Section: Internet

Web Security Testing Tools

April 18, 2009 by Jason

Watcher version 1.1.0 is now available for download from Microsoft’s repository of open-source projects. The Redmond company is not the author of Watcher, but it is certainly recommending the tool via its online hotspot dedicated to the Security Development Lifecycle. Put together by Casaba Security, Watcher is designed to enhance Fiddler proxy, a tool developed by Eric Lawrence, IE program manager. In this context, the plug-in from Casaba Security complements Lawrence’s web debugging proxy, closely monitoring and analyzing HTTP traffic.

“Watcher is a plug-in for Eric Lawrence’s Fiddler proxy aimed at helping developers and testers find security issues in their web-apps fast and effortlessly. Because it works passively at runtime, you have to drive it by opening a browser and cruising through your web-app as an end user. For the developer, the tool can provide a quick sanity check, so you can find problems and hot-spots that warrant further attention. In the hands of a pen-tester it can assist in finding issues that lead to other attacks like XSS and CSRF,” revealed Chris Weber of Casaba Security. Read More»

Automatic Upgrades to Internet Explorer 8

April 13, 2009 by Jason

Microsoft is gearing up to start serving automatic upgrades to Internet Explorer 8. Fact is that the Redmond company has already debuted the Automatic distribution of its latest iteration of IE. In this regard, the software giant confirmed that IE8 RTW (release to web) was already offered via Automatic Update/Windows Update to all users running pre-release versions of IE8. Next in line are users of Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7, which should start seeing IE8 served through WU/AU by the end of this month.

“We released IE8 via Automatic Update to users still running pre-release versions of IE8 (Beta 2 or Release Candidate 1). The goal was to make sure users who chose to install IE8 have the latest up-to-date version,” revealed Eric Hebenstreit, IE lead program manager. It is important to note that automatic upgrades to IE8 are not synonymous with automatic installations of the browser.

Microsoft underlined that end users would need to opt-in in order to install Internet Explorer 8. In this regard, the gold version of IE8, offered through WU/AU, will come with three options: Ask later, Install and Don’t Install, allowing users to postpone the installation, give it green light, or simply block it through the Redmond company’s update infrastructure. Read More»

IE8 RTW Language Packs for Vista SP1

March 21, 2009 by Jason

Concomitantly with the general availability of Internet Explorer 8 RTW, Microsoft also released to web the IE8 Language Packs. Fact is that the gold version of IE8 RTW is currently available for download in no less than 25 languages, but the software giant has taken it one step further. In addition to the fully localized languages of IE8, the Redmond company is also offering users worldwide the possibility to translate the graphical user interface of IE7’s successor.

“The Internet Explorer 8 Language Packs install language specific resource files, allowing users to view the user interface (UI) of Internet Explorer 8 in a different supported language,” Microsoft informed. Currently users of the following languages will be able to take advantage of the IE8 RTW Language Packs: Arabic, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Hong Kong), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish. Read More»

IE8 Faster than Firefox 3.05 and Chrome 1.0

March 17, 2009 by Jason

At the end of the past week, Microsoft made available to the public the results of a “browser measuring contest” involving Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.05 and Google Chrome 1.0. What the Redmond company did was to measure the browser load times for the top 25 websites worldwide. In the software company’s own comparison, IE8 managed to come out on top of its rivals, besting the open source Firefox and Chrome which were released in 2008, and not the current 3.1/3.5 version of Firefox or the 2.0 flavor of Chrome. But the real question is does it matter?

Obviously, Microsoft is rather a new comer to the browser measuring game. Simply because Internet Explorer, while considered by rival browser makers a reference point, never actually needed to compare itself to competitive products, especially from the perspective of the dominant browser on the market. IE continues to account for the lion’s share when it comes down to browser usage share worldwide, but Firefox has made a dent in its dominance that is harder and harder to ignore. And fact is that for the first time in the long life of Internet Explorer, Microsoft has a release that it’s worth comparing, as it is bound to score at least on par with rivals, if not even best them in certain scenarios. Read More»

Kill Download Waiting Time for Rapidshare

February 24, 2009 by Jason

Recently we had written about a free download for rapidshare free users, which lets you download more than one file simultaneously with out any time lag in between.

Its been some time now Rapidshare has removed CATPHA ( entering the code shown in the image to download file). But another very annoying thing you see while downloading any file from rapidshare is the annoying download time before getting the download link.

Today, we will tell you a simple hack which lets you kill the rapidshare download timer and lower it down to zero with in a second. After the timer is zero you will see the Download Link immediately to download your file.

Let’s see how can you make the rapidshare download counter to zero instantly with in a second.

1. Copy the rapidshare link of the file to be downloaded in the address bar
Read More»

Free Rapidshare Downloader

February 14, 2009 by Jason

Recently we had written about a free download  for rapidshare free users, which lets you download more than one file simultaneously with out any time lag in between. Today we will tell you about another free rapidshare downloader which lets you download any fie from rapid share with ease.

Rapid Download is fast, portable and lightweight download accelerator for rapidshare, the use of this rapidshare downloader is quite simple as you just need to copy all the links of the rapidshare files to be downloaded in a file called download.txt and double click the executable of the application rapiddownload.exe

Rapidshare downloader is very small in size with only 14 KB in size, moreover it also checks whether the file as per the download link is still there on the rapidshare servers before downloading.

Features of Rapidshare Downloader (Rapid Download): Read More»

IE8 Beta in Windows 7

February 13, 2009 by Jason

As is the case with any pre-release version of its software products, Microsoft has kept a close eye on Internet Explorer 8, monitoring the feedback delivered by end users, and tweaking the browser in accordance. The Redmond company has not only fixed bugs, but also delivered new features and changed the browser’s behavior following user input. And the message from Microsoft is to keep the feedback coming. In January 2009, Internet Explorer 8 evolved to Release Candidate stage for Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 releases came to the table with a post-Beta 2 but pre-RC Build of IE8. However, Windows 7 versions from the Release Candidate branch, including Build 7022 and 7032 feature IE8 RC.

“Please, be aware that the Internet Explorer 8 version on Windows 7 Beta is older than Internet Explorer 8 RC 1. So if you have an issue that reproduces on IE8 on Windows 7 and not on IE8 RC 1 then the issue has been fixed, unless it is an issue in an IE feature specific to Windows 7, Read More»

10 tips For Setting Up A Wired Or Wireless Home Network

February 09, 2009 by Jason

Setting up a wired or wireless home network has many benefits than just having Internet access for multiple computers in your home. Today, it’s almost a necessity to be able to plug in or connect via wireless to your network from any room in your house.

With many people who set up a home network, they end up under utilizing their home network and only use it for Internet access, attached to one computer.

Today, that kind of network setup is old school. Adding a router to your network, turns a home network into a LAN (Local Area Network) opening up many possibilities of what you can do on your network. Even if you have just have one Computer, many devices exist (other than computers) that are network capable, allowing interaction with other.

So what can you do with all this technology? Here are ten uses for what you can do on your home network. Read More»

Problems of Internet Explorer 7

February 08, 2009 by Jason

So you think that everything was going to be great and all will work fine when you upgraded to Internet Explorer 7and all your web browsing problem will be gone? but despite having the latest and stable version of Internet Explorer 7 problems still occurs, such as:

  • Internet Explorer temporarily hangs up while loading certain webpages such as those that use the contain Adobe Acrobat Reader plugin or any pages that contain client-side Java applets.
  • Web Pages takes more time to load than normally expected even if you have high speed internet connection and your computer just comes from a fresh restart.
  • Internet Explorer just stops responding and even refuses to be terminated even if you attempt to end it’s process.
  • Internet Explorer spontaneously crashes and stops running

Knowing the exact causes Internet Explorer 7 problems is just as much a mystery now as it has always been with previous versions of this web browser. Read More»

Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Images

January 05, 2009 by Jason

Since 2007, Microsoft has been offering free copies of Windows XP and Windows Vista for download, in order to make up for a handicap specific to the Windows client, namely the fact that two different versions of Internet Explorer cannot be installed and run simultaneously on the same operating system. While it is cooking the first Release Candidate build for Internet Explorer 8, the Redmond company is also supporting Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 6, a context in which it is a pain for developers to test their content on all versions of IE.

The situation has caused Microsoft to come up with the Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC images, a solution designed to circumvent the limitations of IE running on Windows via virtualization.

With the Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC images, Microsoft is offering developers no less than four free copies of Windows packaged as Virtual Hard Disk Images and designed to integrate with the company’s free virtualization offerings. The four VHD downloads feature a new release date, just ahead of the end of 2008, although the launched products are similar to those made available in August 2008, following the availability of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2. Read More»