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May 2015

Here is what you need to know about the new Adblock Browser for Android

Adblock Plus is a popular ad-blocking extension that is available for various web browsers. According to Eyeo GMBH, the company behind it, it has been downloaded more than 300 million times.

A beta version of the Adblock Browser for Android was released by the company earlier today. Beta means that you cannot just head over to Google Play to install the browser but need to join the Adblock Browser community page on Google Plus first before that option becomes available.

How to remove the Dropbox Update plugin from Firefox

Dropbox users who run Firefox on Windows may want to check the plugins listing of the browser as the browser may have picked up the Dropbox Update plugin automatically after a recent update.

Mozilla, for unknown reasons, never fixed the automatic plugin installation issue in Firefox. While you can block the automatic installation of plugins manually in Firefox, there is no default indicator or permission system in place to protect users.

Firefox checks various locations on the computer automatically for plugins and integrates them automatically.

Find out how old a program really is

If you want to find out how old a program executable really is, you may get the information from the developer website or the program itself. If that is however not the case, you may use the tiny program PEstamp for that instead.

Whenever I update a program review here on ComTek4u, I try to find out when the last version of the program was released.

This is important as it indicates whether the program is still in active development or not, and if a new version of the program was released since the last time I reviewed it.

This happens when you install a “Fix My PC” program

You have probably come across ads before that promise to fix issues that you are having with your PC.

These ads are fairly common and often displayed on technology related websites. While I'm pretty certain that most ComTek's visitors know better than to download and install programs advertised by these ads, it seems to be a lucrative business nevertheless.

The following analyzes one program that promises to fix your PC highlighting what it does and how the developer generates revenue from it.

Firefox for Android: password selection process improvements

The most recent Nightly version of Firefox for Android features an improved password selection process that should make life a lot easier for users who use the built-in password manager.

I have a great password selection workflow on the desktop using KeePass, the password manager's global login shortcut and copy&paste, but the same cannot be said when I'm using my Android phone.

While I don't log in to sites often there, I sometimes have to do that and it was always a burden to get the passwords from the computer to the mobile device.

5 Vivaldi features that Google Chrome does not support

Vivaldi is a relatively new web browser based on the Blink engine which Google Chrome and Opera use as well.

A stable version of the web browser has not been released yet but is expected to become available later this year.

Vivaldi is one of the few Blink/Chromium-based browsers that introduced features that Google Chrome does not support.

In fact, it is probably the browser with the largest set of custom features when compared to Chrome.

Permission Requests are the main reason why I cancel app installations on Android

I like Android apps a lot, and I enjoy the discovery as much as I enjoy discovering new desktop software.

I do skip the installation of Android apps that I discover fairly often though, probably 50% or even more than that.

The sole reason why I'm canceling the installation dialog after hitting the install button on Google Play is if an application requests permissions that I think it does not require for functionality.

The Wolfram Language Image Identification Project

The Wolfram Language Image Identification Project is a new function of Wolfram Language that can be used to identify what images are about.

It is usually easy to identify what is shown on a picture. While it may sometimes be difficult to identify an object or people correctly, it is usually no problem to put it in a broader context.

For instance, while you may not know the specific model of a car or the name of a flower, you will be able to tell that a car or a flower is the main focus of a picture.