If you have a google account, you may now log onto the “Google Dashboard” and view all the settings and history for the various google products that you might use.   This would include Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts, and Latitude.

This may well be an eye opening exp0erience. The following video gives you a clue.

Our advice: If you use google anything, do so with a clear understanding of all the data that google saves and knows about you. Our solution: Avoid using google products. Or if you must use google, log into the dashboard and delete everything.

Our favorite search engine, Ixquick, is now also known as Startpage.   Actually, Startpage and Ixquick are really one and the same.  Startpage is simply an easier name to remember.  Why is it our favorite search engine?  Privacy, Accuracy, Speed.  This is the only search engine awarded the European Privacy Seal.  It does not record your searches, and it does not even record your IP address. Give it a try.

http:startpage.com

or

http://ixquick.com

From a security standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to move to Windows 7 ASAP.  Windows 7 will have a small fraction of the security vulnerabilities and requisite update fixes as did Windows XP.  Why? Windows 7 was built from the ground up with security in mind, which was only an afterthought with Windows XP.  No doubt, there will be vulnerabilities to fix.  But in the long run, it should prove to be a very good move for the average user.  We have been running Windows 7 on a test machine since the Beta was first available, and are quite pleased with its performance and functionality.  Not totally pleased, mind you, but pleased enough to be recommending it to all our customers and readers.  Let us know what you think.

We recently ran a test of Anonymizer Anonymous Surfing™

Here is our mini-review:

We found the speed of page loading to be severely deficient. It could take several minutes to load a web pagemaking accessing a web site painfully slow  It is like turning your broadband connection back 20 years to a 1200 baud modem.   

We contacted Anonymizer support to complain about the problem and they were no help at all.  They just admitted that they need much more server capacity and said that they are working on that.  Hey, even if they doubled their server capacity, it still would be useless.  Even ten times the server capacity would only make the program marginally usable.   Too bad, because this should be a usable tool to protect one’s privacy online.  As it is we cannot recommend it and we give it two thumbs down.  Don’t waste your money.

A little off topic, but food for thought, nonetheless.

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Use this handy search box to

search “Google” securely via “Scroogle”

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Firefox 3.5 has a new “feature” that may allow web sites to more accurately pinpoint your location on the planet.  This feature is enabled by default.

When you visit a location-aware website, Firefox will ask you if you want to share your location.  You will have the opportunity to accept of decline this option.

But if you want to permanently disable this feature, do the following:

Open Firefox:

• In the URL bar, type about:config
• Type geo.enabled
• Double click on the geo.enabled preference
• Location-Aware Browsing is now disabled

Source: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/geolocation/

Key loggers can be some of the most dangerous spyware one can have have on a computer.  They can capture every stroke you type, and that includes passwords and user names, account numbers and  credit card numbers.  Many of the creators of this nasty spyware claim that there software is undetectable.  Well, we don’t know if that is true, but true or not, there is a solution that may well save you from ID theft, bank account theft and many other potentially very serious problems caused by key loggers.

Give yourself some piece of mind and install KeyScrambler from http://www.qfxsoftware.com/.   The free version protects Internet Explorer and Firefox.  Paid versions are available that protect much more software, including Microsoft Office and numerous other programs.  We have been testing it for a couple of weeks and have found no problems.  We have not tested its ability to foil key loggers, but it comes with some good recommendations.   And we are going to give it ours also.  Check it out.

A visit to the following web site would be advisable to anyone interested in computer security and Internet security:  http://www.stophcommerce.com

And send a link to anyone you know who may be vulnerable to being scammed or hacked.

The site is sponsored by McAfee, and will be posting a series of short videos about Internet security.

After dealing with a number of machines with serious performance issues with Internet Explorer, we have come up with a solution.  Clear out the Restricted Zone. This is especially necessary with Internet Explorer 8.

It helps to use a utility that can clear out the Restricted Zone in mass.  We have used ZonedOut by http://www.funkytoad.com/ .  It is a simple tool that makes it much easier to manage a large Restricted Zone, or delete all entries at once.  It also provides you with an easy way to back up your zone entries before deleting them, so they can be edited and reimporting.  Or if you just want to clear the zone for testing.

Normally I wouldn’t recommend doing this, because the restricted zone can be a good tool for keeping out the bad guys.  But clearing it out improved the performance of Internet Explorer ( and also any browser that uses the IE engine, such as Maxthon).  On one of our machines, IE was taking about 25-30 seconds to open.  After clearing out the Restricted Zone, it opens in about 5 seconds.

Then use the built in tools in IE8, or use a safe surfing security tool such as provided in many security suites and anti-virus software and firewalls.  Just try not to use more than one, or they start tripping over one another.  Same with having multiple tool bars, like Google and Yahoo.  Don’t use more than one.

UPDATE:

If you use any security software that adds to the Restricted Sites list in Internet Explorer, you may want to modify its settings to prevent this.  We have found that Spybot Search and Destroy will add about 10 to 15 thousand sites to that list, and Spyware Blaster will add tons more.    In Spybot, go to the Immunizations tab and uncheck the domains for all users on your computer.  In Spyware Blaster, you can disable this by by disabling protections for Res triced Sites. Is that a good idea?  Depends on what your other security software does for you. But, if you don’t, these programs will add thousands of sites back to the list ASAP, and IE will again be slowed to a crawl.

UPDATE 2:  It appears that this slow starting issue  is resolved or at least significantly reduced in the latest versions of Spybot and Spyware Blaster.  In fact, it Spyware Blaster seems to have contributed little to this problem, and we recommend users return to full protection with both of these important security programs.