Ad-free browsing

Have you ever got frustrated with the ads that interrupt you while browsing your favorite websites. Its a bit annoying isn't it?

There is a cool ad blocker extension for Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer and even for your Android mobile phone or tablet, thanks to the contributers of Adblock.org

It can block other things, like tracking, as well. With more than 50 million users, it is the world's most popular browser extension. Adblock Plus is an open source project created by Wladimir Palant in 2006. Eyeo was founded in 2011 by Wladimir Palant and Till Faida to make its development sustainable.

Adblock Plus itself has no functionality, in the sense that it does not block anything until it is "told" what to do by its filter lists. These filter lists are essentially an extensive set of rules, which tell Adblock Plus which elements of websites to block. Besides blocking advertisements, filter lists can also be used to block tracking and malware.

Out of the box, two filter lists are enabled:

• An ad-blocking list selected based on your language
• The Acceptable Ads exception list

You are free to disable these lists, add others or create your own.

Now, you can surf the web with flying colors and without annoying ads even on your facebook wall :) ;)

Share your thoughts in the comments section as sharing is caring.

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Heartbleed bug!

Introduction:

The Heartbleed Bug is a serious vulnerability in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library. This weakness allows stealing the information protected, under normal conditions, by the SSL/TLS encryption used to secure the Internet. SSL/TLS provides communication security and privacy over the Internet for applications such as web, email, instant messaging (IM) and some virtual private networks (VPNs). CVE-2014-0160 is the official reference to this bug. CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) is the Standard for Information Security Vulnerability Names maintained by MITRE. Due to co-incident discovery a duplicate CVE, CVE-2014-0346, which was assigned to us, should not be used, since others independently went public with the CVE-2014-0160 identifier.

The Heartbleed bug allows anyone on the Internet to read the memory of the systems protected by the vulnerable versions of the OpenSSL software. This compromises the secret keys used to identify the service providers and to encrypt the traffic, the names and passwords of the users and the actual content. This allows attackers to eavesdrop on communications, steal data directly from the services and users and to impersonate services and users.

Appearance:

The Heartbeat Extension for the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) protocols is a proposed standard specified by RFC 652, published in February 2012. It provides a way to test and keep alive secure communication links without the need to renegotiate the connection each time.

In 2011, Robin Siegelmann, then a Ph.D. student at the University of Duisburg-Essen, implemented the Heartbeat Extension for OpenSSL. Following Siegelman's request to put the result of his work into OpenSSL, his change was reviewed by Stephen N. Henson, one of OpenSSL's four core developers. Henson apparently failed to notice a bug in Siegelman's implementation, and introduced the flawed code into OpenSSL's source code repository on December 31, 2011. The vulnerable code was adopted into widespread use with the release of OpenSSL version 1.0.1 on March 14, 2012. Heartbeat support was enabled by default, causing affected versions to be vulnerable by default.

Resolution:

On March 21, 2014 Bodo Moeller and Adam Langley of Google wrote a patch that fixed the bug. The date of the patch is known from Red Hat's issue tracker. The next chronological date available from the public evidence is the claim by performance and security company CloudFlare that they fixed the flaw on their systems on March 31, 2014.

There are some applications for your browsers to check whether the website is vulnerable or not. Here am recommending some of those applications.

• Chromebleed (for google chrome browser)
• Heartbleed-Ext 3.0 (for firefox browser)

For android devices:

• Bluebox Heartbleed Scanner (for android devices)

Hope, you enjoyed this post and in future am coming with more interesting stories in the mean time you can share your thoughts in our comments section.

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Six Obscure Web Browsers You Might Love

It used to be that Firefox, Opera and others were the "alternative" Web browsers, but in an age of forced ballot screens that's not entirely accurate. In fact, one could say that the more experienced a user is the further and faster they run from Internet Explorer.

Excluding the "big five" you're undoubtedly familiar with (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari), there are many little-known browsers that are potentially even more suitable for your needs, no matter how basic or advanced.

Take a look at six truly alternative browsers and what separates them from the rest of the pack. This is far from an all-inclusive list, and we'd love to hear if you happen to be using any of these yourself or perhaps there's yet another unheard of browser that we missed. In alphabetical order, the browsers:



Arora:

Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, Haiku

Engine: WebKit

Why you care: Arora is an open source, cross-platform program that has a sensible feature set for the average user, such as built-in ad blocking, private browsing, session management and anything else you might expect from a basic browser. It's a worthy alternative to Chrome (it's based on the same WebKit engine) if you're interested in a lightweight solution but want something not branded by Google.

Download: Windows, Mac OS X, more



Camino:

Platforms: Mac OS X

Engine: Based on Gecko, written in Objective-C Cocoa

Why you care: Camino's on a mission to provide the best possible browsing experience for OS X users, and it has integrated support for many of the operating system's services, such as Keychain, Bonjour, and Growl. Considering its specialized feature set, it's certainly a worthwhile replacement for Safari, Firefox or any other browser you might be using on your Mac.

Download: OS X 10.4 or later, more



Flock:

Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
Engine: Gecko, Firefox codebase

Why you care: Flock has integrated features for popular social media services out of the box, including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Additionally, it's based on Firefox, so you should be familiar with it from the get-go. Some advanced users might still prefer Firefox along with an army of add-ons, but Flock could be useful for less tech savvy socialites.

Download: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, more



K-Meleon:

Platforms: Windows
Engine: Gecko

Why you care: K-Meleon's interface is extremely customizable and it uses a Windows native interface making it easy on system resources. You can consider this the Camino for Windows. Further optimized and portable derivatives are available, including one that claims it is the least resource intensive browser for Windows that uses an up-to-date rendering engine.

Download: Windows, more



Maxthon:

Platforms: Windows
Engine: Trident

Why you care: Extremely popular in China, the browser has even received funding from well-known investors to continue its development. Maxthon crams a ton of features into the base install (sort of like Opera) without sacrificing the compatibility of IE's Trident rendering engine. Version 3.0 (currently in alpha) can switch between both Trident and WebKit to render Web pages.

Download: Windows, more



Pale Moon:

Platforms: Windows
Engine: Gecko, Firefox codebase

Why you care: It's a Windows-optimized clone of Firefox that could offer you a slight performance boost -- up to 25% on some SunSpider rendering and scripting tests they claim, while using less system memory. The speed gains come without a catch, since the browser should work with most of your Firefox extensions. In fact, it should automatically detect and make use of your existing Firefox profile upon installation, so it's a hassle-free "migration."

Download: Windows, more

 

 

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