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June 9, 2014

Office Online versus Google Apps: Facts and FUD

By Woody Leonhard
Microsoft and Google are locked in battle over free-for-personal-use productivity applications. Each is fighting for your attention.
At this time, there's no one best online suite; both are quite capable and both have some important limitations.
The state of the art in online productivity
Microsoft, Google, and Apple all offer online productivity suites that are free for personal use. And unlike past "free" suites (yes, I mean you, Microsoft Works and MS Office Web Apps!), these latest online suites are all surprisingly capable — and getting better almost weekly. In this discussion, I compare Office Online and Google Apps: two suites experienced Windows and Office users are most likely to use. Apple's iWork for iCloud I'll save for another day. It represents an elegant evolution of the Office genre, but there's a significant learning curve for dyed-in-the-wool Office "Officionados."
In short, Office Online and Google Apps are both so good you might not need to buy a standalone version of Office or subscribe to Office 365. Really! Microsoft and Google have their own reasons for dangling freebies at Windows users — more about that later. But whatever their motivations, using online suites could mean more money in your pocket.
But before I get into the details, let's clarify some confusing terminology.
Four months ago, "Office Web Apps" was a backwater website that seemed to be a weak adjunct to the desktop version of Office. Then Microsoft launched Office Online and kicked the old website into the bit bucket.
For this article, I'll review Word Online, Excel Online, and PowerPoint Online — the most popular parts of the various Office Online components (see Figure 1).
Office Online home page
Figure 1. Office Online's homepage offers all the productivity apps someone might need for personal use.
Google's terminology is, if anything, even more convoluted than Microsoft's. (And you didn't think that was possible.) Officially, the suite I discuss in this article is known as Google Drive, though few people call it that. Google has, of course, a cloud-storage service known as "Google Drive" — it competes with Microsoft's OneDrive.
For reasons that defy logic, the productivity tools once known as Google Apps — Document, Spreadsheet, and Presentation — now live under the cloud-storage, Google Drive site (see Figure 2). In common parlance, "Google Docs" might refer to just the word processor — or it might refer to all three productivity apps. And "Google Drive" might — or might not — include the cloud-storage component.
Google Docs home page
Figure 2. The homepage for the various Google productivity apps is Google Drive.
For some semblance of clarity, I'll split the difference and call the three apps "Google Apps," a term that might not precisely match up with Google's documentation.
Both Microsoft's and Google's online productivity apps run only in Web browsers. You don't install anything; simply fire up your browser, go to the appropriate site (office.com for Office Online and drive.google.com for Google Apps), sign in — and you're ready to rock and roll. You will, of course, need a Microsoft account for Office Online and a Google account for Google Drive. Both accounts are free.
Based on my extensive testing, there's almost no difference in running any of the apps in Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explorer — or on a wide variety of platforms that included Win7, Win8, OS X, iOS, and Android.
Office Online is free for personal use and for some organizations (Office 365 for Nonprofits). For businesses, it starts at U.S. $60 per year/per person (Office 365 Small Business) and goes up from there (more info).
Google Apps/Drive is also free for personal use. The cost for organizations ranges from free (nonprofit and educational) to $50 per year/per person for Google Apps for Business (more info).
Both Office Online and Google Apps have familiar productivity-suite interfaces that aren't amenable to touch-based tablet/small-screen use. In fact, Google Apps looks a lot like Office 2003 (see Figure 3).
Google Document
Figure 3. The look of Google Apps strongly resembles that of Office 2003.
Office Online takes the Office 2013 Ribbon approach, but its Ribbon looks rather toothless — it doesn't have the depth of features found in Office 2013 (see Figure 4).
Word Online
Figure 4. As this view of Word Online shows, Office Online resembles Office 2013 — with some missing pieces.
Here's how the two suites compare, broken down by word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation app.
Creating text: Word Online vs. Google Documents
You would expect that Word Online could open any Word file (.doc or .docx) — no matter how complex — let you make changes, and then save it unsullied. And you'd be wrong. Although it typically does a good job of maintaining the fidelity of the original document, I found several, in-the-wild documents that don't appear (or render) correctly in Word Online — or that don't survive the round trip back to standard Office.
Google's Document (commonly shortened to Google Docs), on the other hand, frequently refused to open complex .doc or .docx files. There were also occasions when Google Docs opened a .docx file and then scrambled it on export back to the DOCX format. But that occurred mostly with documents containing extensive formatting.
Microsoft illustrated the problem in a YouTube promo video. A nicely formatted .docx file gets gutted by Google. Although everything in the video is quite accurate, there are — as far as I could tell — some nuances that real people might or might not encounter.
For example, the video's test document wasn't created in Word Online, and several of its features, such as a table of contents and formatted headers, aren't supported in Word Online. So the sample file must have originated with Word for Windows or Mac.
In any case, if you tried to edit the document in the video, you'd be frustrated to learn that Word Online won't let you crop figures or drag-and-drop them. But as you can see in Figure 3, cropping, rotating, or dragging-and-dropping figures in Google Docs works just like Word for the desktop. As Figure 4 shows, Word Online will let you only shrink or expand the graphic — in pre-defined increments.
At the end of the video, Microsoft shows real-time collaboration, a feature new to Word Online but part of Google Docs for years. Microsoft also "borrowed" automatic saving from Google Apps.
It would take a book to compare and contrast the features in Word Online and Google Docs — and the feature list is changing constantly. But here's a quick look at the features you're likely to use most.
Word Online won't let you create or change styles. You can't add text boxes, shapes, or SmartArt to a document — although you can delete an entire shape if it was put into the document with a desktop version of Word. As noted, pictures can't be cropped or dragged-and-dropped, although they can be scaled up or down in fixed increments.
Word Online offers no Track Changes settings, though — again — you can see tracked changes that were inserted into a desktop version of Word. Also, if "Track Changes" was turned on in the original document, changes made to the document while in Word Online appear marked up when the document is opened in desktop Word. Word Online doesn't support macros, and autocorrect is turned on — you can't turn it off.
On the positive side, Word Online can maintain DOC/DOCX file fidelity if the document is not overly complex. It's also easy to apply styles — as long as you can live with the predefined versions — and create headers, footers, tables, page numbers, and footnotes.
Google Docs' offerings are significantly more robust. You can add or edit text boxes, shapes, drawings, and equations; there's an on-screen ruler and format painting plus tools for image manipulation. And it supports Google's own macro language.
Using Google Docs, I've had few fidelity problems with common DOC and DOCX files, but unusual formatting can throw the app for a loop. And because there's no desktop version of Google Docs (at least, not yet), there's no way to create custom styles, as you do in desktop Word. Moreover, formatting tables is difficult, and there's no change-tracking function — although, as with Word Online, you can insert comments.
Neither Word Online nor Google Docs supports file-based password protection (although, oddly enough, Apple's iWork does).
Bottom line: Both Word Online and Google Docs work just fine if you're creating relatively common documents. You won't design an advertising campaign with either, and you'd be hard-pressed to write a book that has anything more than text and a few illustrations. But for everyday tasks, it's hard to justify spending money to get what's now available free.
Balancing the books: Excel Online vs. Spreadsheet
For years, it was said that Google Spreadsheet (or Sheets) was useless because it wouldn't automatically display long text in one cell across adjoining blank cells. That's changed — along with about a million other first-generation limitations.
Both Excel Online and Google Spreadsheet support an astonishing array of spreadsheet features. Unless you have a crying need for pivot charts and tables — available only with Excel Online — the list of features supported by one app and not the other will be important only to those who have some specific spreadsheet requirements.
For example, Google Sheets offers some conditional formatting; however, you won't find any in Excel Online. Sheets also gives you "Paste transpose." On the other hand, Excel Online has Freeze Panes; autocomplete; and drop-down, data-entry controls (lists). Google Sheets doesn't. Text box contents can, in some cases, be edited in Google Sheets but not in Excel Online, as best I can tell.
Google Sheets will open XLS and XLSX files with embedded macros; Excel Online refuses to edit spreadsheets with embedded macros. That, to my way of thinking, is a big plus in Google's favor.
Both apps can make charts till the cows come home, run autofill, include hyperlinks, and provide formatting of every conceivable type. The list goes on and on.
Working with both spreadsheet apps on real-world files, I found another significant difference. If you have a heavily formatted XLS or XLSX generated by a desktop version of Excel, the formatting might get zapped by Google Sheets. But then again, Sheets supports macros and Excel Online doesn't.
Talking points: PowerPoint Online vs. Slides
Microsoft's and Google's online word processors and spreadsheet apps might run neck-and-neck, but when it comes to creating presentations, there's a clear winner. Google Slides does an excellent job of duplicating PowerPoint on the desktop. Microsoft's own PowerPoint Online doesn't come close.
In fact, I think it's fair to say that PowerPoint Online is virtually useless for any task beyond creating extremely simple slideshows with minimal transitions. PowerPoint Online has no Slide Sorter view or Outline view; it has no Presenter view, so any embedded notes are useless. And though you can insert pictures into new slides, you can't do so with slides you've created previously — either in the desktop PowerPoint or PowerPoint Online.
Tales of woe abound when trying to work with any sort of media. For example, inserting a music clip or video into a presentation using PowerPoint Online seems to have a 50-50 chance of crashing the program. And once you add media, you must have Microsoft's Silverlight installed to see them.
Google Presentation, by contrast, has full support for pictures — including cutouts, drawing, and canvases. There's a fully functional slide sorter, speaker notes, and gobs of transitions and animations. You get lots of formatting capabilities, and inserting media onto a slide doesn't immediately crash the program.
At best, PowerPoint Online is useful for making minor edits to presentations created in the desktop version of the app. Otherwise, if you have any reason to create or edit a presentation online, do it with Google Presentation.
Summing up the important considerations
Most users should not find it difficult to work with either productivity suite. As noted, Office Online looks similar to Office 2013, and Google Apps will seem familiar to Office 2003 users. But neither is well suited for use on touch screens, tablets, or other small-screen digital devices.
Many Office Online users will still access it primarily as an adjunct to their desktop versions of the suite. And for that application, it's relatively good at maintaining the fidelity of the original file. But it's far from perfect. It's also fine for individuals who want to create relatively simple documents. That said, Office Online lacks some features that a typical Office user might need frequently. And PowerPoint Online can't do much at all.
Google Apps, on the other hand, also does a good job maintaining the content and formatting of simple desktop-Office generated docs — probably better than you would expect. And Google Apps offers many more tools if you're working exclusively within the Google environment.
Perhaps most important for advanced users, Google Apps supports macros — a capability that might make all the other feature comparisons moot. Microsoft promises it will deliver programmability to Office Online — someday.
In either case, if you need to work with complex documents and want to keep them whole, you have no choice but to stick with the full Windows or OS X versions of Office.
Keep in mind that both Google and Microsoft are trying to steer you to their online-storage systems. Both offer 15 GB free for personal use. Microsoft has an ulterior motive: OneDrive makes moving files between Office Online and desktop Office very easy. The 'Softies undoubtedly hope that, by locking you into OneDrive, you'll eventually pay for Office.
But Google has an ulterior motive, too — though a very different one. If you have a free Google account, Google can and probably will scan everything — absolutely everything — associated with your account to serve up targeted ads. There's nothing you can do about it. (On the other hand, Google does not scan data associated with paid accounts. Nor does it scan email from or to academic Gmail accounts.)
For some people, Google's penchant for scanning accounts is an unconscionable invasion of privacy. For others, it's just creepy. Fortunately, there are no soulless drones poking through your files to see whether you're cheating the IRS (isn't that the NSA's job?) or criticizing Obamacare.
Still, you need to be ever cognizant that Google might be rummaging through everything you post, all to deliver ads you'll click — and click again.
Also consider that these suites are changing continuously. Any conclusion you draw today might change next month or even next week. That's good news, actually, because with each passing week, you have fewer and fewer reasons to spend money on an office suite.

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June 8, 2014

Use the Web to Do a Free Background Check

Get the scoop on someone you know, or see what's out there on YOU.


Want to get information on someone you know, or see what's on the record for yourself? You can use the Web to do a free background check via a multitude of free sources.
Now, why would you want to do a background check on yourself? Here are a few reasons:
  • Check your credit report for inaccuracies
  • See if your insurance information is correct
  • Look at the same information that potential landlords look at
  • Take a look at your Social Security earnings
Basically, the data you can find online, on yourself or other people, can be quite useful. It's up to you to determine whether it's accurate - or to take steps to ensure that is. A misrepresentation of your information can determine whether you're eligible to take out a mortgage, buy a car, even get a job, so it's in your best interest to monitor this data and ensure that it's correct. Note: Unless otherwise noted, these reports and information are completely free as of this writing (November 2011).
Financial History
  • Annual Credit Report: Request a free credit report from the three major credit bureaus annually.
  • Innovis: You can obtain one Innovis Credit Report at no cost if you meet certain criteria.
  •  Securities and Exchange Commission: Search through SEC filings, administrative judgements, and consumer complaints.
Consumer Reporting History
  • LexisNexis: Request a free report (must include quite a bit of identifying information) that includes both public and non-public records and information.
Web Ownership History
  • Domain Tools: Find out who owns a domain name, along with their email address, physical address, and phone number.
  • WayBack Machine: See what other forms a website might have taken with this interesting tool; just enter in a URL and you'll get a detailed history of archived pages.
  • IP Address Report: If all you have to go on is an IP address, you can use this site to find out who owns it, what it's hostname is, what country it originates in, even what browser the IP address is presenting itself on the Web in.
Health and Medical Insurance Reporting History
  • MIB Reports: If you have applied for "individually underwritten life, health, or disability income insurance during the preceding seven year period", then MIB (Medical Information Bureau) will have a report on this information that you can request for free.
  • Intelliscript: Find out what insurance companies have requested your prescription history.
Rental History
  • First Advantage SafeRent: If you have been denied in your application for housing, you can see what your potential landlord is looking at by requesting the consumer information file maintained by First Advantage SafeRent.
Return History
  • The Retail Equation: If you weren't able to get your money back the last time you returned something, you can request a free return history report from the Retail Equation, an organization that tracks merchandise return information.
Car and Home Insurance History
  • VinCheck: Enter in a VIN (vehicle identification number) to see if a car has a history of being stolen or reported as stolen.
  • ISO Loss History Report: Order one free loss history report annually.
Checking and Investment History
  • ChexSystems: If you have been denied a checking or savings account from a bank or credit union, you can request a free copy of your ChexSystems consumer report to see what might be dinging you.
  • TeleCheck: You have the right to order a free TeleCheck report that details your consumer information for free every 12 months.
Employment History
  • The Work Number: Can request one report annually; this report will contain income and employment information as well as lenders, credit agencies, or other reporting agencies that have received your data.
  • Request for Social Security Statement: Get a free record of your Social Security earnings history year by year, and get an estimate of how much you might qualify in the way of benefits in the future.
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How to Harden Your Browser Against Malware and Privacy Concerns

Updated 23. May 2014 - 23:48 by Chiron

One of the first lines of defense we have against the plague of security and privacy problems that stalk the internet resides within our browsers. This article is meant to help you to harden your browser against all types of problems. However, do note that I would strongly suggest that even if your main concern is only about privacy you should still read through the security sections as well. Preventing your computer from communicating with potentially dangerous sites, and helping to avoid malware, plays a very important role in increasing your online privacy. Thus, protecting your privacy really does require that you also increase your security.

Also, note that for true protection you should also read my article about How to Stay Safe While Online. To achieve true privacy you should also read my article about How to Protect Your Online Privacy. The article you are currently reading is meant to be used in conjunction with both of these other articles. It is not really meant to be viewed in isolation, although it is certainly useful in that respect as well.

Notice that this article is not really as long as it seems. By this I mean that you really only need to navigate to the section applicable to the browser you are using. You really don't even need to worry about the other sections. Also, note that all instructions are provided assuming that no other changes to the configuration have been made. When configuring these browsers I installed them with default configurations and modified them from there. Also, unless otherwise noted, any instructions provided are applicable to all browsers within the below categories. Whenever specific browsers required different changes I noted that in my instructions.
Changelog:
5/23/2014-Removed Windows Name Eraser, as it was dead, and added link to Best Free Antivirus Software article.

Index

1. General Changes To Browser
2. Use A Privacy Focused Search Engine
3. Modify Your Current Browser To Achieve Improved Security And Privacy
    A) Instructions For Chromium Browsers
    B) Instructions For Firefox (And Firefox Variants)
    C) Instructions For Opera
    D) Instructions For Internet Explorer
4. Alternatively Use JonDoFox To Greatly Improve Your Privacy
5. Periodically Clear Browsing Data

1. General Changes To Browser


If you are running Adobe Flash, as most people are, then there are a few changes to the settings you should make. Regardless of which browser you use you should modify your flash player settings to make sure that third-party flash cookies are disabled. If you are running Windows Vista or Windows 7 do this by going to the control panel on your computer. Then go to the subsection for "System and Security". If you are running Windows XP you should go to the control panel and make sure that it is set to "Classic View". At this point you should see the icon for "Flash Player". Open it. Under the Storage tab make sure the option to "Block all sites from storing information on this computer" is selected. Also, under the Advanced tab make sure that the option to "Allow Adobe to install updates" is selected.

In addition, it's important to know that Java is constantly being exploited in order to install malware on users computers. Also, the java plugin is not even needed for most sites to work properly. Thus, if the java plugin is in fact installed in your browser, my advice would be to remove it unless you find it necessary. In addition, assuming you uninstalled Java entirely from your computer, which I would recommend unless you are actively using it, you should also use the built-in Windows search to find the file "npDeployJava1.dll" on your C-drive and, if it exists, delete it. For some reason this file is not removed with the Java uninstaller. In addition, if there are any plugins you don't use I would recommend that you remove them as well. These may pose a threat to your security.

2. Use A Privacy Focused Search Engine


Google’s search engine records your searches and aggressively tracks you. So do many of the other top search engines. For this reason I would suggest that you use an alternative search engine. One of the best anonymous search engines I've found is called StartPage. This search engine allows you to search using Google's search engine, but it blocks Google's ability to track you. Its not quite as powerful as using Google alone, but it's definitely a very good search engine. More information can be found on this page, and an explanation of how to make it the default search engine of your browser can be found on this page. The same company that makes StartPage also makes a search engine called Ixquick. This gathers its results from many different sources and thus may be even more useful than StartPage. More information about it can be found on this page, and an explanation of how to make it the default search engine of your browser can be found on this page. Both search engines have been certified by an independent third-party to not record your IP address or use tracking cookies.

Another very good option is called DuckDuckGo. This search engine will also not record any information about your searches. DuckDuckGo gathers its search results from a compilation of many sources. It also displays possible answers to the question you asked right at the top of the results page. It can be a very useful search engine. More information about DuckDuckGo can be found on this page, and a link to add it to your browser is provided on the main search page.

3. Modify Your Current Browser To Achieve Improved Security And Privacy


A) Instructions For Chromium Browsers



All Chromium browsers use the Google Safe Browsing blacklist to protect users from known dangerous sites. The browsers I have reviewed are Google Chrome, Comodo Dragon, and SRWare Iron. All have built-in secure sandboxing, which make them especially difficult for outsiders to exploit, and are quickly patched against any known vulnerabilities. However, I have certain problems with Google Chrome.  Although it does have minor privacy concerns, which are discussed on this page and on this one, the major problem I have with it is that it is made by Google. Google is well known for having problems respecting the privacy of others. A good listing of relevant incidents can be found on this page. Because of this I find it very difficult to trust Google Chrome and thus will not recommend that anyone use their products.

Luckily, Comodo Dragon and SRWare Iron do not have these privacy concerns. All of the code has been screened by the developers of these products to make sure that these privacy concerns have been removed. Also, Comodo Dragon comes with the option to enable Comodo Secure DNS, which will automatically stop you from connecting with most malicious sites. I would recommend enabling that, unless you are currently using another secure DNS server and do not want to switch. This will increase the security even higher than what you get by just using the Google Safe Browsing blacklist.

For the below Extensions, I would recommend that you read through the descriptions of all of them and install all which you believe would be helpful. Unless the instructions specifically mention a problem it should be safe for you to install all of them.

How to Increase Security

If you are using Google Chrome you will want to go to the settings and, at the bottom of the page, select the option to "Show advanced settings". Then select the option to "Check for server certificate revocation". For SRWare Iron you should navigate to the same area and do the same. Then also select the option to "Enable phishing and malware protection". No changes are required for Comodo Dragon.

Use These Extensions
Recommended For Both Beginner and Advanced Users
  • Web of Trust (WOT): With this installed if you happen upon a potentially dangerous site WOT covers the screen with a warning and waits for you to decide whether to stay or leave. If you combine this with your own good sense then you will be protected from many online dangers. Also, if you choose, you can ignore the WOT warning and go to the site anyway. Please note that for sites which are largely concerned with political or religious content the ratings may be less accurate. This is because community driven services such as WOT can become tainted by individual's own biases. However, in terms of malicious sites, phishing sites, scam sites, and similar content, I find this service to be very reliable and I would not go online without it.
  • BitDefender TrafficLight: With this installed if you happen upon a dangerous site, which is blacklisted by BitDefender, it will block the page from loading. These include malicious pages, phishing sites, and fraudulent sites.
  • Adblock Plus for Google Chrome (Beta): After installing this it will load a page. Near the bottom you can select which additional lists you would want to use. Personally, I select all, but the choice is yours.
Recommended Only For More Advanced Users
  • ScriptSafe: This add-on will block nearly all scripts, and other possibly dangerous content, from executing. This means that even if you stumble onto a dangerous site you cannot be attacked unless you manually add the scripts on that site to your whitelist. Thus you are protected from harmful scripts and many privacy threats. However, many sites use these scripts, and plugins, for legitimate purposes. Thus these sites will not work correctly unless you manually add the scripts on that site to your whitelist. This extension makes this relatively easy to do. Also, under the options you should select ‘Antisocial Mode’. Using ScriptSafe takes some getting used to, but if you are serious about staying safe online then this add-on is a must have.

How to Increase Privacy

All chromium browsers provide users with the option to start the browser in incognito mode. What this means is that if you are running in this mode most privacy traces will be cleared as soon as the browser is closed. This is not nearly enough to adequately protect your privacy, but it is a good start. In addition I would also advise that you change your default search engine to one which is discussed in section 2.

How to change configuration for improved privacy
Recommended For Both Beginner and Advanced Users
Go to Settings and click on the box at the bottom of the page that says "Show advanced settings".
Under the privacy section uncheck the box to "Use a prediction service to help complete searches...". Note that this change is not required for Comodo Dragon or SRWare Iron. Also make sure the option to "Predict network actions to improve page load performance" is unchecked for all browsers. For all browsers you should also select the option to "Send a 'Do not track' request with your browser traffic". Google Chrome users will also want to deselect the option to "Use a web service to help resolve navigation errors".
Now open the ‘Content Settings’ and select the box to ‘Block third-party cookies from being set’. This will prevent sites from loading cookies that are not from the site that you are currently on. Thus almost all tracking cookies will be blocked with very minimal negative side effects on your browsing. The only time you may have problems, and need to temporarily disable this, is sometimes when a legitimate site redirects you to another page. That said, in most cases it will work fine.

Recommended Only For More Advanced Users
Under the Privacy section, in the main settings menu, check the box that says 'Do not allow websites to know where you came from (suppress HTTP Referrer header)'. Note that this option is not available in Google Chrome and is not required for SRWare Iron. However, do note that this can cause problems with some websites and may need to be disabled in order for some sites to function properly.
More advanced users may wish to just block cookies globally. Then, when it becomes necessary, they can manually add sites to the whitelist. However, this can be somewhat annoying since many sites will not work properly without cookies enabled. You can configure your browser to do this by going to the privacy content settings and selecting the option to not allow sites to set any data. Then you can allow cookies for individual sites through an icon near the URL bar. If blocking cookies globally is too annoying for your tastes then you can instead use the Vanilla extension, which is discussed below. This will allow you to easily decide which cookies to keep, and which to delete. Although it cannot prevent cookies from being placed on your computer, it does allow you to decide how long unwanted cookies should be kept.
Also, advanced users may want to check the option to delete cookies and other site and plug-in data when the browser is closed. What this will do is that each time you close your browser it will clear all cookies, DOM Storage, and most other data. This means that nearly all information from your previous browsing session will be lost each time. Make sure when you've completed making whatever changes you would like to make to your configuration you select OK to save them.

Use These Extensions
Recommended For Both Beginner and Advanced Users
  • HTTPS Everywhere: This forces many sites, which have the option to encrypt your connection, to actually encrypt it. Therefore your connection with these sites will be much more secure. Although the version for Chromium browsers is technically still in beta I have noticed no problems with it.
  • LastPass: This is a secure password manager with automatic password and form filling. It not only helps protect your passwords, and sensitive data, but also allows you to confidently create strong passwords and change them often. This is very important at times like this where passwords are constantly being stolen from numerous sites.
  • Do Not Track Me: This will help to stop third-parties, ad agencies, and search engines from tracking the webpages you visit. More information is given in this review. Note that this may cause issues on Facebook and need to be disabled for all aspects of that site to work correctly. Other than that most sites should work fine with no changes to the configuration.
Recommended Only For More Advanced Users
  • Vanilla: This is a very good cookie manager for Chromium browsers. However, if you decided to block all cookies globally, as mentioned above, then this extension is not needed. One major downside to this extension is that it can’t block cookies automatically. However, in the options you can select to ‘Auto delete unwanted cookies after 5 minutes”. You can also configure it to clear unwanted cookies on startup. If you decide to use it I would strongly suggest enabling both features. You also have the option to add sites to the whitelist so that those cookies will never be deleted.

B) Instructions For Firefox (And Firefox Variants)



Firefox, Comodo IceDragon, Pale Moon, and Waterfox (which is only for 64 bit systems) all use the Google Safe Browsing blacklist to protect users from known dangerous sites. All of these browsers are also being constantly updated to protect you from new vulnerabilities.

If you are installing Comodo Ice Dragon I would suggest that you enable the Secure DNS servers, unless you are currently using another secure DNS server and do not want to switch. Comodo DNS servers will block certain dangerous sites which even Google Safe Browsing does not.

Also, I would like to say that any of these browsers would be a good choice in terms of both security and privacy. I suppose that Comodo IceDragon may provide slightly higher security, since it has Comodo DNS Servers to also block known dangerous sites, but any of the browsers are really very good.

For the below Add-ons, I would recommend that you read through the descriptions of all of them and install all which you believe would be helpful. Unless the instructions specifically mention a problem it should be safe for you to install all of them.

How To Increase Security

Use These Add-ons
Recommended For Both Beginner and Advanced Users
  • Web of Trust (WOT): With this installed if you happen upon a potentially dangerous site WOT covers the screen with a warning and waits for you to decide whether to stay or leave. If you combine this with your own good sense then you will be protected from many online dangers. Also, if you choose, you can ignore the WOT warning and go to the site anyway. Please note that for sites which are largely concerned with political or religious content the ratings may be less accurate. This is because community driven services such as WOT can become tainted by individual's own biases. However, in terms of malicious sites, phishing sites, scam sites, and similar content, I find this service to be very reliable and I would not go online without it.
  • BitDefender TrafficLight: With this installed if you happen upon a dangerous site, which is blacklisted by BitDefender, it will block the page from loading. These include malicious pages, phishing sites, and fraudulent sites.
  • Adblock Plus: This allows you to subscribe to many different filter lists, which help block unwanted or malicious content. These can be found on this page. You can subscribe to any of the lists on that page, but be aware that subscribing to too many will slow down your browsing experience. I'd advise subscribing to the EasyPrivacy+EasyList combination and Malware Domains. Note that after doing this you should go into your subscriptions and delete the Easylist one, as it will be covered by the combination list and is redundant.  This can be found by going to the settings for ABP in the extensions window.
Recommended Only For More Advanced Users

  • NoScript: This add-on will block nearly all scripts, and other possibly dangerous content, from executing. This means that even if you stumble upon a dangerous site you cannot be attacked unless you manually add the scripts on that site to your whitelist. Thus you are protected from harmful scripts and many privacy threats. However, many sites use these scripts, and plugins, for legitimate purposes. Thus these sites will not work correctly unless you manually add the scripts on that site to your whitelist. Using NoScript takes some getting used to, but if you are serious about staying safe online this add-on is a must have.

How To Increase Your Privacy

All of these browsers provide users with the option to start the browser in Private Browsing mode. What this means is that if you are running in this mode most privacy traces will be cleared as soon as the browser is closed. This is not nearly enough to adequately protect your privacy, but it is a good start. I would also advise that you change your default search engine to one which is discussed in section 2.

How to change configuration for improved privacy
Recommended For Both Beginner and Advanced Users
Go to the dropdown menu and click on options. Then go to the Privacy tab. Make sure that the option that reads "Tell websites I do not want to be tracked" is selected. Now, under "History" select "Use custom settings for history" from the dropdown menu. Make sure that the option to "Accept third-party cookies" is unchecked. This will prevent sites from loading cookies that are not from the site that you are currently on. Thus almost all tracking cookies will be blocked. The only time you may have problems and need to temporarily disable this is sometimes when a legitimate site redirects you to another page. That said, in most cases it will work fine.
Recommended Only For More Advanced Users
More advanced users may wish to prevent cookies from being set at all. To do this please use the Cookie Controller add-on, which is explained below. However, if blocking cookies globally, and whitelisting them manually, seems like too much of a hassle you can instead select the option to only keep the cookies until the browser is closed, which is an option from the dropdown menu under the history section of the privacy tab.
Some users may also want to select the option to Clear history when the browser closes. To do this you can click on "Settings" and select the type of data you would like to have removed. I would advise removing the cookies, cache, and "Offline Website Data" as this will be able to remove most types of tracking data. That said, nearly all information will be lost each time you close your browser, but if you're willing to make the sacrifice it will certainly help improve your privacy. Once you're done making your changes to the settings you can click OK to save them.

Use These Add-ons
Recommended For Both Beginner and Advanced Users
  • HTTPS Everywhere: This forces many sites, which have the option to encrypt your connection, to actually encrypt it. Therefore your connection with these sites will be much more secure.
  • LastPass: This is a secure password manager with automatic password and form filling. It not only helps protect your passwords, and sensitive data, but also allows you to confidently create strong passwords and change them often. This is very important at times like this where passwords are constantly being stolen from numerous sites.
  • Do Not Track Me: This will help to stop third-parties, ad agencies, and search engines from tracking the webpages you visit. More information is given in this review. Note that this may cause issues on Facebook and need to be disabled for all aspects of that site to work correctly. Other than that most sites should work fine with no changes to the configuration.
  • Self-Destructing Cookies: This deletes the cookies related to a site as soon as you close it's tab. Thus, it should increase privacy without reducing usability.
  • BetterPrivacy: This will automatically prompt you to delete all local shared objects (LSO's) from your computer each time Firefox closes. For more information on why these are such a privacy risk please read this article.
Recommended Only For More Advanced Users
  • RequestPolicy: This will block cross-site requests by default. Thus you will be protected from Cross-site request forgery, which otherwise could send information about your browsing habits to unknown parties. When installing this I would advise that you leave the settings at default. Also, I would advise that you do not whitelist any sites unless you are experiencing difficulties.
  • Cookie Monster: This add-on extends your privacy protection by blocking all cookies by default. It allows you to quickly and easily allow or block cookies globally and then manually add exceptions for individual sites. Like NoScript this takes some getting used to since many sites will not work correctly without cookies enabled. However, if protecting your privacy is important then this is a must have. Note that if you use this you shouldn't need to also use Self-Destructing Cookies.
  • Secret Agent: This add-on will impede most of the fingerprinting-based tracking that is used to track users. After installed it will continually randomize your browser profile. Thus it is not possible to fingerprint your actual browser. However, sometimes this will cause sites to not work correctly. In those cases you may need to disable it for those sites.

​C) Instructions For Opera



Opera can be downloaded from this page. In general I do like this browser. It is very configurable and also has a lot of very useful extensions which can be added.

For the below Extensions, I would recommend that you read through the descriptions of all of them and install all which you believe would be helpful. Unless the instructions specifically mention a problem it should be safe for you to install all of them.

How To Increase Security

How to change configuration of Opera for improved security
Recommended Only For More Advanced Users
Go to the Content section. If you are an advanced user you may want to deselect the option to "Enable JavaScript". This will protect you from any JavaScript based malware or privacy threats, but it will also mean that many websites will not work until you manually allow them.
Under the content section advanced users can check the box to "Enable plug-ins only on demand". This will mean that flash and java can only run on a page if you allow it, thus providing you with protection from many security and privacy threats.
Exceptions for both of these can easily be made for sites by right-clicking on any site and selecting "Edit Site Preferences". Then go to the content tab and manually uncheck the relevant box, and select OK, to add the site to your exceptions.

Use These Extensions
Recommended For Both Beginner and Advanced Users
  • Web of Trust (WOT): With this installed if you happen upon a potentially dangerous site WOT covers the screen with a warning and waits for you to decide whether to stay or leave. If you combine this with your own good sense then you will be protected from many online dangers. Also, if you choose, you can ignore the WOT warning and go to the site anyway. Please note that for sites which are largely concerned with political or religious content the ratings may be less accurate. This is because community driven services such as WOT can become tainted by individual's own biases. However, in terms of malicious sites, phishing sites, scam sites, and similar content, I find this service to be very reliable and I would not go online without it.
  • Adblock Plus: This allows you to subscribe to many different filter lists, which help block unwanted or malicious content. These can be found on this page. You can subscribe to any of the lists on that page, but be aware that subscribing to too many will slow down your browsing experience. I'd advise subscribing to the EasyPrivacy+EasyList combination and Malware Domains. Note that after doing this you should go into your subscriptions and delete the Easylist one, as it will be covered by the combination list and is redundant.  This can be found by going to the settings for ABP in the extensions window.

How to Increase Privacy

Like most browsers Opera provides users with the option to start the browser in Private browsing mode. What this means is that if you are running in this mode most privacy traces will be cleared as soon as the browser is closed. This is not nearly enough to adequately protect your privacy, but it is a good start. I would also advise that you change your default search engine to one which is discussed in section 2.

How to change configuration of Opera for improved privacy
Recommended For Both Beginner and Advanced Users
Under the settings part of the drop-down menu go to Preferences. Then go to the advanced tab. Under the Cookies section most users will want to select the option to "Accept cookies only from the site I visit". This will prevent sites from loading cookies that are not from the site that you are currently on. Thus almost all tracking cookies will be blocked. The only time you may have problems, and need to temporarily disable this, is sometimes when a legitimate site redirects you to another page. That said, in most cases it will work fine. Also, under the security section select the option to "Ask websites not to track me".
Recommended Only For More Advanced Users
Under the Cookies section more advanced users can select the option to "Never Accept Cookies". This will block any cookies from being set, which will stop some websites from working. For these cases you will need to manually add cookies to the whitelist. It greatly affects your browsing experience as this is not easy to do with Opera. An alternative to this is to check the box labeled "Delete new cookies when exiting Opera". This will mean that sites do not continue to remember your information, but it will still allow the sites to operate correctly. Also, as before right-clicking on the site, and going to "Edit Site Preferences" allows you to remember cookies from that particular site. Also, under the network tab, users can deselect the option to "Send referrer information". It may also be helpful to disable "Enable geolocation". However, do note that this can cause problems with some websites and may need to be re-enabled.
Also, advanced users may want to go to the History section and turn off the cache for the disk, although this will mean that each time you visit a page it will have to reload from scratch. Thus this will slow down your browsing experience, but it will make it much more difficult for sites to track you. When you are done making your changes select OK to save them.

Use These Extensions
Recommended For Both Beginner and Advanced Users

  • LastPass: This is a secure password manager with automatic password and form filling. It not only helps protect your passwords, and sensitive data, but also allows you to confidently create strong passwords and change them often. This is very important at times like this where passwords are constantly being stolen from numerous sites.
  • Disconnect: This will help to stop third-parties, ad agencies, and search engines from tracking the webpages you visit.

​D) Instructions For Internet Explorer



Note that with Internet Explorer you need to enable add-ons after installing them. This will appear as a popup at the bottom of the screen.

For the below extensions, I would recommend that you read through the descriptions of all of them and install all which you believe would be helpful. Unless the instructions specifically mention a problem it should be safe for you to install all of them.

How to Increase Security

Recommended For Both Beginner and Advanced Users
Open the "Internet Options" and go to the Advanced tab. Then scroll down to the security section and select the option to "Enable SmartScreen Filter". This will check all sites, and downloads, against lists of known dangerous sites and files. Although this has certain privacy concerns I believe that the additional security it provides outweighs the privacy risks. That said, the choice is yours as to whether you want to enable it or not, but I would strongly recommend it.

  • Adblock Plus: This will block most ads, and tracking bugs.

Recommended Only For More Advanced Users
To disable flash globally go to tools, then safety, and click on "ActiveX filtering". After doing this flash, and all other ActiveX type content, will be blocked until you click the icon to enable it. This icon can be found on the address bar. You can then choose whether to turn ActiveX off or leave it on. This is a relatively good way to protect yourself from many threats, although I would prefer individual site whitelisting.

Use these add-ons
Recommended For Both Beginner and Advanced Users
  • Web of Trust (WOT): With this installed if you happen upon a potentially dangerous site WOT covers the screen with a warning and waits for you to decide whether to stay or leave. If you combine this with your own good sense then you will be protected from many online dangers. Also, if you choose, you can ignore the WOT warning and go to the site anyway. Please note that for sites which are largely concerned with political or religious content the ratings may be less accurate. This is because community driven services such as WOT can become tainted by individual's own biases. However, in terms of malicious sites, phishing sites, scam sites, and similar content, I find this service to be very reliable and I would not go online without it.

How To Increase Privacy

Internet Explorer provides users with the option to start the browser in InPrivate Browsing mode. What this means is that if you are running in this mode most privacy traces will be cleared as soon as the browser is closed. This is not nearly enough to adequately protect your privacy, but it is a good start. I would also advise that you change your default search engine to one which is discussed in section 2.

How to change configuration of Internet Explorer for improved privacy
Recommended For Both Beginner and Advanced Users
Open the "Internet Options". Under the Privacy tab most users can select the option to "Never allow websites to request your physical location". If needed you can manually add exclusions for particular sites, but this is almost never necessary. Also, most users will want to change the privacy settings to "Medium High".
Recommended Only For More Advanced Users
Open the "Internet Options". Under the General tab advanced users may want to select the option to "Delete browsing history on exit". This means that nearly all information will be lost each time you close your browser, but if you're willing to make the sacrifice it will help improve your privacy.
Under the privacy tab advanced users can click on the option for Advanced. Then select the option to "Override automatic cookie handling". Then uncheck the option to "Always allow session cookies". I would then advise that you select the option to Prompt for "First-part Cookies" and Block for "Third-party Cookies". Then select OK. When going to a site you will be prompted whether you want to accept the cookies or not. When making a decision I would suggest you select the option to "Apply my decision to all cookies from this website". However, this can be very annoying and you essentially have to do this for every site. Another alternative is to select Block for "First-party cookies" as well. However, this can be somewhat annoying since many sites will not work properly without cookies enabled. You then need to go back into the settings to manually add a site to the whitelist. Managing the cookies in such a way does greatly increase your level of privacy, but that comes at a great price in terms of usability.
Advanced users may want to go to the Advanced tab and disable the option to "Enable DOM Storage". This is located under the Security section. For an explanation of what that is please see this site.

Use these add-ons
Recommended For Both Beginner and Advanced Users
  • LastPass: This is a secure password manager with automatic password and form filling. It not only helps protect your passwords, and sensitive data, but also allows you to confidently create strong passwords and change them often. This is very important at times like this where passwords are constantly being stolen from numerous sites.
  • Do Not Track Me: This will help to stop third-parties, ad agencies, and search engines from tracking the webpages you visit. More information is given in this review. Note that this may cause issues on Facebook and need to be disabled for all aspects of that site to work correctly. Other than that most sites should work fine with no changes to the configuration.

4. Alternatively Use JonDoFox To Greatly Improve Your Privacy



Note that for this browser I am not even considering security or usability concerns. This browser is truly oriented mainly towards privacy. For a more balanced approach please see my advice above. In addition to using this browser I would also advise that you change your default search engine to one which is discussed in section 2.

To surf the web with even greater anonymity than can be achieved with any of the above browsers, download JonDoFox from this page and install it. During installation it will prompt you to have it download Firefox. Assuming you don't already have Firefox installed let it install it for you. However, if you already have Firefox installed it will ask you whether you want to merge it with your Firefox configuration. You must either do that or install it as a portable browser. The choice is yours.

During the installation it will ask you if you want to download JonDo, which is a proxy program. I would recommend that you do not and instead use a virtual private network (VPN). This will provide you with an encrypted connection, much faster browsing speed, and an even higher level of privacy. To choose the best VPN for your needs please read this section of my article about How to Protect Your Privacy While Online. Make sure that if you do choose to use a VPN, you start it up each time before using JonDoFox to browse the internet. Also, if you do decide to use a VPN you should start up JonDoFox, left-click on the JonDoFox icon, and select the option for "No Proxy". When prompted you should also select the option to not show warnings about the proxy.

At this point JonDoFox is ready for you to begin browsing the internet with a very high level of privacy. No further changes are required for the configuration and no additional add-ons are required.

5. Periodically Clear Browsing Data


Even if the configuration changes suggested above some browsing data will still get saved to your computer. In addition you should be aware that the advice I give above will not prevent flash cookies from being stored on your computer from the site you are visiting. You have only disabled this for third-parties. Thus, to clear these flash cookies, and most other browsing data which may be on your computer, you may want to periodically clean your computer with a program called CCleaner. To download it you should download the Portable version from this page to avoid inadvertantly installing unwanted software.

After installing it there is one change you must make in order for it to clear flash cookies, as well as normal cookies and other browsing data. Please click on the Cleaner icon and go to the Applications tab. Then, under the Multimedia section, make sure that "Adobe Flash Player" is selected. Once you have made sure that CCleaner is configured properly you just make sure that all other programs are closed and then click on the button to "Run CCleaner". Running this periodically will help to increase your online privacy.



 

I realize that the configuration options, and available add-ons/extensions, for these browsers change over time. Thus I need your help in staying up to date with the best ways to protect all of these browsers from both safety and privacy concerns. Please help me by letting me know when you believe the advice I am providing is no longer entirely accurate, or that new approaches are now available.
In addition, please help by rating this article. If you believe this article deserves anything less than 5 stars, please leave a comment below explaining how you think it can be improved or where you find fault. This article is written by me but fueled by the community. Thus your opinions and advice are not only much appreciated, but actually necessary in order for this article to grow and improve.

If you found this article useful then perhaps you'd like to check out some of my others.

This software category is maintained by volunteer editor Chiron. Registered members can contact the editor with any comments or suggestions they might have by clicking here.

Source: http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-harden-your-browser-against-malware-and-privacy-concerns.htm
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