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Archive for Internet

Beware the Facebook Urban Myths

 

If you have a Facebook account, you’ve probably seen, or shared, at least one urban myth. Maybe it’s this image:

100_shares_heart_transplantOr this:

Today, 12/01/2014 in response to the Facebook guidelines and under articles L.111, 112 and 113 of the code of intellectual property, I declare that my rights are attached to all my personal songs, lyrics, literary excerpts, data, drawings, paintings, photos, texts etc… published on my profile. For commercial use of the foregoing my written consent is required at all times……

Or even this:

I just found out that should you ever be forced to withdraw monies from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your Pin # in reverse. The machine will still give you the monies you requested, but unknown to the robber, etc, the police will be immediately dispatched to help you.
The broadcast stated that this method of calling the police is very seldom used because people don’t know it exist, and it might mean the difference between life and death. Hopefully, none of you will have to use this, but I wanted to pass it along just in case you hadn’t heard of it. Please pass it along to everyone possible.

There is no validity to any of these posts, and none of them are new.  In fact, the third one started circulating in an email as early as 2006, before migrating to Facebook. The first one has been circulating since at least 2010. The Facebook privacy one surfaces in a new form every time Facebook announces changes to its privacy policy. These are just a sample of the many myths that are out there. All of these have been discredited, and the validity can be easily checked. The next time you see a Facebook status like that, stop and think about it. How will sharing a picture 100 times provide a free heart transplant? If entering a PIN backwards would summon police, don’t you think that information might actually be shared by your bank? Who decided stating your rights in a Facebook status would provide any legal protection whatsoever? (For the record, you agree to Facebook’s Terms and Conditions when you create an account. Stating otherwise publicly doesn’t change anything).

While it’s not possible to completely stop these things from circulating, you can become part of the solution. Don’t blindly share or post anything just because everyone else is. It’s possible to quickly check whether a post is valid or not. I use Snopes.com to check these items out. For example, here’s the Snopes link debunking the backwards ATM  PIN myth. If the story isn’t true, don’t spread it. While there’s not necessarily anything malicious about these myths, there’s no point in perpetuating them. Your friends will probably thank you for having a little less clutter in their feed, too.

How to move your blog from Posterous to WordPress, or Tumblr

posterousPosterous has been acquired by Twitter. Reading their FAQ it becomes apparent the developers plan to spend their future working on Twitter, and not Posterous.

Given its uncertain future, now would be a good time to begin planning your move away from Posterous, to another blogging platform like WordPress or Tumblr. Unfortunately, Posterous has never taken strides to make moving easy.

Can I export my Space’s to WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, or another service?
Over the coming weeks we’ll provide you with specific instructions for exporting your content to other services.

What are your current options?

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IE9 – The Beauty of the Web

Internet Explorer 9On September 15 2010, Microsoft announced a public beta version of their web browser Internet Explorer (IE). Microsoft claims that this new version, IE9, is going to be a more secure, stable and faster browsing experience. Being a little skeptical toward Internet Explorer, I wanted to see this for myself, so I set out to get my copy of IE9 over at The Beauty of the Web.

Quoting The Beauty of the Web;

“As amazing as the web is, its potential is immeasurably greater. Internet Explorer 9 was designed to let that potential shine through. Click below to see how developers and designers are creating a more beautiful web using HTML5 and advancements in Internet Explorer 9.”

I myself am a big fan of Google Chrome. I love the speed it offers and the minimalistic UI it offers, therefore I won’t only be comparing IE9 to IE8, but I will also write about my experience in the difference between the two different browsers. Now I am just hoping that Internet Explorer can live up to the expectations I have as a frequent web user.

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Is Your Password Strong Enough?

In December of last year, a hacker gained access to more than 32 million usernames and passwords from the users of RockYou. After obtaining and studying the data from that hack, data security firm Imperva has come up with a list of the top ten most common passwords. In reading the list of passwords, I felt the need to pick my mouth up off of the floor. In this day and age of Identity Theft, people are still using things such as 123456 as a password!

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Is the Triple Engine Browser Lunascape Right for You?

lunascapeMany people have never even heard of this browser, despite the massive amount of press it received late last year. I randomly asked about 200 people yesterday what their thoughts are on Lunascape 6.0 ORION – their newest beta version. There were only four people who replied that they have ever tried it, and only two of those who currently use it. Both of those people are, not surprisingly, developers.

Lunascape makes use of all three major web rendering engines: Gecko (Firefox), Trident (Internet Explorer) and WebKit (Safari and Chrome). People who use the browser can instantly switch between the three different engine modes by right-clicking a browser tab or by clicking on the engine switch button that you’ll find at the bottom-left of the screen.

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10 Free DNS and IP Lookup Tools – or DNSstuff.com Alternatives

image If you’ve ever tried to lookup the location of an IP address, check the status of DNS propagation, or wanted to check the health of your DNS or mail server,  you’re probably familiar with DNSstuff.com. It used to be an incredibly useful site – when it was free. While DNSstuff.com does still offer a selection of free tools, full access has now reached $79/year! While no free site offers every tool available on dnsstuff.com, here are 10 free sites that offer a good selection of alternatives.

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What happened to spywareinfo.com?

The forums are still available at a new domain: http://www.spywareinfoforum.com

Looking for spywareinfo.com and getting a GoDaddy parking page? Or, looking for the forums at forums.spywareinfo.com and getting a 404 error? You’re not alone. Try the new domain name, and you’ll find the old forum we’ve come to respect and admire. Why the change? Mike Healan the founder of the site has not been heard from in many months, and the spywareinfo.com name appears to have expired. However, the good people running the spyware removal forums didn’t want to let such a valuable resource die, so they planned ahead and registered a new name, spywareinfoforum.com. The change was actually made a couple of months ago, so most search engine results should point to the new domain. However, there are thousands of links from other sites to spywareinfo.com, and who knows how many bookmarks.

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Google’s “Chrome” Web Browser an Operating System?

Google is expected to release their own version of a web browser today, titled Google Chrome. Chrome is an open source web browser, introduced with a comic book.

chrome

Mozilla’s Firefox is funded almost exclusively by Google through a deal that runs through 2011. This agreement defaults Google as Firefox’s homepage, and search. While Mozilla ought to be worried, Google Chrome is an assault on the entire browser market. With 60% of the search market share, Google has plenty of opportunity to promote its own browser. This places not only Firefox, but also Internet Explorer, Opera, and other browsers in it’s crosshairs.

This surprise announcement, has also lead many to wonder if Google might also have its sights set on a bigger target. A Google operating system. Maybe Chrome is Google’s operating system?

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Can Spam – Put Your Inbox on a Diet

slim_spam

The first thing that comes to mind upon hearing the word spam, for most people, is an email advertising certain enhancements to the male body, not the cheap pork brand – which is actually the source of the word. This is not surprising: in 2006, 40% of all e-mails sent – 12 billion per day – were classified as spam emails, and that figure continues to grow constantly as spam vendors evolve and develop their spamming practices.

Many people have had their personal email boxes completely flooded with spam emails – but just how massive is this phenomenon is in real life, for a real person? What websites send the most spam? How do your actions influence the amount of spam sent? Finding answers to these is just the purpose of the recent McAfee research, the results of which have been posted last June. McAfee took spam surveys on a whole new level. 50 volunteers from around the world have been given a computer and email accounts and participated in this research, creatively named Spammed Persistently All Month (SPAM). They have been asked to submit their email addresses to as many websites as possible, including ‘get rich quick’ plans, ‘work from home’ websites, ad clicking websites, and free giveaways: iPods, vacations, etc., and similar.

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ad.yieldmanager.com results when trying to check Yahoo mail?

Many Yahoo Mail users report been getting a Google search results page that continuously pops up when trying to check their Yahoomail. The page title contains http://ad.yieldmanager.com/st?..

Since the first result on the search page is often for a topic in the malware removal forum of this site, some people even think we’re somehow responsible. While we’re not yet sure why these users are being redirected, we can tell you how to fix it.

  • Download Trend Micro’s HijackThis
  • Close your browser and Install HijackThis
  • Open HijackThis, Select Do a system scan only button
  • In the results, find this line:

O2 – BHO: Browser Address Error Redirector – {CA6319C0-31B7-401E-A518-A07C3DB8F777} – c:\windows\system32\BAE.dll

  • Tick the checkbox next to that line, and select the Fix Checked button (DO NOT select any other lines without assistance).
  • Restart your browser and navigate to Yahoomail. You should now be able to access it.

UPDATE: Thanks to Chris’ comment, it seems a number of people may be having this problem after Spybot Search & Destroy modifies their hosts file after using the “immunize” feature. Since editing your hosts file can be tricky for some, here’s an easy method to restore your hosts file:

Please download HostsXpert

  1. Unzip HostsXpert.zip
  2. Double click on HostsXpert.exe
  3. Then click on “Restore Original Hosts” to restore your Hosts file to its default condition.
  4. Click on Make Hosts Read Only to secure it against further changes.
  5. Close program when complete.

If you have any questions, or need further assistance, please read our malware cleaning guide.