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.

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.

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.

This video may give you a good idea as to why updating is important.

http://www.myantispyware.com/

This site provides a number of excellent tools for defeating Malware.  We highly recommend it.

OK, this is a decent Internet connection.

Goggle has developed a new web browser called Chrome. We advise anyone who values their privacy to stay away from this browser. A look at the licensing agreement tells it all:

“[Y]ou give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display,”

Say what?

That’s right “Your browsing are belong to us”

Unfortunately, someday, somehow, someway, somebody may get a hold of your browsing history and your search history, possibly including “unique identifier” and IP address and exact time of the search.  Not good.

And Google is not alone in this,  as most search engines do the same. 

We recommend ixquick.com. The web search engine that respects YOUR privacy.

(awarded the European Privacy Seal)

Extra added bonus!  ixquick also provides access via secure server, so mot only do they not store your search queries, you can encrypt the connection with SSL.

http://ixquick.com  or

https://ixquick.com (SSL encrypted link)

And hey, it also works very well.  Quality seach results.

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 =

 12,345,678,987,654,321