HTNet - A Notepad of Tech, Business, Science and Self Improvement

This week’s WCS will showcase some Mozilla Firefox extensions and themes that I use and recommend. Some of my favourite extensions are:

• • StumbleUpon Toolbar
  • A toolbar that lets you channel-surf. I can assure you that you will discover some very interesting web sites using this toolbar.
• • CustomizeGoogle
  • Get Google Images to link directly to images, use Google Suggest when searching and adding links to external search engines are among the goodies you can get using this extension.
• • Web Developer
  • A useful toolbar for web developers. Lots of things to dis/enable, form manipulation, tools to manipulate page layout and styles, and shortcuts to useful validation tools.
• • WellRounded
  • An extension that makes the address and search fields well rounded. A really cool eyecandy extension.
• • ColorZilla
  • Advanced eyedropper, colour picker, page zoomer and other colour manipulation goodies. A must have for web designers/programmers/enthusiasts.
• • Netcraft Toolbar
  • Detect and report potential phishing sites as well as getting access to lots of useful information for any web site.
• • Google Toolbar for Firefox
  • All the best features of its IE counterpart, but for the far superior web browser.

As for themes, these are the ones that I use most frequently:

• • Qute
  • A nicely drawn theme set. A classic favourite of mine.
• • Whitehart
  • A simple and beautiful minimalist theme. My current favourite

What about you? Share with us your favourite Firefox extensions and themes by commenting. I’m looking forward to your feedback.

There’s a security update for zlib available for Slackware users.

Here are the details from the Slackware 10.1 ChangeLog:
+————————–+
patches/packages/zlib-1.2.2-i486-2.tgz: Patched an overflow in zlib that could cause applications using zlib to crash. The overflow does not involve user supplied data, and therefore does not allow the execution of arbitrary code. However, it could still be used by a remote attacker to create a denial of service.
For more information, see: http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2005-2096
(* Security fix *)
+————————–+

You can use the Slackware package browser to obtain an updated version of this package for your Slackware installation. Lazier and smarter people like me will use updating tools such as Swaret or slapt-get

Finally, after years of getting infected with spyware and viruses, consumers’ online behaviour are beginning to change. People are more cautious when it comes to opening email attachments, their choice of internet browser as well as avoiding downloads from P2P networks. From the article:

Even though legitimate marketers often use adware, consumers still don’t like it, Fox said.

“They don’t want to be followed around,” she said. “Consumers are increasingly skeptical about tracking, and about downloading extra programs, such as adware, that go along with free software that people enjoy.”

Free software? If it doesn’t cost money, but inhibits your privacy rights, is it really free? And don’t tell me that adware is the only way to generate profit, because if your app has to be “money free” but supported by ads, it might not be in the “value for money” category now, isn’t it?

Want really free software? try here. Has anyone found spyware for non-Windows OSs? Could you give me a link please?

ESR: “We Don’t Need the GPL Anymore” by Federico Biancuzzi — During a recent Brazilian conference on free and open source software, hacker, writer, and speaker Eric Raymond stated that open source would see more rapid success if the GPL didn’t make people nervous. Federico Biancuzzi recently interviewed ESR to gain more context for the statement and to explore these views more fully.

This will surely cause a flamefest

Finally, an official Google toolbar for Mozilla Firefox will be unveiled on July 7. Quote from the article:

The July 1st e-mail, posted on Mozilla’s developer site, was penned under the name of Google engineer Fritz Schneider.

“I thought I’d drop you a note to give a heads up on something Google will be releasing next week: a version of our Internet Explorer toolbar for Firefox,” the e-mail reads.

Schneider said the Firefox toolbar is slated for release on Thursday July 7.

Update: Google Toolbar for Firefox is now available for download.