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February 2016

Ghostery 6.0 for Firefox released

Ghostery 6.0 is an update of the popular tracker blocking extension for the Firefox web browser that introduces a redesigned interface and feature additions.

Ghostery is a popular -- but also controversial -- browser extension for Firefox, Google Chrome and mobile operating systems that uses lists to block a selection of known tracking services from running when you connect to websites in your browser of choice.

Test if your gaming PC is ready for SteamVR

Valve Software released the SteamVR Performance Test on Steam which will test the computer's performance and compatibility with SteamVR.

If you believe the hype, Virtual Reality (VR) is the next big thing after 3D Television. While it is unlikely that it will fade and wither like 3D TV, the first generation gadgets that are about to be released this year come at a premium price and require a fast computer system on top of that.

If that would not be bad enough, game and application support is limited at best.

Flash Replacement Shumway is as good as dead

Mozilla started to work on Shumway, an open source Flash environment that did not depend on proprietary software back in 2012.

It made sense for Mozilla to work on Shumway at that time, considering that Flash was still the dominant force on the Web, and that Adobe did not cooperate with Mozilla in regards to the integration of Flash in Firefox like it did with Google.

Firefox Crashed? Let’s Analyze That!

The Firefox web browser, just like any other program, may crash which usually means that the program is terminated forcefully.

Data that you have entered but not sent to remote servers may be lost in the process, and if things turn out to be really bad, you may lose the complete session on top of that.

Mozilla added several mechanics to Firefox to soften the impact of crashes. There is a session restore backup for one that gets loaded automatically to re-open all the tabs that were open before the crash, and an option to restart the browser right away.

Notibox: backup, search and block Android notifications

Notibox is a free application for the Android operating system that backs up notifications you receive for you among other things.

Notifications inform you about application or system events, say a new message on WhatsApp, a missed phone call or that a system update is available for installation.

You can tap on notifications to open the app that fired them, or swipe them to remove them from the list of notifications.

What you cannot do easily, at least not on the majority of Android devices, is to re-open notifications that you have closed.

Center Image brings Firefox’s image viewer to Google Chrome

Center Image is a free browser extension for the Google Chrome web browser that changes the design of the browser's image viewer to that of the Firefox web browser.

The default image viewer of Google Chrome displays images in the top left corner of the screen on a white background.

While functional, the layout and choice of color on the page may not be ideal depending on time of day, the size of the Chrome window and the size of the image.

Search across all Netflix regions for movies and TV shows

Flixed is a free service that allows you to search across all Netflix regions to find movies or TV shows that you are interested in.

While Netflix touts itself as a global entertainment provider -- it is available in most countries of the world at the time of writing -- what is offered in different regions that Netflix is available differs highly.

Kaspersky Cleaner is a free CCleaner-like program for Windows

Kaspersky Cleaner is a new program by Russian security firm Kaspersky that has been released as a free beta version on the company's website.

The program has been designed to assist users in removing junk files and temporary files from PC systems running the Microsoft Windows operating system, and to improve their privacy on top of that.

Linux Mint hacked, ISO images compromised

The Linux Mint team revealed today that compromised ISO images of Linux Mint have been distributed from the official website on February 20th, 2016.

According to the blog post, the intrusion happened on February 20th and was detected shortly thereafter and fixed. The official homepage of the project is down at the time of writing.

This means that the attackers had only a limited time frame in which they were able to distribute the compromised ISO image.