There's a lot to like about Google Chrome's built-in security features. The browser offers unique sandboxing functions and privilege restrictions, and even updates itself in the background to help better protect you from hackers and malware. But like all browsers, Chrome is imperfect, and there are steps you can take to protect it from attack. Here's how to get the most from Chrome's built-in security features, and work around its security shortcomings.
Privacy features
Chrome offers several privacy features that help protect you while you browse. The most notable are its phishing- and malware-protection schemes, and a tool that can auto-correct misspelled Web addresses.
Chrome's phishing and malware protection put up a warning screen whenever you visit a website that Google has identified as potentially malicious, whether it spreads malware or tries to steal your personal information. Meanwhile, Chrome's URL autocorrect feature usees a Google-provided online service to fix misspelled URLS to help you avoid visiting the wrong site—and perhaps a nefarious site—by accident. Indeed, "typosquatting" is still a threat.
Yesterday, digital-comic-book reseller Comixology held a promotion offering a whopping 700 free comics—first issues of old and new series ranging from The Avengers to The Fantastic Four to Spider-Man.
For a total cost of $0, you could read these gems on the Web or your PC, tablet, or smartphone.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the giveaway was so popular, it turned into Kryptonite for Comixology's servers. I tried all day to create an account and grab some free comics, but simply couldn't connect.
Twitter to the rescue! Well, sort of. Seeking information about the situation, and hoping to find out when it might get resolved, I headed to Twitter and searched for Comixology. Two results: one feed for the company itself (@comixology) and another for support (@cmxsupport)! And, sure enough, the latter had all kinds of info and updates regarding the outage.
Unfortunately, the company ended up suspending the promotion until further notice. But the takeaway here is that when you're looking for real-time information about a company or service, look to Twitter.
For example, companies ranging from Comcast to HP to Verizon have Twitter feeds that blast out regular updates, very often with information about service issues. (Comcast, for example, offers news and troubleshooting help via @comcastcares.)
Likewise, if you're dealing with a technical issue and can't get help through the usual channels, you might have luck using Twitter for tech support.
You might think that checking a company's blog is the best way to get current information, but these days, you'll probably have better luck checking Twitter. It's a fast and effective way for companies to communicate with customers, so take advantage of it when you can.
"Windows 8 on a desktop." The very phrase makes some people recoil and instinctively mouse over their Start buttons.
It's too bad that the modern UI has proven so contentious, because aside from the eye candy—or eye cancer, depending on your perspective—an abundance of welcome nuts-and-bolts changes makes Windows 8 the hands-down best version of Windows that Microsoft has ever released.
But don't despair. Although you can tweak and tuck a few things to almost completely banish the interface formerly known as Metro from your Windows 8 life, you can also try another tactic: not upgrading at all. Many of Windows 8's best under-the-hood improvements can be yours in Windows 7 with the help of a few handy-dandy applications.
Having your cake and eating it too has never tasted so sweet.
Improved file copying and moving
TeraCopy: Unassuming, yet oh-so-awesome.
Not to brand myself as a geek, but Windows 8’s file-copy dialog box may be its biggest desktop improvement. It brings all copying and moving processes into a single window, tosses in a pause button, deals with file conflicts more intelligently, and is just plain fasterthan before.
The file copier built into Windows 7 isn’t very good by comparison. In fact, while introducing Windows 8's file-copying tweaks, former Windows president Steven Sinofsky wrote that "most people do not have a great tool for high-volume copy jobs,” as so few users have a third-party file-copying tool installed on their Windows 7 systems. Yes, the Windows 7 file copier is just that meh.
You can improve file copying and moving without upgrading to Windows 8 by installing the utterly superb TeraCopy. This utility not only speeds up some file transfers, but it also allows you to pause transfers, a tremendously convenient improvement over Windows' default functionality.
That's not the only useful trick up TeraCopy's sleeve, though. Rather than halting transfers completely when an error occurs (as Windows 7 so frustratingly does), the program skips over problematic data and instead displays troubled files for your perusal at the end of a mass data migration. Even better, TeraCopy sports Windows shell integration, allowing you to completely replace Windows Explorer’s normal copy, paste, and move functions with TeraCopy's excellent alternatives.
A better Windows Explorer
I get it—five years after its debut in Office 2007, the Ribbon interface is still polarizing. But there’s a lot to like about File Explorer, as the Ribbon-ized version of the traditional Windows Explorer interface has been dubbed in Windows 8.
For one thing, the Ribbon provides easier access to less-used functions, such as toggling the display of hidden files. Windows 8's File Explorer also restores the much-loved Up button that Windows Vista and Windows 7 both lack, giving you an easy, one-click way to go up a directory.
The new File Explorer even allows you to mount ISO disc-image files by double-clicking them, an awesome feature that eliminates the need for third-party ISO-mounting software.
Better Explorer and WinCDEmu: Two great tastes that taste great together.
If you want to spiff up Windows 7's Windows Explorer with a Ribbon and an Up button, your best option is Better Explorer. This utility actually packs in more functionality than Windows 8's File Explorer does, thanks to its ability to display multiple open folders in tabs at the top of the window. This makes wrangling files a breeze compared to Windows' usual multiwindow madness.
Interested? Just pin Better Explorer to your taskbar, and then forget that Windows 7's default Windows Explorer even exists. To use TeraCopy with Better Explorer, you’ll need to go into Better Explorer’s options and enable the Allow third-party file operation replacements checkbox on the Shell screen.
Install WinCDEmu if you want to mimic Windows 8's ISO-mounting ways. It’s a dead-simple program that allows you to mount ISO files and other types of disc images easily just by double-clicking them. You'll find no faster, easier way to access digital copies of physical discs.
A more powerful task manager
Process Explorer ain't pretty, but it's a power user's dream tool.
No two ways about it: Windows 8’s task manager is awesome. It’s the most powerful task manager ever included with Windows, and it comes stuffed with stellar features and enhancements, such as the ability to restart explorer.exe with a single click, a vastly improved performance-monitoring tab, and a tool to manage your startup programs. (Microsoft should have added that last feature to Windows a decade ago.)
You won't find a program that exactly mirrors Windows 8's myriad task manager tweaks. But if you want an advanced task manager packed with powerful features, try Microsoft’s own Process Explorer. It’s a bit more complicated than Windows 7’s task manager, although it’s also easier to use in many ways. For example, Process Explorer shows your processes in a tree view so that you can see how they’re related to each other. This view comes in handy if you’re trying to determine which Google Chrome process launched the 50 other Chrome processes running on your system.
If you prefer Process Explorer after giving it a whirl, you can make it your default task manager by opening its Options menu and selecting Replace Task Manager. Easy!
CCleaner's Startup tab.
To manage startup programs, you can turn to the ever-useful CCleaner application—if you read PCWorld how-to articles regularly, you probably already have it installed. You’ll find CCleaner's startup manager under Tools > Startup.
If CCleaner isn’t enough for you, tryMicrosoft’s own Autoruns tool. It’s the most comprehensive way to view and manage programs that automatically start at boot-up. Autoruns is definitely more complicated to use than the default tool built into Windows 8's task manager, but it also shows many more granular entries that CCleaner and Windows 8’s task manager don’t.
Integrated antivirus protection
Microsoft finally took some responsibility for security in Windows 8 and bundled an antivirus program dubbed Windows Defender with the operating system. Despite the different name, however, Windows Defender is basically the default Windows Firewall paired with Microsoft Security Essentials, which is freely available as a Windows 7 download.
Windows 8 boots much, much faster than Windows 7 does. Seriously. It's like greased lightning. Microsoft achieved this by putting Windows 8 in a sort of hybrid state where the base kernel session is actually hibernating, as opposed to undergoing a full shutdown.
So, if you want Windows 7 to boot up faster, just use your computer’s hibernation option rather than turning it off all the way. Better yet, leave it in sleep mode when you’re not using it—sleep mode uses only a small amount of power, and your computer will resume in a second or two when you're ready to use it.
What, that's still not fast enough for you? Buy a solid-state drive. Since upgrade copies of Windows 8 cost $120 for the base version all the way up to $200 for Windows 8 Pro, it's possible to upgrade your computer to a blazing-fast SSD for less than you'd pay for a copy of Windows 8. SSDs offer tremendous performance improvements over platters of spinning rust (aka mechanical hard drives) in transfer times, access times, and operating system startup times alike.
It’s not as if Windows 8 is much faster in real-world use, anyway. You may see some battery-life improvements, and the desktop may feel a tad snappier—when the Start screen isn’t swallowing it whole and getting in the way, that is—but benchmarks have shown thatPC games play at about the same speed on Windows 7 and Windows 8 .
Windows 8 may be a bit less RAM-dependent than Windows 7, but if you run into RAM problems, you should just buy some more RAM. Memory is dirt cheap these days, and a heck of a lot cheaper than Windows 8. You can get 8GB of RAM, which is more than enough for the average PC user, for less than $50 online. A standard 4GB kit costs right around $30.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
Yes, you can have it all.
And with that, your Windows 7 PC now has many of the vaunted nuts-and-bolts improvements introduced in Windows 8, only without all the glittering live tiles. If you're in the mood for continued tinkering, check out PCWorld's How to Get Windows 8 Features Now, which details programs that can mirror some of Windows 8's aesthetic changes, such as improved multimonitor support and the aforementioned live tiles.
Marissa Mayer made Yahoo's VPN famous by using it to check on the work habits of her employees. Lost amid today's VPN conversation, however, is the fact that virtual private networks are much more than just pipelines for connecting remote employees to central work servers.
And that's a damn shame, because VPNs can be helpful tools for protecting online privacy, and you need not be an office drone to enjoy their benefits.
A VPN, as its name suggests, is just a virtual version of a secure, physical network—a web of computers linked together to share files and other resources. But VPNs connect to the outside world over the Internet, and they can serve to secure general Internet traffic in addition to corporate assets. In fact, the lion's share of modern VPNs are encrypted, so computers, devices, and other networks that connect to them do so via encrypted tunnels.
Why you want a VPN
You have at least four great reasons to start using a VPN. First, you can use it to connect securely to a remote network via the Internet. Most companies maintain VPNs so that employees can access files, applications, printers, and other resources on the office network without compromising security, but you can also set up your own VPN to safely access your secure home network while you're on the road.
Second, VPNs are particularly useful for connecting multiple networks together securely. For this reason, most businesses big and small rely on a VPN to share servers and other networked resources among multiple offices or stores across the globe. Even if you don't have a chain of offices to worry about, you can use the same trick to connect multiple home networks or other networks for personal use.
This diagram illustrates the difference between using an unencrypted connection and using a VPN-secured Internet connection at your average coffee shop.
Third, if you're concerned about your online privacy, connecting to an encrypted VPN while you're on a public or untrusted network—such as a Wi-Fi hotspot in a hotel or coffee shop—is a smart, simple security practice. Because the VPN encrypts your Internet traffic, it helps to stymie other people who may be trying to snoop on your browsing via Wi-Fi to capture your passwords.
Fourth and finally, one of the best reasons to use a VPN is to circumvent regional restrictions—known as geoblocking—on certain websites. Journalists and political dissidents use VPNs to get around state-sponsored censorship all the time, but you can also use a VPN for recreational purposes, such as connecting to a British VPN to watch theBBC iPlayer outside the UK. Because your Internet traffic routes through the VPN, it looks as if you're just another British visitor.
Pick your protocol
When choosing a networking protocol for your VPN, you need worry only about the four most popular ones. Here's a quick rundown, including the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) is the least secure VPN method, but it’s a great starting point for your first VPN because almost every operating system supports it, including Windows, Mac OS, and even mobile OSs.
Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) and Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) are more secure than PPTP and are almost as widely supported, but they are also more complicated to set up and are susceptible to the same connection issues as PPTP is.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) VPN systems provide the same level of security that you trust when you log on to banking sites and other sensitive domains. Most SSL VPNs are referred to as "clientless," since you don't need to be running a dedicated VPN client to connect to one of them. They're my favorite kind of VPN because the connection happens via a Web browser and thus is easier and more reliable to use than PPTP, L2TP, or IPsec.
An SSL VPN server is designed to be accessed via Web browser and creates encrypted channels so that you can safely access the server from anywhere.
OpenVPN is exactly what it sounds like: an open-source VPN system that's based on SSL code. It's free and secure, and it doesn't suffer from connection issues, but using OpenVPN does require you to install a client since Windows, Mac OS X, and mobile devices don't natively support it.
In short: When in doubt, try to use SSL or OpenVPN. Keep in mind that some of the services highlighted in the next section don’t use these protocols. Instead, they use their own proprietary VPN technology.
Now, let's talk about how to create and connect to your own VPN. If you want simple remote access to a single computer, consider using the VPN software built into Windows. If you’d like to network multiple computers together quickly through a VPN, consider installing stand-alone VPN server software.
If you need a more reliable and robust arrangement (one that also supports site-to-site connections), consider using a dedicated VPN router. And if you just want to use a VPN to secure your Internet traffic while you're on public Wi-Fi hotspots and other untrusted networks—or to access regionally restricted sites—consider subscribing to a third-party hosted VPN provider.
Set up a simple VPN with Windows
Windows comes loaded with a VPN client that supports the PPTP and L2TP/IPsec protocols. The setup process is simple: If you're using Windows 8, just bring up the Search charm, type VPN, and then launch the VPN wizard by clicking Set up a virtual private network (VPN) connection.
You can use this client to connect securely to other Windows computers or to other VPN servers that support the PPTP and L2TP/IPsec protocols—you just need to provide the IP address or domain name of the VPN server to which you want to connect. If you're connecting to a corporate or commercial VPN, you can contact the administrator to learn the proper IP address. If you're running your own VPN server via Windows, you can figure out the server's IP address by typing CMD in the Search charm, launching the Command Prompt, and typing ipconfig. This simple trick comes in handy when you're setting up your Windows PC as a VPN server, and then connecting to it so that you can securely, remotely access your files from anywhere.
Windows has a built-in VPN client, but you'll need to provide the connection information (namely, the IP address) for the VPN server you want to use.
Quick note: When setting up incoming PPTP VPN connections in Windows, youmust configure your network router to forward VPN traffic to the Windows computer you want to access remotely. You can do this by logging in to the router’s control panel—consult the manufacturer's instructions on how to do this—and configuring the port-forwarding or virtual-server settings to forward port 1723 to the IP address of the computer you wish to access. In addition, PPTP or VPN pass-through options need to be enabled in the firewall settings, but usually they're switched on by default.
Use third-party software to create a VPN server
If you’d like to create a VPN between multiple computers to share files and network resources without having to configure your router or to dedicate a PC to act as the VPN server, consider using third-party VPN software. Comodo Unite, Gbridge, and TeamViewerare all decent, reliable, and (most important) free.
LogMeIn Hamachi is a simple, elegant, and secure VPN client that's free for up to five users.
You can also use LogMeIn Hamachi for free with five or fewer users, but it's good enough that if you have more than five PCs you want to link up securely—say, as part of your small-but-growing business—you should consider paying for the full service.
Go whole hog with your own VPN router
If you want to get your hands dirty while providing robust remote access to an entire network, or if you wish to create site-to-site connections, try setting up a router on your network with a VPN server and client. If you’re working on a budget, the cheapest way to set up your own dedicated VPN router is to upload aftermarket firmware that enables VPN functionality, such as DD-WRT or Tomato, to an inexpensive consumer-level router.
The ZyXel USG20W VPN router is a smart investment if you want to set up your own dedicated VPN at home or in the office.
When you're choosing a VPN router and third-party router firmware, make sure they support the VPN networking protocol you need for your devices. In addition, check the VPN router to verify how many simultaneous VPN users it supports.
Let a third-party VPN provider worry about it
If you merely want VPN access to cloak your Internet traffic while you're using public Wi-Fi or another untrusted network, or to access regionally restricted sites, the simplest solution is to use a hosted VPN provider. Hotspot Shield is my favorite, as it offers both free and paid VPN services for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. HotSpotVPN, StrongVPN, andWiTopia are other paid services we’ve reviewed in the past.
EFFThe Onion Router is an excellent, free utility that anonymizes your Internet activity through a series of servers scattered around the world.
If you want to keep your browsing activity anonymous but can't spare the cash for a paid VPN, check out the Onion Router, a network of servers that can anonymize your Internet traffic for free. Visit the TOR website and download the latest browser bundle, and then start browsing with the TOR extensions enabled. The software will encrypt your connection to the TOR server before routing your Internet traffic through a randomized series of servers across the globe, slowing your browsing speed but cloaking your online activity from prying eyes.
No matter how you choose to go about it, start using a VPN today. It takes a bit of work up front, but spending the time to get on a VPN is one of the smartest, simplest steps you can take toward making your online activities more secure.
Both cloning and imaging create an exact record of your drive or partition. I'm not just talking about the files, but the master boot record, allocation table, and everything else needed to boot and run your operating system.
This isn't necessary for protecting your data--a simple file backup will handle that job just fine. But should your hard drive crash or Windows become hopelessly corrupt, a clone or image backup can quickly get you back to work.
When you clone a drive, you copy everything on it onto another drive, so that the two are effectively identical. Normally, you would clone to an internal drive made external via a SATA/USB adapter or enclosure.
Is your Wi-Fi network at home secure? There’s a good reason it should be.
Unsecure networks allow neighbors or anyone within range to use your Internet connection. That will slow it down, make you more vulnerable to hacking or, even worse, have your connection used for illegal activity.
In this IDG News Tech Tip video, we’ll go beyond simply setting a password, and talk about three security options available in most modern base stations—WEP, WPA and WPA2. We’ll also show you how to find out which one of those you’re using as well as how to stop your base station from broadcasting its SSID—the name you see when you scan for a WiFi network. Source
With Windows 8 pushing a “touch-first” desktop interface—Microsoft’s words, not ours—and with Valve’s Steam on Linux beginning to bring much-needed games and popular attention to the oft-overlooked operating system, there’s never been a better time to take Linux out for a test drive.
Dipping your toes into the penguin-filled waters of the most popular open-source ecosystem is easy, and you don't have to commit to switching outright to Linux. You can install it alongside your current Windows system, or even try it without installing anything at all.
Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distribution for desktop and laptop Linux users, so we’ll focus on Ubuntu throughout this guide. For the most part, Ubuntu just plain works. It sports a subtle interface that stays out of your way. It enjoys strong support from software developers (including Valve, since Steam on Linux only officially supports Ubuntu). And you can find tons of information online if you run into problems.
Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, and Oracle's Java. All three are virtually ubiquitous on modern-day PCs, and all three provide handy-dandy functionality—functionality that, in the case of Flash and Java, can't be directly reproduced by a third-party solution. If we lived in a vacuum, it would be hard to argue that the trio doesn't deserve its spot on computers around the globe.
We don't live in a vacuum, though.
Here in the real world, widespread adoption of the software makes all three irresistible targets for hackers and malware peddlers. The attacks reached a fever pitch in the early months of 2013, with a flood of reports about Flash, Reader, and Java exploits. Threedifferentarticles about Java exploits hit PCWorld's homepage this past Monday and Tuesday alone, and Adobe issued three critical Flash updates in February.
But don't yank out that ethernet cable or wrap your desk in a Faraday cage just yet. You don't have to use Java, Flash, and Reader just because everyone else does. I spent more than a week without Reader, Java, Flash, and their respective browser plug-ins to see if it's possible to live without the software and not suffer massive migraines.
My results were mixed, but incredibly illuminating.
While rumors of the PC's demise are greatly exaggerated—an industry that moved more than 350 million units in 2012 is not "dead"—computers undoubtedly aren't selling as quickly as they once did. Analysts forecast PC sales to far exceed tablet sales for the foreseeable future, but the growth rate for PC sales has utterly and completely flatlined.
The big question, of course, is why?
A couple of theories inform conventional wisdom. Most pundits blame stagnant PC sales on the likewise stagnant economy, or point toward the ascension of smartphones and tablets. Others argue (fairly persuasively) that the flattening of growth is attributable to the idiosyncrasies of PC sales in developing countries, where computers are a rarely replaced luxury item. A second wave, analysts say, has yet to come after an initial surge in sales in those nations.
Like most economic sectors, the PC market is influenced by myriad factors, and some truth lies in all three of those explanations. After watching my mother-in-law happily troll Facebook and sling emails on her nearly ten-year-old Pentium 4 computer, however, an even more insidious possibility slipped into my head.
Let’s be real for a second: Assassin’s Creed III was a bit of a disappointment. It tried some new things that, in the end, made it feel less like past Assassin’s Creed titles and more like a deviation towards a new direction for the series as a whole. And that was scary. Thankfully, Assassin’s Creed IV, from what we’ve seen, seems to cleave closer to the original formula. It's as though the developers recognize what made past Assassin’s Creed games so great and are working to build AC4 around those qualities. Connor is out, but his grandfather, Edward Kenway, is in. Kenway is a reckless, charming, and poor pirate who spends his days swashbuckling throughout the Caribbean islands. Assassin’s Creed IV takes place during the dawn of the 18th century, when piracy was flourishing in the Caribbean. Most surprisingly, it seems to be a continuation of the Kenway family saga, rather than focusing on the direct ancestors of long-time series cipher Desmond Miles.
When you buy an ebook from Amazon, it's yours, right? Technically speaking, Amazon is merely licensing the book to you. And the company can, seemingly on a whim, close your account and delete all your books.
This isn't likely to happen, but it gives me pause. Indeed, it makes me want to back up the books I bought and paid for, just in case. What's more, if I ever decide I want to read those books using, say, another reader (be it an app or device), I'd like the option of converting them to another format.
Both options require the removal of Amazon's DRM -- the digital lock the company puts on its books to prevent unauthorized sharing.
I have no intention of sharing. I simply want to exercise my fair-use rights. Luckily, it's possible to remove Amazon's DRM (at your own risk, of course) using free book manager Calibre and a couple plug-ins.
