February 2016

Valve has integrated a custom version of the Chromium web browser in its Steam client that displays web content to Steam users.

If the past couple of weeks have shown anything, it is that custom Chromium or Chrome versions are a security risk more often than not.

Google analyzed third-party implementations of its Chromium browser recently, and came to the conclusion that they made user systems less secure despite claiming the opposite.

The main reason for this was that companies disabled security features of the Chromium browser, or circumvented them.

Complete the Google Security Checkup today to add 2 Gigabyte of additional permanent storage to your Google Account.

Google runs a special promotion on Safe Internet Day -- just like it did last year -- that awards Google account owners with an increase of 2 Gigabyte of permanent storage if they complete the company's Security Checkup.

The checkup takes less than a minute to complete and will net you another 2 Gigabyte of storage to your account.

You may remember that Google ran the same promotion last year as well.

Chromer is a free application for Android devices that has been designed to speed up the loading of web links from any application by using Android's Chrome Custom Tabs feature.

Whenever you open a link in a third-party application on your Android device, say a link posted by a friend to WhatsApp, you are either asked what you want to do with it, or it is opened directly in the default system browser.

When you install Windows 10 on a new PC or upgrade an existing version of Windows to the new operating system, you get the option to customize select preferences or use the defaults instead.

If you select to customize, you get the option to disable three pages full of features related to privacy.

While that is a good start at limiting Windows 10's hunger for data, it is nowhere near sufficient to keep the operating system from talking with Microsoft servers regularly.

MyRouter Log is a free program for the Windows operating system that enables you to back up modem or router log information for safekeeping or analysis on a PC running Windows.

The program has been designed by its author to listen to log file broadcasts from ADSL modems or routers supporting them.

While these devices allow you to access log information directly in a dashboard or administrative interface, it is often easier to analyze information on the PC directly.

Additionally, routers may lose log information if the device crashes or if data becomes corrupt.

Pure URL is a free browser extension for all recent versions of Firefox and Google Chrome -- and likely also Firefox-based and Chrome-based browsers like Pale Moon or Opera -- that removes optional parameters from URLs automatically.

My System Monitor is a free program for the Microsoft Windows operating system that displays realtime information about PC hardware use in a toolbar at the top of the screen.

It can sometimes be useful to keep an eye on things, for instance to to keep an eye on the load of the processor, RAM, hard drives and the computer network.

While you can use a variety of programs for that, for instance the Windows Task Manager, most need to be opened whenever you want to access the information.

Free TvDB is a program for the Windows operating system that assists you in managing your TV show collection.

Keeping track of TV shows you are interested in or collecting can be difficult especially if you are not only watching shows but also collecting them.

Free TvDB has been designed for two main purposes: keeping an overview of your TV show collection, and looking up information about shows you are interested in.

Detect It Easy is a free cross-platform program to analyze files you load into the application. It detects, among other things, the compiler and linker used, signatures, and other information about files.

The program has been designed specifically to reveal file signatures and how they are packed.

The program supports over 200 different file types that it can analyze, and defines (currently) the following file types: MSDOS, PE executable files for Windows, ELF executable files for Linux, MACH executable files for Mac OS, text files and binary files.

There has been an increase in reports pf security products recently which make user systems less secure when they are installed, used or even just present on the system.

Many antivirus companies have added tools and products to their security programs in recent years to increase the perceived value of the product, add new features to them that users may find useful, and to add new revenue opportunities in form of custom search deals.