A couple of months ago, we introduced you to Cloudy, a Chrome extension that allows you to upload files to your Gmail account directly from your cloud-based storage accounts like Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and more.  Kloudless is a new Chrome extension that offers the same feature – removing that unnecessary extra step of downloading a file from the cloud only to upload it as an attachment – but takes things one step further, by also allowing you to save files directly from your Gmail account to your cloud storage accounts.

Kloudless closes the gap between email and cloud-storage, creating a link that makes perfect sense, is incredibly convenient, and is one of those features that you won’t know how to live without once you get it set up. Kloudless serves several functions – one of which is to automatically back up your email attachments to cloud-based storage accounts.

When you first install Kloudless you’ll be walked through a series of simple steps to set up your accounts. You’ll first be prompted to connect Kloudless to your email account. At the moment it only works with Gmail, but support for Outlook is also available, but you do have to sign up to get an invite for access.

If you’re logged into more than one Gmail/Google Apps account, you’ll be prompted to select the account you want to use.

The good news is that if you want to use Kloudless simultaneously with more than one Gmail/Google Apps account – you can. Just simply go through the setup process individually for each account, by logging into that account and clicking on the Kloudless Beta link at the top-right hand corner of the page.

The permissions you are granting Kloudless when it comes to your email address include viewing your email address, viewing and managing your mail, and knowing who you are on Google. That may seem like a lot of data to entrust Kloudless with, not to mention data that you have saved in your cloud storage accounts, but all of your files are encrypted while being transferred using Kloudless, and the service has an extensive Privacy Policy worth reading.

Once your Gmail account is connected, you can then connect your cloud storage account. Currently, Kloudless supports Dropbox, Google Drive and Box.

At this point, Kloudless is fully set up and can be used. But there is one final step that brings an interesting and much welcomed-feature that isn’t available in Cloudy. Since Kloudless allows you to save attachments directly to your cloud storage, the service also offers automation features. You can create rules for how to handle certain attachments. So for example, if you want to save all of the attachments sent to you by a specific person, you can create a rule to copy all of those attachments to a specific Dropbox folder. Rules include copying or moving attachments, based on who they were sent from, who they were sent to, or even based on keywords, and more.

While the automation feature is really cool, it does have its limits. Unfortunately, you can only create up to 10 rules.

If you’d rather not automate the process of saving attachments to your cloud-based storage accounts, you can still access this feature manually when opening individual attachments. When you open an email with an attachment, you’ll find a new option alongside ‘Download.’ Hitting the ‘Copy/Move’ link will open up a pop-up window which gives you access to folders in whichever cloud storage account you’ve connected to.

 You can then copy or move individual files, one at a time, directly from your email account to your cloud storage account. If for any reason, space is becoming an issue in your Gmail account, this is a great way to quickly free up space in Gmail by moving large attachments. Even better, if you don’t want to keep the attachments at all but want a record of the email itself, you can also delete individual attachments from your Gmail inbox using Kloudless.

Kloudless is a convenient, handy Chrome extension which will be appreciated by anyone who finds themselves spending more time in the cloud than they do on their desktop. While Cloudy was a step in the right direction, Kloudless  completes the equation by providing two-way access to your files saved in the cloud and to attachments in your email account.

What do you think of Kloudless? Let us know in the comments.

The post Kloudless: Two Way Access To Files In Gmail, Dropbox, Google Drive And More appeared first on MakeUseOf.

The platform is billed as a replacement for Google Talk and Voice, allowing one-on-one and group chats via text, along with media messaging and video calling. For the moment the service only works on Apple and Google’s mobile platforms and via a Web browser, either by logging in to Google+ and clicking on Hangouts or by downloading the Chrome extension.

The service is aimed at creating long-standing “conversations that last” according to Google, so chats are always kept up to date across devices, with chat histories stored unless you specify otherwise. That means you’ll have to turn off logging for each and every conversation you want to take off the record, as these logs are always enabled by default.

This launch sees Hangouts detach itself somewhat from Google+, the company’s social layer, though users will still need a Google+ enabled account. The new Hangouts has its own standalone apps and icon, but still relies on Google+ to connect with friends in circles and for use on a desktop PC.

The service joins an already busy marketplace for cross-platform messaging clients, with iOS devices connected for free over iMessage, Facebook chat more useful than ever thanks to “chat heads” and WhatsApp messenger continuing its domination of the SMS-replacements that bridge Android and iOS users.

Download: Google Hangouts for iPhone / Google Hangouts for Android / Google Hangouts for Chrome

Have you used the new service? Do you plan to?

Source: Official Google Blog

The post Google Launches Hangouts, A New Cross-Platform IM System for iOS, Android & Web [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

If you’re the kind of person who prefers to leave things in the browser, certain Chrome Twitter extensions can help you get all sorts of fun and useful Twitter features without having to resort to out-of-the-browser clients. Whether you’re looking to save time when sharing webpages, save brain cells when reading your stream, or retweet the good old way from Twitter’s native interface, there are ways to do so without leaving your browser. Try the Chrome Twitter extensions below to find out!

PowerInbox

PowerInbox is a browser extension available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE, which takes your regular Twitter emails and makes them much more useful by turning them interactive. In fact, PowerInbox does its trick with many additional services besides Twitter, including Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Spotify, Pinterest, and others.

Focusing on Twitter, PowerInbox makes it so you can actually make use of those pesky email updates you keep getting from Twitter, such as “you have a new follower” or “Bla and BlaBla have tweets for you”. After installing the add-on and signing into your Twitter account, emails from Twitter will start looking something like this:

As you can see, instead of getting a simple alert you can’t do much with, PowerInbox makes it so you can follow users from within the email, send tweets, and in other emails also view your stream, reply, retweet, and favorite tweets.

PowerInbox has an on/off button on top of every supported email, so if you don’t feel like viewing interactive content, you can simply turn it off and turn it back on when you’re ready for more.

Tareem Extender

Tareem Extender takes your good old Twitter interface, and powers it up with some new and useful features. While I couldn’t get every single feature listed to work, the extension still adds a considerable amount of them. Starting with features that actually work, Tareem Extender adds an old retweet button to every tweet, as well as a DM button and a quick translate button to translate tweets from English into dozens of languages.

You can also set the extension to highlight your mentions in the stream, and to show desktop notifications for your Twitter mentions.

So what didn’t work? Tareem Extender claims to include a built-in link shortener, which I couldn’t get to work, as well as a “speak to tweet” feature which was no where to be found. Considering Twitter’s ever changing API and interface, I’m assuming some features just stopped working over time, but where it counts, Tareem Extender provides the means to use Twitter’s native interface to much better results.

Tweet This Page

Most blogs and websites include a tweet button of some kind, but these are located in a different spot on every page, and might even look different from website to website. In addition, most of these buttons are just extensions of the twitter.com webpage, and as such don’t let you use your personal link shortener. Tweet This Page can change that.

Tweet This Page is a simple Chrome Twitter extension that makes it super easy to tweet a link to any page you’re on. Want to share a link on Twitter? Click the new Twitter button on the right side of Chrome’s address bar to create the tweet. You can set Tweet This Page to use your personal bit.ly account and to automatically use selected text as the tweet body, making it possible to click and tweet in seconds.

Silver Bird

Silver Bird is a fully-fledged Twitter client built into a Chrome extension. Behind a colorful bird icon hides a simple interface that nonetheless includes pretty much anything you could wish for in a Twitter client. And what’s more, it’s all completely customizable.

From the icon’s color at any given moment, to the interface’s font and color, to the compose area’s position, Silver Bird is like a mold you can shape as your own. With its built-in pop-up notifications, built-in link shortener, its ability to add images to tweets and its handy suspend option for when you really need to concentrate, you may never need to venture into twitter.com again.

Read a full review of Silver Bird.

Larry Filter for Twitter

Twitter too noisy? Larry Filter can make it a quieter place with the help of some well-placed filters. This handy extension lets you set keywords and hashtags you’re not interested in, and either hide them completely, or increase opacity on tweets that include them.

While this is not the only way to filter tweets, I love Larry Filter for its simplicity, and for its ability to only half hide the culprit tweets. This way, I can make sure I’m not missing anything important, and still have a quieter Twitter feed. It’s like having my cake and eating it too!

For more ways to filter tweets and make Twitter a generally quieter place, check out these ways to filter annoyances on Twitter, and some additional ways to help you swim and not drown in your Twitter stream.

More?

As always, we’d also love to hear some of your recommendations. Are there any Chrome twitter extension you find invaluable? What makes your Twitter life easier? Share your favorites in the comments.

The post 5 Chrome Extensions To Superpower Twitter appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Google loves – and I mean loves – changing the YouTube layout. Over the last couple of years it’s gone from focusing on helping everyone discover the same videos, to helping everyone see the latest videos from their subscriptions, to the current incarnation – showing you videos it thinks you’ll appreciate for reasons mere mortals cannot discern. If you’re sick of the cycle – or just want to avoid the rabbit hole of recommended videos and comments – Cleanr Video can help clean up YouTube for you.

From Minimalist for Everything to services that de-clutter the web for readers, we’ve outlined more than a few ways to make the web a less busy place. Cleanr Video is just one more.

How Cleanr Video Works

So, just how much does Cleanr Video strip down? Rather than tell you, I’ll show you. Here’s how the page for a YouTube video looks normally.

…and here’s how it looks with Cleanr Videos installed:

As you can see, everything but the video itself is stripped away, leaving you with a video to watch and nothing more. When you’re done watching, you’ll simply get to whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing – no clicking related videos and no scrolling through comments. This could help you stay focused.

The home page for YouTube is similarly cleaned up. Instead of seeing this hot mess…

…you’ll see this…

Click the “See More” button to show the videos that usually show up on the YouTube home page – and nothing else. If you’re looking for simplicity, you found it.

One Problem…

If you’re like me, you love your YouTube subscriptions. You found the YouTube homepage useful, until recent changes stopped showing the latest videos from your subscriptions and started showing…something. I’m still not sure what this seemingly random assortment of videos is supposed to be, but I know I’m not a fan. It’s why I’ve been habitually clicking the “My Subscriptions” link every time I open YouTube.

Which brings me to my problem – Cleanr Videos hides the “My Subscriptions” link. At first I was panicking, but then I did what I should have done a long time ago – I added a link to the Subscriptions page on my browser toolbar. The link, in case you didn’t know, is:

http://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions

Why YouTube doesn’t offer a setting for making that page the default I’ll never know. Maybe Cleanr Videos should redirect users, though, because I don’t think anyone actually wants to use YouTube’s default homepage.

Download Cleanr Video

Sick of reading about Cleanr Video, and ready to download it? Head to Clea.nr. The process should be simple for Firefox and Safari users. Chrome users, however, have to do some extra work. This video explains how to install the extension:

For those who hate video tutorials – you need to download the .CRX file from Clea.nr. Then, head to the “Extensions” menu in Chrome (hit the settings icon to the right of your extension icons, then Tools > Extensions). Open the folder to which you downloaded the CRX file using your operating system’s file browser, then drag the CRX to the Chrome window where the Extensions menu is open. The extension is now installed.

This used to be a simpler process, but a (relatively) recent update to Chrome made it harder to install extensions not from the Chrome Web Store.

Conclusion

This app not only makes YouTube look great – it can also help you to be productive. YouTube can be a huge time sink. Watching videos online when you’re supposed to be working is bad enough, but a quick video viewing can quickly turn into a spree if you follow a long enough line of “Recommended Videos“. Removing this temptation just might be Cleanr Video’s best feature, but blocking comments isn’t a bad thing either.

Do you have any other cool minimalist browser extensions to share? Please, do so in the comments below. Those of us who haven’t blocked all online comments will be happy to read them.

The post Cleanr Video – Make YouTube Less Of a Time Sink appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Ideally, I think that we could have a fully-customizable Facebook with personalized layouts and possibly even colors. However, what appears on your Facebook style doesn’t appear the same way for others. I wouldn’t be having any of that MySpace 2.0 crap happening in my Facebook.

That’s never going to happen, though.

Admittedly, it’s a tough issue. Each company that develops social networking products knows that they can’t make everybody happy. Why waste their time by developing specialized features that cater to each and every crowd? People would just find a reason to complain anyway…

However, there’s a small Chrome extension available that reverts Facebook back to its old mode of displaying photos: No Theater Facebook Image Gallery. Simply put, it gets rid of the theater mode and shows the images on their own individual pages – just like the older version of Facebook. It’s nothing special, but it does get the job done. Its creator isn’t very elegant about its origins, either:

“This extension automatically removes the new theater mode from Facebook image galleries and brings back the old one. The new Facebook image gallery has been massively criticized and I agree with most people – it blows.”

Those last three words are the most elegant I have ever seen in a description of an extension. Seriously.

Personal Use

The app doesn’t provide many options for customizability, really. I mean, how could it?

It has one single purpose, and that’s all it’s really good for. I can’t explain it much better than that, but I can say that I have been using it for several months, and my experience has gone relatively well. No slow loading times. No frozen screens. In all honesty, my Facebook experience was just as seamless and fluid as before.

I will say that staying away from theater mode does have its disadvantages. For one, every single image has its own page, so that’s a lot of backtracking if you want to go back to the website you were visiting before Facebook. Minor inconvenience? Yup. However, it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Granted, theater mode has its advantages as well. The main perk is that you can browse the someone’s album without even having to leave your news feed.

So it all comes down to this: it’s all based on your preference.

If you like theater mode? Don’t get this extension for Chrome. If you don’t like theater mode? Try this extension out. It’s the kind of extension that’s so useful you might even forget that you have it installed. In fact, I did! That’s why I wrote this article so many months after having it…

Conclusion

There’s not much else we can say about No Theater Facebook Image Gallery except, well… that there’s not much else we can say about No Theater Facebook Image Gallery. It made our list of Best Chrome Extensions, and there’s obviously a reason for that.

With that said, there are a a few other Facebook “enhancers” you can check out to make your social networking experience more streamlined. In face, we have an article all about it: 8 Great Chrome Extensions For Facebook You Could Get To Like. For those of you who tend to use Firefox, you may want to take a look at 5.5. Firefox Extensions To Make Facebook Awesome.

You can install No Theater Facebook Image Gallery from the Chrome Web Store.

That’s it, folks. Do you like No Theater Facebook Image Gallery? Do you dislike theater mode for Facebook?  Or maybe you’re one of the ones that actually like it?  Fancy that.

The post No Theater Facebook Image Gallery – Facebook Images Made Simple appeared first on MakeUseOf.

With these good feed reading tools, why should we look at specialized RSS extensions (for Chrome)? Maybe, just for the one-click accessibility they bring. Browser extensions like the one we feature on our Best Chrome Extensions page fulfill all our basic browsing needs and then some more. Reading the feeds we subscribe to is a pretty basic day-to-day activity, and you can bet there are enough Chrome extensions for that. Like these six.

RSS Subscription Extension (by Google)

The Chrome extension developed by Google auto-detects RSS feeds on a web page. The extension makes up for Chrome’s lack of RSS support. It displays an RSS icon in the Omnibox which you can click to subscribe to the feed. You have the option of two feed readers – Bloglines and My Yahoo, with the third option of adding any online feed reader of your choice to the list. For any other feed reader apart from the two predefined in the dropdown, you will need to copy the URL from the respective feed reader’s website. For Feedly users, the URL would be – http://www.feedly.com/home#subscription/feed/%s

Points of Note:

• It saves you the bother of hunting for RSS feeds.
• Download a forked extension that gives you predefined options for Feedly, NewsBlur, and The Old Reader.

Foxish live RSS

Let’s admit it; there are some things that Firefox does better than Chrome. Handling feed subscriptions is one of them. With Live Bookmarks, you can easily subscribe to and be up to date with your favorite websites. Chrome doesn’t have native RSS handling capabilities, so we look towards the Web Store for replacements. The Foxish live RSS extension replicates Firefox’s functionality by auto-detecting and syncing RSS feeds with bookmark folders at configured intervals. I won’t get into the nitty-gritty here as Justin showed us how to add Firefox-Style RSS feeds with Foxish. The extension sets up folders for individual website under Chrome’s bookmarks, and populates them with the maximum feed items you specify in the Options.

Points of Note:

• Foxish live RSS is customizable. You can set the parent folders, the poll interval, and the maximum feed items to include in the folders.
• Import/export of feeds from other RSS readers using OPML.

Slick RSS

On the face of it, Slick RSS is a simple in-browser feed reader sans any frills. But go under the hood and it gives you quite a few customization options without betraying its simplicity. You can import and export OPML files. Slick RSS has in place some feed display options like the choice between summaries or full-content; viewing embedded videos; and loading links in the background. You can set the maximum items you want to display per feed and set the options which allow you to mark what’s read or unread. I found the refresh speed to be slightly slow, but that could be my connection too.

Points of Note:

• Slick RSS has an option that allows for marking an item to be read later.
• The Slick RSS: Feed Finder extension is an optional install for auto-detecting RSS and atom feeds on web pages.

RSS Feed Reader

RSS Feed Reader is a simple and elegant solution for reading RSS and Atom feeds in the browser. It is designed to give you an overview of your RSS account and track your read and unread counts. It syncs with Google Reader but that’s not going to matter. You can directly add your RSS/Atom feeds through the interface and also import your OPML file. Feed Reader helps you to easily subscribe to feeds from any site by clicking on the browser icon. A range of feed customization options are available – choose how many posts to display or change the title of the feeds. You can rearrange your feeds into distinct folders by dragging and dropping them right from within the browser.

Points of Note:

• Change the theme by choosing between – Dark, Mint or Light.
• Feed update status notifications can be enabled for select feeds.

RSS Social Analyzer

If you are into SEO or are a web developer, then RSS Social Analyzer is a Chrome extension that’s just the right fit for you. It is a smart analytical tool that gives you the social sharing metrics of any website with a RSS feed to its name. After installing the extension, it will auto-detect the RSS feed. With a click, it redirects you to a web tool that’s essentially a social analyzer using Linkscape’s API. Social shares are broken down by networks as you can see in the screenshots.

Points of Note:

• The ten most recent posts are analyzed and presented according to their social shares.
• The extension is a shortcut to the analyzing website, but it speeds up the process and helps to auto-detect RSS feeds.

Revolver RSS

As the name suggests, Revolver RSS takes a single RSS feed of any website and automatically rotates the pages that fall under the particular feed. It is slightly limiting because it works with a single RSS feed. On the other hand it can be useful if you want to set up an unattended display of “revolving” web pages for a single website.

Points of Note:

• Go into the options to set the full RSS feed URL for a website.
• You can set the interval between the pages and the maximum pages to display.

The usual suspects like Feedly missing? Well, they have been comprehensively covered before and I am betting as a RSS junkie, you probably are already on it. If you are starting to miss Google Reader, you can use the Feedly Reader extension to turn Feedly into a Google Reader clone. With the help of these extensions and so many other RSS and Atom tools, it is time to bid adieu to Google Reader with a comforting thought. As we have seen, these browser extensions not only let us read our RSS and Atom feeds but also interact with them in other ways.

Is there any super extension that’s missing from this list? I would also be interested to know about your current choice for a feed reader. Drop in and comment.

The post Local Reader – 6 Excellent RSS Extensions For Chrome appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Google Keep for Chrome allows you to jot down notes, cross off to-do lists, and attach photos to various tasks. Even better, the app works entirely offline, so you can keep going even without an Internet connection. Whenever you do reconnect, the app will automatically sync all of your new information with the app across your multiple devices.

Although the app can be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store, the Google Keep Chrome app is not a Chrome extension at all. In fact, Keep can operate as a standalone app even if Chrome is not running.

In general, Google Keep is a service that lets you keep track of all your notes in one place. The service lets you “save ideas and organize to-dos the moment they happen by creating notes, lists, photos and voice recordings.”

For those of you who need a bit of a refresher, here’s a video that showcases the app:

Visit the Chrome Web Store to install the Chrome version of Google Keep.

Will you make use of the new Google Keep Chrome app? Do you think it’s a worthy competitor to Evernote?

Source: Google Drive Blog via TheNextWeb

The post Google Launches Keep For Chrome, Lets You Manage Notes, To-Do Lists, & Photos While Offline [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

The reason probably has to do with Google’s continuing efforts to streamline the search experience with its search tools. According to reports, Google Instant Preview had low usage and so it was a prime candidate for the Guillotine. For me personally, the double exit of Instant Previews and Quick View from search results is bit of a downer.

Why Google Instant Preview Was Useful?

Instant Preview or any visual preview has its benefits as a search enhancer.

• The thumbnail gave a clue to the design and quality of a website.
• Some previews displayed text call-out boxes over the preview image to help you see where your query appears on the page.
• For a specific search query, you could quickly compare results and choose a page that best matches what you were looking for.
• It sped up search results because you didn’t need to visit each webpage individually.

Most of these points hold up well if you go for an alternative to Google Instant Preview and use a Chrome extension for the same job.

The Alternatives To Google Instant Preview

Browser extensions have always cushioned the loss when features are missing. We use extensions and add-ons to enhance our search experience, so there’s bound to be something that can stand-in for the departed Google feature.

SearchPreview

SearchPreview has considerable number of users; enough to suggest that Instant Preview had its takers. In fact, the extension was previously known as GooglePreview. SearchPreview adds a small thumbnail before every Google search result. The Chrome extension is unobtrusive; there is also no icon to crowd the toolbar. The thumbnails are uniform in their alignment, and while some may argue that it clutters up the page…I personally feel that for the trade-off with usability, the neatness is preserved. You can also refresh the thumbnail by right-clicking on it and selecting the option of Request Update of Preview Image.

The developers say that SearchPreview could display ads to offset server costs (which are used to cache the thumbnail images). The good thing – you can turn them off from the extension’s Options.

ezLinkPreview

ezLinkPreview is a comprehensive solution if you are looking for a wider field of view on your search results page. Mouse over any link to bring up the ‘ez’ icon. Click the little icon to show the linked page in a separate preview overlay or split screen. You can interact with the overlay window in many ways. The ezLink Preview window can be pinned in place. You can send the previewed webpage to Google Bookmarks, share it on Google+, and even search from the preview window. For all practical purposes, the preview window acts like a separate tab. The Chrome extension also allows you to split the browser window and view a preview of the site in the right frame. ezLink has a full range of options for you to customize.

You can set up a flotilla of customized search engines from the extension’s Options. ezLink also allows you to set up exclusion lists which will disable URL’s from loading in the preview window.

CoolPreviews

CoolPreviews gives you a larger snapshot of a webpage instead of a thumbnail. After installing the Chrome extension, you will see a magnifying glass icon next to each search result. CoolPreviews is customizable with support for features like a hotkey (which I would recommend using). You can cycle between the different modes as the icon shows you the mode you currently are in. As you can see in the screen below, you can tweak the display to your comfort level and also set the time the window will be open for.

For privacy concerns, you can choose to turn off the Allow sending anonymous statistics option. Though, the extension says it is for product development purposes and is strictly anonymous.

My experience with CoolPreviews wasn’t completely satisfactory as I found it to be slightly slow to load in the preview window.

Every browser has a third party add-on in place that allows you to preview search results. Firefox has the similarly named but different CoolPreviews; and Opera has SearchenginePreview which is similar to Chrome’s SearchPreview in function. So, Instant Preview may have been mothballed, but you can call in the stand-ins and expect them to do a good job. Did you use Google’s Instant Preview? Tell us if it was useful for you or just wasted space.

The post Missing Google Instant Preview: 3 Chrome Extensions That Show Previews Of Google Search Results appeared first on MakeUseOf.

These comments can be improved with browser extensions, replacing them with intelligent or amusing quotes. You could also just rip all the comments out entirely.

Translate Comments To Herp Derps

The Herp Derp extension will convert all YouTube comments to herp derps instead of hiding them completely. This extension is available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera. Don’t worry about missing any important information when you use this extension — YouTube comments might as well contain “herp derps” for all the value they offer. If you haven’t heard of the “herp derp” meme yet, Know Your Meme defines it as “an expression used to indicate that someone is unintelligent or making ignorant statements.” That certainly seems appropriate for YouTube.

You can click a YouTube comment to read the original comment, but, according to the add-on’s author, reading an original YouTube comment is “highly discouraged.”

Replace Comments With Feynman Quotes

If you really wish YouTube comments were more intelligent, you can install the FeynComment user script. It works in both Chrome and Firefox – you’ll find installation instructions on the Userscripts website.

FeynComment replaces all YouTube comments with quotes from famed theoretical physicist Richard Feynman. With Feyncomment, the comment section on YouTube will become a serious, intelligent discussion of science and physics. Even if you just see these comments out of the corner of your eye, they’ll fill you with a sense that your fellow human beings are intelligent people having a discussion about the nature of reality rather than bickering and cursing over the latest popular music video on YouTube.

Replace Comments With Nietzsche Quotes

Available as both a Chrome extension and Firefox extension, NietzscheDerp goes another direction by replacing all YouTube comments with quotes from German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s quotes can be rather bleak, so they somehow seem perfectly at home in a YouTube comment section. It’s as if all YouTube commenters have fallen into a malaise after being exposed to YouTube comments for so long.

Convert Profanity into Yuletide Cheer

It may not be the holiday season, but YuleTube works year-round. This extension, which is available for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, converts profane comments into festive expressions of goodwill. As the extension’s website says, it will “turn the troll‘s comments from naughty into something nice.”

With Yuletube, a YouTube discussion about Justin Bieber becomes a discussion about a chubby little elf. Mean comments become cute lines like “I bet every reindeer who gets into TV…”. You’ll wish your fellow men and women goodwill instead of being overcome by misanthropy. It’s the perfect pick-me-up to ensure you don’t become a Grinch in the holiday season, but it’s preferable to the original comments at any time of year.

Remove Them All!

The most obvious way to improve YouTube’s comments section is by getting rid of it entirely. Just install the No YouTube Comments extension for Chrome or Comment Snob for Firefox. No YouTube Comments hides all comments entirely, solving the problem in just a few clicks. Comment Snob for Firefox is pickier by default, opting to filter comments based on the number of spelling mistakes, capital letters, and excessive punctuation they contain. You can tweak these filtering rules in the add-on’s options or just tell it to hide all YouTube comments completely.

French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once famously said that “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Removing comments brings YouTube that much closer to perfect.

Of course, YouTube comments aren’t the only blasted wastelands of intelligence on the web. Other websites with comment sections — particularly news websites — can be as bad or even worse. To get rid of comments on other websites, try the Shut Up extension for Chrome, which allows you to toggle comments on and off on various popular websites. it will remember your choices, so you won’t have to see comments the next time you visit the same website.

What’s your favorite way of dealing with YouTube comments? Leave a comment and let us know how you handle YouTube comments without going insane. (Don’t worry, our comment section is nowhere near as bad as YouTube’s! We wouldn’t tolerate that.)

The post 5 Ways To Improve YouTube Comments appeared first on MakeUseOf.

You might be familiar with Shortcuts for Google (which we actually haven’t covered, yet), which is a similar extension that includes links in the form of icons to Google’s services. Black Menu has a bit more functionality. So if you like Shortcuts for Google (by the same developer), you’re going to love what Black Menu has to offer.

About The Developer

The mastermind behind Black Menu and two other Chrome extensions is Carlos Jeurissen, a student and talented developer. He’s active on Google+ and has created Google+ Pages for all his Chrome extensions - Black Bar Removal, Shortcuts for Google and Black Menu. There’s even a Black Menu community for you to connect with other users and find out about updates.

You might think that he’s just obsessed with Google+, and you may be right, but it also says that he’s interested in those who use his products, and wants to help and connect with them. If you want to contact him, his email address is visible on his Google+ profile.

Google Search

The Search tab allows you to access your desired search query from any page. As of now, only the Web results are accessible within the Black Menu extension. By clicking any of the other links, like Images or Books you will be taken to the physical search page. It’s also important to note that there are a lot of search pages available via the More dropdown menu to narrow down your search.

Referring to the first image in this section, you’ll also see that by hovering over Links there are two other available options: Trends and Custom Search.

Google+

The second menu item is Google+, where you can view notifications and even share directly to Google+ without leaving the webpage you’re on.

At the bottom there’s an expandable menu called Links and Search Filters which includes exterior links to Google+ Communities, Local, Pages, Photos, Games and more.

Google Translate

Yet another excellent Google service integrated into Black Menu, making it accessible from wherever you are on the Web. From here you can translate into lots of languages, but of course that’s not all. There’s a button to easily swap languages and even view the history of previous searches and translations that you’ve starred to save for later.

At the bottom there’s an expandable menu providing links to Google’s Translation Toolkit and Transliteration.

Google Maps

There are other good Google Maps Chrome extensions, including Quickrr from our Best Of Chrome Extensions page, but that’s all it is. Black Menu integrates Google Maps along with all of Google’s other services. And along with that allows you to view traffic patterns, view terrain in Map view and show/hide labels in Satellite view. You can’t get directions within Black Menu, yet, but there are To here and From here links that will open Google Maps in a new tab.

The extendable menu at the bottom includes several other awesome Google Maps features that you may not have even known about, including Latitude, Mapmaker, Local, Sky, Moon and Mars.

Google Play

There isn’t much integration of the Play Store in Black Menu, but what it does have is quick access to a lot of links, some store-specific and others for easy access to your own content, whether it be My Books, My Devices, My Music or anything else.

YouTube

The YouTube integration is quite impressive. You’re able to search and view results in Black Menu, plus play the videos.

The extendable menu at the bottom has a lot of YouTube links too that make it very easy to get where you want to go. You may even find yourself using this for YouTube more than the YouTube site itself.

Google News/Google Reader

Why is this section combined? It’s actually pretty impressive – there’s an option to switch between the two. When you hover over the menu item, you will see two horizontal arrows parallel to each other. When you click them, you can switch from News to Reader and vice versa.

In News, you have the ability to search for a specific story or topic, or by category. The expandable menu at the bottom includes external links to News Archive and Google Reader.

That said, you probably don’t even care about Google Reader at this point because it’s pretty pointless, since you probably already have or are in the process of moving to a new service. Such a shame.

Gmail

The integration of Gmail into Black Menu was pleasantly surprising. Not only is your inbox viewable, but you can respond to emails directly from the extension. You can also refresh the view, search for emails, sort by label and change the Inbox view.

Of course there are a lot of Gmail functions, many of which would probably be unrealistic to ask to have in a single extension. Because of this, the developer included a lot of pages, including Google Contacts, under the Links and Search Filters expandable menu at the bottom.

Google Drive

The Google Drive menu doesn’t disappoint either. It features a search box, two drop down menus to  sort file locations and file types, buttons to upload and create new files, and an expandable menu with exterior links such as Offline Files.

NOTE: You will have to authorize Black Menu access to Google Drive before using it.

Google Calendar

The Calendar menu sports a search box, monthly calendar with a button to create new events, a list of the selected day’s events and an expandable Google Tasks section at the bottom with the ability to sort, create new tasks and lists and remove them as well.

The Interface & Other Services

You’ll quickly see that Black Menu’s interface is very clean and easy to navigate through. You can access the menu items simply by hovering over them. If you do click on them, a tab will load as well, so it also functions as a shortcut. As of now, these options are not customizable, meaning that you can’t move/hide them, but hopefully that will change in the future.

The integration of many popular services was very impressive – specifically Gmail, Google Drive and… actually just all of them. Of course not all of Google’s services are integrated into Black Menu, but I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a Google service that isn’t included under the More section.

There are a few services which aren’t yet integrated that I’m really hoping will be, such as Analytics, Google Voice and Blogger. I imagine that the developer has many more ideas that he plans on including in the future.

NOTE: You might notice that the is a slight difference between the Google services links and the bottom two items when on the More menu item. The bottom two, About and Settings are options that open within the extension, whereas the others are external links.

Settings

There aren’t a lot of settings or customizable options, but quite a few (not all) of the menu items have some form of customizability, some of which have experimental options under the expandable menu at the bottom.

Like the menu options on the “home” view of the extension, the Settings menu options can be viewed simply by hovering over them, although clicking on them won’t take you anywhere in this case. I encourage you to scan through these and customize it to your liking.

Download Black Menu

Having Black Menu in your browser is, without a doubt, an advantage if you’re one who relies on Google for all or most of their tools. We highly recommend it, as we feel it is one of the best Chrome extensions.

Black Menu is available for download through the developer’s website or the Chrome Web Store.

What do you think of Black Menu? Do you use it? If so, what is your favorite feature? Do have any suggestions for the developer? If you don’t use it yet, do you feel this would help you be more productive in Chrome? Share your thoughts below.

Image Credit: Black Menu Logo

The post Black Menu: Access All Google Services Within A Single Menu [Chrome] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

I should make a note here that if you’re expecting a drastic, mind-blowing speed increase, you won’t find it in this article. Switching to a faster ISP package and upgrading your computer hardware (in particular, RAM) will offer the biggest boosts. The following tips can and will make your browsing experience somewhat sleeker, but don’t expect a “zero to hero” transformation.

Keep Fewer Tabs Open

My first encounter with tabbed browsing was with Firebird (an earlier incarnation of Firefox), though I’m pretty young so there may have been tabbed browsing before then. But here’s my point: tabbed browsing has been around for a long time and many of us, myself included, have started taking them for granted.

When people are over my place and happen to see my browser, they inevitably remark at how many tabs I have open. Maybe you’re like that, too. I do it out of convenience and I wouldn’t have it any other way. When I’m browsing and I come across something that seems interesting, I’ll open it in a new tab to browse later. If there’s a page that I want to save but it isn’t important enough to bookmark, I’ll keep it open in a tab, too.

But here’s the downside to convenience: each tab hogs up a bit of RAM and when you have too many tabs open your computer will be bogged down. It doesn’t matter which browser you’re using; sure, some browsers may be more efficient with their RAM usage, but ALL browsers will take up more resources with each new tab. God forbid some of those tabs are Flash-based, because those take up even more RAM!

If you’re a tab addict like me, channel that energy in other ways. Use bookmarks if you need to save items. If you want to mark an interesting article for later reading, use an extension like Instapaper or Read Later Fast.

Use Fewer Extensions and Addons

One of the biggest reasons why users will choose one browser over another is the plugin selection. Firefox calls them “addons,” Chrome calls them “extensions,” and other browsers will use other terms. But they all accomplish the same thing: extensibility and customization for your browser according to your needs.

It’s no secret that many users have dozens and dozens of plugins installed. You’ve got plugins that spruce up the tab bar, improve readability, and block pesky ads. But just like tabs (explained above), each active plugin ends up using a little more CPU and RAM on your computer, which can result in some big performance hits.

The quickest way to solve this problem is uninstalling every browser plugin that you don’t absolutely need. This is a subjective decision that you need to make. Do you really need that weather plugin? How about that plugin that changes your tab colors? If your browser is slowing down, try disabling as many unnecessary plugins as you can.

Delete Cache and Browsing History

In some ways, your browser is like a car: it needs routine maintenance. Imagine if you never took your car in for an oil change or inspection. It may run well for a long time, but eventually there will be a buildup of gunk and goo and nothing will run at maximum capacity. Similarly, you need to clean your browser’s cache and history every once in a while.

“But wait, isn’t the cache meant to speed up browsing?” Yes. Browsers will save certain pages and images locally so that the next time you visit that site, it can load them instantly without having to download them again. However, as your cache increases in size, the browser spends more time digging through those images and pages in order to find the right ones. Caches are most efficient when they aren’t filled with too much data.

In Firefox, you can go to Options and look under the Privacy tab where you can delete recent history, cookies, cache, and other things. In Chrome, open the Wrench and navigate to Settings, look at the Advanced settings for “Clear Browsing Data” to wipe out history, cookies, cache, etc. You can do the same in other browsers by looking in their preference settings.

Change Your DNS Servers

I recently wrote an article on DNS servers and how they impact your Internet speeds. In essence, the Internet relies on a network of DNS servers which are used to translate certain URLs (like www.makeuseof.com) into IP addresses. Your DNS servers determine which route your Internet connection takes, which can result in slow speeds if the routing is poor (a simplified explanation, but enough to understand why DNS is important).

Fortunately, there’s a tool that I recently discovered called DNS Jumper which easily changes your computer’s DNS settings to what you want. It’s portable (no installation), easy to learn, and has an internal database of different DNS services, including Google Public DNS and OpenDNS. If you don’t know which one to use, you can use the “Fastest DNS” option and DNS Jumper will select the fastest one for you.

If you don’t want to use DNS Jumper or if you’re on a system that doesn’t support it, then you can use a program like NameBench to optimize your DNS settings. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Conclusion

Web browsers may seem simple at first glance, but there’s a lot of technology under the hood that keeps the web browsing experience as smooth as it is. Like any other machine, if you don’t keep your browser well-oiled and clean, it’ll start to hang and sputter and slow down your system. Keep the above tips in mind and your browser won’t feel as laggy as it normally does.

Have any other tips, tricks, programs, or plugins that might help with how to speed up browser loads? Please share them with us in the comments! We all know how frustrating it can be to have a languid browser and we’d all benefit from more suggestions.

Image Credit: Browser Via Shutterstock

The post What Can You Do To Speed Up Your Browser? appeared first on MakeUseOf.

There’s some good news and bad news. The bad news is that Flash is not always an animated white angel. The good news is that you can disable it. Why would you want to stop Flash from loading? The reasons are quite a few:

• Flash is the villain when it comes to ads; glitzy, bandwidth guzzling, in-your-face ads.
• Frequent plug-in crashes are unwelcome. We did look into ways to resolve problems with Flash on YouTube.
• Flash plug-ins have been known to cause browser slowdowns and crashes.
• Flash cookies or local shared objects are a privacy concern.

Stop Flash from Loading in Google Chrome – The Default Way

Chrome bundles a Flash player with its default installation. You can go into the Settings and disable all plug-ins including the Flash plug-in. The ‘Click to play’ feature of Chrome can solve your browser crashes and slowdowns by deactivating Flash, Silverlight or Java plug-ins.

You can take the Settings – Show Advanced Settings – Content Settings – Plug-ins route. Select Click to play or Block all. You can also Manage Exceptions by entering the URLs of the websites where you want the plug-ins to work. Click to play gives the user control over when the plug-ins should be run. You can click the blocked area on the webpage to load the plug-ins selectively.

If you want to disable only the Flash plug-in, click on Disable individual plug-ins… and then in the following screen, click the link to disable it.

A faster way to reach the same plug-ins page as above is to type chrome:plugins in the address bar. To disable Adobe Flash Player, click the disable link under its name. Click it again to re-activate it.

But there is an even better way to master your control over irksome Flash videos on websites. As usual we turn to a handy Chrome extension called FlashControl.

Using FlashControl – A More Powerful Way

There are many ways (and quite a few browser extensions) to keep a check on Flash. Muting sounds in webpages with embedded audio or Flash is one thing you can look into to save your eardrums. But what we are looking to do here is to block Flash by default or selectively enable it when and where we want.

FlashControl helps to address many of the situations that we discussed above, perhaps the most annoying of which I find to be the auto-playing Flash ads. FlashControl is a Chrome extension that uses blacklists and whitelists for selectively blocking and unblocking Flash content. As the extensions defines itself – the main feature is the ability to re-block Flash without refreshing webpages, which means you can reclaim memory and reduce CPU usage on demand.

After installing the extension, the FlashControl icon is displayed on any site with Flash content. By default, all sites are on the blacklist i.e. Flash is disabled by default. One of the highlights of this extension is the ease with which it lets you configure which sites to include or exclude on the fly. As you can see below in the screenshot, I land on a site like Nat Geo and see all Flash videos disabled by default including the Flash advertisement video on the right.

I simply have to click on the blanked out video space to make it active and start playing. Great sites like NatGeo and YouTube run a lot on Flash, so it’s better that I whitelist the site to save myself from repeatedly clicking on the greyed out spaces. If this is the first time you have come across these terms, let me explain – Whitelist is a list of sites that have been allowed a privilege (e.g. allowed to run Flash). A Blacklist is just the opposite…they have been denied the permission.

FlashControl seems to be simple and minimalistic from the icon on the Omnibar. But click on Preferences to display the Simple Interface. This doesn’t tell you much except that you can change the default behavior.

Select the Advanced Interface to bring all of FlashControl’s features out into the open:

Key Features of FlashControl

1. Power management option allows you to stop Flash from loading when a computer is not in use. You can specify the interval.

You can configure FlashControl to disable Flash completely when tabs are in the background and inactive. When you bring them in focus, Flash is automatically activated.

2. The Filter Manager supports wildcards and regular expressions. The Filter Manager works in three dimensions –

• You can filter all Flash elements on a website. For e.g. a specific website or webpage is persistent with its noise Flash ads.
• You can filter some Flash elements on a website. For e.g. you can block the ads while allow the video player or a chat box to load.
• You can selectively filter some or all Flash elements that originate from a common source. For e.g. you can block a specific advertisement provider used by multiple websites.

You can simply use the FlashControl buttons from the Omnibar. But if you really want realize the Chrome extension’s power, you have to get down and dirty with the Filter Manager and Resources Panel. FlashControl uses pattern matching, wildcards and regular expressions to put all Flash embeds through a sieve. Find the detailed and well-explained how-to on the extension’s Wiki Page.

Your Browser – A More Peaceful Place?

FlashControl will remind you of another extension we had covered a while back. FlashBlock had a similar content-filtering purpose of blocking Flash videos during a browsing session. FlashControl is more powerful and flexible. I did not notice any bugs in the last few days I used it. Personally the filter managers allow me to selectively apply Flash blocking on sites which are far too intrusive with their auto-play Flash ads. I do not advocate the complete block of internet ads because it is the umbilical cord which sustains all the free knowledge we get.

Flash Control gives me more options and a precision weapon to take on disrupting Flash videos. What about you – do you consciously disable Flash? Have you tried FlashControl or anything similar? What is your take on the options it offers? Or readers have already recommended FlashControl on our Best Chrome Extensions page. Your vote will only bolster it more.

The post How to Stop Flash From Loading Automatically With FlashControl [Chrome] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Though it’s probably known best for it’s presence in the mobile space, Opera’s desktop browser has always had a good feel to it. It’s very fast, responsive, renders well, and is packed with so many features that other browsers carelessly overlook and don’t seem to consider. Let’s appreciate Opera in this post and check out a few of those features.

Speed Dial

While Opera is certainly not the only browser out that supports this feature anymore, it was easily one of the first.

Opera’s Speed Dial page is very configurable, allowing you to change the number of columns on the page, the zoom level, and you can even set a custom background image to the page to give it more of a unique feel.

As you can see in the screenshot above, I’ve played with those settings a bit. Speed Dial is, in my opinion, the most sensible homepage available (in any browser). Opera has had years and years of experience with it, and they do it right.

Tab Arrangements & Placements

This may be one of the most underrated features available in any browser. As an unfortunate single-monitor user, I don’t get that great benefit of being able to do two things at once (in two different windows) very often. With Opera, I can.

Right-clicking the title bar and hovering over the Arrange menu will expand several different ways that you can arrange your open tabs. The cleanest and most convenient way is to tile them vertically (as resolutions are wider than they are tall).

You can surely imagine how this can be useful. Maybe you’re interested in watching a long video on YouTube while doing work in another window. Tile the windows, play the video, and do your work in the opposite window. This is so much more efficient than bringing up two copies of a single browser.

Opera also offers the ability to change the placement of your tab bar entirely. Top, bottom, left, or right are all fair game, and docking tabs to the left or right side will display your tabs in a more interesting thumbnail view.

Stacking Tabs

For the longest time, I had searched through add-ons and extensions for Firefox and Chrome to find something like this, but I failed. Does it exist? Possibly. But, it comes with Opera right out of the box. Stacking tabs is a way to basically assign a parent tab to additional tabs.

Above, you can see the MakeUseOf tabs are stacked. The main tab is the leftmost, while those after it can be stacked and then unstacked again.

How is this useful? It’s a great space-saver and synergizes very well with websites that may require you to have several different tabs open (such as Reddit). Assigning these tabs to a single stack will allow you to navigate and enjoy the website as normal without sacrificing a whole heap of real estate in the tab bar. Being able to stack tabs is something that I’d call a “quality of life” feature, and it’s something that has saved me headaches in the past.

Opera Turbo

Again, the only way to really describe a feature like this is to call it underrated. Opera Turbo is a very niche feature that is going to help such a small minority of users, but to those of who make some use it could see it as the deciding factor between Opera and another browser.

To dumb the process down a bit, Opera Turbo simply lowers the quality of images on every website. If you don’t think this change is noticeable, try using a shoddy satellite or DSL connection. I’ve had to do it before, and it is. Right-clicking on an image will allow you to reload it in full quality if you desire. You can set Opera Turbo as on, off, or to detect when it needs to be used.

I wouldn’t call any of these features groundbreaking or exceptional. While some stand out more than others, they are quite simple. Nonetheless, it’s good to see Opera thinking outside of the box to provide users with features you won’t find somewhere else. What’s your favorite Opera feature? Let me know in the comments!

The post 4 Cool Features That Make Opera A Browser Worth Checking Out appeared first on MakeUseOf.

The extension is called Currently and it has made its way to our Best Of Chrome Extensions page. What does it do? Currently is a fast loading “theme” for your New Tab page that displays the current and upcoming weather and current time. I’ve personally been using it since it launched in August of 2012. There are quite a few New Tab and Start page extensions, but Currently reigns among the best, including the Speed Dial and Awesome New Tab Page extensions. It is completely designed with you in mind so let’s take a look at what it has to offer!

Adds Functionality Without Removing Features

One of the biggest drawbacks of a New Tab page is that even with some added benefits, you also might lose features, such as access to Chrome’s default New Tab page or just an overall decrease in browser loading time and performance. This is not the case with Currently as it provides quick and easy access to the default New Tab page. I also haven’t noticed any decrease in performance. Actually, whenever I switched to making Currently my start page in place of the website MyFav.es, Chrome started up even faster since it didn’t have to load a web page.

At the time of this article, there are two primary components to Currently: time and weather. There are settings to customize it as well, but we will cover that later on.

TIP: To make Current your Start Page, go to the Chrome settings and under the On startup, check the option Open the New Tab page.

Slick, Modern, Minimalistic Interface

The interface is what really sets Currently apart from all the other New Tab page alternatives. Sure many have a lot of features and customizability, but if their interfaces don’t have a clean and modern look to it, I personally don’t find them very appealing. Currently on the other hand is appealing.

You’re probably thinking, “Alright, so Currently looks nice. But what happens when I want to resize the browser?” Great question! This is what happens.

I was impressed with that whenever I first saw it. Now granted, if the browser is resized too far, Currently doesn’t “currently” adjust the size of text or icons, so there is some interface issues with that. This has been brought up to the Currently developers, which they stated that “a responsive design is in the works”, meaning that it will conform to the size of your browser. I personally don’t see this as much of an issue (unless you use a netbook) as the majority of the time I have my browser either full screen or docked to one side, both of which Currently works well in.

In the lower right hand corner, you will notice three icons (pictured above). The first is the Weather Underground logo, which takes you directly to the page with your current weather (pictured below). The second is a gear, which takes you to the settings. And the third is a rectangle full of smaller rectangles, which is the link to Chrome’s default tab page.

Customizable To Your Tastes

Now on to the settings. First, to access them, click on the gear icon in the lower right corner of the browser. There aren’t a lot of customizable options with Currently, but all of the ones that are available or necessary – it’s all about being minimalistic, yet offering enough to appeal to all the users.

The options that will probably be of the most interest to you lie in the System tab. Here you can choose to display the temperature in Fahrenheit or Celsius. The time is also adjustable in either 12 hour and 24 hour modes. There are a plethora of languages to choose from, so you’re sure to find yours (although I can’t guarantee that obviously). And lastly, you can choose your location.

Next is the layout where you can toggle animation that is shown upon loading a new tab and also choose whether to show the seconds on the clock.

Currently is also designed to pretty much fit into any color of theme that you have, with 9 colors to choose from and a toggle between light and dark text.

Developers Who Are Willing To Help And Listen

Currently isn’t just a solid extension with excellent features and a clean interface, but it also has developers that stand behind it, make themselves available for you to contact. The developers, Henry and Vitaly, use their organization, Rainfall, as a front for Currently and their other projects they have going on. They use UserVoice to provide customer service and allow users to make suggestions and stay updated on what features are in progress. They also keep their users updated through their blog.

Conclusion

Overall, through my use of Currently, I’ve been very impressed by the look, feel and responsiveness of Currently. As of now, it has enough features to satisfy me, but it’s nice to know also that they’re working on fixes for known issues and also to add more features. But don’t worry, Currently will never be a cluttered mess full of “features” – it’s not known for that and they want to keep it that way.

If you appreciate minimalism, but also want something that adds some additional functionality to your New Tab page, without affecting the overall performance of your browser, definitely give Currently a try and let us know what you think too.

Do you use a Chrome weather tab or time tab Currently? If so, what do you like most about it? If you don’t use Currently, go download it from the Chrome Web Store and check it out for yourself. Then come back here and share your thoughts with us!

The post Currently: The Modern Way To View The Weather And Time, All In One Tab [Chrome] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

And so when topics related to Internet privacy pop up, you’ll often hear of “private browsing” and “proxy servers” and such. But honestly, the Internet is never truly anonymous. For the most part, your activities can be traced back to you; the only difference is how difficult it is to trace your actions back to you. That’s where “onion routing” comes in.

The Basics Of Onion Routing

One way to understand onion routing is to start with the concept of proxy servers. A proxy server is a server that relays your connection through that server, which basically adds a step in the path of your data packets. If someone traced your IP address, they’d see it as the proxy server’s IP address instead of your home address.

But proxy servers aren’t exactly anonymous. They keep logs of all the traffic that passes through, which means that they can actually point back to you if necessary. For most activities, the proxy server is fine even though it’ll add a bit of latency to your connection. Your anonymity would not be entirely protected, however, if your proxy service was hit with a subpoena for your IP information.

Onion routing is like an advanced form of proxy routing. Instead of routing through a single unprotected server, it uses a network of nodes that constantly encrypt your data packets at every step. Only at the end of this “chain” of onion nodes does your data become decrypted and sent to the final destination. In fact, only this “exit node” has the power to decrypt your message, so no other node can even see what you’re sending.

Due to the multiple layers of encryption, which not-so-coincidentally resemble the layers within an onion, it’s extremely difficult to trace your information back to you as the source when you use onion routing.

A Simple Example

Have you ever heard of Tor? It’s a secure network that uses onion routing to keep all of your activity as encrypted and hidden as possible. Did you know that Tor actually stands for “the onion router”? If that name sounded weird to you before, now you know why it’s called what it is.

Anyway, here’s an example using Tor to help you visualize the process of onion routing a little better. This abstract example that takes you on the journey of a data packet through Tor’s onion routing.

• Your computer has an onion routing client installed, which in this case is Tor. This client encrypts all data packets sent from your computer (Alice).
• Your computer sends a data packet to Node A.
• Node A encrypts your already-encrypted data packet and sends it to Node B.
• Node B encrypts your already-encrypted data packet and sends it to Node C.
• This cycle continues until the data packet reaches Node Z, which is the “exit node.”
• Node Z decrypts all of the layers of encryption on your data packet and finally sends it off to the destination (Bob). Destination thinks your data packet originated from Node Z, not you.
• When data is sent back to you, the chain is reversed with Node Z becoming the first node and your computer being the exit node.

As you can see, the multiple layers of encryption make it really hard to break into your data packets. It’s like a vault within a vault within a vault – even if you break into one, you still have to break into all of the rest.

How You Can Benefit From Onion Routing

One way to utilize an onion routing network is to set up your website within the network to keep it secret from prying eyes. For example, you can do this on Tor to make it so only Tor network users can view and access your site. Some people might use this opportunity for dark and nefarious purposes, but there are also legitimate reasons for hiding your site on an encrypted network.

If you’re interested, check out Chris’s tutorial on setting up an anonymous Tor site.

But for the most part, Tor is used to maintain your anonymity on the regular Internet that everyone else uses. Don’t want huge corporations like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to know everything about your browsing habits? Then set up a Tor client and start hiding your activity now. As far as I know, it’s the safest and most effective way to stay hooked up to the Internet while eliminating many privacy issues.

Conclusion

The takeaway? Just get it into your head that the Internet is not the anonymous free-for-all that it once had the reputation of being. Thanks to advancements in technology and logging methods, most actions can be traced back to the proper agent. Not to say that onion routing is foolproof, because all forms of security can be cracked, but the amount of effort needed to crack onion routing is enough to say that it’s an effective anonymizer.

If you’re a big privacy freak, you should look into the Tor network.

Image Credits: Actual Onion Via Shutterstock, People Network Via Shutterstock, Secure Website Via Shutterstock

The post What Is Onion Routing, Exactly? [MakeUseOf Explains] appeared first on MakeUseOf.