The Last Password You Have to Remember

Do you have trouble remembering passwords? Is writing them on a piece of paper or text file not working? Well then password managers are what you need. Most browsers have one built in, but they are really simple and quite insecure. For example, in Firefox, with just a click on a button, all your saved passwords are revealed. You could add a Master Password, though most people do not. Some browsers like Google Chrome don’t even have a Master Password. Thats when third party managers come in.

Product Name: LastPass Password Manager
Platform: Windows, Mac, and Linux
Browser Integration:
Firefox Add-on, IE Add-on, Bookmarklets for any browser on any platform that supports Javascript (including Chrome, Safari, Opera, and even iPod Touch and iPhone)
Version Reviewed: 1.51.2

Rating:
95 out of 100

Upon installing LastPass, it will prompt you to set up a LastPass Account. Account you say? Yes, thats because this is fully online. LastPass is an online password manager. While that may seem a bit scary, the LastPass servers are host-proof, meaning even their employees cannot access the data. In addition, only the encrypted data is stored on their servers. The key to decrypt it lies in your hands, the master password. All encrpytion and decryption is done on your own computer. The key is not stored on their servers. They use a “salted hash.” Learn more about this here. Learn about their technology: AES-256 bit to secure your data here.

View the details in this flash slideshow. Having problems viewing it or want to view it in full screen? Click here (Picasa Web Albums).

I just started using LastPass and have officially switched to it for my password management. Having it stored online is very handy since I can use it to logon public shared computers.

I can also finally access all my stored data from Firefox and use it on virtually any browser.

Unlike most other Password Managers that integrate with the browser (including Firefox built in), LastPass doesn’t only fill when the page loads. Some sites, like CNET Download.com, fail to be autofilled by managers like Firefox built in because their login screen doesn’t load a new page. Its just a Javascript overlay window. LastPass fills it whenever the login forms appear not just when the page loads.

Also, unlike other managers, LastPass is multi platform and works on just about all browsers (though its superior on IE and Firefox).

It is also capable of searching your computer for stored passwords that are not properly secured and can easily be accessed by hackers. I had no problems having all my Firefox saved passwords imported into LastPass and deleted from Firefox.

Note: You must have third party cookies enabled or have lastpass.com on the Always Allow list or it will always log off automatically each time the browser closes regardless of your auto log off time settings.

Being all online means that you will have to put some trust into the folks at LastPass. While their host proof server has excellent security methods, this might not be the product for those who are really paranoid about their personal data.

Overall, LastPass is a very straightforward and easy to use yet powerful password management tool. The only password I need to remember now is my Master Password.

I have to say, LastPass rocks!

LastPass Home Page
LastPass Download Page
LastPass from Mozilla Add-ons (AMO)
Bookmarklet is available from within your account. Not recommended for Firefox and Internet Explorer as the plugin is much more superior. Learn more here.

Technorati Tags: LastPass,Password,Manager,Internet,Explorer,Firefox,Plugin,Extension,Bookmarklet,Secure

The Supreme Accelerators

I made a lot of posts about Accelerators for Firefox. This is the third and by far the very best I've found. Recommended by CNET Download.com Editors.

Cleeki (Select-n-Go)
For Internet Explorer and Firefox
Google Chrome version available (Beta)

Install Links
Internet Explorer plugin
Firefox extension or get from Mozilla Add-ons
Google Chrome extension

Just like IE8, highlight any text and a button appears. Click it and you have some engines to search from. But what makes this different is that this is a little overlay window that performs your search on whatever engine (known as channels) you pick from that window. You can easily add more from the Accelerators section of the IE Add-ons Site. The "Add to Internet Explorer" buttons become "Add to Firefox" buttons because of a script that this add-on uses.


You can perform searches right from the window and even change the term to search for other things too. Completely customizable in terms of colors, channels, size, delay time, and more.

Note: Because Chrome extensions are in preliminary stage, not all features will function properly. Be sure to read the instructions on how to install and use. Available for developer beta Chrome 2.0 version.

That's all folks for today! Please comment on tech as we need comments to improve on the tech guide. Don't hesitate to ask any questions. Thanks!
By - WinTechpedia™ 2009 Contributors

Accelerators for Firefox.

Internet Explorer 8 introduces a nice new feature known as Accelerators where you can highlight any word and a blue button appears. Clicking that button lets you search that highlighted term using a variety of engines right there. Firefox doesn't have this feature built in, but like most other features, it can be replicated. There are many ways to do this.

For the second time, I am posting about ways to get accelerators for Firefox. The first one was about Kallout, which adds a nice button like IE and lets you search from a pre-selected number of engines. Now, want full Accelerator support?

IE Activities (Accelerators) for Firefox

Basically it makes an extra option in the right click context so you can search using your installed engines, then head on over to the IE Addons site. Notice that the Add to Internet Explorer buttons on the accelerators now say Add to Firefox. This was made possible by a script.


However, there is one drawback to this. Unlike Kallout, this doens't use the button. Instead, it uses a right click menu. A bit more inconvenient, but works with most IE Accelerators. In addition, the button that appears on IE and on Kallout is slightly obstrusive and can lag, especially Kallout on some Blogger blogs, including ours.

Recommendation from the developers of IE Activities: Upon installing, you will get a notice saying that they recommend installing Kallout. They work nicely together but I found using both unnecessary. I currently use IE Activities because I find the overlay button that automatically appears slightly obtrusive.

The post about Kallout can be found here.

That's all folks for today! Please comment on tech as we need comments to improve on the tech guide. Don't hesitate to ask any questions. Thanks!
By - WinTechpedia™ 2009 Contributors

Which Browser Will You Choose?

We use web browsers every day. Most of you are probably using one right now! There are so many to choose from so obviously I cannot compare them all. I have taken the 5 most popular ones and listed out the pros and cons. This comparison refers to the latest stable release unless otherwise stated. Safari 4 Beta is reviewed rather than Safari 3 because the main download of Safari on the website is version 4, not 3.

Which browser will you choose? The blue e, the fox hugging the earth, the blue compass, the colorful orb, or the red O?

THE PROS AND CONS OF EACH

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 (Windows only)

Pros:

• Accelerators. Highlight any word or phrase, search that term right away through the special menu.
• Web Slices. More than just RSS Feeds.
• Domain Highlighting
• inPrivate Browsing
• inPrivate Blocking: Possible to block certain tracking elements such as some ads
• Faster than older versions and on some pages, other browsers
• Malware and Phishing Filters (SmartScreen Filter)
• Large collection of add-ons, toolbars, accelerators, and more at the IE Addons site
• New Session Mode. Two sessions do not share cookies so you can log on to multiple accounts
• Relative Tab with Colors
• Search Suggestions with images and description in some cases
• Tab Showcase
• New Tab Page
• Passes Acid2 (last major browser to do so)
• Session Store (finally!)
• Isolated Tab Environment
• Easier Add-on Management
• Built in Source Viewer (finally) with tag colors rather than one using Notepad
• Nicely designed RSS Feed viewer
• Much faster than previous versions
  

Cons:

• Quite slow on cold starting up, but browsing is quite fast
• Tabs take a bit longer to load
• Main target of hackers
• Following older IE versions, update cycle is slow including patching critical security issues
• Too tightly integrated with operating system
• Fails miserably at Acid3
• ActiveX rather than plugins (all other browsers use plugins and ActiveX have many security risks)
• Add-ons are All Users rather than Single User. Requires Administrative Privileges
• No Download Manager
• No Download pause and resume
  

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 (Windows, Mac, and Linux with variations available for other platforms)

Pros:

• Fully open source
• Easily modify the configuration through about:config
• King of customization. Fully customizable with a collection of over 5000 add-ons and themes at Mozilla Add-ons: Anything from ad blocking, script blocking, site rating, file hosting download delay time skipping to domain highlighting. Whatever you want. There’s a good change, someone made an add-on for it. Want to make Firefox look like IE, Chrome, Safari, or something completely random? Maybe there’s a theme for it!
• Instant Web ID. With one click on the favicon, all the page’s security info can be viewed.
• Phishing and Malware Filters
• Multi-Platform and Platform Look and Feel
• “Awesome Bar” searching bookmarks, history, and also makes “smart” website decisions when typing a term: Autocomplete and Tagging
• Library of Bookmarks and History. Tag Bookmarks to easily search
• Smart Search Keywords. Assign keywords to search engines (like a simple w to wikipedia), then type in w and then your term into the location bar to search. Works like the Omnibar in Chrome.
• Inline Spell Checking
• Session Restore
• Set individual settings per site, such as cookies, image loading, Javascript, etc…
• Instant Find and Quick Find
• Elegant Autoscrolling and Smoothscrolling
• Available in 60 languages (Even more being added!)
• Windows only: Automatically scan files with your anti-virus software
• Easy to use download manager with pause and resume
• Very fast update cycle. One of the fastest in patching security holes.
• Easy to use download manager with pause and resume
• Error Console
• Passes Acid2
• Firefox 3.5 only: Private Browsing

Cons:

• Does not pass Acid3 Web Standards test yet (3.0 scores 71/100 and 3.5 scores 93/100)
• No zoom percentage counting. Only Zoom in, Zoom out, and Reset.

Apple Safari 4 (Windows and Mac)

Pros:

• Elegant new tab page
• Looks like correct platform (Windows looks like Windows)
• Drag and drop tabs with visual eye candy
• Toolbar colors change with Windows Aero color (Windows Vista and Windows 7)
• Minimalistic interface. Looks like Google Chrome but with an option to show menubar if needed
• Coverflow for Bookmarks
• Snapback: Go back to search results page
• Collections Library: History, RSS, and Bookmarks
• First Browser to feature Private Browsing
• Passes Acid1, Acid2, and Acid3 Web Standards Test
• Malware and Phishing Filter
  

Cons:

• Requires an abnormally large amount of system resources especially video (for Coverflow despite the fact that iTunes coverflow works fine on old hardware). This may cause major lags with the visual effects. Safari 3 was much lighter on system resources.
  
• Many text forms fail to submit.
• No zoom percentage count

Google Chrome 1.0 (Windows only. Mac and Linux pending)

Pros:

• Currently the fastest stable release browser available.
• Like all Google Products, simplicity.
• Easily drag and drop tabs
• Isolated Tab AND plugin Environment
• Omnibar saves space although searches take a bit longer
• Incognito Window (Private Browsing)
• No obtrusive download manager.
• New Tab Page showing recent pages
• Easily create application shortcuts
• Powerful DOM Inspector built in
• Bookmarks Manager
• Malware and Phishing Filter.
• Mostly passes Acid2
• Chrome 2.0 only: Drag a tab to the side and it will attach to side (like Windows 7 Aero Snap).
  

Cons:

• No RSS Feed Support in current version.
• Editing text fields often fail to submit properly: More common that in Safari.
• No native plugin support.
• No extension support.
• The download statusbar is hard to use if you're used to other browsers. Previously, download stops when closing tab. Luckily, this doesn't happen anymore. However, download continues in the background with no indication of the status unless you press Download from the menu.
  
• No download pause and resume
• Sends data with unique ID back to Google. Not optional.
• The domain highlighting puts emphasis on domain AND sub-domain, which defeats the purpose of it.
• No Autoscrolling (middle click scrolls up and down)- Introduced in v2.0
• No Full Screen Mode. Yes the toolbars take up very little space, but still. - Introduced in v2.0
• Does not completely pass Acid2 test pixel by pixel. Small artifact to the left.
• Does not pass Acid3 yet.
• No option to show menu bar, even if you want it
• No zoom percentage count.

Opera 9.6 (all platforms)
Note: Not all features mentioned here are available for all versions especially on portable devices

Pros:

• Elegant Special Effects
• Two default themes: Opera and Windows Native
• Tab Previews (Mouse over tab)
• Panel Sidebar with buttons for History, Bookmarks, Widgets, etc…
• Widgets: Little Gadgets showing various information
• Closed source makes it one of the most secure browsers
• Built in mail client and IRC Chat
• BitTorrent Downloading integrated
• Trash can to reopen closed tabs, restore notes, widgets, etc…
• One click detailed site info including downloaded time, cache file, security, number of elements, scripts, and more
• Detailed element loading status on URL bar
• Many community created themes to choose from to change Opera's appearance
• Wand: Autocomplete not only Passwords but Forms too
• Rewind and Fastforward. Go back to first or last page visited on tab
• Speed Dial. Instant Access to 9 selected sites
• Useful Mouse Gestures
• Error Console
• Identify as another browser like Firefox and IE. Tricks various scripts that identify browsers however this does NOT run as another browser engine. Its still Opera
• Passes Acid2.
• Opera 10 only: Passes Acid3
• Malware and Phishing Filter
  

Cons:

• No add-on support at all. Not likely to receive them either.

The following chart is a comparison of some major features built in. Does not include add-ons that can add the feature. Refers to latest stable version except for Safari.

	IE 8	Firefox 3	Safari 4	Chrome 1	Opera 9
Domain Highlight	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
Private Browsing	Yes	Firefox 3.5	Yes	Yes	No
Phishing Filter	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Malware Filter	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Acid2 Pass	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Acid3 Pass	No	No	Yes	No	Opera 10
Session Restore	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Download Manager	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Add-ons	Yes	Yes	Mac only	No	No
Themes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
RSS Feed	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes

You’ve seen 5 of the most popular browsers. Now, which one is your favorite. Cast your vote below!

Surf Safely 3: We are A Community. Helping Everyone Surf Safely.

Welcome to Surf Safely Issue 3, the final issue in our collection of recommendations to stay safe on the web. Personally, this one is my favorite.

We talked about real time link scanning and robot crawling and their benefits as well as flaws. What about community based?

WOT: The Web of Trust
Price: Free

Download Links:
Internet Explorer 6.0+ (Windows)
Mozilla Firefox 1.5+ and other Mozilla browsers (all platforms)
Mozilla Add-ons Site
Bookmarklet for other browsers (not limited to Opera and Safari)

Style: Community Based Rating System

Overview:
WOT, one of the most popular Firefox add-ons, adds tiny color coded icons next to search results to tell you which sites are safe in addition to a toolbar button. There are 5 different colors available: Red, Orange, Yellow, Light Green, Green. The ratings are generated based on user contributions and ratings. This causes a lot of criticism of WOT. However, think again.

Unlike other systems, WOT not only rates Safety, but 4 categories: Overall Trustworthiness, Vendor Reliability, Privacy, and Child Safety.

What makes community based ratings more efficient?
Nobody and nothing is perfect. Just like SiteAdvisor and SafeWeb, its not perfect. Obviously, there may be some incorrect ratings here or there. So if you can't be sure, why use something that everyone can change and anyone can mess up the ratings. The answer is ... thats not true. The system is far more complicated than just: Unrated site, random user rates it down, the site becomes red. That is not how it works.

WOT users have something called an activity score. As you rate and comment on sites, your score goes up and as your score goes up, the less score you receive per rating and comment. Anyway, as people agree with your comments, your user personal trust increases. You cannot view your user trust as it is all automated. Higher score users typically have a higher trust than lower score since most higher score users have been users for a while. If you have a high reputation, it is not likely you will mess up ratings, so your ratings can have a large impact on the site's overall rating. On the other hand, if you have a low score, reputation, and is a new user, your ratings won't contribute much to the rating.

There are many manipulation prevention methods, which most people that criticize WOT about community ratings don't realize.

Now why is community based efficient? Imagine the following situation (which is actaully a true situation): A site starts off safe. Both WOT and robot crawlers rate the site Green for safe. A few days or weeks later, the server is hacked and it starts redirecting to sites hosting malicious software instead. WOT users who find out re-rates the site, tells others to check the site, and re-rate it to, therefore changing the rating. How long other systems take to change the rating is anyone's guess.


Performance:
As I mentioned in earlier issues, I use 3 site advisors: WOT, Norton SafeWeb, and AVG Linkscanner. WOT is the fastest loading of them all. Also, it is the only one that also functions on a dynamic version of Google, which has an extra piece of URL and coding. It loads with the page and doesn't slow it down at all.

Features:
4 Rating Categories so you can even use it as parental controls. By default, a warning screen shows upon visiting any dangerous RED and DARK RED site. You can easily change it to warn up to Yellow. In addition, you don't just have to warn, you can BLOCK it too. The blocking feature prevents browser exploits by loading the ratings BEFORE the page loads and blocking access before the page even gets a chance to load. This causes a slight sub-second browsing delay for obvious reasons. So you decide: Extra Security at the cost of slight page loading time or regular page load time but no malicious page blocking?

Warning Screen:


Blocked Screen (notice the URL):


The WOT Design team also created a Colorblind version.


Disagree with a rating and don't want to see the warnings? Rate the site yourself and voila! You're done. The warnings will stop appearing for you. If you want to request to change the site's rating completely, contact the WOT Support Team by clicking here. Their email response time is really snappy aka very fast (on weekdays).

How accurate compared to others?
In order to properly compare, you need to look at the overall trend, not just one particular site. In reality, WOT has the least inaccurate ratings overall and has the most frequently updated ratings as well as the most sites rated. New rogue sites are rated within one day of their appearance which is when many trusted sources such as Sunbelt Blog posts information about them. Many users know of these trusted sources, and then rate all the fraud sites.

As with previous issues in this series, we will test the rating on two known sites serving malicious software and files.

screensavers.com: RED

warez.com: ORANGE

The number of people icons on this mouse over popup indicates the confidence of the rating. The more people rate a site a certain color, the more confident the rating is.

Additional Notes:
A slightly modified URL of Google Searches cause all other site advisor add-ons to not function. However, people have reported this and the WOT Developers at Against Intuition have allowed this to work. So no matter which version you use, WOT will still protect you even if others don't!

Ratings on this blog have been provided by WOT. Mousing over any link gives you a button that when clicked will open the site's scorecard for the sub-domain (or domain). All sub-domains have their own sub-domain. All Twitter Profiles also have one too!

Visit our WOT Scorecard here!

Join the community, start spreading your knowledge with the world, and help everyone stay safe on the web!

Surf Safely 1: Scan Links in Real Time. Not a Database.

Over my next few posts, I will be introducing a series of safe search advisors. Why have these? They help you know which sites are safe BEFORE you visit them and if you do visit them, most will warn you or even block the site. This is the first in the series.

Linkscanner (from Exploit Prevention Labs, now acquired by AVG) is back as an individual standalone product no longer requiring the AVG Suite.

Like other safe search tools, it puts tiny color coded icons next to search results showing if its safe. However, LinkScanner literally scans the links in real time rather than getting data off a database. This is a great way to protect from drive by downloads and other threats, but how effective is Linkscanner?

For Microsoft Windows only. Supports Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
Download from AVG Site.
Download from CNET Download.com.
The following test was run on Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 on Mozilla Firefox 3.0.9.

Style: Real Time Scanning

Installation:
The installation is straight forward offering you the AVG Security Toolbar. The toolbar has a Yahoo! search bar that cannot be disabled, although the toolbar components can be. The box is checked by default. Remember to uncheck the box if you do not wish to have the toolbar, like me

User Interface:
Yes, it has a GUI. Basically the AVG Security Software one except just for LinkScanner. I found this to be unnecessary to be running in the background all day since Linkscanner isn't an antivirus product; it only runs in the browser.
Performance
Linkscanner's performance is actaully quite well. It barely slows the pages down. It scans each search result one by one, each taking a fraction of a second. The first few come out faster than other site advisors.

Known Malicious Site Test (Search-Shield)
Please do not visit any of the sites listed here unless you know what you're doing. They are known sites distributing malware. We will help but will not be held responsible for what may happen if you visit malicious sites.

screensavers.com: Linkscanner Scanned this as GREEN

warez.com: Linkscanner Scanned this as REDActive Surf-Search
Upon visiting a scanned malicious site, a warning appears preventing you from visiting the page with a small link to click if you really want to go anyway, like the following shown when I entered warez.com into the location bar.
Additional Note: Linkscanner supports Google Search, Live Search, and Yahoo! Search. When I tested it, it didn't work on Yahoo! Search. On both browsers, green ratings shows as a white space and only sites not green have an icon (can't find any yellow or orange), as shown below. Notice only RED ratings are shown here.


Also, I found it nearly impossible to find a site scanned as Yellow or Orange with the majority being scanned as Green.

I recommend having all 3 types of advisors for optimal security: Community Based, Web Crawler, and Real Time Scanner. I use WOT, Norton SafeWeb, and Linkscanner. I used to use McAfee SiteAdvisor, however, from personal experience, it slowed down browsing, has a lot of inaccurate and/or obsolete ratings, and commonly didn't show up on Google searches. The ratings on this blog have been generated by WOT.

I am not affiliated with AVG or Exploit Prevention Labs in any way.
Download AVG Linkscanner here.

That's all folks for today! Please comment on tech as we need comments to improve on the tech guide. Don't hesitate to ask any questions. Thanks!
By - WinTechpedia™ 2009 Contributors.

Merge Your Browser Tabs

How many browsers do YOU use? Ever wanted to have a certain tab run in virtually any other installed browser without having to install anything? A feature I just discovered was here the whole time. Try dragging say, a Firefox tab, into Google Chrome. Or try dragging a Chrome tab (must drag the star icon in this case) into Firefox tab bar. Neat eh? Here's a short video demo showing this always existent feature.

In Google Chrome, you need to drag the bookmark star.
In Safari, you need to drag the favicon in the URL bar.
In IE, you need to drag the favicon in the URL bar.
In Firefox, you can choose either the URL or drag the tab*

*I did not test this in Firefox 3.5 yet. The new browser adds drag and drop tabs and detachable tabs which may disable merging through dragging the tab, therefore only working by dragging the favicon.

This doesn't seem to work in Opera.

Thanks for reading, actaully watching, this quick tip from WinTechpedia™ 2009! Please leave any feedback you have. Any feedback is important to us.

That's all folks for today! Please comment on tech as we need comments to improve on the tech guide. Don't hesitate to ask any questions. Thanks!
By - Freedomstar & Creastery™ 2009