General Software & Hardware News
If you are concerned with online privacy which seems to make the news on a regular basis then maybe utilising some software that can hide your presence and keep your identity secure is in order. Enter Ghost Surf that can provide anonymity while you browse on the Internet.
The main screen is pretty basic with very few options but the main strength of this program is what it does under the hood. There are four levels of Privacy settings starting with Normal which is just the same as regular browsing going up to Secure which is the strongest protection level.
How does it work?
Ghost Surf acts as a middle man between you and the Internet, when you go to a website the request is redirected to a proxy running on your system (a server that handles your request) and strips all of your private information from the request and then sends the data out to Tenebril’s servers to be encrypted, this will ensure that your request can never be traced or intercepted by hackers.
Configuration
The program allows for easy adjustments and also comes preconfigured with a list of ‘special sites’ which is a way of letting certain websites have your information without Ghost Surf blocking them. This makes sense when logging in to social networking sites or web based emails that need to have your information to be able to login.
Traffic Monitor
If you have any doubts or just want to be nosy then you can click on Traffic Monitor which will show you a list of all the requests made by your system to reach the Internet. It is disconcerting that requests are being made all the time even if you are not browsing.
A snapshot of the outgoing requests made from your system.
If there are any requests that you are not sure about then you can delve further by clicking on More Info or Who is This? And if it’s a site that you know is safe then you can add it to the Add to Special Sites list.
Advanced Options
For many users you don’t need to concern yourself with this option as it is usually governed by whatever Privacy Level you choose on the main screen. This is all to do with HTTP headers and you need to have a good understanding what they are and how they work if you want to change them, if you get it wrong then you won’t be able to browse the Internet.
Conclusion
This has the ability to make your Internet browsing completely hidden and untraceable if that is what you want and it takes away the complexity of what is going on under the hood by presenting you with a very easy to follow menu screen. If there is any area you are unsure of then clicking the help button will provide you with all the details. If you want more features then Ghost Surf Platinum comes bundled with a fully functioning program called Spyware Catcher, Ad blocker and can password protect and encrypt your files and documents.
Ghost Surf is $29.99 for a single license while the Platinum sets you back at $49.99
For more information visit the homepage at;
http://www.tenebril.com/consumer/ghostsurf/ghostsurf_standard.php
IE7Pro – Don’t be fooled by the name, this works for IE6 and onwards. This has a rather large amount of built-in features that turn IE into a muscle-bound browser.
Some of the features;
- Tabbed Browsing Management
- Spell Check
- Inline Search
- Super Drag Drop
- Crash Recovery
- Proxy Switcher
- Mouse Gesture
- Tab History
- User Agent Switcher
- Webpage Capture
- Greasemonkey like User Scripts platform
And many more features, just visit the website for a full rundown.
Lastpass – A password and auto form manager that doesn’t store passwords on your system but in the cloud instead, it is all fully encrypted and having the passwords stored on the Lastpass servers you can access the details anywhere with an Internet connection. You can also let Lastpass generate passwords for you and it will remember all the passwords you need instead of you having to, works on all browsers.
Bugmenot – Bypasses the registration needed for some websites by using shared logins. They also have a website if you can’t find a plugin for your browser.
Convert with Zamzar – Converts all sorts of files to the format of your choice documents, images, videos, music and e-books and more. This is all done online and once converted you can download the files to your system. Plugin is available across all formats and you can go online and use the website instead.
As you can see Firefox rules the roost when it comes to plug-ins, add-ons and extensions, the numbers are simply vast and is especially telling when it has a rather smallish 30% share of the market. Google Chrome has only just begun and has a healthy number of extensions, whether it will catch up with Firefox we’ll see in time but several Firefox plug-in developers have said that their plug-ins will not work in Chrome as the browser does not have the flexibility Firefox has.
So what about Internet Explorer, well I found quite a few excellent plug-ins but when I went to check out the developers to find more information quite often the websites didn’t exist. The plug-ins were still available from CNet, ZDNet or Brothersoft etc but some of them were reported to be infected with Trojans even though the sites were claiming to be spyware free. Internet Explorer is always going to lag behind in the extension stakes (not open source) but it is a very capable browser nonetheless, it’s just targeted far more due to its sheer number of users.
IE tab – Just as with Firefox this add-on allows you to browse a site as if you were using Internet Explorer to overcome any website difficulties because of Chrome.
Google Mail Checker Plus – A simple extension that displays the number of unread emails in the top right hand corner of Chrome, you are able to read mail and mark or delete it accordingly all from within the tab.
Invisible Hand – When browsing for products this extension will notify you if it is available elsewhere at a cheaper price and gives you the link to see for yourself.
Awesome Screenshot: Capture & Annotate – As it describes this can capture a whole page or just a section which you can then annotate with shapes or text and then upload in one click. It comes with numerous features to enhance the screenshot and you can upload to several websites including the usual suspects such as Facebook, Twitter and Gmail, coming soon to Firefox.
Chrome currency converter – Automatically converts prices on the fly to the currency of your choice, supports up to 37 currencies so far, very useful if you dabble in shopping abroad.
Google Quick Scroll – Intends to make your searches quicker and more relevant, when you search for a term and you click on the result sometimes the info you want may not be easily seen, Quick scroll will alert you to the text you typed in to Google and by clicking on the text you will be taken to the relevant information within the page. It is very small and unobtrusive.
Chromey Calculator – A scientific scrolling calculator so you can always go back to previous inputs and this combines the power of Google and Wolfram Alpha. You can type in things like how many seconds in a day or the mass of the earth as well as your usual arithmetic questions.
Send from Gmail – when you click on an email link a Gmail compose box will open instead of the usual default Outlook or Outlook express.
Google Chrome to Phone Extension –
Xmarks – Exactly the same as in the Firefox version, synchronise all your bookmarks across any or all of your computers at home or at work.
I thought I would have a look at the mass of plug-ins/add-ons that are available for the three most popular browsers and list what I believe are the most useful, of course my selection may not be what you think is the best, it’s horses for courses as they say and I’m sure there are many other plug-ins that ‘rock’ and it hasn’t been listed.
I know there will be many users that don’t use these browsers or will have a preference and say one is better than the other, I myself, use Safari predominately (I have Firefox, Chrome and Opera installed) and Opera is considered to be the fastest and most complete browser there is but the three listed below have the market share by quite a margin and with IE9 in beta performing very well and the next version of Firefox being virtually re-written to compete with IE and Chrome I can’t see the situation changing for some years.
We’ll start with Firefox which seems to have millions of plug-ins so condensing them to a small list is always going to be a challenge and will not suit everyone. Some of the plug-ins are available for other browsers.
Xmarks – formerly known as foxmarks and originally a Firefox plugin this blinding utility will synchronise your bookmarks/favourites across multiple computers and also different browsers. It currently supports Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Internet Explorer. Fantastic for those that use two or more computers.
Personas plus – A plug in for changing the skin, over 180,000 to choose from and has had over twenty-seven million downloads.
Yoonoo – For those who love to socialise online and keep up to date with the latest notifications, all of your social sites are combined within one sidebar from your browser. It supports MSN messenger, Facebook, My Space, Twitter, YouTube, Yahoo Chat Flickr and more. Available for Chrome as a Beta.
Feedly – Organises your favourite sites into a web page in a magazine type format.
SearchPreview – This was known as Google preview but it can now provide previews of websites from Yahoo and Bing search results.
Greasemonkey – A placeholder for scripts to alter how you want websites to display. Currently there are over 50,000 scripts to download or you can write your own.
Scripts that are available include being able to download videos from YouTube to removing all Facebook ads and so much more. ‘Greasemonkey for IE’ is a different plug in made especially for IE.
Better Gmail 2 – Provides extra features to Gmail within Firefox. Turns it into a Gmail client and allows you to get notified of an unread email, preview what type of attachments and create better organised labels and more.
Stumbleupon – Discover websites that are of an interest to you and receive links from your friends who know your interests and share the sites with you. Works across all browsers and has a massive following.
GSpace – This plugin turns your Gmail account into a storage area for all your files. This is quite a nifty feature as usually you would have to pay a price to store anything over 2 GB and this gives you 7 GB for free more if you have several Gmail accounts. You can simply transfer and access your files in an easy to use interface. Be warned I have had reports of users getting their accounts locked for uploading lots of music in one go you have to do it gradually and over time.
Quickjava – Disables not just Java and JavaScript but Flash, Silverlight and any images from websites can be done from the statusbar and you can quickly turn them on again. This is very good for speeding up your browsing activity and for those that are very security conscious, it is also a very safe way of browsing but obviously limited for an increasing number of sites that rely on scripts and flashy stuff.
Web of Trust – A nice security feature that checks the safety of the website by using a traffic light system. Green for safe, yellow for caution and red for stop don’t go there. It is powered by other surfers that report sites that are safe or dangerous and commercial sites can apply for the WoT seal to display on their website for a fee.
DownThemAll – A powerful download manager that can handle multiple links in a website with a single click. The premise is that it splits the files you wish to download into smaller pieces and then simultaneously downloads them at the same time in parallel if you like.
IE Tab – Unfortunately even in this day and age there are still websites that do not display or perform correctly unless you are using Internet Explorer and certain Microsoft features may only perform correctly in Internet Explorer such Outlook Web Access. IE Tab mimics the same behaviour as if you were using Internet Explorer this allowing the website to display as it should, a must have and now supports Chrome too.
The 3D bandwagon is rolling so fast the wheels are on fire and the sonic boom can be heard from miles around. It’s becoming popular. So what makes this laptop different to the others that have the 3D capability?
The LG A510 is the first of its kind to offer cinematic 3D at or very near Full HD quality. The A510 has a pretty powerful specification under its sleek design to make this possible.
The A510 sports an attractive brushed aluminium look to the lid and chassis.
The touchpad has LED lighting which changes according to the system status.
The screen is of the LED type at 15.6 inches which will have the grunt of the Intel Core i7 CPU and the Nvidia GeForce GT 425M graphics chip to push the pixels around. The graphics chip is a powerful performer being able to play modern games at medium settings and maybe more importantly for film watchers it is able to support Bitstream HD Audio (Blu-Ray) output by HDMI and is able to pass Dolby True HD and DTS-HD bitstream signals to a quality HiFi receiver without any loss in quality.
Concerning the 3D aspect this laptop has some clever features namely TriDef software.
Tridef converts your existing boring 2D material be it dvd’s or photographs into a 3D viewing experience instantly so in theory any of your films or games can be watched or played in glorious 3D. The quality of the 3D using tridef is unknown but I imagine it will be more than acceptable. The audio is well supported by SRS TrueSurround HD to complete the cinematic experience.
The glasses are of the passive kind (polarized) just like the ones you get at the cinema and apparently there will be a set of clip-on 3D lenses thrown in for those that have to wear glasses all the time.
I imagine the LG A510 will be quite expensive when it is released, especially being powered by the Intel Core i7 and Nvidia GT 425M which are not the cheapest of components although necessary to provide a quality experience. We will not have to wait long as the first countries to test it are in Asia, South America, Africa and the Middle East sometime in October 2010.
LG must be hoping that the push to Full HD will be the catalyst to spark a decent sales growth for the 3D laptop arena as sales of 3D laptops are very slow. This maybe down to the fact that gamers are the main interested party in 3D and maybe the effect was not worthy enough at low resolutions so the step up to Full HD might entice more interest. The price will be another factor as all 3D laptops are over the $1000 mark and perhaps that is just too a high price for buyers to go for at the moment.
