

Baresite Makes Mobile Browsing Affordable

Related posts

Internet Connection Check

Related posts

Barebone Web Surfing With Finch

Related posts

Open DNS

Related posts