Mouse Gestures - Execute Common Commands

Mouse Gestures

(http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox//39/)

This software is like a piece of art. It allows the user to execute common commands (like page forward / backward, close tab, new tab,) by mouse gestures drawn over the Web pages. Yes, all this without using the tool bar or the keyboard a single time.

The user can also use click-only “rocker” gestures, which are even faster than drawn gestures. This is something similar to setting a set sequence of mouse clicks to which browser responds. For example, the user can set three repeated mouse clicks as a command to refresh the page.

Stumble Upon - Surf Through The Best-Reviewed Sites

Stumble Upon

(www.stumbleupon.com)

Stumble Upon allows the user to surf through the best-reviewed sites on the Web. IT is a collaborating surfing tool for browsing, reviewing, and sharing information about Web sites with like minded people. This brings up some really interesting Web site surprises.

Stumble Upon works like this: the first time it is launched, the user specifies his areas of interest thereby setting the search criteria of the software. Every time the user makes a search, Stumble Upon returns relevant results according to the user’s focus area. The user has the option of ranking the Web content that he come across through the tool. As this happens, Stumble Upon keeps on updating it’s search parameters. This ensures that the user always gets what interests him.

McAfee Site Adviser Plug-in for Firefox

McAfee Site Adviser Plug-in for Firefox

(www.siteadviser.com/download/ff_preinstall.html)

The greatest hazard to information privacy is the ignorance of the user, especially in case of spyware. Inadvertently, any person may run across the privacy-compromising software. To help keep such online nuisances at bay, McAfee has come out with this tool. This tests the safety of different Web sites, than ranks them as safe, questionable, or potentially dangerous.

Once the tool has been installed, the user will have access to the McAfee safety ratings via a small icon at the bottom of the browser. The Button will turn red if the user is visiting at potentially hazardous site. It also displays its ratings next to Google and Yahoo! Search results, so that people can avoid Unsafe Web destination.

The Site Adviser Web site explains it all, and it is very easy to install to plug-in.

To configure the plug-in to allow particular Web site, click on the Edit Option button. An “Allowed Sites” window will appear. You then type the address of the site (such as www.siteadviser.com) into the address box. Then, click on the allow button, followed by Close. Thereafter, you will need to close all browser windows, and start over.

Mozilla Firefox - Best Alternative To Other Browsers

Mozilla Firefox

(www.mozilla.com/firefox)

Firefox was developed by the Mozilla Foundation and many developers around the world. It is in many ways the true pioneer of the open source browser movement. It has been responsible for bringing about some of the most radical design and feature changes. As a matter of fact, Firefox has been hailed as the best alternative to other browsers such as Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari.

Firefox’s integrated pop-up blocker, live bookmarks, and support for open standards makes life easy. The tabbed interface makes surfing multiple sites much less cumbersome than having to open multiple windows. The user can customize the browser with down loadable extensions, a variety of themes and skins, and many preferences (for the advanced user).

Firefox user SSL/TLS to protect communications with Web servers using strong cryptography. It also supports smart cards for secure login to Web servers. Firefox is considered by many to be safer than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

How To Use It

Firefox comes with a number of excellent features and extensions.

1. The most useful feature is probably tabbed browsing. It enables the user to open multiple Web pages at the same time in a single browser window. There is also the group bookmarked tabs to be re-opened at one time.

To open a new tab, right-click on a link and select “Open Link in New Tab”. Or, type in [Ctrl]+[T]. To customize tabs, on the Menu Toolbar, select Edit>Preferences>Navigator>Tabbed Browsing, and then choose your preferred settings.

2. The sidebar is a re-sizeable vertical panel at the left of the browser window. It may contain numerous tabs that you click on to reveal different content in the sidebar panel. It can be customized to add frequently-used items.

Standard sidebars in Mozilla include bookmarks, search, and history. Sidebars provide a very handy way to access these functions. And, with tabbed browsing, the user can middle-click a sidebar link and open it in a new tab rather the overwriting the existing browser window.

3. Themes give Firefox a look suited to the user’s personal preferences. The theme selection determines the style of the browser menus, buttons, and other features. The user can obtain new and classic themes from the following sites:

https://addons.mozilla.org/mozilla/themes/

http://themes.mozdev.org/

http://themes.freshmeat.net/

All that is required is to download the theme, and then install it as per the instruction.

4. The Form Manager is a very useful feature which allows the user to save information typed into a Web page form, so that it can be used again later without having to re-type the same information. To access the Form Manager select Tools on the Menu Bar.
5. Custom keywords enable the user to create personal keywords that that can be typed into the location bar for quick access to favorite sites.
   

Select Bookmarks>Manage Bookmarks. Here, on the Bookmark Manager. Select the required bookmark by right-clicking on it, and then select Properties in the dropdown menu to access the properties Menu.

Here, type a keyword of choice into the keyword box in the properties Menu.

Firefox provides the user with consummate ease of handling and functionality. It is highly customizable, and therefore, fast becoming the browser of choice for many.Extensions give Firefox much of its armory. Some of the most popular and powerful extensions are:

(a) IE Tab: This is a great tool for Web developers as it allows the user to see the page displayed in Internet Explorer and then switch back to Firefox. All this at one click. User will find this useful because some sites are still IE-only, and you won’t need to open IE separately to view those pages.

(b) Ad block is a content filtering plug-in. It is more robust and precise than the inbuilt image blocker in Firefox. Ad block allows the user to specify filters, which remove unwanted content based on the source-address. Once the filters are declared, every time a Web page loads, Ad block intercepts and disables all the elements matching the filters.

(c) Flash block is an extension for filtering Macromedia Flash content on a page. It blocks all Flash content from loading, and leaves placeholders on the Web page that allow the user to click and access the Flash content.

(d) Session Saver keeps track of the user’s browser windows and tabs. It can then restore them exactly as they were during the browser sessions. It saves all details: window positions, tab histories etc. It can also save individual session for feature recall.

Miranda Instance Messenger - Multi Protocol Instance Messaging Application

Miranda Instance Messenger

(www.miranda-im.org)

Miranda is a multi protocol instance messaging application for Windows which score through its simplicity. It supports plug ins to enhance its functionality. In face, plug ins are responsible for supporting the IM protocols and additional features. There some plug ins that come bundled by default while the user can download the other from the Miranda IM Web Site. This keeps Miranda lean and fast. There are currently over 500 plug ins for Miranda!

Miranda can be customized in its look and function according to the individual’s preferences. This is due to its flexible design. Buddy management is convenient because of the inbuilt features such as contact renaming as well as plug ins such as Quick Search, which simplify the organization of contacts. The buddies may even be on different networks.

It maintains a record of all instance messages, and can recover them at a later time. Beside, they can be deleted automatically or manually with either the DB Tool or the History Sweeper plug in. Miranda can be configured to display photos or contact details when the mouse cursor is placed over a contact in the contact list. Miranda is free of advertising and free of charge.

Miranda attracts people who like to tweak their software because of its flexible nature. An advanced user may wish to dig deeper into the Miranda IM database files with one of the available database plug ins.

Lyx - The Document Processor

Lyx (http://www.lyx.org/)

Lyx is an interesting concept that distances itself from the more generic ‘word processors’ by calling itself a ‘document processor’. The subtle difference of course is because Lyx is a WYSIWYM word processor-What You See Is What You Mean. While the standard set of word processor features various text classes for articles, slides, books, etc., and also for different scientific societies like IEEE. Multilingual support and a large number of templates which can also be added as plug-ins also exist. Lyx also features an inbuilt formula editor for all those scientific equations. Automatic formatting and a large number of other automated tasks complete the already impressive package.

Abiword - Word Processors

Abiword (http://www.abisource.com/)

Abiword is one of the more well known word processors available on the Net. It has an impressive feature list that contains most tools and function that you would require from a word processor.

Not only is the standard feature list impressive but some of the additional features like cross-plat-form support and multiple format support are undeniably useful. Documents here are saved in plain readable text format with XML markup making them readable by most text editors. The good part though is that you can load and save file in multiple formats using what are called ‘importers’ and ‘exporters’ which are basically plug-ins which give the program a lot of flexibility. Abiword currently supports MS-Word, RTF ( Rich Text Format) and also HTML along with a couple of Abiword’s own formats. Being an open Source project new plug-ins are bound to be under development so be sure to keep checking for additional plug-ins. System requirements are minimal and the loading time miniscule. Altogether, Abiword is a very useful piece of software and deserves the many awards that it has got over the years.

Password Maker - Secure By One Master Password Of The URL Of The Site Requiring Password

Password Maker

(http://passwordmaker.org)

The makers of this tool have come up with an interesting take on The Lord of the Rings. They say,“ One password to rule them all”.

This is a small, lightweight, free, extension for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, Flock, and Yahoo! Widgets (a widget is an interface element that a computer user interacts with, such as a window). It creates unique, secure passwords that are very easy for the user to retrieve, but for no-one else. Since nothing is sorted anywhere, anytime, there’s nothing to be hacked, lost or stolen.

How to Works

The user provides Password Maker two pieces of information: a master password, and the URL of the site requiring a password. Then using one way hash algorithms, Password maker calculates a message digest (a.k.a. digital fingerprint), which can be used as the user’s password for the Web site.

Password Maker claims that the resulting fingerprint (password) does not reveal anything about the input that was used to generate it. This means that if somebody has one of your password, even then it is infeasible for him to derive your master password.

Portability

The online version works in all browsers, and it requires no downloads or installations. Standalone versions for desktop, mobile phones, and PDAs are under development.

Installation and Start

For Netscape, Mozilla Suite and Mozilla Firefox users, the install is done automatically from the company’s site when the user clicks on Downloads in the menu (on the right) and then clicks on Browser Extension. Others need to download the files, and then install it.

For Mozilla An Netscape users, the toolbar icon is installed by default. For Firefox users, the toolbar icon must be manually added by using the View>Toolbar>Customize menu, and then dragging the golden ring icon on the toolbar.

Once you’ve opened the extension using one of these methods, you are presented with the Basic Options screen. From here on, the usage is really simple.

KeePassX - Secure Personal Data Management

KeePassX

(http://keepassx.sourceforge.net)

KeePassX is an application for people with extremely high demands on secure personal data management. It has a light interface, and is cross platform.

KeePassX saves many different information, for example, user names, passwords, URLs, attachments, and comments in one single database. The user can define titles and icons for each single entry, or sort the entries into groups, which are customizable as well. The integrated search function allows to search in a single group or the complete database.

KeePassX comes with a utility for secure password generation. The generator is very customizable, fast and easy to use. People who require or like to have their password change frequently will appreciate this feature.

The complete database is always encrypted either with AES or Two fish encrypted algorithm using a 256 bit key. Therefore, the saved information can be considered secure. KeePassX uses a database format that is compatible with KeePass Password Safe.

Features

1. Customizable management of data and password.

2. Search function to search either in specific groups or in complete database

3. Database security with password/key-file/both access only

4. Automatic generation of secure password and a quality indicator for chosen passwords

5. Upcoming features are network support with multi user capabilities and also browser integration.

Universal Password Manager - Store Usernames, Passwords, URLs And Generic Notes

Universal Password Manager

(http://sourceforge.net/projects/upm)

Universal Password Manager allows you to store usernames, passwords, URLs and generic notes in an encrypted database protected by one master password.

It’s main features are simplicity and cross platform support (Java/SWING).

Universal Password enforces uniform password policy across multiple authentication systems (such Native File Access). Universal password also manages multiple types of password authentication methods from disparate systems. This done by creating a common password that can be used by all protocols to authentication users.

KeePass Password Safe - First Password Management Utility That Uses Security Enhanced Password Edit Controls

KeePass Password Safe
(http://keepass.sourceforge.net/)

KeePass databases are encrypted using the much-respected AES and Two fish symmetric ciphers. Passwords are hashed using SHA256, and kept in an encrypted form in the KeePass process memory. The rationale is that even if Windows caches the KeePass process to Disk, the user’s passwords wouldn’t be revealed.

The tool is the first password management utility that uses security enhanced password edit controls. None of the available password spies work against the controls used in KeePass. The passwords entered in this controls aren’t even visible in the process memory of KeePass.

The working scheme of KeePass is really novel. One master password decrypts the complete database. Alternatively, you can use key-disks, as they provide better security than master passwords in most cases. For even more security one can combine the above two methods: the database the requires the key-disk and the password in order to be unlocked. Even if you lose your key-disk, the database would remain secure.

Portability

The application doesn’t need to be installed. KeePass provides an installer that automates the creating of link in the Start Menu. There is also a binary zip package which contains only the main executable. This executable runs without installing anything.

KeePass doesn’t store anything on your system. The program doesn’t create any new Registry keys, and it doesn’t create any installation files (.ini) in your Windows directory. Deleting the KeePass directory (in case you downloaded the binary zip package) or using the uninstaller (in case you downloaded the installer package) leaves no track of KeePass on your system. KeePass runs without downloading any additional libraries, on Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista.

Features

1. Import/Export
The password list can be exported to various formats like TXT, HTML , XML and CSV. It can import TXT files created by Bruce Schneier’s Password safe v2.

2. Password Management
The user can create, modify and delete the groups in which passwords are stored into. The groups can be arranged as a tree, the tree can have sub-groups, and so on.

3. Auto-Type, Global Hot Key, Drag-n-Drop
When KeePass is running in the background ( with an open database) and the user process the hotkey, it looks up the correct entry and executes its auto-type sequence.

4. Built-In Password Generator
KeePass features a built-in password generator that generates strong random password for you. The user can define the possible output characters of the generator.

5. Plugins
KeePass has a plugin architecture. However, the plugins may compromise the security of KeePass.