techtrickz

Firefox 14 Will Have Click To Play Option To Boost Security

Kannan — Mon, 21 May 2012 06:56:23 +0000

Flash, Java and PDF are most insecure browser plug-ins. If you have no control over them, there are chances for malware infection via these plug-ins, especially when you surfing through shady websites. Chrome and Opera has built-in option called “Click to Play” to control such plug-ins and now Mozilla has announced that version 14 of Firefox (schedule to release in July) will have Click to Play feature to boost its security.

Firefox 14 will not allow plug-ins such as Flash, Java and PDFs to run without your permission. For example, when you visit a page with flash video, such as YouTube, the video won’t play immediately, instead Firefox will display an icon telling you to “click here to activate plugins”.

However, if you find this inconvenient on sites you visit frequently, you can change the settings to play or run content automatically. To add site-specific permissions, click on the plugin block in the location bar.

The doorhanger that appears contains a dropdown with 3 options to choose -Always activate plugins for this site, Never activate plugins for this site and Not Now. Choose desired one.

Click to Play feature will remain disabled by default in Firefox 14. You have to enable this feature from Firefox’s “about:config” page. To enable, type about:config in the address bar and hit enter. Locate “Plugins click to play” and double click it to make its Boolean value true.

Negative side of Click to Play:

Activating plugins might become annoying if you have to do it frequently. In addition, “the click here…” message has a danger in it. Hackers can use this message to persuade you into clicking malicious link.

Added benefit of Click to Play:

Besides the security it offers, you can also utilize this feature to stop playing flash video (YouTube video) simultaneously when you open multiple video in different tabs.

Test version of Firefox 14 (Aurora) can be downloaded from Mozilla here

Automatically Organize Your Stuffs On Dropbox (How to)

Kannan — Sun, 20 May 2012 07:11:01 +0000

I have been using Dropbox cloud storage and sync service for sometimes now and the service is extremely good at what it does, but it misses one feature – an automated solution for organizing files, which I think useful to make things much more easier. However, there is a webapp called Sortbox, which helps us organize our stuffs automatically between Dropbox folders. Here is how it is.

Sortbox is a free webapp that will create a new folder inside your Dropbox and any new file you added to that folder will automatically moved and organized to their correct location based on rules you define.

First, go to Sortbox and login with your Dropbox account. Then create rules (Sortbox offers three types of rules) based on file extension name, file type, and pattern.

For example, select “Extension equals” from the dropdown menu, then type file extension name such as jpg, png, doc, mp3, etc in the next column and choose appropriate Dropbox folder under “Move file to” column.

This app will check the contents of your Sortbox folder every 15 minutes and if any file in it that match your rules will move to its correct location.

Sortbox is certainly a useful service, especially if you would like to organize your files automatically on your Dropbox cloud storage.

Backup Android Phone Data To Dropbox Automatically (How to)

Kannan — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:34:29 +0000

You probably know how essential it is to have a back up of your phone content (contacts, photos, documents, etc) on your computer and keep that backup regularly updated. However, many of us still don’t manage back up regularly enough, due to many reasons. Here is a very simple solution to back up your Android phone’s precious contents locally (SD Card) and to Dropbox cloud storage automatically.

Clickfree Backup is a little, free Android app that lets you automatically back up all your valuable content locally (SD card) and to Dropbox. It is easy to setup and mange. No complicated settings or configurations are needed.

Moreover, you can easily restore the back up to your existing or new device in case that your device is lost, stolen or damaged and access the backed up content anytime, anywhere you want.

How to backup and restore Android data with Clickfree Backup

Install Clickfree Backup app from Google Play Store and run it. Tap on the “Option” menu and select what to back up (Contacts, photos, music, video, calendar, apps, etc). You can also select “don’t backup from SD card” to exclude SD card content (if you choose to back up locally).

Also select where to back (This Device (SD Card) or Cloud (Dropbox). If you select Dropbox, it’ll redirect you to Dropbox signup page.

Now return to the main menu and select “Start” option to backup your content. You can always restore the backups to the original location by selecting “Restore” option.

Clickfree Backup has also an option to view your backed up photos just like on your device and has a built in music/video player to enjoy your favorite songs and video.

Thunderbird Gets Do Not Track Privacy Function – Stops Tracking You Via Email

Kannan — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:43:58 +0000

The popular email client Thunderbird gets Do Not Track privacy function – a privacy feature available on all major browsers to enable users to opt out of being tracked on websites. Mozilla has already implanted Do Not Track in the latest nightly build of Thunderbird 15, which enables users to set their email client to stop email tracking or send a “please don’t track me” request to email marketing agencies.

Why Do Not Track (DNT) privacy feature in an email client? Tracking happens in a variety of ways, not just via tracking cookies, but can also through email messages, Mozilla says.

“Sometimes email messages you receive contain external images — images that need to be loaded from the web to display the entire content of the message. This includes pixel tags and clear gifs. When your mail client renders the message, it has to go fetch the images from the web using the same technologies as a web browser”

Email marketing agencies can make use of this technique to track which messages you read, which links in messages you click, so that they can provide more customized messages in the future.

Final thought: At present, DNT in Thunderbird can’t really do anything for you. As it is completely depends on each tracker’s goodwill, either the trackers start supporting the ability or wait for regulatory agencies to apply pressure, however, it is a great initiative from Mozilla [Via -Mozilla blog]

Read It For Chrome Removes Ads From Webpage And Lets You Read Article With Full Comfort

Kannan — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:46:58 +0000

Read It is a handy Chrome extension that allows you to remove ads and banners from webpage and lets you read the article with full comfort. With a click, Read It instantly removes all clutters from the webpage letting users view only most relevant content in clean text. You can also save the clip for later reading, when you’re offline.

There are several similar extensions available for Chrome with many features, for example, iReader, Evernote Clearly, etc. Read It’s “Read it later” feature makes it a unique one. You can save every page by clicking its button and read them all later when you’re offline.

You can also send the clip to the cloud to read them on mobile device anytime anywhere. To send the clip to the cloud for later reading needs sign-up with Klip.me.

Using Read It is very simple. Install the extension from Chrome Web Store and restart Chrome. When you are on a webpage, click the “Read It” button and it’ll auto grab the main content. Click “Save” button if you want to read it later offline.

Read It is quite useful if you are a regular reader of blog posts or news sites. This extension is optimized for Google Reader, Wikipedia, Quora and news sites.

Create Unique Ringtones Online Easily

Kannan — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:05:28 +0000

If you aren’t happy with the ringtones that came with your mobile phone and want a tone that is something unique, here’s a simple online solution. Free ringtone maker is an online ringtone editing tool that simplifies the process of audio editing by means of easy to use tools and a basic user interface.
With it, you can generate unique tone for your iPhone, Android, Windows Phone and other phones from any song or audio file with a few steps and the tone can be downloaded to your computer, cell phone or email to a friend.

A great advantage of using Free ringtone maker is that it supports multiple audio formats such as AAC, FLAC, M4A, MP3, OGG, WAV, WMA, etc. The first step is to upload an audio file for editing.

Just upload an audio file from your computer or from a web URL. Then, find the portion of the song you like by moving markers. Use the play button to hear the tone.

It has 3 modes to choose – Easy, Advanced and Expert mode. Choose easy mode to make a tone quickly. This mode includes a ‘Normalization’ feature that amplifies the sound and ensures there isn’t any unwanted audio and a fade effect. Add a fade effect to the beginning, end, or both of the audio.

From ‘Advanced’ mode you can enhances the tone by applying some effects such as silence (Removes silence from the beginning or end of the audio) bass, treble, reverse, etc.

From ‘Expert’ mode, you can add additional effects such as echo, chorus, high pass, low pass, tremolo, etc to your track. Using this mode requires some expertise and knowledge of sound signals.

After editing and applying effects to your track, set the ringtone file format (for example, M4R for iPhone, MP3 for most of the others) and delivery mode. Then click “Make Ringtone” button. Visit http://ringer.org to make your own ringtone.

Firefox 13 Will Have A Reset To Factory Default Button To Quick Fix Most Problems

Kannan — Wed, 16 May 2012 04:12:56 +0000

Mozilla is implementing new features to make its upcoming release of Firefox 13 ultra fast and more stable. For example, the new ‘Reset’ button lets users reset their browser to factory default when it crashes or freezes up. When you click the reset button, everything will set to the defaults, except bookmarks, passwords, cookies and form data, which will hopefully solve most performance issue of your Firefox.

The main reasons of crashes, slowness and instability of Firefox are due to some extension that has a memory leak bug, toolbars that are installed without your knowledge, and more. However, finding out the main culprit is a time consuming and painstaking process.

But by implementing the new reset button to Firefox, Mozilla make things much simpler. Just clicking the reset button will create a new Firefox profile with default settings and migrate your bookmarks, passwords, cookies and form data. It means you will have a brand new Firefox installation without the penalty of losing all your data.

Unfortunately, the new reset button is not at an easy to access location. You have to go at Help –> Troubleshooting Information (about:support) to access the button. However, Mozilla will prompt users the option to reset Firefox when it crashes on startup for the third time. [via]