What's New

Rufus 3.0 is out; the new version of the popular utility for Windows is one of the easiest options on PCs running Windows to create bootable USB devices using ISO images.

I used Rufus for a long time to create USB installation media for Linux or Windows, but did not review the software before 2017 here on this site. You can check out the Rufus review here for a general overview of the program's functionality.

Trans Europa Express is a brand new extension for the Firefox web browser that pretends that Internet users are from the European Union to give them some of the privacy protections that websites give users from the EU.

The General Data Protection Regulation attempts to improve privacy of users from the European Union and European Economic Area. Sites, for example, are required to get consent from users for various data collection practices.

Forget Me Not - Forget cookies & other data is a browser extension for the Firefox web browser that gives you full control over data such as cookies that websites save to the local system.

The extension supports three main features: clean data automatically, manually, and create custom rules for domains.

Forget Me Not won't act on its own after installation; this means that it won't delete any cookies after installation and that you need to configure it so that it does what you want it to do.

Spammers use the themes section of the Chrome Web Store, the official store for Chrome extensions and themes, to push dodgy streaming subscriptions.

The Chrome Web Store returns extension and theme matches when you search for something. If you search for a recent movie title on the web store, you get matching extensions and themes returned.

While you'd expect themes to just return themes based on movie scenes, characters or posters to you, you probably don't expect these themes to push subscriptions for dodgy streaming services on the Internet.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a new law to protect the data of people in the EU and EEA, was implemented on Friday.

While I have to admit that I'm not particularly fond of some of the requirements of GDPR, I think something like the GDPR was necessary to get online advertisement and tracking by large and small publishers in check.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation released a new version of Privacy Badger today for Chrome and Firefox that removes link tracking techniques that Facebook uses on its site to track outgoing link activity.

While Facebook knows exactly what its users do when they interact on the site, it would not know nearly as much about links to third-party sites that users interact with if it would not use a technique that is called link shimming.

KeePass Password Safe is a free open source password manager for Windows ; ports of the password manager are available for Linux, Mac OS X, Android, iOS, and other systems as well.

The review focuses on the Windows version of KeePass, and here in particular version 2.x as it offers more features.

PassProtect is a free browser extension for Google Chrome that warns you when you are about to create accounts online using insecure passwords or about to sign in to an account using a weak password.

Most online sites and services have pretty lax policies when it comes to passwords that users may select. That's one reason why many Internet users select easy to remember passwords; the downside to this is that these passwords can be "guessed" easily by using brute force attacks or passwords from previous breaches that leaked on the Internet.

Opera Software, maker of the popular Opera web browser for desktop and mobile operating systems, launched a new Developer version of Opera 55 recently that includes a redesigned Settings page.

The Opera browser is based on Chromium, the same core that Google Chrome or Vivaldi are based on as well.

Mozilla plans to run a Shield study soon in Firefox to gather data on user interest in regards to integrating cloud storage services in Firefox's downloads panel.

Many Internet users have access to cloud storage; those with Google or Microsoft accounts have it, and services like Dropbox ensure that anyone may sign-up for cloud storage to upload files to the Internet to sync it between devices, access it online, or share it.

While you may use web browsers to access cloud storage, none offer any form of native integration of cloud storage services.

Google is testing a new feature in Chrome mobile for Android right now that changes the tab switcher from a vertical layout to a horizontal one.

When you open the list of all tabs in Google Chrome mobile right now on Android, you get the list of open tabs and the sites loaded in those tabs. The sites are stacked vertically with one site displayed fully and others in front or behind the active tab.

Touch controls are provided to scroll though the list of open tabs and to load any tab that is open using the tab switcher.

Mozilla's Firefox web browser comes with built-in screenshot capturing functionality; first launched as a Test Pilot experiment to gather data and interest in the feature, screen capturing is now part of Firefox natively.

Just click on the three dots in the Firefox address bar and select the "take a screenshot" item from the menu to start the process. You can capture the entire page or part of it, and save the screenshot online or locally.

Taisei is an open source game for Microsoft Windows that is a fan-made clone of the popular Japanese bullet hell shooter series Touhou Project.

I love Japanese shoot'em-up games ever since I got my hands on games like R-Type, Raiden, or Apydia. I love so-called Bullet Hell games even more even though I'm not particularly good when it comes to playing them.

Mozilla plans to include a new protective feature in Firefox 63; the browser's Tracking Protection feature, enabled by default only in private browsing windows, will protect users of the web browser from so-called in-browser miners and fingerprinting scripts.

JavaScript mining is a relatively new threat that Internet users face. Websites and browser extensions may embed JavaScript code to mine cryptocurrency using the system the browser is run on.

Some Avast antivirus users reported a blank desktop with no icons or interface elements issue or a "boot to choose your keyboard layout" screen when they ran the upgrade from earlier versions of Windows 10 to the latest version Windows 10 version 1803 that Microsoft released on April 30, 2018.