Tech Nukem

Download enthusiasts who always do a lot of downloading from the Internet, e.g. photos, videos, files, software, etc, might be of the opinion the current browsers available can do a little bit more to make them more download-friendly. If you are looking for a browser which is customized with more tools for downloading, the free and so called media browser (instead of web browser), Wyzo, might be something you can consider.

Powered by the famous Mozilla Firefox, the free Wyzo browser in fact doesn’t offer advanced features that you can’t find from other browsers. The strength of this browser is it integrates the BitTorrent capabilities and a set of tools that smoothen and accelerate the download tasks. With Wyzo, users will find it is easier and more manageable to handle their torrent of downloads particularly inexperienced torrent users. Users do not need to source for extra or standalone Bit Torrent program and spend time to learn how to use Bit Torrent. Users can use Wyzo to browse the internet and download torrents from the same browsing environment.



Besides facilitating Torrent download, Wyzo also offers other extras such as Mouse Gestures, Coollris and Quick Switch Tab. Mouse Gestures allow users to execute various commands and user scripts with five types of gestures; Coollris will transform the browser into a lightning fast and cinematic way to look for video media contents; and Quick Switch Tab improve active tabs switching. Wyzo also supports a more secure browsing environment for safer web surfing.

Wyzo has rolled out the latest Wyzo 3.0.3 which can be downloaded via the link here. The browser works in both Windows and Mac OS X. The Linux support is coming soon.

The start up speed of Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) can be slow sometimes, where running and opening a new instance of IE web browser frame window could take several seconds to complete. Besides, when opening new tab in IE 8, even if it’s a blank tab, the new tab opening process may be slow to frustration too, with “Connecting…” description on Tab bar when launching new tab.



One of the main reason why IE8 browser window and tabs launches slowly is due to myriad of add ons or plug-ins that been installed and loaded by IE browser. To help users to identify what add-ons or plugins that causing Internet Explorer runs slowly, Internet Explorer 8 has included the a load time information for all addons on its interface.

To view the loading time of add-ons, head to Tools -> Manage Add-ons menu in Internet Explorer 8. For most toolbars, add-ons, plugins and extensions, their loading time, which cause the delay of IE startup or tab opening as it’s added on top of normal window frame or tab loading time, is displayed in the column name “Load Time”.



Microsoft not only lists the installed toolbars, plugins and add-ons but also their loading time. This loading time is added on top of the normal tab loading time in Internet Explorer. It is now easy with the tools at hand to analyze the toolbars and plugins that increase the tab and window loading time in Internet Explorer the most and find ways to deal with the situation.

The load time of add-ons is normally in seconds, if it’s in minutes that the add-on should be removed immediately. For add-ons that take too much time and slow to load, it’s possible to disable the toolbar or extension immediately by clicking on Disable button. IE8 will also automatically search for related add-ons and present a choice to disable these related add-ons as well.

The loading time of some plugins and toolbars is not displayed in the manager. Disabling these can also have a positive effect on the tab and window loading times in Internet Explorer.

There may be times that one may accidentally or forgetfully closes a web browsing tab while surfing the world wide web in Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) which has loaded important web page. Internet Explorer 8 has built-in mechanism that able to help user in “tab not found” situation, which is ability to reopen closed tabs, with support of up to 10 previously closed tabs.

Internet Explorer 8 has included Reopen Closed Tabs feature that saves and stores the history of last ten exited or closed tabs. Best of all, when a tab is reopen, not only the web page state is recovered, but also all browsing history (surfing trace) on the tab is restored too.

How to Reopen Closed Tabs in IE8 with Keyboard Shortcut

Press Ctrl + Shift + T keyboard shortcut will reopen the last closed tab. Press the same keyboard shortcut sequence again will open another tab that was closed prior before the previously opened tab. Ctrl + Shift + T supports restoration of up to last 10 tabs that are closed during the browsing session.

How to Restore Closed Tabs in IE8 in New Tab Page

If may be easier to be able to browse and select which already closed tabs that user wants to reopen. IE8 provides such as option to reopen one or more closed tabs too, in “New Tab” page, which also displays complete web page titles of the closed tabs.

To open a new tab page, just press Ctrl + T keyboard shortcut, or click on New Tab button on the Tab bar.



In the new tab page, there will be a Reopen closed tabs section. The last ten recently closed tabs that have been closed since starting Internet Explorer will be listed. Just click on the one that user wants to reopen. To reopen all closed tabs, just click on Open All link.



Note that IE8 will only remember the tabs that is been closed or exited during the current browsing session. If a user has completely close and exit IE browser window frame, he or she will need to restore last browsing session to get back any opened tabs while exiting IE8.

Sometimes you may want to hide confidential documents from being read by others who have accessed to your computer
. There are various software utilities such as SafeHouse Explorer, My LockBox, Hide Folders, Free 1 Second Folder Encrypt, Easy File Locker and etc that can keep your files securely but in case you would like to try something different, here with the FireSteg that serves as Firefox add-on, you can now quickly hide confidential documents into image without being noticed by others so that they are at least safe with certain degree of protection.


FireSteg

FireSteg is a stenography sidebar extension powered by Java that is able to hide files inside image. It can easily allows you to extract files from the image at anytime whenever there is a need. Once you have installed it, you can start using it by going to View -> Sidebar -> FireSteg and launch it. It will appear at sidebar and in order to hide documents inside image, go to Hide tab, under Files to hide section, browse file/files which you would like to hide, then browse to the image file which you want your files to be hide inside under Cover images section. Do take note that the image file formats supported by FireSteg are limited to jpeg, jpg and png only, other type of formats are not supported and it will cause the hiding process to fail. Once you have done with files selection, just hit Hide button to start the process. To extract file/files from the image, just go to Extract tab and browse for the image file, follow by a click on Extract button to extract file/files from the image. By default, the image file with files hiding inside and file/files extracted from the image will be saved under Desktop. If you would like to change the path, you can go to Settings tab and make the change.

FireSteg 2.0 has made the whole hiding process easier and simple. It works well with Firefox 1.5 – 3.5.*. If you think it is useful, just download it at here.

Google Toolbar 6 has added an advanced and useful feature that automatically translates web page in foreign language to selected local language. However, when trying to install Google Toolbar into Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), the following error may be displayed on web page after clicking “Accept and Download” or “Accept and Install”, instead of starting to download Google Toolbar version 6 setup installer.

Page Not Found

The page – www.google.com/toolbar/ie/install.html?ds=yes – does not exist.


Google Toolbar Installation Page Not Found

Depending on the option selected, the URL not found can also be www.google.com/toolbar/ie/install.html?ds=yes&hp=yes&pr=yes or any other selected parameters, such as toolbar.google.com/T6/intl/en-GB/install.html?ds=yes and sometimes as long as www.google.com/toolbar/T6/intl/en/install.html?utm_campaign=&utm_source=en-et-hc&utm_medium=et&tbbrand=GZEU. The error also happens with Google Toolbar with My Location.

Sometimes, after clicking “Accept and Download”, the page simply refreshes but Google Toolbar download does not start. The IE web browser status bar may also prompt the following web page errors:

Webpage error details

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; GTB5; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.0.04506; MS-RTC LM 8; OfficeLiveConnector.1.3; OfficeLivePatch.0.0)
Timestamp: Fri, 18 July 2009 12:58:38 UTC
Message: ‘_gat’ is undefined
Line: 11
Char: 1
Code: 0

URI: http://www.google.com/toolbar/ie/install.html?ds=yes
Message: ‘_gat’ is undefined
Line: 207
Char: 1
Code: 0
URI: http://toolbar.google.com

The cause for the problem is likely due to JavaScript support which is not standard in IE8 or blocked access to google-analytics.com domain.

To fix the issue, ensure that google-analytics.com is reachable and not map to 127.0.0.1 (localhost) in hosts file, or blocked by other filtering program such as Privoxy or ads blocking program. Most user won’t resolve the problem with this step though.

To fix JavaScript error when downloading Google Toolbar, try to clear the IE browser cache (Temporary Internet Files). Then ensure that Active Scripting is enabled by following these steps:

1. Click the Internet Explorer Tools menu, or press Alt-T on your keyboard.
2. Select Internet Options.
3. In the Security tab, select Internet zone, and click Custom Level.
4. Select the Enable radio button in the Active Scripting category.
5. Click OK.

Last but not least, download latest version of Java Runtime Environment from java.com.

If all steps above still doesn’t solve the problem to allow downloading Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer, here’s the direct download link to standalone setup installer of Google Toolbar 6 for IE, which can be manually downloaded and installed.

Google Toolbar T6 Installer x86 (32-bit): GoogleToolbarInstaller_en32_signed.exe

Google Toolbar T6 Installer x64 (64-bit): GoogleToolbarInstaller_en64_signed.exe

Note: You should only download 64-bit Google Toolbar when you’re using Internet Explorer (64-bit).

Web pages normally contain lot of advertisements, images, empty spaces and other junk data, so web printing could result in waste of paper, ink, money and not environmental friendly. Previously PrintWhatYouLike is another, that serves as a free online editor to let you format web pages and only print on what you like to see, now there is another utility, named as Printee that works as add-on for Internet Explorer to allow you pick, edit and print web page according to what you like it to be printed.



Printee is a web printing tool for Internet Explorer. Once you have gotten it installed, you will notice that when you right click on any web page content, an orange toolbox will be displayed on IE toolbar. This toolbox is called as IE toolbox which you can use those features available here to edit web page content to just what you like. Alternatively, you can display IE toolbox by clicking on green “Printee” button , which appears as toolbar button. If you don’t see the green “Printee” button appears as toolbar button, you can always add it by right clicking on IE toolbar and then choose Customize, under Available toolbar buttons list, look for IE Toolbox and then add it to the current toolbar buttons list.


The IE toolbox contains features such as Pick to remain the selected area and other areas which are not selected will be disappeared, Del to delete elements of the selected area, Fit to adjust the contents of the current selected area to the appropriate width, increase or decrease font size, remove background and unwanted images, print preview and etc.

Printee 1.5.1 is absolutely free to download and works well for IE6/IE/7/IE8. Consumes only 1.35MB of your hard disk space, the utility is compatible to run on Windows 2000/2003 and XP.

Some webmasters or bloggers like to have their web pages refresh or reload automatically after a period of time, either to increase the page views, or to increase the ads revenue that based on CPM model. The web pages can ask a web browser such as Firefox to automatically refresh a page after a given timeout by including the HTML element , or instruct web servers to send a Refresh: HTTP header.


The automatically refresh web pages feature can be annoying and irritating, can be disorienting due to sudden replacement of content, and probably a waste of bandwidth although some frequently and constantly updated content does deserve to be able to refresh automatically. If you’re not the one who in favor of web pages automatic refresh, it’s possible to disable, block and prevent web pages from auto refreshing in Firefox.

How to Stop and Block Web Pages from Auto Refresh or Reload in Firefox

In Firefox, go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General -> Accessibility section, and then tick the check box labeled as Warn me when web sites try to redirect or reload the page.

Checking the option is equivalent to setting accessibility.blockautorefresh preference setting in about:config to True.



When the Block Auto Refresh option is enabled (set to True), automatic page refreshing request is blocked and ignored, instead, Firefox will displaying a message indicating the refresh and allowing the user to manually refresh the page.

To re-enable automatic page refresh, just untick and unselect the check box for Warn me when web sites try to redirect or reload the page option, or set accessibility.blockautorefresh preference setting in about:config to False.

Instead of searching on multiple search engines, the users
can add Google Unified Search plugin to their Firefox web browser to display search results from multiple search engines. The Google Unified Search has been integrated with multiple search engines in Google search results and supports Bing, Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha, StumbleUpon and Delicious.


google-bing

By default, it will display the Google and Bing search results on the same page. There will be a control in the top right corner which makes it possible to switch to another search engine. A click on any button to get the search results from the selected service and click on arrow sign to get the search results from the selected service.

Google Unified Search is available here.

Mozilla has detected and discovered some serious security problems in the lately released Firefox 3.5 browser. According to Mozilla, there is a critical JavaScript vulnerability in the Firefox 3.5 browser and this security loophole will allow hackers to attack and execute malicious codes on the computer running with the browser. To avoid further damage, Mozilla has brought forward the release date of its updated version, Firefox 3.5.1, to get the bug fixed.

Mozilla 3.5.1 is an immediate and urgent solution from Mozilla to fix the security loophole. Firefox 3.5 users are warned and advised by Mozilla to update their browser version to 3.5.1. Besides getting the bug fixed, the latest Firefox 3.5.1 has also improved the browser’s stability and speed.

Firefox 3.5 users can get the latest Firefox 3.5.1 download directly from the Mozilla site. Alternately, they can go to Help menu and select “Check for Updates” to get the update.

NotMyIP is a free proxy tool that helps overcome censorship and provides ability to user to browse anonymously on Internet by hiding the actual IP address, much like the popular Hide IP. NotMyIP (or Not My IP) is freeware version of premium product Anonymity Gateway and uses only high quality proxies.



Anonymous gateway provided by NotMyIP can also be used to bypass access restriction, such as blocked MySpace access, blocked Facebook access, or even use to bypass RapidShare, MegaUpload and other file sharing services download limit. By using NotMyIP, all outgoing and incoming traffic will be routed through NotMyIP proxies, effectively using another IP address for surfing Internet.

The unique features of NotMyIP is that it does not require manual configuration or additional plug-ins or add-ons, and automatically works with all web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome. Best of all, NotMyIP comes equipped with premium high quality and high speed proxies that ensure the proxy routing is working properly, instead of having user to search the Internet for new proxies every now and then. For freeware NotMyIP, there is 3 premium US proxies with 3 different IP addresses available for free usage.

NotMyIP is currently in version 1.1 with face lift with some bug fixes. However, with all users of NotMyIP sharing the probably same proxies, you can guess that the browsing speed will be on the slower side.

Download NotMyIP setup installer: notmyip.exe

The long awaited Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is set to be released in a couple of days’ time. While Harry Potter’s fans are eagerly awaiting the release of this latest fantasy movie, perhaps they would like to create some Harry Potter special effects to add to the excitement. In conjunction with the upcoming release of the movie Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince, Personas, a Firefox extension which allows users to add lightweight theming to their Firefox browser has added the wildly anticipated Harry Potter and Half-Blood prince personas.


HarryPotter

Users who want to personalize their Firefox browser with the Harry Potter theme can download Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince Personas from the Firefox Personas gallery. Currently users can choose from 4 different Harry Potter personas to dress up their browser. Users need to install the Personas extension before they can add the Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince personas.