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September 2014

Why some Chrome extensions use memory all the time

You know probably that Google Chrome is supporting extensions just like Firefox or the Opera browser. Extensions add functionality to the browser or modify the default behavior which can be quite useful at times. From ad blocking to scanning web pages or sharing information you come across.

When you check the Chrome Task Manager, you will notice that many of the extensions that you have installed run all the time. You can open the Task Manager with a tap on Shift-Esc or by clicking n the Hamburger menu icon, selecting More Tools > Task Manager.

Find out if your Gmail password was stolen

Update: From what has been gathered so far, it appears as if this is not a new hack, and that the list may have been created from different sources.

Today's big news is the release of a database with more than 5 million Gmail email account user information. The database appears to include usernames, passwords and email addresses of users and while it has not been confirmed as legitimate yet by third parties it has been made available publicly on the Internet.

Why are nvbackend.exe and nvstreamsvc.exe running in the background?

Video card driver packages ship with a truckload of programs and drivers of which only some are required to operate the card at maximum performance.

When it comes to Nvidia cards, it is recommended to update drivers regularly as they may improve the performance or stability of the video card.

Microsoft Security Bulletins For September 2014

Welcome to the September 2014 Microsoft update overview. It provides you with information about all security and non-security updates that Microsoft has released since August's patch day.

Microsoft released a total of four security bulletins this month fixing a total of 42 vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Microsoft .NET Framework, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Lync Server.

One of the bulletins has the highest security rating critical while the remaining three the second highest rating of important.

Manage iOS and Android devices with MoboRobo on your PC

Most smartphones come with software and drivers that you can install on your computer to allow connections between devices. These programs may allow you to browse folders and files on the smartphone or run important tasks such as backup jobs or data synchronization.

Some of these programs are rather outdated and are often fairly large when compared to third-party solutions. In addition to that, they are often limited to a specific mobile operating system and don't support others.

Find out how many cookies Internet sites save to your system

A cookie is a little snippet of data that websites can save to systems of users connecting to them. While web browsers ship with options to block cookies by default or prompt users for action, the default way of handling cookies is to allow them to be saved automatically.

Cookies are not necessarily bad as they can be used for a variety of legitimate purposes such as saving the logged in state of a user or site preferences without account.

Control Firefox Browser actions like Zooming or scrolling with the mouse

I use keyboard shortcuts whenever possible in Firefox, Windows, and other programs as it is usually faster than clicking on buttons in the interface or using menus that are provided by the applications.

So, instead of clicking on the new tab button or using the menu for that, I press Ctrl-t as it is faster. I do use keyboard and mouse shortcuts as well, for instance Ctrl and the mouse wheel to zoom in and out instead of Ctrl+ or Ctrl-.

This is what the new MSN homepage looks like

Whenever a popular Internet website announces changes, chance is high that a vocal part of its userbase, often not the majority,  criticizes some or even all of the changes.

Today MSN announced that it will launch a new version of its homepage in the near future inviting all users of it to take it for a test ride before the official switch is being made.

A prompt is displayed to visitors of the US MSN website that the new MSN is coming and that they can preview the new version right at that time with a click on the link.

How to make Chrome’s bookmarks toolbar better

If you are using Google Chrome's -- or any Chromium-based browser actually -- bookmarks toolbar you may have noticed that it does not provide you with many options.

You can add folders and pages to it and that is about it. While that may be sufficient for many users of the browser, others may say that lumping every bookmark together this way hurts the overview and makes it difficult to pick the right one.

If you look at other browsers, Firefox for example, you see that the browser supports separators as well which Chrome does not support out of the box.

Tools to optimize the Memory Usage of Firefox and Chrome

Web browsers can use a lot of memory on a computer system. Once you start opening additional websites in tabs you will notice that memory usage is going up.

Firefox does a better job at that as Chrome at the time of writing but both can easily go up to 1 Gigabyte of memory usage and more.

High memory usage may not be an issue if the system you are working on has plenty of it. If it has 4, 8, 16 or even more Gigabytes of RAM, then you may never run into any memory related issues.