As many people may or may not have noticed, The internet is just filled anymore with annoying advertisements. It seems like almost every web site a person visits they are bombarded with advertisements. I understand people want to make a few bucks, however, does EVERYONE have to use Google Ads? It seems like 95% of internet advertising is done with 3rd party ad servers. why not just work out your own ad deals for your web site or blog?
Have you ever sat back and thought? How much money does Google get per click?
Yes think about this for a moment. If your getting say 7 cents for a click on a keyword advertisement, what is Google getting? Google may be getting $1.00 per click, perhaps $2.00. Google never tells you how much they are getting out of it. I’d say it Looks like they are getting pretty cheap employment to me. They get to put ads all over your site, and they reap all the rewards of your hard work as webmaster. If your lucky they will throw a few cents at you. That just sounds grand eh? Read the rest of this entry »
According to BitDefender’s blog at Malwarecity.com they have discovered a new worm circulating on the interwebs they have dubbed Win32.Worm.Zimuse.A. This worm is very unique because it enters users computers disguised as a harmless IQ test, however, its intentions are quite sinister. As of right now, many antivirus and security programs are not picking it up. It resides on the users system virtually undetected for a defined period of time before it executes its ridiclious payload.
This unique piece of malware when executed on a users system over-writes the first 50 kb of the MBR(Master BootRecord) which is a key area of the hard drive. It adds itself to the following registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run , and adds the file dump.exe to the program files directory, and creates two driver files mstart.sys and mseu.sys. These files are then loaded into the kernel at the next reboot. These two files have rootkit type fuctionality to hide the presense of this malware.. Read the rest of this entry »
As you may know, computers running Microsoft Windows require Anti-virus software and other security software to protect it. The sheer amount of malware out there makes it a requirement that users protect themselves from these emerging threats. However, security suites from the likes of Symantec, McAfee, and others ,while they may do the job, they can cost the user anywhere from 49-70 dollars a year to subscribe to those services. I know many people just simply don’t have the money to afford this, and these security software packages can put an unnecessary drag on system performance.
Recently, I did some research since my security software was due to expire next week, and I have found that there are tools out there that can be used for free that when combined together can offer the user an exceptional amount of security for free. In fact, this combination of free tools sometimes offers more security then their paid for counterparts, and they don’t use up as many system resources. In a two week period, i tested a vareity of different application combinations as its important to find the right combination of free security applications that:
1. Play nice together with no conflicts.
2. use the least amount of system resources possible.
3. do not require too much technical user interaction on the part of the end user.
I finally have came up with what I feel is the best practical combination of freely available tools that will secure the users computer at a reasonable computer resource usage level. The free software is as follows: Read the rest of this entry »
Well, it turns out there is another Internet Explorer Zero-day attack out in the wild. The attack, which has been dubbed Operation Aurora, is linked to the recent cyber-attacks on Google and other companies originating China. 9B8MN9ENFUE8 In light of all of this, security company McAfee warns that public exploit code is now available and anyone using Internet Explorer could be at risk of what many are calling the most sophisticated and targeted cyber-attack in years.
The vulnerability addressed in Microsoft Security Advisory 979352 states that IE6, IE7, and IE8 on supported editions of Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 are effected.
It must be noted however that the Protected Mode feature of Windows Vista/Windows 7 limits the damage of this exploit to some degree.
Everyone today knows what Adobe Reader is. If you don’t know, it is the most commonly used software to view PDF files. PDF stands for Portable Document format which is a standard created by Adobe in 1993 which is the most commonly used format today to share documents online. Adobe Reader and the PDF format is so popular because of its small file size, and the sheer amount of features you can do with it. In todays world, the PDF format is literally the defacto standard for many corporations and government agencies for providing documents over a network. In fact, most games, and other devices you buy today come with a user manual in the form of a pdf file.
PDF is a great format because of its overall popularity, ease of use, and small file size with extensible features. This however does come with a price. The most popular pdf viewer is Adobe’s own Adobe Reader, however, in recent months this piece of software has literally become the target of hackers wanting to attack the Adobe Reader application specifically to compromise users machines.
As noted by the recent Secunia Advisories related to the product. With that being said, some users out there may wish to reduce their exposure to these risks by using a pdf viewer other than Adobe Reader. I liken this to the adoption of Firefox a few years ago as a more secure alternative to Internet Explorer in some experts eyes.
The good news is that there are alternatives to Adobe Reader. Lets look at the alternatives to Adobe Reader.
In there internet world today, there is quite a few choices in the realm of web browsers. The major players today in the Browser wars is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and Mozilla’s Firefox web browser. These two web browsers comprise of most of the market place, however, The Opera web browser and Google’s Chrome browser are steadily climbing up the charts in their own right. The question is which one of these web browsers is the best, and why should you choose one over the other?
I will give a breif overview of each browser, and give the inherent advantages and disadvantages of each one to try and help you make an informed decision. I believe benchmarks and the other tests you see on the internet today to be largely irrelevant to the average user. This is simply due to the fact that tests like JavaScript performance and the like are not that important. While it may be true that one web browser has a faster JavaScript engine then another, the speed differences just don’t justify a comparison in this article because the user will rarely notice in the real world of web browsing. The only tests that matter in my opinion is the Acid 2 and Acid 3 tests which show each browsers conformity to html/xhtml and css standards laid out by the world wide web consortium.
With that being said, lets take a look at the browsers and see what each one offers, and why it should be your web browser. Read the rest of this entry »
Ixquick is slowly becoming a very popular search engine on the internet. Ixquick is a meta search engine that pulls its results from various sources, However it differs in its data retention polices that some privacy advocates have cried foul on from Google, Yahoo, Bing, and the other search engines. According to Ixquick’s web site. Ixquick has built its reputation in protecting the privacy of its users. To many internet users, they feel the contents of their searches should remain private and not be used for marketing or targeting advertising data. Ixquick is the only search right now that addresses these privacy issues associated with internet users who don’t like the idea of their search results being tracked or stored.
According to the search engines web site, in June of 2006 they began deleting their users privacy data within 48 hours, and in January of 2009, they no longer even record their users IP Address in their search queries. Read the rest of this entry »
The words Social Media is the new “buzz term” that you hear everyone throwing around nowadays. In fact, they will throw these words around as it some new and great thing when in reality there is nothing new about social media at all. In fact, Yahoo Geocities was the first real social network and the largest at one time. Yahoo Geocities was used to promote everything from churches, personal homepages, business, to your local card game on Friday night. Geocities was the epitome of the personal space.
The words Social Media is an attempt to re-invent and rename something that already had a name which is Social Networks or Social Networking. Social Media is in fact the hijacking and pirating of a service (Social Networks) and using them for purposes they were NEVER designed nor intended for.
Most of the folks today that claim to be Social Media experts are in fact some sort of internet marketer. I am not saying all internet marketers are bad; however, many so called internet marketers are in fact scammers and con artists. A simple Google search for “internet marketers scammers” will prove the point there with that. Read the rest of this entry »
