Use Facebook on Android privately

Have you ever thought about what is done with your online information? A Smartphone also tracks you in several ways. However it is hard to discard the social network from your life. Facebook traces everything done online. You can make use of alternate apps to access Facebook without being tracked. Tinfoil for Facebook is one such Android app at your disposal.

Permissions are a defense between the phone and an app. If an app has malicious plan, all allow it on the phone with all-encompassing permissions to create issues. Brightest Flashlight Free requires several permissions; none of them are required to perform as a flashlight. It is used to access users’ locations as well as sell them to advertisers. You should be careful with the apps that you install.

Google has changed the way Android permissions works in Play Store recently. Each of them is grouped together by type. Google made it less visible. An app update can add new permissions without your approval if they belong to same group.

  

Facebook have an access to contacts, calendar events, exact location, where you are at what time, your camera text messages, calls internal storage and so much more.  

The social networking giant is known to sell user data to serve more relevant advertisements by accessing all the user information on the devices which has its Android App. Don’t you think its terrifying?

Know how to run your android phone in 2G mode for saving battery.

Audio Identification

Facebook had invasive features in its app and has added some more. Apps like SoundHound identify music to which you’re listening. The app can determine as to which song you are listening and would tag the user’s status with this minute detail.

This is an opt-in feature. Facebook is not good at opt-in features. Users were persuaded to accept Graph Search an opt-in feature.

Tinfoil  

Now you might be bent upon deleting the app. You can surely get rid of this and have a wonderful experience while social networking. TinFoil does not run in the background constantly therefore does not consume much battery. It is smaller in size app. This app would access the location if you permit. You would have to enable check-in feature which is not compulsory. It creates a wrapper for mobile version of Facebook’s website. It can be discarded from the menu once done which would stop its syncing.

You can post status as well as upload pictures. It can access all groups, settings, events. The buttons are a bit hidden but it can be slided away from the right to open up Tinfoil’s menu. You can go to the News Feed or notifications and access the few options as well as close it. Messages can be send, friends can be tagged in comments and search can conduct for places and people.  

Shortcomings

However it does have few negatives. It is just a wrapper for mobile version of Facebook, so any issues come up, Tinfoil is helpless. It looks a little less sophisticated than the Android polished. It lacks notifications. If you need FB notification instantly someone who needs Facebook notifications in real-time, this might not be for you.

IFTT

IFTTT, released an Android app which makes Android automation simple. With the help of new notification channel create your own alerts while you get a Facebook notification. First You would have to get a personalized notification RSS feed,. Log into FB and go to notification page.

After you click on the RSS link, a group of text appears. Just copy the URL which is the personal notification feed. You would require an IFTTT Recipe to send them to the phone. When you would get a notification on Facebook, it would send it right to the notification bar on your phone.

Get rid of Official App

Even if you use Tinfoil it would not be of much use in case the official app is there on your phone. So get rid of it from the device. Uninstall it by heading into Settings > Apps, Facebook, and clicking “Uninstall”. If the app is built into the phone then this is not the method. All Android devices are different and therefore the instructions would vary.

If you are not able to disable Facebook, just uninstall its updates and go back to the version where it had less permissions. This button is on the app page like the Disable button. Now remove the Facebook account from Sync menu off Phone, just go to Settings > Accounts and Sync > Facebook and click “Remove Account.”

These methods would ensure that the social networking giant’s data is not synced over official app.  

Happy private browsing  

If you are concerned about your privacy, want to enhance phone’s battery life then Tinfoil is the best. Most important if you do not want Facebook to rule your life lives, Tinfoil is the answer. You might miss on or two features from mobile app but you can sacrifice to get something better. If you’re looking to read more about Facebook’s practices, Philip has explained how Facebook might be used to spy on you.

How to prevent auto playing HTML5 and flash in Chrome

It is irritating when you see that the videos are being auto played. Just consider when you are starting a browsing session and suddenly from nowhere a video plays in the background. You curse it to hell. If it turns out be something, you end up being embarrassed. 

You should avoid using Chrome extensions so that the videos are prevented from being played automatically. This would keep you way from embarrassment as well as save bandwidth. It also ensures that you have an enjoyable browsing experience by averting such interludes.

Flash

Flash is one of the main ways as to the way the videos are rendered. It can be disabled with the help of chrome extension. Go to settings and scroll down to ‘Show Advanced Settings’ in Chrome menu. Click it and under Privacy heading, click ‘Content Settings’. A pop-up window appears which can be scrolled down to Plug-ins and chooses the Click to play ‘radio button’. This would stop flash player plugin. If you click on blocked plugin area the videos would play then. 

You can also make use of Chrome flash blocker extension. In case of Chrome extension on has the control over what would play and what would not.

HTML 5

Though Flash is the most popular as far as videos are concerned. HTML5 is also used for instance YouTube uses it. HTML5 does not use flash. Therefore you cannot prevent the videos from auto-playing by using flash blocker. You can use a free Chrome extension Chrome extension: Magic Actions for YouTube. Download it from the web store.

Open the Options page. After setting it up click on purple “Options” button. You can also go to chrome menu, scroll down to Tools and choose Extensions. Look for the Magic Actions extension. Thereftaer click on options. Now click Options button. You would be directed to developer’s site to select the settings. Scroll down to Stop Autoplay option. Magic Actions also allow customizing every aspect of YouTube. Other than this it also:

·         Choose resolution

·         Control video volume  

·         Make use of wide player

·         Choose customizations through simple interface which consists of checkboxes

·         All advanced setting scan be accessed through bar which appears under all YouTube videos.

 

To keep your bandwidth, automatic loading should be prevented through Chrome extensions.

Only your phone runs on Android?

Android not only runs on phone but several other devices too. This Linux-based, open source operating system has gained huge popularity and has occupied the major portion of the global mobile market. However many users are unaware about the other devices that is powered by this OS. Let us have alook at them:

Security System

There are home Security systems which are controlled by Android Touch Screen Controller. If you want to disarm or arm then this is required. Though it might be a bit slow but that’s not an issue if the job is done.  

Television

Android also has a mini PC which can be powered into the TV. Android functions as if it is on personal or small or personal screen. Exoon Power Pro runs Android 4.4 KitKat. SkyStreamX runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

Refrigerator

Samsung has a refrigerator called RF4289HARS with an 8″ LCD display which runs Android. It is available at some physical stores and online retailers. You can also tweet from the fridge. 

Mini PCs

Thses Mini PCs have the power of TV boxes. These function on own and run completely on this open source application. However the hardware makers have taken this lightly. Users would not get LG, Sony, Toshiba or Samsung products. These are made unknown brands which are yet to gain reputation among consumers. 

  

Cameras

This could not be avoided. Nikon has Coolpix S800c. Samsung has couple of Android Cameras and started Galaxy Camera that has been replace with the Galaxy Camera 2. They have the Galaxy NX hat is also powered by this OS.

Karaoke Machine

Lemon KTV is for Karaoke and the users can get a relative experience.

Car device

Parrot Asteroid is a touchscreen device to be installed in cars that has the standard size as 2-DIN. It has a complete range of ports for the speakers, USB ports for phone connections and storage, a 3.5mm headphone jack and SD card storage. It has no integrated 3G or 4G.

Ouya

Ouya is an open source gaming console that has popularized Android versions. It runs 4.1 Jelly Bean that has 1GB of RAM, 8GB storage and an Nvidia Tegra 3 system-on-a-chip. 810 games are available. Each of them is a development kit which allows people to develop games without any license or an SDK. It has a unique interface that revolves around gaming.

Amazon Fire TV

This is an Android based set-top box which runs FireOS 3.0 Mojito. This is Amazon’s altered version of Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. It can access the Amazon App Store.

Smartwatches

Smart watches are gaining popularity. Motorola and LG would launch these watches based on Android Wear. The operating system has been designed for smartwatches.

This is not all as there are several devices running on this.

Free up space on iPad/iPhone

IPads and iPhones lack file systems the apps and the files do consume space.  You can obviously know as to which program is consuming that limited space.Each bit of data on the device is associated with an app. Videos are part of Videos app, Music files are part of Music app and photos are part of the Photos app.

View Storage Usage of Per-App

The device’s usage screen shows a view of the storage space that is used on the device and exactly how much is being used by each app. Just open Settings app, choose the General category and tap Usage to view it. The number that is provided to the right of each app includes the application files, cached documents and data as well as media files. Tap the app in order to view as to which part what part of the app is using up how much of space.

Erase Apps

Just make up more space by deleting the apps. Games occupy the most. Just tap an app in the list and tap Delete App in order to get rid of it from the device. The app can be reinstalled later. 

Get Documents & Data cleared

Some apps have “Documents & Data” which occupy space.  It includes the files and documents that has been created or downloaded by the app.   This is not easy to do. You can instead delete app altogether and if required reinstall it later. The temporary data of it can be cleared from within.  However not all applications have this facility.

Remove videos, Music, Photos and other related Files

Music, Videos, photos, podcasts and other media files are stored which is a part of the associated app. The Music and Videos which are in the storage list show the amount of space they are consuming. Just tap the Videos app in order to see the list of videos taking up space. Swipe a video to the left and tap Delete to remove it from your device, freeing up space. The Podcasts app allows you to delete downloaded episodes in a similar way. The Music app shows the amount of space used by music on your device. Swipe All Music to the left and tap Delete in order to remove music from your device.

If you want to remove individual songs, open Music app itself, swipe a song to left and tap delete. The Photos & Camera app in the Usage list shows the amount of storage that is used by photos on your device. In order to remove these photos, you need to open Photos app, choose the photos that you want to remove and tap Delete button.

Wipe out Browsing Data

The Usage screen displays several types of browsing data when the Safari app is tapped. Just tap Website Data to and tap ‘Remove All Website Data’ to eradicate cookies and cache. Swipe to left on ‘Offline Reading List’ and tap ‘Delete’ to rub out other types of data.

In case of Google Chrome, clear cache by opening Chrome app, accessing Settings screen, tapping Privacy and clearing browsed data. The browsing data appears as Chrome’s “Documents & Data” on Settings screen.  

In case you are unable to determine as to how to clear the data and documents of an app, uninstall it and if required reinstall.

Know how to secure iphone or ipad with a complex password that no body except you can manipulate your device or important document. 

Turn off twitter email notifications

Twitter enables for its users email notifications by default. You would get emails at regular intervals regarding stuff that is happening on the network. 

Twitter divides the details into activities which are related to you as well as the tweets made by you to retweets, twitter updates and network activities. You might like some of the details given but not all. If you are hanging around on Twitter or even use one of the apps of service regularly, email notifications are not required. 

Twitter uses a sophisticated system as far as email notifications are concerned. Just turn off notifications if you prefer or others in which you are not interested. Smart notification is used by default that tries to reduce number of emails which you receive.

You can turn off twitter email notifications follow the steps given below:

·         Visit the notifications page on Twitter. Just go to the link directly: https://twitter.com/settings/notifications or open it manually. Thereafter click on options icon which is at the top right, choose settings from it and then email notifications.

·         Sign in to the account. Click on ‘turn off’ button in order to disable the email notifications.

·         Click on save changes button which is at the bottom of the page subsequently.

·         In case you do not want to disable notifications by email completely, go through the individual email options in order to disable the ones in which one is not interested. In case you do not want to receive any twitter updates just disable them completely by unchecking the options which are listed under "updates from Twitter" section.

·         This is applicable for retweet, network activities and tweet. Now customize each of the notification individually. The “activity related to you and your tweets" section does provide nine different options for notification. Here notifications can be disabled when somebody is following you. However you would get notice when a direct message is delivered on twitter.   

·         You can enable all or some of the email notifications any time by reversing the changes that have been made.

Twitter has a useful twitter alert system. Through which subscriber of any organization could get regular alerts about important event or natural calamity or reminders. Know how to set and get regular twitter alerts to secure or prevent valuable human resource.

Backup options for your PC

Backing up the system is a form of assurance that you need not worry. You are relaxed as even if the system fails whatever be the reason no files would be lost. You can backup through few options which are mentioned below: 

We would provide various backup options for safeguarding your data on which you can rely. 

External Hard Drive

External hard drive is one of the most popular methods for storing data on the PC as they are easy to set up. The hard drive is connected to the system through FireWire, USB or eSATA. Several external manufacturers provide such application with their drives which can be used as unusual solution for backing up.  

USB Drive

In case you do not have huge data to backup say less than 128GB then simple USB drive would do. This basically moves data from on PC to another or other device but high capacity ones are popular. They are very effective. For additional capacity there are manufacturers who offer 128GB USB drive which are purposed for that including ready backup software installed onto the drive. 

Additionally, some USB drives slot in a physical single touch button on actual drive that works with the backup software. Just tap the button on USB drive and the backup is ready. 

Backup Internal Hard Drive

If only single computer needs backup then you can add an extra internal hard drive to the system. Since hard drive would be connected directly to motherboard extra speed would be offered which can be connected through USB. If you have a spare hard drive then install it on the PC n the manner the hard drive is connected. You can buy an extra SATA cable in order to connect the drive. Now choose a reliable back up program, an external hard drive and you are ready. 

Cloud

Many people use cloud storage in order to backup important files as well as data on their computers. This is used as a storage location for some important data. Create new folder or location by using a cloud provider of your preference and name it as “backup.” Copy important data to cloud and PC. You can encrypt the data too.

Network attached storage

Network attached storage is a good option if there are multiple devices or PCs which you want to back up to centralized location.  If you have multiple computers or devices that you want to backup then choose a centralized location. Most of the NAS storage options involve connecting an external hard drive or backup device to the router or network.

Tape Drive

If you have important data which needs to be backed up and archived for a particular time period then a tape drive is the best answer.  It uses reels in order to wind magnetic strip. Chronological access storage is offered where device like standard HDD hard drive make use of random access storage. Tape drive is a good choice for durational or archive backup and they are reliable good qualities of data preservation.  It is not suitable for consumer backup tasks and standard storage purposes. These are expensive and are coupled with a more costly backup application.   

DVD / CD /Blu-ray

Burning of CD/DVD burning is a known method for creating periodical and incremental backups. This is not cheap and reliable. As you are backing up certain data or executing system backups to removable media, create a defined data backup and keep the CDs/DVDs safely.

To know more about Antivirus, online backup and service. You could visit https://www.protectandaccess.com/online-backup.php

Zip and unzip files on Chromebook

There are users who find Chromebooks very useful and some others lament its purchase. Users are confused about its functionality of whether it has the ability to unzip or zip files. Chromebook users have three options in this regard.

Zip or Unzip Using the Chrome OS

ZIP files are dealt with unconventionally. However both are not compatible.  Unzipping is not difficult as several methods used are known to Windows and Mac users. Just right click on zipped file and extract its contents to new folder. You can also double click that zipped file.

Chrome OS treats a zipped file like external drive. If you double click on it, file is mounted thereby allowing you to browse through those files. If you have decided the files that you want, just copy them to Downloads folder or Google Drive by using the Chromebook’s File app. The ZIP file should be saved locally in Downloads folder. It is bewildering to create a zipped file but simple enough for an inexperienced user.

However if you try to create it form the files saved in Google Drive then it is highly confusing. If you choose the files you want to zip, right click, ‘Zip selection’ option would be unavailable. Just move the files to Download folder before zipping them.  Chromebooks save documents automatically in the cloud by default, once the files are moved to local storage and then create a ZIP file you would see that ‘Zip selection’ option is available now.

Unzip with the help of apps in Chrome Web Store

You need not use Chrome OS to unzip files. Use an app from Chrome Web store. There are several third-party zipping tools for Windows and Mac. There is not much choice as far as Chrome OS is concerned.  

Unzip with the help of a Cloud-Based Service

In case you do not want to use Chrome OS, apply a web-based service like ‘ZipShare‘. It is developed by WinZip makers, this extraction tool allows to upload ZIP files from local machine or online storage spaces before placing the unzipped files in the personal online ZipShare account. It has a 50 Mb upload limit. It allows sharing of unzipped files through several social media platforms.