PCTechNotes :: PC Tips, Tricks and Tweaks » browser

How To Make Your Internet Explorer 8 Load Faster

slavezero — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 03:32:05 +0000

Here is a very easy way on how you can make your Internet Explorer loads much faster. I actually like this new version of Internet Explorer because of it’s new features but even for it’s new features I’m still a Firefox user primarily because of all the features were better in along with its add-ons.

To make your Internet Explorer 8 load faster, you will need to disable it’s add-ons that slow it down. To do this go to Tools then select Manage Add-ons. Check each add-on and disable the ones that would help increase load speed of your IE browser.

Additional instruction: If you can’t see the Tools menu just press the ALT key and the menu bar will show up.

Dress Up Your Firefox with Personas

slavezero — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:12:32 +0000

Is your Firefox browser been looking so boring lately? Wishing that you have a way to make your Firefox more alive without the pain of searching and installing Firefox themes every time you want to change the look of your browser? Well you can jump on your seat now because this is your lucky day.

I have found a very cool Firefox Extension that gives you the opportunity to brighten up your Firefox the easy way! I introduce to you Personas. This awesome extension provides you with a huge selection of skins for your Firefox browser depending on your mood, personality or preference.

Personas eliminates the pain of having to search and install Firefox theme whenever you feel like changing your Firefox look. It got lots of skins to choose from and are separated to different category so you can easily pick the look you want. What more is that you can preview the skin before you use it.

With Personas wide choices of skins you will never run out of styles for your Firefox and your browser will never look blah or boring again.

Personas Website

Visit their Gallery

Download Personas

What is Downloading, Uploading, Installing and Uninstalling

slavezero — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 13:58:02 +0000

Downloading, Uploading, Installing and Uninstalling are the most popular and most used word in the computer and cyber world. I know that most of us especially tech geeks and even intermediate users know the meaning of those terms. But there are users that are still confuse on many of the computer terms especially on those 4 terms. To enlighten the users about those confusing computer terms, I will explain them as simple as I can.

Downloading: (You get the files)

When we copy a file from another computer let’s say from another network or an internet to our computer that is called downloading. Most of the time we don’t need to do so much work on it. If you are regularly browsing the internet I guess you have encountered words with links that say “click here to download”. Once click it will then ask where you will place or store the file you are going to download sometimes depending on the settings of your browser it will automatically store your downloaded files on your download folder. While downloading you will see the download speed as well as the remaining time.

Uploading: (You send the files)

This the reverse process of downloading. In downloading we get the files, in uploading we send the files over the network to be stored on a server or another computer. If you are a member of any social networking sites I guess you probably have a picture or albums on your account. The process of putting your images into your account is uploading.

Installing: (You setup a program)

More people are still confuse between downloading and installing. When you download a certain program or application it doesn’t necessarilly mean that you can immediately use the program most of the time you first need to install it or setup it on your computer. Generally, you have a setup program and you use that program to setup the applications you downloaded.

Uninstalling: (You remove the installed program)

Well, I guess the word itself tells it all. uninstalling is the reverse process of installing. Programs usually have unintalling program associated with the applications you installed. If a program don’t have a uninstall program we can remove files using the Add/Remove program located on your control panel. The Add/Remove dialog is where all the installed programs are located. They are arranged in alphabetical order. On that screen, you can easily select the program you want remove or uninstall.

There you go, I hope I did help you in any way to understand those terms. If you are still confuse or have any question feel free to contact me or place your question by comments.

How to Make Firefox Display Full Size Images

slavezero — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:20:16 +0000

A friend ask me if there is a way his browser will display images in full size. Well, fortunately for him it is possible with Firefox.

By default, Firefox resizes large images to fit into the the browser’s window. When you search for an image let’s say on Google images, you’ll have to click on the image to view it’s original size. This is not very handy and sometimes annoying if you are browsing a lot of large image files.

To disable resizing follow the steps below:

1. Type about:config in the address bar

2. Scroll down and look for browser.enable_automatic_image_resizing or just type in browser.enable in the filter bar.

3. Double click on browser.enable_automatic_image_resizing to change it’s value to false.

4. Restart your browser.

How To Reduce Firefox Ram Usage

slavezero — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:55:24 +0000

If you are starting to notice that your Firefox is running slow then it is because your Firefox is eating too much ram.

Even the best browser is not perfect, but the good thing about Firefox is that you have the luxury to fix some of it’s troubles and tweak it’s settings.

Of course, the best way to fix issue is to upgrade your ram stick, but what if you don’t have the budget for the upgrade? here is a very quick and simple trick to limit your Firefox ram usage.

1. Type in about:config on your firefox address bar. It will will show a list of configuration but be careful on modifying any value. Don’t touch anything that you don’t know.

2. Scroll down and look for browser.cache.disk.capacity

3. Edit it’s value by double clicking it.

4. By default it is set to 50000, change it to a lower value depending on your memory. I only have a 1gb of ram so I changed it to 20000.

5. Restart your Firefox and feel the difference.

What A Good Browser Should Have

slavezero — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:07:57 +0000

There are lots of available browsers out there. They all offers different features and functionalities. Most of them promises to be more secured and fast. It is now up to us users to determine the good browser against the bad browser.

Below are some of the characteristics of a good browser.

It must have a reliable security features to protect users from any online threats.

The infamous Internet Explorer from Microsoft integrated to their browser a dangerous feature called “active x” back in 1996. This feature allows the execution of softwares inside IE. Although Microsoft gave themselves a huge advantage against their counterparts, it opened doors to malwares and other malicious programs to be able to execute inside the browser, it also give a terrible opportunity for hackers and crackers all over the world to easilty exploit even the smallest bug in the program to run their own software within the browser. This poses a big threath to users because what you type will be seen by a dangerous cracker.

It must be Free.

This would not be a problem because all browsers now are free of charge. It will be very difficult for someone or a company to charge for this kind of software even plugins and addons are free.

Ability to respond quickly any problem.

For me, open source browser community provides a more quicker respond to any security alert or any software bugs than any company. Those community are devoted to keep their preffered browser free of any bugs or errors. They work for the sake of helping people to be more secure in teh Internet.

Must offer additional functionality.

Some browsers like Internet Explorer were not carefully planned. This makes it very difficult to add new festures because it will definitely hurt the design of the software. It’s like building a house with no proper planning, in this case you will have a very hard time to put a bathroom where there is a corridor now. This is what exactly is happenning to Internet Explorer.

Should provide updates often.

No software are perfect but to be able to fix those errors software company must be able to provide an update not just to fix those problems but also to add useful features. When was the last time your preferred browser gives you an update?

Help users correct mistakes.

Browsers should have a user correcting feature like a spell checker to help users fix mistype words. This is very essential especially for those people who are always in a hurry and are typing a email message, blog or making an website entry.

Includes a search bar.

Who doesn’t search? almost %100 of the internet users search for anything on the internet so a search bar is very important to any browser. Good search bars should also have the ability to anticipate your needs and being able to make any useful suggestions.

Ability to block pop-ups.

Pop-up blockers somehow gives users a peace of mind and save them from those annoying popping and flashing advertisements. A good browser should have the ability to effectively block those irritating ads. With a reliable pop-up blocker your search engine can quickly give you uncluttered web sites with no pop-ups.

Restore Session Feature.

I know most of us don’t want to start over at the beginning so a restore session is a must have feature. This is very handy in case your computer suddenly crashes and automatically closes your browser or reboots your machine. This feature saves or remembers what website you are currently working on.

Don’t be a victim! – How to avoid being Phished

slavezero — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:42:25 +0000

Nowadays, internet technology made it to the point that it is easily accessible by everyone. I myself access some of my important accounts through internet… like banking, paying bills, communication with my loved ones here and abroad. Though generally, it made our lives easy and account accessible anywhere, we can’t deny that thieves, hackers and criminals found another way to invade our privacy and personal accounts. With so many people having access to the internet these people have found a way to take advantage of this technology and separate us from our money. The internet crosses so many international boundaries and criminals can operate from basically anywhere theres a computer with access on the internet thats why its almost impossible to get those criminals. Phishing is just one of the many schemes used by criminals to stole money online.

I have a friend who once became a victim of this. She log on to a fake e-gold site and poof! suddenly all her funds in her account was transfered into an unknown account. This is called PHISHING. Phishing is a scam method wherin crooks sends out fake email in order to try and get valuable information on its victim, it is usually private information or financial record. they pretend to come from a well known bank, tell you that someone has changed your password or that your account will be terminated if you don’t confirm your details, and give you a link to click on.

If you you fall into their scam, you will be directed to a false website where they use to collect information you entered ad alter will be used to log in to your bank account or credit card and steal your hard earned money. In some case the crooks used your private information and used your whole identity to apply for fake loans. Before you know it your whole credit and financial history is ruined in a matter of hours.

Fortunately there are things you can do to avoid being phished.

No matter how genuine it looks the most important thing you should do is to NEVER respond to an email that appears to come from your financial institution. If you have to log on to your account, do not use the link included in the mail. Open a new browser, and type the URL manually.
If you have doubt, contact your bank (don’t use the bank phone number listed on the mail), ask them if the mail you received is legitimate.
Never click on any links or urls in the mails, don’t reply, don’t acknowledge.
Delete the suspected mail as fast as possible
When visiting websites be very cautious in giving out private informations and check if the site is secure.

Be aware also that phishing isn’t just limited to financial institutions. Phishing scams can also disguise as mails from well-known stores. They will give you a special offer just to click on the link. If you click on the link you will end up at their website not the store and will steal your information. Before you click anything and If you happen to be interested on that particular item or deal being offered it will be better to contact the store and seek assistance on the particular deal.

If you receive such scams it’s always a good idea to notify the company that appears on the mail. You can notify scams to paypal via spoof@paypal.com or you can report to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, although this mainly deals with the more threatening and widespread phishing scams.

How to track how much time you spend online with Firefox

slavezero — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:48:37 +0000

How much time do you spend browsing on the internet, reading news, reading and sending mails, stumbling websites? Do you want to keep track on how much you spend browsing the internet using firefox? here is a Firefox extension that will help you do that.

I introduce to you Timetracker. Timetracker is a Firefox extension that will allow you to easily track the time you spend in front of your browser. The clock only start counting when your browser is on focusand automatically pause when your browser is out of focus.

You can also choose if you want to track your browsing usage per day, the last time you reset the timer or the time you installed timetracker. It also gives you the option if you don’t want to display the seconds.

It also provides a tooltip that shows the total time you spend browsing since last reset and since installing.

Download Timetracker

What is a Cookie and Why do we need them?

slavezero — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:37:44 +0000

What is a cookie?

We usually thought it as some kind of a biscuit, but in computer world it has a meaning that is completely different. Cookies are text of information that are stored on your computer by the websites you visited. Cookie information contains an ID tag that will be use to recognize you when you return to the page. It stores information such as your name, username or site login, preferences, address and much more.

There are two types of cookies, the permanent and temporary. Permanent cookies or persistent cookies are stored permanently on your computer. If you deleted a permanent cookie it will be just recreated the next time you visit the page that stored that cookie. Temporary cookies on the other hand or also what we called session cookies are cookies that are stored temporarily browsers memory and will be removed or deleted as soon as you close your browser.

Cookies does not collect any information about you or take any of your computer files. The sole purpose of cookies is help you have a faster and more pleasant internet experience. Cookies are enabled by default but but sometimes you may have to manually enable them.

Why do we need cookies?

Although cookies raises privacy concerns there are some advantages that cookies provides us.

Faster Internet Browsing – The websites loads much more quicker.

Websites can remember you – This is very handy especially when you frequently logon to your accounts. The website you visited will remember you so you don’t have to enter your password to logon.

Personalize websites – Some sites has a feature that only shows news that only applies to your area. But this would not be possible without a cookie.

Optimized websites – Webmaster can easily determine which of their pages is more popular and which are not.

Mozilla Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts

slavezero — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:20:02 +0000

Firefox is my favorite browser. I got instantly hook to Firefox when I first tried it. Firefox is incomparably faster than other browser, more secured, less bugs, lots of cool features, and easy to use. What I personally like about Firefox is the ability to tweak it’s settings for maximum performance and the hundreds of available add-ons, themes and plugins making it more fun to use.

I browse the internet a lot using Firefox so in order to make my browsing more enjoyable and fast I use shortcuts. To those of my friends requesting for Firefox shortcuts here it is.

Below are the Windows Keyboard Shortcuts for Mozilla Firefox that I usually use:

CTRL + A Select all text on a webpage

CTRL + B Open the Bookmarks sidebar

CTRL + C Copy the selected text to the Windows clipboard

CTRL + D Bookmark the current webpage

CTRL + F Find text within the current webpage

CTRL + G Find more text within the same webpage

CTRL + H Opens the webpage History sidebar

CTRL + I Open the Bookmarks sidebar

CTRL + J Opens the Download Dialogue Box

CTRL + K Places the cursor in the Web Search box ready to type your search

CTRL + L Places the cursor into the URL box ready to type a website address

CTRL + M Opens your mail program (if you have one) to create a new email message

CTRL + N Opens a new Firefox window

CTRL + O Open a local file

CTRL + P Print the current webpage

CTRL + R Reloads the current webpage

CTRL + S Save the current webpage on your PC

CTRL + T Opens a new Firefox Tab

CTRL + U View the page source of the current webpage

CTRL + V Paste the contents of the Windows clipboard

CTRL + W Closes the current Firefox Tab or Window (if more than one tab is open)

CTRL + X Cut the selected text

CTRL + Z Undo the last action