software Archives

Kindle Fire update brings parent control, finally

Last week, Amazon issued a software update 6.3.1 for its Kindle Fire tablet. One of the notable updates is adding password protection and other parental controls.

Now Kindle owners can enable password-protect purchases, disable access to specific content libraries, and block access to the Silk web browser. Parents now can control what their kids can use by blocking adult contents, some apps or movies. Of course, they can also block any purchases by kids, the major concern of many parents.

These actually are the major missing feature as a content consuming tablet when Fire debuted in last November. Similar to previous updates, this is also an over-the-air update. Of course, you can download the update and transfer it to your Fire.

With more and more tablets in the market, especially those with the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), the sales of the Fire has plummeted since January.

The … Read the rest

Microsoft security update flags google.com as a severe, exploit-filled threat

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide, The Proxy Free

It is not a joke. Micro$oft did it again. Last year, Microsoft Security Essentials tried to Google Chrome by deleting it.

According to some reports, Microsoft Antivirus and Security products ( Microsoft Forefront and Microsoft Security Essentials) started to mark google.com as being a severe threat called Exploit:JS/Blacole.BW on Valentine’s day. A V-day gift for Google.

Surely, Microsoft quickly (4 hours) fixed the issue, and as usual, explained this is another technical issue.

Of course, I was not affected because I am using Avast!, one of the best free antivirus software. We used it for many years without major issues.

I just feel a bit sorry for those who are still using M$ antivirus or internet security software. If you are using Windows (90% of our readers are still using it on the desktop), you need antivirus for safe surfing as explained in a previous post.

But you … Read the rest

How to surf safely? Anti-malware

Anonymous proxy, Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

This is part 2 of the Safe Surfing Guide series. You may check other parts as well for a complete safe surfing guide.

After reading the part 1 of this guide, you installed the antivirus software (hopefully, it is Avast), you may still expose yourself to something named malware occasionally.

Malware includes all malicious software. Some examples are: computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, adware, and rootkits. The purpose of malware is to steal some information from your computer or to gain unauthorized access of your computer. Normally, in the computer security industry, we classify them into virus and malware.

Just like antivirus software, there is anti-malware software. Most antivirus software has some capabilities to scan and remove malware, especially rootkits, worms and trojan horses. But for adware, spyware, most of the time, you need anti-malware software.

For anti-malware, I usually recommend the free Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free, … Read the rest

How to surf securely? Antivirus

Anonymous proxy, Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

The No.1 threat of safe surfing is computer virus. Unless you are using UNIX or Linux, you are facing computer virus on websites almost every day.

In the DOS era, the computer virus was mainly spreading through floppy disks. At that time, it was cool to bring a box of floppy disks around, just like nowadays bringing an iPad around.

The ever-increasing threat of virus in the last 3 decades was the result of the dominance of M$ Windows+ the proliferation of the Internet. The Internet is a good innovation: it changes the way how information is propagated, and make information sharing is so easy and fast. Unfortunately, it also accelerates the spreading of computer viruses. The security vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows were, are and, will be the hotbed for computer viruses.

The dominance of Windows, as well its security vulnerabilities, will not change anytime … Read the rest

How much can a web proxy protect your privacy?

Anonymous proxy, Daily digest, The Proxy Free

There are some misconceptions on privacy protection provided by the web proxy. Some people think anonymous means he is not traced anymore if he uses a web proxy.

This is not true at all.

Firstly, the web proxy site still keeps a record of your activities. The logs usually can be used as court evidence. Basically, the server that hosts the web proxy sites, by default, will write some access info (usually, your IP, your OS, browser…) in the log file. It is up to the system administrator when to delete or how often to rotate (i.e., delete automatically after how many days) them.

Secondly, some client-side scripts (e.g,. JavaScript) may get your info. Most web proxy scripts (PHProxy, Glype) can re-write Java scripts to avoid information leakage, only to a certain extent. The deliberately-written scripts are hard to re-write. The only solution is to … Read the rest