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March 31, 2012

Tweak Chrome Performance With Flags Options



Chrome has lots of experimental features that you can discover by typing ‘chrome:flags' (without quotes) into the address bar (also called the Omnibox). When you do this, you’ll see the message: ‘CarefuI, these experiments may bite’, and a warning. Google adds this warning to remind you that these features haven’t been officially released, and may sometimes contain small glitches, But we’ve tried out the following tips, and they all work fine. You wiII have to restart Chrome for the changes to start working.



Speed up page loading
After typing ‘chrome:flags’, find the ‘GPU compositing on all pages’ link. Enable this and restart Chrome. What you have just done is let your Central Processing Unit (CPU) offload the intensive tasks of loading multimedia files, such as videos that are embedded on web pages. Instead, your Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) will handle these files, which means pages will load much more quickly.

View sites that use HTML5
A little further down the list, you’ll find GPU Accelerated Canvas 2D. Enabling this means Chrome will be able to display pages that use the new HTML5 web standard, so you won’t have a problem viewing websites that use the latest web technology.

Get smoother scrolling
Smoother page scrolling, which you will have seen on smartphones and tablets, is another crucial part of HTML5. To make sure that the web pages you browse benefit from this, enable ‘Smooth Scrolling’, Like GPU Accelerated Canvas, this is another way to make sure you experience the latest advances in website technology when using Chrome.

Choose which pages block Flash
Scroll down to roughly half way until you see the option ‘Click to play. EnablLng this lets you choose which individual pages block Flash, rather than creating a blanket block across all sites. For example, if you’re on a page that contains any Flash video feeds, these will be blocked until you decide to click them to play the video.

Play retro games in Chrome
Next, find the ’chrome:flags’ feature named Native Client. Once you click Enable, Chrome will be able to run applications in the browser as if you had downloaded them to your Desktop. One of the benefits of this is that youll be able to play the fun retro games atNaCLBOX , which include Star Wars: TIE Fighter, Duke Nukem and Epic Pinball.

Source:  http://www.techstudy.net/2012/02/perform-tweaks-with-google-chromeflags.html

March 4, 2012

Protect Your Online Privacy: Lie

If you're not committing fraud, you're not required to give your correct name to Google or anyone else.



Do you know what the worst thing is about Google's new no-privacy policy and attempt to collect data about everything you do online in one place no matter where you do it or on what site?
You have no choice but to go along with it, if you want to find the information you're looking for. Intrusiveness is one thing, intrusiveness to which it's impossible to say 'No' is another. Especially when Twitter and the other services you use online are being just as intrusive.

If you use the Internet at all it's very hard to avoid Google, either searching it directly or using it indirectly as the embedded search engine on someone else's site. And that doesn’t even include Google Apps, which is the only reason some people ever log in to Google.

Even those so offended by Google's decision to consolidate all the tracking data it keeps in Picasa, Gmail, Search and all its other services into a single package and appalled by its decision to sell that information, much of which customers didn' t know Google was saving, have no choice but to use Google some of the time.


Of course, they don't have to log in, so Google would be limited in the degree to which it could invade their privacy.

It wouldn't have their names and addresses, phone numbers and long-term search history.
It would just have one cookie that could identify the user's browser and associate that individual with a list of Web pages, search queries and other activities in which he or she has engaged while being tracked by Google (which is always).




In its own outreach plan to the media today, the day its new privacy invasions are set to start, Google spokespeople tried to spin the truth by making it seem less intrusive to be tracked less completely by Google than might otherwise be the case.

As if simply following you around all day long, taking surreptitious pictures, drawing maps of your wanderings and selling all that information about you to people eager to use it to manipulate and persuade you isn't bad enough to qualify as a stalker.

It is, but it's the Lite version of Google's efforts to track you.
There are bits of software, special settings on your browser and at Google you can use to minimize the amount of data Google tracks on you. Some work well, some don't, some are too much of a pain to worry about.

They'll all conceal different portions of your personal data, or erase it, or anonymize it to avoid identifying you, personally, with all the searches on SuperHotMoms.com or TickleYouWithAFeather.org.
They all require some extra work, some additional software running with your browser, some time spent changing the configuration of your browser so it automatically deletes all your tracking cookies every time you shut it down.

What can you do if you don't want to waste time on freeware or changing the setup of your browser in ways you may not understand?
You can lie.




Lie to Google. Lie to Yahoo and Bing and Facebook and Twitter and any other sites that not only want to track you but won't even do their most basic mob – showing you content – without taking down information you would indignantly refuse if you were asked by the corn-dog vendor at the carnival, clerk at the car-wash or zombie behind the counter at a convenience store that accepts only cash.

Just lie.

If you have to enter a name, enter a name that is not your own.

Every time a site pops up a window asking for your birthday, pick one that's not even in the same decade as yours (make sure you're still claiming to be over 21 so the site doesn't turn you away).
When a site asks you to open an account, use a differerent login name and address than you'd need to buy something. Tell Google you live in Seattle; tell Bing you live in San Jose. Tell Twitter you live on a different planet.

It won't save you from having all the searches you run or sites you visit tracked. It won't assign a different IP address to your browsing data to make you harder to find,
It won't erase any of your past history; it won't add any history that's less embarrassing.
What it will do is create a fictional, named persona to whom some of your searches and browsing can be attributed.

It will break up the global picture of all your activities online into smaller chunks so no single vendor has the whole picture of everything you do.

They don't have the right to demand that, anyway. They ask because they know you'll usually go along with it, not because you're obligated to tell them.
The only time you're obligated to tell the truth is when you're buying something and the credit-card has to be yours, or signing up for a service that depends on using your correct identity – at the DMV or your bank, for example.

Don't make all the names random. Make up a couple of fake personas and use them consistently so you don't waste time and get frustrated while filling out online forms. Just paste the answers in and get on with your business.
It's not a crime; it's not an ethical violation. It's not even particularly rude, considering how intimate, complete and unwanted a profile Google is building of you.
Protect yourself a little without hurting anyone; be someone else for a while.
I

f it confuses anyone trying to keep track of you online, it serves them right. No one has the right to follow you all the time without your consent. No one has the right to know everything you do. No one has the right to insist you always tell the truth when they're asking intrusive, manipulative questions without answers to which they won't give you the free service they promised when you hit their site in the first place.
And, with enough fake information in their databases, maybe Google and the rest of the identity-data thieves will tone down their own demands for information you wouldn't normally give your best friend, let alone a disembodied representation of the advertising world.
It's impossible to hurt the feelings of a web site.

March 3, 2012

Your Privacy Kind of Sucks, Fix it Up This Weekend

From the folks at Lifehacker.com

Google released a new privacy policy this week, reminding us that the services and apps we use aren't free—we pay for them with our privacy. This weekend, take a look at your digital life and audit your privacy settings to keep your personal information as locked down as possible.

Why Your Privacy Matters




It's really easy to just brush these things off as unimportant, and to a certain extent, sure: I don't care what kind of ads I'm being served. If they're tailored to me, all the better—it doesn't feel any more invasive. That said, you never really know what companies are going to do with the data you give them. Legally, they have to get your permission before they use it, but we're so quick to give permission without thinking these days that the law doesn't offer us much solace. Make sure you actually read the privacy policies when you can, and turn off any invasive features in the settings of your favorite apps (more on that later). For good, widespread protection, it's probably a good idea to turn on the "Do Not Track" options in your browser. You can also install a few extensions to help you out, not to mention use something like Collusion for Firefox to see who exactly is doing all this tracking as you browse around your favorite sites.

 

 

Tweak Your Favorite Web Services

 

Your Privacy Kind of Sucks, Fix it Up This Weekend


We already talked this week about hiding your Google search history (and your YouTube search history), but they're far from the only web services looking to use your personal info. You should also check out our always up-to-date guide to managing your Facebook privacy, not to mention how to stop Facebook from tracking your every move elsewhere on the web. If you're a Google+ user, we've shown you how to get your privacy under control there, too.

The other problem you have with web services is that smaller web services like to link themselves to your Facebook, Twitter, Google, Dropbox, and other accounts—which gives them access to all your data on those services as well. MyPermissions is a great place to start cleaning those up. It doesn't require your login information or anything; it essentially links you to a page on Facebook, Twitter, Google, Dropbox, Flickr, and other services where you can manage what apps have permission to access your data on that service. If there are apps you don't use anymore, it's probably a good time to revoke their access to your data.

 

 

Lock Down Your Phone's Anti-Privacy Features

 





Your phone is a better PC than your actual PC is, in part because it knows all about you—which, unfortunately, can also be a privacy concern. Luckily, while you can't always stop your phone carrier from tracking everything, you can at least stop the world from knowing your every move by turning off location tracking. Furthermore, if you're on an Android phone, you'll probably want to take a look at the permissions required by some of your favorite apps. If you're uncomfortable with the permissions they require, uninstall them. If you want an overview of the permissions you've given out, check out free app aSpotCat—it'll give you a detailed look at which apps are looking at what.

 

 

Keep Your Home Computer Safe from Prying Eyes




All that is well and good, but big companies aren't the only ones out to get your personal information. Perhaps you have a particularly snoopy roommate (I'd lock your door) or an insecure significant other (I'd reassess that relationship) that wants to go looking at your computer without your knowledge. First, find out if someone's secretly been using your computer, and do some damage control from there. After that, make sure that even if they were to use your computer, they wouldn't be able to find what they're looking for. We've shared a bunch of ways to protect your privacy when you share your computer—willingly or unwillingly—and private browsing mode is always a good way to protect some of your web habits (helpfully automated with these extensions, of course). And, lastly, if you use an iPhone, here's how to turn off message previews and save yourself some embarrassment from people standing behind you.


These are just a few things you can do this weekend to audit your privacy settings, though while you're at it, you might also want to check on your security too, as the two can often go hand in hand. Got any other good privacy tips we didn't share? Let us know about them in the comments.
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Source: http://lifehacker.com/5890117/your-privacy-kind-of-sucks-fix-it-up-this-weekend