Say “NO” to SOPA

Posted: 13th January 2012 by Babar Shafiq in Discussion, Internet
Tags: ,
0

 

A new piece of American legislation, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) has been getting a lot of attention the last few weeks. The purpose of the bill is to put a dent in online piracy by allowing the US government to dictate ISPs block access to sites hosting copyrighted materials.

Companies including Google, Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Yahoo! and Wikipedia are said to be discussing a coordinated blackout of services to demonstrate the potential effect SOPA would have on the Internet, something already being called a “nuclear option” of protesting. Reddit also joins the Anti SOPA blackout.

Markham Erickson, executive director of trade association NetCoalition said:

This type of thing doesn’t happen because companies typically don’t want to put their users in that position. The difference is that these bills so fundamentally change the way the Internet works. People need to understand the effect this special-interest legislation will have on those who use the Internet.

 
The legislation is scheduled for a vote in the US Senate (that would be the PIPA version – i.e., Protect IP Act of 2011) on Jan. 24.
Babar Shafiq Nazmi

Firefox 9 Released, Up to 30% Faster

Posted: 21st December 2011 by Babar Shafiq in Browser
Tags: , ,
0

 

Major JavaScript Enhancements Make Firefox Speedy – up to 30% Faster

 

Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux has new JavaScript enhancements that make Web browsing significantly faster. The latest update to Firefox includes Type Inference which boosts JavaScript performance and allow rich websites and Web apps with lots of pictures, videos, games and 3D graphics to load and run much faster. Type Inference is a feature of the SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine that integrates with the JaegerMonkey JIT compiler to provide analysis and help generate more efficient code. Firefox with Type Inference is up to 30% speedier on JavaScript benchmarks like Kraken and V8.

Last Release in 2011, More to Come Next Year!

Source: http://blog.mozilla.com/blog

Babar Shafiq Nazmi

Security problem in PuTTY SSH client fixed

Posted: 14th December 2011 by Babar Shafiq in Internet, Security, System Administration, Tools
Tags: , , , ,
0

 

In previous versions of PuTTY, 0.59, 0.60 and 0.61, the password used to log on to an SSH2 server was retained in memory.
The password was then retrievable by other programs that could read the memory, or could be found in swap files and crash dumps.
The update also fixes non-security-related errors including correcting the rendering of underlines and VT100 line-drawing characters, removing a spurious GSSAPI authentication message, restoring saved sessions, and closing a leak of file mapping handles when authentication failed.

Details of the changes are in the release notes. Pre-built binaries and source code for the MIT-licensed PuTTY are available to download.

Babar Shafiq Nazmi

Your Browser Matters

Posted: 25th November 2011 by Babar Shafiq in Browser, Internet, Security
Tags: , , , ,
3

 

Microsoft launched a website today designed to give users a detailed look at how secure their browser is. The site, called Your Browser Matters, automatically detects the visitor's browser and returns a browser security score on a scale of four points.

When you visit the site, called Your Browser Matters, it allows you to see a score for the browser you’re using. Well, if you’re using IE, Chrome, or Firefox—other browsers are excluded. Not surprisingly, Microsoft’s latest release, Internet Explorer 9, gets a perfect 4 out of 4

 

Link: Your Browser Matters

Babar Shafiq Nazmi

Firefox 8 released

Posted: 8th November 2011 by Babar Shafiq in Browser, System Administration
Tags: ,
0

Mozilla announced today the official release of Firefox 8

The built-in search box in Firefox’s navigation toolbar has been extended to support Twitter searches. Users can now select Twitter from the drop-down list of available search engines. Mozilla partnered with Twitter earlier this year to release a special build of Firefox that ties into the social network. The search box integration from that custom build is now part of the official Firefox release.

Another noteworthy user-facing feature in Firefox 8 is stricter control over side-loaded add-ons. Mozilla is cracking down on third-party applications that install add-ons in Firefox without the user’s knowledge or permission.

If Firefox 8 detects side-loaded add-ons when it starts, it will disable them by default and display a prompt asking the user if they want the add-on to be enabled. This will help protect users from invasive toolbars and other unwanted cruft.

In addition to these new browser features, Firefox 8 also has some improvements under the hood. The browser’s HTML rendering engine has gained support for cross-origin resource sharing, a feature that will allow a website to load WebGL textures from other sites. WebSockets also got a boost in this release with an updated implementation that conforms with the latest draft specifications

Users can download Firefox 8 from Mozilla’s website. The new version will also be rolled out to users through the stable update channel.

Babar Shafiq Nazmi

Enable/Disable Windows Hibernation

Posted: 4th November 2011 by Babar Shafiq in System Administration, Tips
Tags: , ,
0

 

To enable hibernation. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start , click All Programs , and then click Accessories .
2. Right-click Command Prompt , and then click Run as administrator .

If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Allow .

3. At the prompt in the Administrator: Command Prompt window, type powercfg -h on

 

If you want to disable Hibernation completely

At the prompt in the Administrator: Command Prompt window, type powercfg -h off

Babar Shafiq Nazmi
Older Entries