Sound hard to believe?

While here at MakeUseOf, you’ll always find lots of great advice about cool websites, such as Aibek’s list of 40 unusual websites you should bookmark or his other article on 5 cool websites to procrastinate at work, in this article, we’re going to take a stroll down a few dark alleyways of the Internet; and carefully take a glimpse at the seedy underworld that exists there – like a growing, cancerous lump that you didn’t realize was there until it was too late. These are a list of 4 websites that you shouldn’t ever bookmark.

Taking Pot Shots at Rotten Websites

Revealing the slimy side of the Internet is dangerous business. Many people reading this may actually secretly hold some of the views or beliefs expressed on some of these websites. In the end, whenever you label anything as “rotten” – you’re going to tick certain people off. With that said, it’s also critically important in the world we live in to acknowledge and accept that hate exists in many forms all around us. And yes, some of us (myself included) have, at one time or another, allowed hatred toward a group of people to exist inside of us. Then, a day comes when you meet one person who falls within that category of people that you’ve built stereotypes in your mind about. That one person blows all of those stereotypes away – and suddenly you realize that the hatred you’d formed for that group is baseless and without any real foundation.

Here at MakeUseOf, writers are from a very wide range of nationalities, religions and other groups. Every day, we collaborate and work together to present readers and the Internet community with unique ways they can “make use of” the Internet. In the spirit of that borderless cooperation, it’s time to break down a few more walls and expose some of the hate-filled or fanatical content that exists on the Internet today.

Jew Watch – A Zionist Conspiracy or Anti-Semitism?

One thing I’ve noticed about most “hater” websites is that they try their hardest to come across as educated, professional and scholarly. It’s sort of like they think if they throw enough sugar on the whole mix, people won’t realize the level of rotten website they’ve just landed on. Jew Watch was founded by James Stenzel, and is touted by the site’s “librarian” Frank Weltner of St. Louis, Missouri, as an “oasis of news for Americans who presently endure the hateful censorship of zionist occupation.”

In reality, this is one of the worst rotten websites on the web, not so much a “news” site, as it is a conspiracy theory site filled with empty propaganda and some of the most shoddy research in history. While the primary publicist and author at the site, Frank Weltner, points out that he doesn’t believe “all jews” are bad -  Jew Watch is built around the strange theory that there is a well-organized, elite wealthy group of Jews trying to take over the world. This paranoid conspiracy theory mirrors other common ones such as MJ-12, the Illuminati, and many others. In the end, this fear-mongering does nothing more than encourage hatred toward an entire population based on nothing more than their heritage.

Hatebook – Like There Isn’t Already Enough Hate in The World?

We live in a world where there are shootings, domestic violence, child abuse and so many other atrocities, it seems inconceivable that someone would come up with the idea that what the world needs is a social network based on “hate.”  That’s exactly what HateBook is all about.

HateBook is a Facebook copycat social network where anti-social folks can join together and celebrate their hateful behaviors. On HateBook, they can either tell secrets (or even lies) about someone. The concept of this particular rotten website is that the “enemies of your enemies are your friends.” In other words, if you’re able to find out who else hates the person that you hate, you can essentially team up against them. They even have a label for such groups called “hate-clans.”  How lovely.

ChildCare Action Project – A Cover for Orwellian Style Censorship

As a writer and an avid reader, I have an especially strong aversion to censorship. I am, in fact, a religious person – but I also abhor zealous religious fanatics who turn spirituality into a badge of righteous indignation toward all things they deem “improper”. What is improper, exactly? By whose terms and by whose culture should those limits be drawn from? Certainly what’s considered moral in the U.S. may not be so in India or China – and vice versa. So, who gets to decide?  Apparently, the founders of the CAP Project have given themselves that honor regarding the movies that people watch.

This fanatically religious organization wouldn’t have made the list of rotten websites if it simply provided full reviews of the parts of movies that some parents may consider “objectionable” for their children to watch. However, this organization takes it a step further and also offers W.I.S.D.O.M. rankings. These are rankings on whether the film has wanton violence, impudence or hate, sexual immorality, drugs or alcohol, offense to God, or murder or suicide.  While these rankings sound semi-reasonable, the reasons they offer for degrading a film are ludicrous and a bit disturbing. For example, the site degraded the children’s film “Narnia” for attempted murder and planning of murder, a tame scene of childbirth, lying, and “unholy” mythical beasts and magical themes. Say what?  Look, when I was a kid, I stood up with all of the other children and clapped for Tinkerbell to magically come back to life, and I turned out okay! Sort of…

88Tube – Just Innocent White Pride or Tasteless Hate?

As usual, I saved the best (or I guess I should say “the worst”) for last. For those who don’t know about it, 88Tube is a white supremacy website where proud white dudes can express pride in their heritage by sitting in front of their computer watching such enlightening and uplifting videos as “Adolf Hitler talking to German Youth”, “The Revival of the Klu Klux Klan”, and “All Heil to the Great Nazi Power!!” Oh yeah – those sure make me proud to be white… Ugh.

Reviewing these rotten websites filled with either religious or racial fanaticism sure makes it apparent that we live in a very disturbing world, filled with people who are disillusioned – or maybe just delusional. In either case, the ease with which such ideologies can proliferate throughout the Internet is something every honorable citizen of the world should be concerned about.

Have you ever come across fanatical websites on the Internet? What were they and how did you feel about them? Share your own opinions in the comment section below.

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I’m sure you’ve had to deal with this; It pops up every ten minutes after a major system update. Fortunately, it can be turned off. I’m going to help you to create a shortcut that will turn this nag off when double-clicked.

So, how to stop automatic updates from restarting your PC

Step 1

Your first step is to open Notepad. (Start > Run > “Notepad” > OK)

In Notepad, just type the command “net stop wuauserv” (no quotes, as in above). Then close the window, and select “Yes” to save changes.

Step 2

What we’re doing is creating an executable batch file which will run a command when double-clicked, to stop the Windows Automatic Updates Service. Make sure that your “Save as type” is set to “All Files” so that you don’t accidently create a text file. Save your file with an extension of “.bat”

Step 3

This cute little batch file is what you’re left with.

When Windows starts nagging you to restart, just double click this to run it and stop the service. You won’t be bothered again. The service will restart when you reboot, which is needed to install the updates in the first place.

Is there anything that Windows does that annoys you? Maybe we can find a fix for it. Are yu awrae of any easier way to stop automatic updates from restarting your Windows. Please give us some ideas in the comments.

Think it’s time to update your PC? Varun will teach you 5 Ways To Update Your Windows Operating System.

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Each of you is using German technology and tools. Most of you will know that, among many other things, the automobile, the Aspirin, the computer and the mp3 were invented (at least in part) by German engineers.

Recently, I came across a list of “Tools Made in Germany” and was surprised to find some fairly popular applications in that list and was enlightened to discover a few pieces of handy software I had not previously heard of. Let me give you three examples of very popular candidates that most of you will know…

(I) xp-AntiSpy, a utility built to easily disable a long list of built-in updated & authentication features as well as other annoyances in Windows XP (and meanwhile Vista, too). It has received several awards over the years and comes straight from Germany’s capital Berlin.

(II) Antivir virus protection tool, which recently received the ProtectStar Award for its Premium Security Suite, and has also constantly been receiving top ratings and reviews for its free anti-virus program, which has been released by Avira, a company based in Bavaria, Germany.

(III) Ashampoo is a software company based in Oldenburg, Germany. It has a wide range of products, the most popular probably being its security, CD/DVD burning and media tools. The free applications include Media Player+, Internet Accelerator 2, StartUp Tuner2, Magical UnInstall, and Spam Blocker.

And here are a few tools you may not have heard about previously…

(1) PDFCreator
A small tool that, besides creating PDF’s, allows you to encrypt and merge PDFs. It can also save documents as image files (PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PCX, PS, EPS).

It’s not necessarily an easy-to-use tool, since it comes with so many different options, but for those of you expecting a bit more than just “printing” a PDF, it’s the perfect choice.

The Firefox and Internet Explorer toolbar is optional but quite handy.

(2) Windows Unattended CD Creator

It’s still a beta and not available for Vista, but a great tool, nevertheless. It allows you to create a bootable ISO image for a personalized and complete Windows installation. It includes users to be set up, drivers, any piece of software, patches, hotfixes, and more.

(3) mufin MusicFinder base
Pandora is still the most popular music recommendation service based on what you like, and many others were likely inspired by this interesting concept. The MusicFinder base is your personal MP3 Manager which analyzes and categorizes the music found on your computer and provides a collection of matching tunes for each song you pick.

(4) 5star Movie Saver

A neat program to download all your favorite flash movies from an online source, for example YouTube or MySpace. It’s extremely simple and easy to use. Via the menu (top left) you can load all supported video platforms and then feed the program with the URL of the site that displays the video you wish to save to your computer.

(5) Dexpot
Dexpot simulates some Linux functionality on your Windows PC, allowing you to have up to 20 different virtual desktops on one monitor. Have different icons and open different programs in each desktop, password protect single desktops, and move program windows between them. All in all a handy tool to share a computer with others or simply to efficiently separate work and play.

(By) This post was written by one of our regular authors, Tina from Recommended.

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It’s happened to all Windows users. After downloading Windows security updates, the PC then informs you that it needs to restart.

What’s especially annoying about this is that when it tells you this, you’re always in the middle of something important. Like writing an email or looking for Paris Hilton pictures on Google. Even if you choose the option “no”, the nag box bounces back 5 minutes later to harass you again.

Here’s how to disable the nag box telling you to re-start the computer.

Go to the start menu, choose “run” and in the box, type cmd and press enter. When the black command line box comes up, type

sc stop wuauserv and then press enter.

That’s it!

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