Daily digest Archives

Chrome for Android 32 update now saves 50% data usage

Chrome for Android now updated to Version 32

Visit Play Store in your Android smartphone or tablet to check whether the update is available for you or not.

If there is no update for your Chrome for Android, you probably have to wait one or two days, because Google rolls out Android app updates in stages.

What are the goodies in Chrome for Android v32?

Based on the blog post, the new features in this Chrome for Android update include:

Add web page shortcuts right to your home screen more easily from the menu
Reduce data usage in Chrome up to 50%. Visit Settings > Bandwidth management > Reduce data usage to enable.
Stability and security updates
Lots of stability and performance enhancements.

Of course, the most prominent feature for most users in this update is reduced data usage up to 50%.

How does Chrome for Android reduce data

… Read the rest

IE 10 for Windows 7 is going to your system automatically

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

It was teased in 2011. Yes, it was in 2011 (not a typo) when Microsoft unveiled the first preview version of IE 10 for Windows 7. The second preview also can run on Windows 7.

But after that, IE 10 has been for Windows 8 only. Apparently, Microsoft attempted to use this IE 10 as a teaser for Windows 8 upgrading. It seems the attempt failed: instead of upgrading to Windows 8 to get IE 10, most users chose Chrome or Firefox.

Developers also accused Microsoft actually was holding back internet, because IE 10 supports more web standards. Yes, IE 10 finally has “60% increase in supported modern web standards”. This 60% increase is compared with IE 9. To be precise, this 60% means 30 new web standards. So, many or most web standards are still NOT supported in IE 10. Microsoft style!

Compared with IE 9, … Read the rest

Chrome for Android updated to 25: faster, more HTML 5, better scrolling, pinch to zoom, background audio playback

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

Chrome for Android was just updated to version 25.0.1364.123. If you have an Android phone or tablet running Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) or Jelly Bean (4.1 and 4.2). You can grab the update from Google Play Store. So, the version on desktop and Android is similar now. For older versions of Android, Chrome is not available.

Previous update of Chrome for Android was released in November, and the version was 18.0.1026311. It is easy to find out this is a major update (from V18 to V25), and now the Android one reaches the identical version of the desktop. This implies Chrome for Android will be updated more frequently.

The major changes in this update include

Improved scrolling performance

Increased responsiveness to pinch-zooming on pages

Faster interactive pages thanks to the latest version of the V8 javascript engine

Audio now continues to play while Chrome is in the background

Expanded

… Read the rest

Encrypted search for all Chrome users in Chrome 25

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

As a Chrome user, you probably know the Omnibox, the combined search and address bar in Chrome.

But you probably did not notice the difference in search when you signed into Google and when you did not sign into Google.

If you sign into Google, the search is encrypted, i.e., the search is sent through https. But if you are not signed in, your search will be sent through plain HTTP, which means your search can be easily monitored/intercepted by others.

So, this can be a privacy concern for some users.

Of course, you can always get encrypted search through: https://encrypted.google.com. But for Chrome users, a lot of searches are sent directly through the Omnibox.

Encrypted search can protect your privacy. Actually, Firefox sent encrypted search since Firefox 14 in last July; Safari started to send encrypted search in last September.

Finally, Chrome 25 (now is in beta) starts … Read the rest

The looming browser war on Windows RT: Microsoft wants to go back to “Return to the Digital Dark Ages”

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

Do you know or even heard about Netscape Navigator?

It has been the best browser from its initial launch in December 1994 to its death (almost dead, and bought by AOL) in 1998. It was buried by AOL in 2008.

Netscape Navigator was not defeated but was murdered, by Micro$oft. Sometimes, this is often referred to as the First Browser War. As a long time user of Navigator, I always believe Navigator was murdered. The murder is Mirco$oft. The ammunition used by the murder mainly includes: 1). monopoly in the PC operating system; 2). huge cash pile; and 3).the uninformed mass.

So, The notorious Internet Explorer dominated in almost all Windows PCs, and the digital dark age started. The antitrust slap on M$ could not revive Netscape Navigator. Thankfully, the Firefox, somewhat linked to Navigator and Mozilla, and Chrome, from the Chocolate Factory, lighted the sky.

Now, Micro$oft … Read the rest

Kindle Fire update brings parent control, finally

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

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

Another April 1st joke: Internet Explorer provides best browser battery life

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

We all know Internet Explorer sucks. We always recommend our readers to use alternatives, e.g., Firefox, Chrome, Opera, SeaMonkey. Even the old Netscape or Mozilla is far better than the IE.

Today, I read a report claiming Internet Explorer provides the best browser battery life (i.e., drain your battery at a slower pace). It sounds like an April 1 joke.

Usually, I did not pay much attention to such benchmarks: I rely on my own “experience”. That’s the major reason I switched from Firefox (which is far better than Internet Explorer) to Chrome (which is currently my favourite browser). User experience is the key factor to decide which browser is better for you.

Actually, based on the same test, Google Chrome is the fastest since September 19, 2011. This is consistent with my experience. The battery test results probably indicate that the Internet Explorer draws less juice because it … Read the rest

Another reason to dump Microsoft IE: Microsoft claims Google bypassed its browser privacy easily

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

IE privacy setting is just a joke, now this is clear.

In our safe surfing guide series (part 4), we recommended you to dump IE and choose a better web browser, e.g., Chrome or Firefox, or SeaMonkey. Today, you get another reason to dump it forever!

On Feb. 20, Microsoft claimed that Google has been bypassing the user-defined privacy settings in Internet Explorer by using incorrect P3P identification terms:

Technically, Google utilizes a nuance in the P3P specification that has the effect of bypassing user preferences about cookies … By sending this text, Google bypasses the cookie protection and enables its third-party cookies to be allowed rather than blocked

Google’s response gave us a clearer picture.:

Microsoft uses a “self-declaration” protocol (known as “P3P”) dating from 2002 under which Microsoft asks websites to represent their privacy practices in machine-readable form. It is well known – including

… 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

Silent update of IE from January 2012

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

Finally, Micro$oft knows how to do a silent update for your IE browser. Maybe just learned from Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.

Anyway, this is a smart move to stop or at least to slow down the loss of market share (to Chrome and Firefox). M$ won the browser war against Netscape by bundling IE to Windows since Windows 95. But is has been a loser in the same battlefield against Firefox, nor against Chrome.

Security, speed, and W3C standard are the major reasons tech geeks abandon IE. IE 8 and IE 9 did have some improvement in security and speed. But the compliance with standards is still not as good as Chrome or Firefox.

So, M$ silently updates the IE browser for most users; a lot of users will not know because they already switched to other better browsers.… Read the rest

Carrier IQ, another spyware purposely loaded by greedy carriers

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

According to TechCrunch, Carrier IQ is a “mobile intelligence” firm that provides logging software for carriers and devices OEMs for use in their devices. Carrier IQ claims that they deliver information “on the performance of mobile devices and networks to help the Operators provide optimal service efficiency,” but Android security researcher Trevor Eckhart discovered that CarrierIQ was capable of tracking data that’s more fine-grained than what would be expected for simple diagnostic feedback.

The Carrier IQ website claims that the program has been installed on more than 140 million devices. If you are using Sprint+Samsung or Sprint+HTC, you should check your phone today.

Are you one of the victims?… Read the rest

Firefox 8 cracks third-party add-ons

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

Everyday millions of third-party add-ons are installed for Firefox. Some of them can impose serious privacy and security holes for the computer.

Finally, in the latest release, Firefox 8 disables third-party add-ons. This is a correct step among so many mistakes in recent releases.

According to the official Mozilla Add-ons Blog:

These add-ons installed by third parties present a number of problems: they can slow down Firefox start-up and page loading time, they clutter the interface with toolbars that often go unused, they lag behind on compatibility and security updates, and most importantly, they take the user out of control of their add-ons.

So, in Firefox 8, users must opt-in to add-on installation. This means Firefox will disable the add-on until the user has explicitly opted into the addition.

Anyway, this is a positive move. What do you think about this?… Read the rest

Why Chrome is the safest web browser?

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

In our safe surfing guide series, I mentioned one important thing for safe surfing is dumping IE and choosing a better browser.

One of the safest web browsers is Google Chrome browser, which is becoming more and more popular. The security features include:

Sandboxing. Almost all browsers now have tabbed browsing, even IE has it for a long time. But Chrome differs itself from others by implementing sandboxing. The tabs have individual processes with sandbox capabilities which restrict privileges for third-party apps. This (sandboxing), according to Google and security experts “prevent malware from installing itself on your computer or using what happens in one browser tab to affect what happens in another. The sandbox adds an additional layer of protection to your browser by protecting against malicious web pages that try to leave programs on your computer, monitor your web activities, or steal private information from your

… Read the rest

What a Joke! Internet Explorer 9 Crowns the Browser Security

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

After the post on “How to surf safely? Dump IE, choose a better browser” was online, a reader pointed me to a so-called research report that IE 9 crowns the browser security.

According to the report, IE 9 can block 96% socially engineered malware; while the distant second (Chrome) can only block 13.2%. The full report is freely (anyway, nobody is willing to pay such so-called reports) available here.

It sounds like a story told on April 1. And it actually is.

If you happen to read the report, you will notice their research was based on “NSS Labs has developed a unique proprietary “Live Testing” harness and methodology”. So, we have no idea how reliable the test was. Who knows?

Secondly, the report did not say how many false blocking generated by IE 9. Remember, if Microsoft Security Essentials can treat Google Chrome as a … Read the rest

How to surf safely? Dump IE, choose a better browser

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

This is part 4 of the Safe Surfing Guide series. You may check other parts as well to read the complete safe surfing guide.

To surf safely, your browser can also play an important role. There are so many choices for browsers now: IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, SeaMonkey; all are freely available. But unfortunately, most users are still using the crappy piece of IE, simply because it is bundled by M$.

You should dump IE when you get your new PC. Most computer viruses or malware reply on IE, because M$ tightly integrate IE with the Windows OS.

In addition, IE is notorious for ignoring the web standards and trying best to drag the advancement in HTML standard. Although M$ changed gradually changed the strategy since IE 8, it is too little, too small.

Sadly, if you are not using Windows 7, you cannot disable or … Read the rest

How to surf safely? use webmail

Daily digest, Safe Surfing Guide

This is part 3 of the Safe Surfing Guide series. You may check other parts as well to read the complete safe surfing guide.

Malicious code and malicious link can be easily hidden in emails. When you open emails, the execution of the malicious code may be triggered. Or, the malicious link may open automatically and download nasty things to your local computer.

Another security issue for your email is phishing. The sender pretends to be someone else, e.g., Facebook, or your banker. If you follow the link, you are trapped.

If you follow this Safe Surfing Guide series, you may wonder how this can happen after your install antivirus and anti-malware software already. The reason is simple.

All antivirus and anti-malware software can only find “known” threats, although some software can use certain patterns to find new threats. Most of the time, only after the virus … 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

Get the latest proxy from Twitter

Anonymous proxy, Daily digest

In the previous article, I shared with you the 3 methods to get the latest proxy when your proxy is blocked by your ISP your organization. Actually, one reader reminded me that I should also include social networks like Twitter and Facebook to get the latest web proxy. This is absolutely true: the new social media can play an important role in disseminating such useful info.

Some web proxy lists also have a Facebook fan page. But these fan pages usually are not very active. This is probably due to the fact that the auto-posting to Facebook walls is not easy to integrate with the scripts used by major list providers.

Twitter is easier to integrate with most scripts. Unfortunately, if you search Twitter with “proxy”, or “web proxy”, you probably can only find some inactive accounts. This means it needs time for proxy list providers to build … Read the rest

Microsoft Security Essentials kills Google Chrome

Daily digest

When we get a new PC, anti-virus software is usually installed. Some big companies (I really don’t want to name them) give you 30 to 90 days trial. Of course, this is mainly for Windows machines. If you are using Linux or UNIX (e.g., I know a geek is still using FreeBSD), you probably seldom worry about virus.

Anyway, all anti-virus software companies should thank Microsoft for creating the business opportunity for non-productive nonsense. Some of you may not know Microsoft also offers “free” anti-virus software together with Windows. If Windows finds out you have not installed any anti-virus software, this free guy will jump out. The name of this guy is Microsoft Security Essentials.

Ironic? If you cannot make your OS secure, how can we trust your “Security Essentials”? If it is essential, why can’t you put it into OS? Anyway, M$, as well as some analysts … Read the rest

Your proxy was blocked, so what?

Anonymous proxy, Daily digest, The Proxy Free

Web proxy sites may be blocked any time by your ISP, without giving any explanations. So, it is important to have a list of proxy, and most importantly, a list of new proxy. you need to know how to get them, and where to get them.

One of the major lists of new web proxies is proxy.org and unrestrictedsurf.com. Unfortunately, most of such list sites were blocked by some institutions totally. It means you even cannot access these sites at all.

There are several ways to solve this issue:

Subscribe to the newsletter. Some list providers also send the latest proxy list through email. So, if you subscribe to such newsletters, you will get new lists from your email automatically, even you cannot access the list site itself. Unrestrictedsurf provides such emails through their Web Proxy List. (on the subscription page, you just select web proxy list

… 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

Top 5 reasons of using a web proxy

Anonymous proxy, Daily digest, The Proxy Free

Of course, most of our visitors are using our free anonymous web proxy service. Web proxy is quite simple. It acts as an agent between your computer and the site you want to browse. That’s it.

People are using web proxy mainly for the following 5 reasons:

Bypass blocking. This blocking may be placed by your government, or your ISP, or your organization, or even your parents. The intention may be good if contents blocked are not suitable for your age or your religion. But some ISPs or organizations just subscribe to some third-party services and block sites blindly. To access such contents, the only way is to use a web proxy. Arguing with your ISP to whitelist the blocked sites is usually just a waste of time.
Surf anonymously. Netizens are more and more concerned about their privacy. If an ad pops out telling you an event

… Read the rest