Google Chrome has finally arrived for Android mobile devices.

On Tuesday, in an official Google Chrome blog post, the company announced the release of Chrome Web browser for Android app. While announcing, the company said that like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity. The new browser features seamless sign-in and sync to make sure you get the same personalized web browsing experience wherever you go, across devices.

Actually, the Chrome Beta app is only available for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) phone or tablet. So, if you fall in the 99% of Android device users who still don’t have ICS, you’re out of luck. Further if you don’t live in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil but have ICS, you’ll not be able to find and download the app from the Android Market. It seems Google wants to limit the beta version to as few users as possible.

Chrome Web browser app will serve as an alternative to the default Android Web browser, with an uninspiring title “Browser.” Just like the desktop version, the app features tabbed browsing, lets you search and navigate from the omnibox, browse privately in Incognito mode. When you sign in to Chrome, the app syncs your bookmarks and lets you view tabs you have open on your computer.

Some cool additions were also made to the mobile version. You can open and switch between unlimited tabs in an easy-to-view stack. You can also send pages from desktop Chrome to your smartphone or tablet with one click and read them on the go, even if you’re offline.

Excited about the official Chrome web app for your Android? Are you testing the beta version on your Ice Cream Sandwich device? Let us know which features of the app you liked or hated any of them? If you fall in the major number of Android users who can’t yet test the app, are you disappointed? Let us know in the comments below.

Everyone of us likes watching movies and if a movie is worth keeping in our collection, we also look forward to its official DVD/Blu-ray release. After we’ve brought the movie DVD, we either want to keep a copy of it in our computer for archival purpose or want to watch it on our growing collection of portable media devices.

Now, you might be wondering how to rip and encode your DVDs for keeping them safe and watch them on your iPod, iPad, Android, iPhone or other portable device? Handbrake is one such good free tool to rip and encode your DVDs for keeping them safe.

Handbrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. Let’s take a quick read and know more about Handbrake.

How to use Hadbrake? Quick Overview

First of all you’ll need to download Handbrake. For downloading the software, visit www.handbrake.fr and click on download for Windows/Mac OS/Linux. After download completes, install the software. The installation process is easy and fast.

Now, insert the DVD you want to rip, into your computer. Click on “Source” and choose the video folder on the DVD. Handbrake will now scan the DVD for titles and chapters. After the scan is complete, choose the encoding preset (about which we’ve talked later in Functionality) and click on Start.

Depending on the preset chosen by you, length of the movie and speed of your machine, in a few minutes or hour, you’ll have the movie saved on your computer as a file. You can now sync this file to your portable device and watch the movie.

Handbrake User Interface

The user interface of Handbrake is very clean and is well laid out. You’ll find all the important functions available in the form of buttons at the top. The presets are organized in expandable lists, available at the sidebar. The outputs are organized in clean labelled tabs.

Handbrake Functionality

Handbrake is a very good tool for both novice users as well as advanced users in video encoding. Novice users will like the encoding presets offered by the software. Though we found most of the presets are for Apple devices optimized for the highest quality, screen size, and file type.

Advanced users will find Handbrake very useful because of the control it offers when you mess around with the encoding settings. You can customize everything, from file container settings to the videos aspect ratio and size, which is really overwhelming. Further diving in, you’ll be able to choose the video filters, video quality and codec, audio codecs, mix down settings, bit rate, and sample rate settings. If you’re really want to take control, check out the advanced tab!

Handbrake options lets you configure all the aspects of the software.

Conclusion

Once you start using Handbrake and see the results, we’re confident you’ll fall in love with Handbrake just like us. Handbrake is the best video transcoder we have used till date and offers the best features and performance. The icing on the cake, its open source, free and available on all platforms (Windows, Mac, and Linux)! Thanks for reading.

February 1st was “change your password day.” Did you changed your passwords? When you’re managing your various accounts, passwords and other sensitive data, it becomes very difficult to keep them secure while accessible. You can easily find many efficient password managers but most of them comes at a premium.

Here, we’re going to take a quick look at Dashlane, a user-friendly and secure password manager for Windows and Mac. The app promises to cut the hassle of managing your accounts, passwords and other sensitive data while keeping the data safe from prying eyes. Let’s see if the app can keep its promise of providing better security while revolutionizing the way we login to websites today.

Exclusive Dashlane Invites for all My Technology Guide readers!

Dashlane is now in a private beta stage. But you don’t have to wait for an invite! Thanks to the great folks behind the software to set up an exclusive page for My Technology Guide readers with some exclusive invites.

Simply click on the link below to try Dashlane without waiting to get an invite!

Dashlane Beta Invites

Getting Started with Dashlane

After you click on the above link, enter your email address and download Dashlane. Launch the setup process, which is simple and quick. In Mac, Dashlane supports Safari in addition to Chrome and Firefox, both of which is also supported in the Windows platform. But if you’re using Internet Explorer, you’ve to wait a little more as IE is not yet supported by the app.

Now, when you’re going to set up your Dashlane account using the app, you’ll notice a window, which informs you that there is absolutely no way to recover your password if you forget it since it is not stored anywhere. It may sound very hard but it is perfect for an app like this.

If you’ve used an app like 1Password, you’ll see the same policy about password retrieval. LastPass though has a way to retrieve/reset your password if you forget your master password but the process they follow is pretty secure in our opinion and is a little different from how Dashlane works. So, we will not give any negative points to Dashlane for this.

How to use Dashlane?

Once you’re completed the setup, you’ll get into your dashboard where you can start entering your information. The user interface is elegant, easy to use and navigate. We loved the simplicity and gradient white color of the user interface.

All your information is categorized into three primary categories: Personal Data, Internet Accounts, Internet Shopping. These three categories are further expanded into following: Under Personal Data, you’ll find Contact, IDs, Payment; under Internet Accounts, Logins and Passwords, Security Dashboard; under Internet Shopping, Purchases.

Entering, Importing, Exporting and Saving Information

Dashlane developers have made the task of entering all your information super easy. Simply click on the little round “+” buttons, present under each category and a form pops out for you to fill in and save.

The Personal Data category can be filled up manually while the app intelligently saves your account details for different sites as you log into them using any supported browser. Here, you’ll notice a unique feature of Dashlane about which we haven’t talked yet. Whenever, the app saves any account details, it shows a dialog box to organize your accounts. In that very same dialog box you’ll notice a check box which says “Always log me into the website.” This feature is an exclusive feature of Dashlane.

So, the next time you open that website, the app automatically takes over and logs you in. If you have saved multiple accounts, suppose your Gmail, clicking on the username field will display a pull over menu with all the saved credentials. When you click on the username you want to login to, the app automatically logs you in without any further typing or clicking anywhere.

Dashlane also lets you automatically speed up your online purchases by filling up all the details and even saves the information about that purchase (total spent, retailer name, etc.) back in the app.

Another great feature of the app is its import facility. The app lets you import all your previously saved information from your favorite browser, LastPass, 1Password, Roboform, Password Wallet and Keypass. The app also lets you easily export all your saved data.

Login and Passwords

Under the Login and Passwords section you will see a grid of all the websites login credentials. Upon hovering on any of the tile, a play button appears at the corner. If you click on it, the app automatically loads the website and logs you in. A very convenient and innovative way to login to your favorite website.

Security Dashboard

The Security Dashboard provides a quick overview of the safety level, that is strength of each passwords that you’ve saved with Dashlane. A little bar displays password strength on a scale of 1-100% and a simple interpretation of the score such as “Super Safe,” “Safe” or “Very Unsafe.”

Dashlane Browser Extension

Dashlane during installation also installs the browser extensions. This extension helps capture the login credentials and helps you fill up data. We’ve already mentioned earlier how conveniently it helps filling up online forms through a pop-up menu for each field.

If you’re filling up a long form which needs your personal data like sign-up forms, you just need to choose your saved information with Dashlane and all the fields are filled out automatically.

Syncing

Dashlane saves all your information to your local hard-drive. But, if you’ve multiple computers, you’ve the option to sync all your information to the Dashlane servers. So, when you login to your Dashlane app in your other computer, it automatically syncs all your information.

Syncing is not enabled by default and is completely optional. Even what is getting synced is completely in your hands and for your safety, your financial information is never synced.

Conclusion

Dashlane, even though is in private beta, is already a very solid app with a lot of potential. With some of its unique features like automatic sign in, the app intelligent solves a lot of short comings present in currently available password managers. If you still don’t use any password manager, we highly recommend you to start using one and feel the difference. If you’re already using a password manager, you should definitely try Dashlane.

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, don’t hesitate to comment below and get a discussion flowing! Please share your favorite password manager and if you don’t use one, please tell us why you don’t use one. Thank you so much for reading!

Mozilla has released Firefox 10 Stable version for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms.

Important Note: Bookmark this page (Press CTRL + D) to always Get the latest update about Mozilla Firefox including direct download links for all platforms.

Mozilla announced their move to rapid release cycle about nine months ago, since the move, Firefox has moved from version 4 to 10.

According to the official beta change log, Firefox 10 brings in a lot of new features, which you’d expect from a six-week update cycle. Firefox 10 features extension management improvements, a forward button that hides itself until you need it, the inclusion of APIs for full-screen web apps, and anti-aliasing for WebGL.

With Firefox 10, Mozilla introduces the ESR (Extended Support Release) version of the browser primarily for enterprises. ESR releases will receive no updates apart from necessary security fixes, and will change versions once every seven releases. So, after six months when regular Firefox 10 users will be upgrading to Firefox 11, ESR users will be upgraded to version 10.1.

You can download Firefox 10 from the download links given at the end of this post.

The most significant change in Firefox 10 is that add-ons are now automatically set to be compatible if they have also been compatible with Firefox 4. This will end all the add-on compatibility issues that users face after each version update. A great relief for the add-on developers too.

New features and bug fixes in Mozilla Firefox 10:

• The forward button is now hidden until you navigate back
• Most add-ons are now compatible with new versions of Firefox by default
• Anti-Aliasing for WebGL is now implemented (see bug 615976)
• CSS3 3D-Transforms are now supported (see bug 505115)
• New <bdi> element for bi-directional text isolation, along with supporting CSS properties (see bugs 613149 and 662288)
• Full Screen APIs allow you to build a web application that runs full screen (see the feature page)
• Added IndexedDB APIs to more closely match the specification
• Inspect tool with content highlighting, includes new CSS Style Inspector
• Bug fixed: Mac OS X only – after installing the latest Java release from Apple, Firefox may crash when closing a tab with a Java applet installed (bug 700835)
• Bug fixed: Some users may experience a crash when moving bookmarks. (bug 681795)

Mozilla Firefox 10 Direct Download Links

Windows (English) | Mac (English) | Linux (English) | All system and languages

Mozilla provides Firefox for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X in a variety of languages. You can get the latest released version of Firefox here or the latest development version of Firefox here. You should also check out our Firefox section for everything related to Mozilla Firefox.

Microsoft has released Windows Defender Offline, an offline antivirus tool, for PCs that are badly infected by malicious and other potentially unwanted software, including rootkits, to even get full access to the Internet.

The offline antivirus tool basically allows a user to boot their infected Windows computer system from a CD, DVD or USB flash drive. It uses the most recent definition update available to scan the PC for malicious and other potentially unwanted software. It then helps the user to disinfect the PC from the hard to detect threats.

This tool is particularly useful to remove certain kinds of malware that prevents the user from visiting any security or antivirus website. Many malicious programs uses methods to prevent users from accessing those websites to prevent detection and cleaning. Sometimes, they corrupt Windows files to prevent any kind of network access.

Wile announcing the release of Windows Defender Offline beta, Microsoft said, “Windows Defender Offline Beta can help remove such hard to find malicious and potentially unwanted programs using definitions that recognize threats.”

How to use Windows Defender Offline beta?

Follow the steps below to download and use Windows Defender Offline:

1. First, Download Windows Defender Offline Beta to create the CD, DVD, or USB flash drive on a PC that isn’t infected with malware.
2. You will need a blank CD, DVD, or USB flash drive with at least 250 MB of free space, run the downloaded tool, it will help you create the removable media.
3. Now, boot your infected PC using the Windows Defender Offline Beta media.
4. Scan your PC for malicious and other potentially unwanted software.
5. Remove any malware that is found by this tool from your infected PC.
6. Here’s a FAQ created by Microsoft for your help in using the tool. Complete system requirements is available here.

Earlier, we’ve covered Kaspersky Rescue Disk which helps you disinfect severely infected machines. These bootable tools are extremely useful for disinfecting the toughest to clean malicious or unwanted programs from the PC. But, keeping these tools updated is a very tedious task.

We’ve seen Mozilla Prism and Google Chrome’s application shortcuts, built to display and make websites (web apps) behave as native applications. But both had one disadvantage, you don’t feel any difference over using just the browser. Basically, both just displayed the same look which you would see when opening the website in the browser. You never get the feeling of using an actual native application.

This is why SweetLabs came up with Pokki. Currently in beta, it aims to make you feel as if you’re actually using a desktop app when the next time you open your Gmail inbox or use the Facebook to connect with your friends or tweet to your friends. Pokki is available only for the Windows platform now, with Mac and Linux support coming down the line.

A Brief Pokki Introduction

Pokki is a framework built on Chromium that brings the web applications to your desktop through the help Pokki applications called “Pokkis”. Pokki apps are developed using standard web technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript, but with some key additions to bring you the best web application experience.

Pokki apps support nice notification tags on the icons of the apps in the menu bar. They’re also very easy to use and convenient to use too. So, you want to check your Gmail quickly? Simply click on the Gmail Pokkis, and it will pop up in a small window displaying your Gmail inbox. Click outside of the Pokki, and it disappears away. As simple as that.

Developing apps for Pokki is completely free. With their continuous contests for new apps, more and more new apps are added to Pokki. At the time of writing Pokki had already 83 apps and counting. So far, you’ll find Pokki applications for Twitter, Facebook, Grooveshark, GMail, and many more popular services. Even games like The Godfather and more are now available if you want to take a quick break. The apps are beautifully designed and easy to use.

Installing and Using Pokki

Sounds awesome? Let’s get started. First download Pokki from their official website and install it. The installation process is very quick and you should see a little acorn icon next to the Start Orb (or Start button) in the taskbar in under two minutes. Click on the little acorn to get access to the list of new, featured, and all available Pokkis.

Click on the Download button available below the Pokki app you want to install. You’ll find the icon of the downloaded Pokki apps in the taskbar next to the Pokki acorn. When you click one of them, it opens up in a larger view.

For example, the Gmail app brings up your Gmail inbox in a pop-up window that allows you to read, reply, and manage your email. The Facebook app shows your news stream and lets you update it or comment on other posts.

The Twitter app lets you access your tweets and update it. If you click anywhere out of a Pokki app window, the app disappears back to the taskbar.

Conclusion

All in all, Pokki by SweetLabs is rather very ambitious. Definitely worth to keep and use. As more and more developers starts building apps for Pokki, it will definitely suit millions of users.

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, don’t hesitate to comment below and get a discussion flowing! If you have used Pokki, tell us what you think about it and don’t forget to share your favorite Pokki app. Thank you for reading!

Google Chrome Stable Channel updated to 16.0.912.77 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome Frame.

Important Note: Bookmark this page (Press CTRL + D) to always Get the latest update about Google Chrome Stable Channel for all platforms.

According to the Google Chrome Releases blog, Chrome 16 has many improvements. These includes enhancements to Sync and the ability to create multiple profiles on a single instance of Chrome.

With the enhancement of multiple profiles, Chrome users can now easily add new users, each user will have their own sync profiles. To add a new user, click on the Spanner icon (Settings) and go to Options (Preferences on a Mac). Click “Personal Stuff” and then click on “Add new user”. Chrome will start a new instance of the web browser, users can now customize with their own set of apps, bookmarks, extensions, and other settings.

Users can now customize the name and badge present in the upper corner which lets them know that this new Chrome browser belongs to them. If a user clicks on this badge, a drop-down menu appears, through which users can easily switch between different Chrome users profiles.

Security and bug fixes in Chrome 16

• [106484] High CVE-2011-3924: Use-after-free in DOM selections.
• [107182] Critical CVE-2011-3925: Use-after-free in Safe Browsing navigation. *
• [108461] High CVE-2011-3928: Use-after-free in DOM handling.
• [108605] High CVE-2011-3927: Uninitialized value in Skia.
• [109556] High CVE-2011-3926: Heap-buffer-overflow in tree builder. Credit to Arthur Gerkis.

The bugs 106484, 107182, 108461, and 109556 were detected using AddressSanitizer.
* Bug 107182 was fixed in 16.0.912.75 but accidentally excluded from the release notes.  For more details you can view the post at Chrome Releases blog.

If your Google Chrome installation was falsely identified by Microsoft Security Essentials as a piece of Malware (“PWS:Win32/Zbot”) and was removed from your computer system, follow the guide below to restore Chrome manually. (Google Chrome Blog)

First, you need to update Microsoft Security Essential virus definitions, follow the instructions as posted in this article.

After updating the virus definitions of Microsoft Security Essentials, download Google Chrome from the links below and install it.

Latest Google Chrome Stable Channel Download Links For All Platforms

You can download the latest version of Google Chrome using following link:

Download Google Chrome (Web installer)

Download Google Chrome for All Users (Enterprise Edition)

If you want to download the Google Chrome offline installer instead of the web installer, you can get it using following link:

Download Google Chrome Offline Standalone Installer

Do check out the Google Chrome category to see everything about the web browser.

You’ve just purchased a shiny new computer (or a notebook/netbook) for yourself. Now, you’re wondering if the system you’ve purchased is as specified by the sales person, or you just want to know what’s at the heart of this new system that’s booting up Windows in a few seconds flat? Speccy, a freeware application developed by Piriform, (the same developers, who developed the awesome app CCleaner) let’s you know about your system inside-out by displaying all system information related to all of your components.

This article will take an in-depth look and walk you through the usability, design, interface, and overall performance of Speccy.

Installation Experience

Speccy is available for download from the official website. It is also available as portable application for users who wants to carry around in their USB thumb drives. You’ll find the link to the portable edition at the bottom of the download page.

The download size of the application comes between 4.18 MB (for the installer) to 4.54 MB (for the portable). For the installer version, installation was straight forward and took just a few seconds to complete. Upon completion, you’re presented with the option to run Speccy and to view the change log to find out what’s new in this version.

Usability of Speccy

When you launch Speccy for the first time, it’ll start scanning your system. After initial scan is complete, you’re presented with an overall summary of your system and its components. The summary includes information about the Operating System, RAM, Motherboard, Graphics, Hard Drives, Optical Drives, and Audio. In addition to the basic information for each of these different categories, you can get detailed information about the connected peripherals and network hardware.

User Interface and Design

Speccy with its straight forward user interface and simple design is very easy to use. The application is easy to navigate for even the novice users. Now, let’s take a quick look through each sub-categories and what information you can find inside them.

Operating System

When you click on Operating System menu link (let’s call it “tab” for simplicity), the application provides you a complete details of the current specifications and settings of the operating system installed on your computer. You can view the product key of Windows, view Windows Defender, Windows Firewall and Windows Update settings. If you’re an advanced user, you will find information about Windows Environment Variables, Power Profile, Scheduled Tasks, Hotfixes installed, running Process list and Services useful.

CPU

The CPU tab displays detailed information about your system processor, including number of cores, caches and more. You can also monitor bus speed, fan speed, and average processor temperature. When you click on the green meters, the application opens an expanded view for a clearer view of the graph.

RAM

Using the RAM tab, you can get detailed information about the total amount of memory installed in your system, number of expansion slots in use and number of slots available for use. You can monitor RAM usage, speed and individual module specifications.

Motherboard

The Motherboard tab displays information about your motherboard make, model, BIOS manufacturer, overall system temperature, the individual and continuously updating voltage throughputs, and more.

Graphics

The Graphics tab displays information about the integrated or dedicated video cards and identifies the connected display.

One thing to note is, Speccy couldn’t detect our dedicated Nvidia Optimus graphics card present on our laptop, it did however correctly detected the integrated Intel HD Graphics. We don’t blame Speccy for this, since Nvidia Optimus graphics cards are designed to run only when needed by specific programs/games for saving power. Since Speccy doesn’t need it, it wasn’t activated, thus was not detected.

Hard Drives

The Hard Drives tab is useful for monitoring the S.M.A.R.T status. You can also monitor the temperature of your hard drives.

Optical Drives

The optical drives tab offers information related to all the optical drives connected to your system.

Audio & Peripheral Tabs

Just like the optical drives tab, the audio and peripheral tabs displays only hardware specifications.

Network

The Network tab provides very useful information which may come handy for troubleshooting network problems. Here, you’ll get detailed information about your local area connection, any wireless networks connected to. It provides detailed information about your network adapters, network shares, proxies, and remote desktop connections, and all active TCP Connections (applications/processes that are using your network/connected to the Internet, at any particular time).

Performance

Speccy is fast and once it completes the initial scan, it responds to any user actions immediately. Piriform is continually evolving Speccy with new features or improvements, so we’re confident Speccy will continue to get better and offer much more details.

Conclusion

You’ll find a lot of programs that allows you to monitor system health, some displays system specifications, but very few of them offer so much in-depth hardware analysis accessible through a simple, easy-to-use user interface as Speccy offers.

Speccy is completely free to download and personal use, though you’ll not get any support from the developers. If you need priority support, Piriform offers Home and Small business support for $19.95 and $34.95 respectively.

VPN (Virtual Private Network) uses a public network (usually the Internet) to create a secure reliable communication between remote sites or users. Primarily a VPN is used by large geographically diverse business organizations so that their employee or a remote site can securely connect with them using a VPN Tunnel.

Other than the use of VPN services in organizations for secure connection, VPN services are now widely used to bypass Internet censorship. Using a VPN you can get access to location-restricted websites like Hulu, Pandora, Netflix, etc. Sometimes, VPN services are also used to protect privacy.

In simple words, a VPN creates a secure (encrypted) tunnel between your computer and the VPN service provider. Through this tunnel whatever data flows is completely safe from the prying eyes of ISPs, hackers, monitoring agencies who might be tapping your online activities. So, whatever is the reason, if you came here looking for free VPN services, you’re at the right page.

Below we have included the five best quality* free VPN services for your personal use. Please don’t forget to read the note at the end of the article.

TunnelBear

TunnelBear is our favorite VPN app now because of its simplicity and ease of use. You just need to download and install it, sign up for an account, and choose location of the content you want to get access to. Flip the switch to on position and voilà you can view all the location-restricted websites in the US and UK.

It offers 500MB per month for free usage and is available for both Windows and Mac. If you pay $5/month, you will get unlimited tunneling. We’re coming up with a full review of TunnelBear soon.

Access Locations: US, UK
Free bandwidth available: 500 MB
Pricing: $9.99 4.99 per month / $49.99 per year for unlimited tunneling.
Website: www.tunnelbear.com
Mobile VPN: Yes (beta version available for iPhone/iPad)

CyberGhost

CyberGhost VPN offers all free users 1 GB bandwidth per month with some limitations. You’re disconnected every 6 hours from the service, after which you need to redial again. The speed is limited to 2 Mbps, which we think is more than enough for casual users. To start using their free services, you just need to download their client and follow instructions.

They have a lot of servers spread across many countries (at the time of writing around 64 were online). So, you can expect some good service from them. If you need more bandwidth you can easily upgrade to their premium version which stats from 4.17 € per month.

Access Locations: US, UK, NL
Free bandwidth available: 1 GB
Pricing: Starts from 4.17 € per month for unlimited traffic volume with conditions.
Website: cyberghostvpn.com
Mobile VPN: No

AnchorFree Hotspot Shield

AnchorFree Hotspot Shield is a free VPN service which can be used for accessing the Internet. It is available for PC as well as Mac. You can create an instant virtual private network (VPN) tunnel between your laptop and the router at any Wi-Fi hot spot to protect your data from snoops on the public Wi-Fi hotspots.

If you’re on a network that limits the use of certain apps (such as Skype), the VPN could give you unfettered access. It even works with your wired connection for an extra layer of security. The free service uses advertisements to offer you the service.

Access Locations: US
Free bandwidth available: Unlimited with restrictions.
Pricing: Starts from $ 4.99 per month
Website: www.anchorfree.com
Mobile VPN: Yes (iPhone/iPad, Android coming soon)

proXPN

proXPN is a personal VPN that provides you safety and privacy while using the Internet. Free proXPN VPN accounts comes with the some restrictions. Free VPN accounts bandwidth speeds are limited to 100 Kbps and all ports except standard web browsing is restricted.

This VPN service is particularly useful for casual browsing in Wi-Fi hotspots and other untrusted locations. If you need more, you can obviously upgrade to their premium VPN services.

Access Locations: US, UK, NL
Free bandwidth available: Unlimited with restrictions.
Pricing: Starts from $ 9.95 per month
Website: proxpn.com
Mobile VPN: Yes (iPhone/iPad)

JonDonym

JonDo, formerly JAP, is basically an IP changer proxy tool and not actually a VPN service. It is a research project which offers free anti-censorship anonymous connections. It is not actually a VPN service, but still it’s worthy to find a place in this list.

You can use this service to connect thru Internet and access your favorite sites. But, don’t expect too much from its free service. Use it for surfing websites and your browsing needs only. If you can get a premium service from them, they’re surely serious providers.

The JonDonym / AN.ON technology is based on the principle of multiple (layered) encryption, distribution and processing. This procedure does not only protect your Internet activities from being observed by third parties (against your access provider, WLAN hackers, advertising services and websites), but also against observation by the individual JonDonym providers themselves.

Access Locations: Randomly Chosen
Free bandwidth available: Unlimited but with restrictions of 2 MB maximum file size for uploads and downloads over HTTP.
Pricing: Starts from 5 € for 6 months (650 MB)
Website: anonymous-proxy-servers.net
Mobile VPN: Yes (Android)

*We have only included those VPN services which we have either tested or if they’re highly trusted.

We’re sure that the list is not complete and there are still many free VPN services available. For completing the list, we’ll need your help. If we missed your favorite VPN client, please comment below and share it with us all.

A word of caution to the (would-be) spammer of cheap VPN services that offers no quality or good service at all. If you’re going to comment please adhere to our comments policy and use your real name instead of a keyword. We’ll check the service ourselves before your comment gets approved! Keep the page clean and help us create a useful list.

*All information are correct at the time of publish. If a service changes their pricing structure or changes their free bandwidth quota, please comment below, we will update it. Please note that mobile access is provided to premium users only.
Image by DaveBleasdale, on Flickr

With each new release of Firefox by Mozilla, we see better performance, stability and security. But, despite all these improvements, Firefox is still resolutely a 32-bit browser. Yes, Mozilla is still working on Firefox 64-bit, but for some reason, they haven’t officially released any 64-bit builds for Firefox. If you can’t wait, you can grab a nightly build of the 64-bit available for Windows and Linux from Mozilla servers.

Many people will hesitate to use a nightly build for regular use. For those who wants stability and don’t want to try a risky nightly build, Waterfox might be an answer. Waterfox is an actual Firefox version, optimized for 64-bit systems and aims to fill the void. The release cycle of Waterfox is in sync with Firefox’s official release cycle. With last week’s Firefox 9 release, the Waterfox project developers released version 9.0 of its own software. Convincing enough to try? We guess, it is. Let’s quickly go through the main features of Waterfox.

The developers of Waterfox have tweaked Firefox source code to work better with 64-bit processors. For the technical persons, the developers have compiled the code base with SSE, SSE2, x64 favoring and the following optimization flags: /Og /Oi /Ot /Oy /Ob2 /Gs /GF /Gy. It’s built especially keeping Windows x64 system in mind, that means, you are effectively running the browser in its full potential complete with all the performance improvements.

All Firefox add-ons are supported by the browser. You can also use all the major plugins such as Adobe Flash, Sun Java, Microsoft Silverlight, since they all have supported 64-bit binaries available. One more feature to rejoice off is, you don’t have to do anything to migrate your existing Firefox profile. Since, Waterfox uses the same profile that your existing Firefox installation does. This convenient feature has one risk factor too. If you uninstall Waterfox and by mistake select the remove personal data check box, your Firefox profile will also get deleted. So, keep in mind not to select that check box.

According to the developers, “for some people with older systems, the 64-bit version loads quicker and is much more responsive than the 32-bit build. For people with newer systems, it allows them to use the full potential of their systems.” So, if you are having a 64-bit system running Windows 7/Vista x64, you should definitely try Waterfox. In fact, we have seen in benchmarks, the 64-bit variant of Firefox out-performing the 32-bit variant.

There’s one major requirement before you install Waterfox on your computer. The browser requires Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x64) installed, otherwise you’ll get an error message involving msvcr100.dll. To fully enjoy Waterfox, you also need to install dedicated 64-bit builds of Flash, Silverlight and Java. You can find the download links to all of them at the Waterfox download page. The download page also links to dictionaries and languages packs. The main software is available only in US English only, so if you are looking for localizations, you will need them.

[via Lifehacker]

2011 is ending soon and we are ready to welcome 2012. Many of you are curios to find out what was best in different categories around the year. Some of you are still busy shopping. If you’re still shopping, here’s a good news for you. Amazon is making it easier to discover best of 2011 with its brand new “Best of Digital store.” Through this store, you can find recommendations from Amazon’s team of editors on the year’s best of movies & TV shows, music, video games, software, mobile apps, magazines and Kindle books and more.

Amazon has timed the launch to coincide with holiday shopping season. After all Amazon has always seen record number of sales of digital content for Amazon. According to a Press Release by Amazon, last year, from Christmas Eve through December 30, Amazon customers purchased over three times more digital content, including Kindle books, magazines, movies, TV shows, music, and digital games as compared to the weekly average for the year.

Here’s a preview of some of the recommendations Amazon is making for books, magazines, TV shows, movies, Android app, Android games, and software. More can be found at http://www.amazon.com/bestdigital.

Top ten recommended Kindle books:
1. “Steve Jobs” by Walter Issacson
2. “11/22/63″ by Stephen King
3. “The Art of Fielding” by Chad Harbach
4. “Daughter of Smoke and Bone” by Laini Taylor
5. “The Circus Ship” by Chris Van Dusen
6. “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle
7. “A History of the World in 100 Objects” by Neil MacGregor
8. “The Litigators” by John Grisham
9. “Then Again” by Diane Keaton
10. “Watchmen” by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Top ten recommended magazines:
1. Us Weekly
2. Cosmopolitan
3. Vanity Fair
4. National Geographic
5. O, the Oprah Magazine
6. WIRED
7. Glamour
8. Better Homes & Gardens
9. Reader’s Digest
10. Men’s Health

Top ten recommended movies:
1. The Social Network
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
3. Bridesmaids
4. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
5. X-Men: First Class
6. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
7. Crazy Stupid Love
8. You’ve Got Mail
9. Cars 2
10. The Fighter

Top ten recommended TV shows:
1. Walking Dead
2. Arrested Development
3. Lost
4. Breaking Bad
5. Sons of Anarchy
6. The X Files
7. Sesame Street
8. Glee
9. Parks and Rec
10. Friday Night Dinner

Top ten recommended albums:
1. Florence + the Machine, Ceremonials
2. Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More
3. Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon: Experience Version
4. Adele, 21
5. Bon Iver, Bon Iver
6. Coldplay, Mylo Xyloto
7. Foster the People, Torches
8. Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues
9. Wilco, The Whole Love
10. The Civil Wars, Barton Hollow

Top ten recommended Android apps:
1. ESPN Score Center
2. LinkedIn
3. Quickoffice Pro
4. The Weather Channel for Android
5. EasyTether
6. Exchange by Touchdown
7. Pandora
8. Urbanspoon
9. MapQuest
10. Zillow Real Estate

Top ten recommended Android games:
1. Angry Birds
2. Words with Friends
3. Bejeweled 2
4. Atari’s Greatest Hits (Missile Command Free)
5. Asphalt 6: Adrenaline
6. Plants vs. Zombies
7. Top Girl
8. Fruit Ninja
9. Cut the Rope
10. Little Piano

Top ten recommended digital video games:
1. Battlefield 3
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
3. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
4. Dead Island
5. Saints Row: The Third
6. Dungeon Defenders
7. Magicka
8. Disney Universe
9. Sonic Generations
10. The Sims 3

Top ten recommendations for digital software:
1. Microsoft Office Home & Student 2010
2. Office Mac Home and Student 2011 (Family Pack)
3. TurboTax Deluxe Federal + E-file + State 2011
4. Norton 360 Version 5.0
5. Microsoft Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade (Home Premium to Professional)
6. Quicken Deluxe 2012
7. Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 for Windows
8. Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) Level 1-5 Set for Mac
9. PaintShop Pro X4
10. Anime Studio Debut 8

If you have received a brand new phone, tablet, PC or Mac for the holidays, Amazon apps may interest you. You can learn more about Amazon apps by visiting www.amazon.com/amazonmobile.

Whenever you uninstall application from your Windows operating system, theoretically, it should uninstall completely. Sadly, in reality, sometimes you will find that when you uninstall an application, it has left few files and unwanted registry entries behind. Down the road, you will notice Windows starts giving performance and compatibility issues. Manually finding and deleting leftover items is very cumbersome and risky.

Utilities like CCleaner are effective to some extent in cleaning up the leftover registry entries and temporary files. But using advanced application uninstaller that can completely uninstall apps makes more sense to keep Windows operating system in good shape. Revo Uninstaller is one such application that can completely uninstall an app and is an alternative to “Windows Add or Remove Programs” applet. Let’s see if it really can do what it claims for.

Revo Uninstaller Overview

Revo Uninstaller simplifies the process of removing leftover files and registry entries of an app after uninstalling it. It works by analyzing an application’s data before uninstall and after uninstall, scans for remnants. After the program’s regular uninstaller completes the uninstall process, Revo provides a list of registry values, files, and folders that it believes were not removed by the application’s regular uninstaller. You can now select the data you wish to delete, and it will clean your computer of the unwanted files, folders and registry entries.

Installation

Revo Uninstaller is available free and comes with several other tools about which we will tell later on. The installation process is very simple. After you have the installer which is around 2.4MB download, the application should be ready for use within a few seconds. If you don’t want to install another application on your Windows or like portable applications, Revo Uninstaller is also available in portable edition.

User Interface and Using Revo Uninstaller

When you launch Revo, you will be presented with a list of the installed applications on your computer. The user interface lets you switch easily between the default Uninstaller view and Tools view. Here we will work with the Uninstaller function first.

Removing an application using Revo is easy. You have a number of options to remove an application completely from your computer. The most easy way is to double-click the icon of the app and continue with the uninstall process. Revo Uninstaller will create a system restore (if not disabled in Options) and then it will run the built-in uninstaller of the uninstalled program. Revo Uninstaller is not directly involved in that part of the uninstall process. Revo than offers four methods for removing applications.

• Built-in: This is just like using the “Windows Add or Remove Programs” applet.
• Safe: It performs additional registry scan and hard drive scan to find leftover items that are safe to delete.
• Moderate: It is an extension to the Safe mode and performs an extended scan to find all the application’s leftover information in the most common places of the Registry and on the hard drive.
• Advanced: Advanced method includes the Moderate mode and performs a deep and thorough scan to find all the application’s leftover information in the Registry and on the hard drive. In our tests, we found this method most effective in completely removing the application.

One unique way for uninstalling apps offered by Revo is the “Hunter Mode.” This mode provides a cross-hair to place on any icon on your Start Menu, Desktop or Taskbar. After you place the cross-hair, Revo will literally “hunt” for the uninstaller of the app and go ahead with the un-installation process.

Revo Uninstaller comes with 8 handy and powerful tools to further clean up your Windows operating system. To access the Tools you have to press the Tools button on the main toolbar. Then on the left side of the main window appears the Tools panel. It has the tools included in Revo Uninstaller divided in two categories shown as buttons: “Optimization” and “Tracks Cleaner”. Under the first category Optimization, you will find an AutoRun Manager, Junk Files Cleaner and Windows Tools. The second category Tracks Cleaner lets you access Browsers Cleaner, MS Office Cleaner, Windows Cleaner, Evidence Remover, and Unrecoverable Delete.

Coming to the Preferences panel, Revo Uninstaller Free offers very few basic options. You can exclude specific file formats and directories, change the language of the application, and change system restore options.

Performance

The performance on this application varies upon which mode you use to uninstall an application. Although it does its job well, it will use a large amount of CPU as well as RAM. We would not recommend attempting to multitask while Revo is in the process of removing an application.

Conclusion

This application does what it promises and does its job well. It does take a little time depending on which method you use to remove an application. Despite this, we will recommend this application to all Windows user. Compared to the default “Windows Add or Remove Programs” applet, Revo is far better in what it does.

This application is available as a freeware application, however, if you are looking for more advanced features, you can buy a pro license for $39.25 $19.62. You can download the free or portable edition from RevoUninstaller.com.

Do you use any other uninstaller or do you use the default Windows uninstaller only? Let us know in the comments.

If you found this article useful and like it, please share it with your friends and contacts on Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, and more using the share buttons below so that they can also enjoy it, thank you so much for reading!

Android 4.0.3 aka Ice Cream Sandwich update is now available for Google Nexus S.

Nexus S users who have already received the update via OTA are already enjoying ICS but what about those folks who are still waiting for the update?

Thanks to XDA-Developers forum member zephiK for providing a manual way to update Nexus S to official Android 4.0.3 (ICS). Before updating please note down the warnings, and please don’t blame us if your device gets damaged or bricked during the update process. Proceed at your own risk. Here’s the method described by him.

Warning: AT&T Nexus S is NOT supported. Only T-Mobile and Retail versions of the Nexus S GSM/UMTS are supported. Please DO NOT proceed if you have the CDMA version of Nexus S.

Note: If your Nexus S is rooted, running a custom ROM, this update may not work for you. It’s advised to revert back to stock Gingerbread ROM on the device and then try with flashing the update.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. Please do not hold My Technology Guide liable for any damage or bricked Nexus S devices during the manual update process.

How To Manually Update Nexus S to Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich)

1. First, you need to download the official ICS update for Nexus S: VQ8PQk_V.zip (128.03 MB).
2. After download is complete, rename the file to update.zip and copy it to the root of your SD card.
3. Switch off the device and then reboot into bootloader mode. (To get into the Bootloader mode, hold Volume up button and the Power button together.)
4. Use the Volume key to navigate and select Recovery from the menu to boot into recovery, press the Power button to confirm.
5. When you see the warning triangle and arrow, hold the power button and tap volume up. You’ll see a menu.
6. Select “Apply update from /sdcard” and select the update.zip file from the list.
7. Once the update is flashed, select “reboot system now” to reboot your device.
8. Enjoy the cool Ice Cream Sandwich treat by Google this holiday!

Watch the video below by qbking77 to know how to flash the latest Android 4.0.3 on your T-Mobile Nexus S device.

[via xda-developers]

AVG Technologies has released AVG Internet Security 2012 and AVG Antivirus 2012 the latest edition of their flagship security software. The latest version added new protection technologies, computer performance enhancements and content download acceleration. AVG 2012 is lighter, faster and smaller than any previous AVG product.

The earlier versions AVG 9 Free and AVG 2011 Free is still quite popular among our readers. It provides basic security protection for your computer against malware, viruses and other malicious programs. The standard security module that AVG Antivirus Free Edition 2012 comprises of are an antivirus, anti-spyware, email protection, resident protection, LinkScanner, search-shield, surf-shield, anti-rootkit, PC analyze and identity protection.

Each of the following three applications of LiveKive, Family Safety, and PC Tuneup is available as a standalone AVG product, and an optional part of your AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 2012 installation. Within the Your AVG Apps dialog (accessible via the My Apps button directly from the AVG main dialog) you can see an overview of applications already installed, and ready to be installed optionally:

Direct download links to AVG Free Antivirus offline installer: (Links updated on 31, January 2012) If the links to the offline downloaders are not working, please comment below. We will update the article with fresh links.

Download AVG Antivirus 2012 32-bit (139 MB)

Download AVG Antivirus 2012 64-bit (158 MB)

You can download the online installer from the link here.

You can download offline installers of AVG Antivirus 2012 trial version from the link below:

AVG Anti-Virus 2012 Offline Redistributable Setup Installer Download Link: http://www.avg.com/us-en/download.prd-triavc#tba2

You can download offline installers of AVG Internet Security 2012 trial version from the link below:

AVG Internet Security 2012 Offline Redistributable Setup Installer Download Link: http://www.avg.com/us-en/download.prd-triisc#tba2

Linux/FreeBSD users can download AVG Anti-Virus Free edition for Linux from the direct download links below. (Links updated on 06, January 2012)

• Download AVG Free Edition for Linux (avg2011flx-r1408-a4116.i386.deb) (138 MB)
• Download AVG Free Edition for Linux (avg2011flx-r1408-a4116.i386.rpm) (138 MB)
• Download AVG Free Edition for Linux (avg2011flx-r1408-a4116.i386.sh) (138 MB)
• Download AVG Free Edition for Linux (avg2011flx-r1408-a4116.i386.tar.gz) (138 MB)
• Download AVG Server Edition for FreeBSD (avg2011ffb-r1408-a4117.i386.tar.gz) (139 MB)

The Internet around us is exploding with new cool and amazing videos and articles every second. As we all are busy, we don’t have so much time to go through all the new links and videos shared in our social channels. Luckily, there are services available like Instapaper and Read It Later to save the links for later viewing. But what about audio and video? How to save them for later?

Seems, Spool is the service we all were waiting for. Spool is an intelligent service that saves pages to your Spool account and synchronizes them across the web and other devices including smartphones (Android, iPhone and iPad). After finding Spool in the Android Market, we started testing it. Below you’ll find our full rundown about the service.

Before, we start it’s important to note that Spool is still in beta and is invite only service at the time of writing. But, we found that we can easily sign-up for the service using the Android app instead of waiting for getting an invite through the web interface. You can also bypass the email sign-up process by using your Facebook account to sign-on.

Spool Introduction

Even though the service is still in beta phase, Spool is already ahead of the rest. The idea of saving the entire web which includes videos, article text, image galleries, PDFs, and more gives it the much-needed advantage.

Your Spool Dashboard

Which ever page you save for later goes to your Spool account. The web interface is very easy to navigate thanks to the way your saved stuff are visually presented to you. Along with the title, it pulls images from the saved articles and creates a thumbnail of saved videos instead of only offering a list.

By default when you’re logged in, you can view your main Spool page. You can further narrow down your saved items by Unread, Read, Favorite and Archived stuffs.

Just like the competition, Spool provides an optimized view of text and loads images and videos while blocking out all the extra stuff like advertisements. All the videos that you “spool”, are played in a custom player. The custom video player has all basic controls like adjusting the volume, entering full-screen mode and more. These saved pages and related media can also be viewed within the app, and favorite it for easy access or archive it when you’re finished viewing.

When we tested the video feature in our Samsung Galaxy S2, we found that the Android app downloads and saves the video for offline viewing. A cool feature, we must say, which we liked very much. The storage space used by the Spool mobile app can be adjusted in Settings. Another cool feature of the service is lets you share what you have saved in your Spool with your friends. Letting them enjoy the same stuff you are enjoying.

How To Spool, that is, Save For Later?

Saving stuff to your Spool is very easy. You have three options. You can either use browser extensions (available to Chrome and Firefox users), bookmarklet that will work in any browser or send an email to your personal Spool email address. When you are sending an email with attachment to your custom Spool email address, the attachment along with the mail content is saved in your Spool.

If you install the browser extension, you’ll notice that links (particularly in Google Reader, Google Plus, Google News, Facebook, Twitter, Quora and TechMeme at the time of writing) will have a small Spool icon next to them. We expect to see support for more websites as the service grows.

What Is Spoolbot? How Spool Works?

To know how Spool works and what exactly the Spoolbot is, you have to go just little back in time. In late-2010, Curtis Spencer (present CTO and co-founder) and Avichal Garg (present CEO and co-founder) developed an artificial intelligence and computer vision engine (now known as the Spoolbot) that could record a video from the Internet, encode it to work on any device, and move videos between devices without worrying about Flash or network connectivity. In 2011, this initial technology was generalized to include any type of content – videos, article text, image galleries, PDFs, and more – and Spool was born.

The Spoolbot reads the webpage the way a human would and extracts relevant parts, while discarding the rest (like the ads and other areas of the webpage). Most importantly, the Spoolbot converts the video into mobile-friendly, HTML5-based format, which is playable within any modern smartphone or tablet browser. The videos and other content are also cached to the device, for offline access.

Since, Adobe has decided to stop developing Flash for mobile. Apple has already banned Flash from iOS. So, not depending on Adobe Flash for delivering the videos is a very good decision by the founders of Spool.

In the future, Spool will focus on adding deep linking (automatically pulling down the content for the links within an article you saved), plus intelligent “spooling” of your favorite sites without an explicit request on your part.

So, Should You Go For Spool?

Right now, Spool is still in beta and is free to use. The mobile apps for Android and iOS is also free, but that may change in the future. If you are using services like Instapaper or Read It Later, we will definitely recommend you to use Spool.

Google is full of surprising fun “Easter eggs” and “Hoaxes“, hidden within search queries and other services. Google ‘s latest Easter egg discovered just in right time for the holiday season is very cool.

If you type “let it snow” into Google.com, the Mountain View-based search giant will return the normal search results. The Easter egg now starts to unfold in front of you with falling snowflakes. After a few moments the search page is completely obscured by a digital blizzard. Once the page is full of snow, you can literally ”draw” on the screen with your mouse. If you want to clear the screen, click on the “Defrost” button, but snowflakes will continue to fall in the background.

Earlier, in November, Google came up with another Easter egg popularly known as the ”barrel roll” trick. The trick still works and if you search for the phrase “do a barrel roll” you will see the search page doing a 360-degree flip before settling down.

Another cool trick is “askew” or “tilt“. Upon searching for anyone of them, Google search results page looks little tilted and out-of-place. To enjoy this easter egg, simply search for either “askew” or “tilt” in Google.

Other Google Search Easter eggs are as follows. If you type “anagram,” Google displays “Did you mean: nag a ram” and if you search for “recursion“, you will get search result along with a question “Did you mean: recursion“, which recursively runs searches for “recursion.”

If you search for ”christmas”, “christmas tree” or “santa”, Christmas lights will appear at the top of the screen. (Thanks to our reader niklas for sharing)

Enjoy these cool “Easter Eggs” and if we missed any, do share with us below. We will be happy to include them in the list.

WordPress has had over 65 million downloads since version 3.0 was released, out of which WordPress 3.2 has had over 14 million downloads. Today, the world sees the latest avatar of WordPress, as WordPress developers releases WordPress 3.3. Codenamed “Sonny” in honor of the jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt, WordPress 3.3 is available for download or update from within your WordPress dashboard.

WordPress 3.3 “Sonny” has a number of new features including many significant user interface improvements. Matt Mullenweg while announcing the release said, “experienced users will appreciate the new drag-and-drop uploader, hover menus for the navigation, the new toolbar, improved co-editing support, and the new Tumblr importer. Version 3.3 has significant improvements there with pointer tips for new features included in each update, a friendly welcome message for first-time users, and revamped help tabs throughout the interface. Finally we’ve improved the dashboard experience on the iPad and other tablets with better touch support.”

Watch this short video to get an overview about WordPress 3.3 “Sonny”.

The media uploader has also been streamlined with a drag-and-drop image uploader. A new menu feature allows users to hover over menus for navigation. There is a new toolbar, and improved co-editing notifications and support. And WordPress 3.3 now comes with a Tumblr importer and is optimized for the iPad.

WordPress developers will be happy with the release too. With the release of “Sonny” WordPress has released a new editor API, new jQuery version, better ways to hook into the help screens, improvements on the Codex and more for the developers.

Interested users can view the entire list of improvements on the Codex and in Trac.

Every operating system user faces the problem of accumulating temporary/junk files eating up disk space. As you go on using your operating system, you suddenly realize that the system partition is having less amount of free space. Since, the operating system doesn’t automatically deleted these unneeded files, the files takes up gigabytes of disk space. At the end system performance takes the toll and you notice computer running slow.

Windows users have some good utilities like CCleaner for cleaning up the junk and temporary files. Mac users also have CCleaner for Mac, but it’s still under development and is in beta stage at time of writing. If you don’t want to try out a beta product for your Mac, check out MacCleaning, developed by EaseUs, the developers of many good hard disk utilities.

MacCleaning is a freeware, all-in-one Mac OS based menu bar utility which lets you clean junk files and features disk space monitor and drive ejection. The disk space monitor lets you monitor the amount of disk space being used and left. Whenever any drives in your Mac is running out of space, MacCleaning will recommend you to clean out the junk files to free up some space.

MacCleaning Free by default empties system and user caches, and system and user logs. If you also want to clean the Trash and the contents of your personal Downloads folder you can do so by selecting them under Preferences of the application.

The application sits unobtrusively in the menu bar. The program is configured to start with your Mac. The application shows a bar chart revealing the overall free space available. If the amount of free space dips below 10 percent, the application starts an alarm. If you click on the menu bar icon, you can watch each chart for each drive or external partitions connected to your Mac. You also have an option to eject removable drives, so that you can quickly and safely unmount them from your computer.

Download MacCleaning

We all know how important digital data backup is. It is the most smartest activity by any person owning a computer system including anything that stores data digitally. What is more blessing than the fact that cloud storage is now coming free or very cheap? If you are opting for the free service, than the only investment you are doing is for getting a good unlimited Internet connection. Even if you are opting to pay for getting more cloud storage space, the advantage of getting access to your data from anywhere overcomes it. Thanks to the increasing number of cloud backup services and the intense competition among these services, you can now get “virtually” unlimited storage for just a few bucks per month.

The domain is still in its infancy and for this reason we do face problems using them but we can ignore them. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages and things should improve as the service becomes old. Continue reading after the break to see five coolest cloud backup solutions available for you.

Dropbox

Dropbox doesn’t needs an introduction. It is a one of the first cloud backup solution that made people realize cloud backup power. Dropbox comes handy for backing up files that we use the most. 2 GB of storage space is available for free, while with subscriptions users can get up to 100 GB. Teams can get terabytes of storage. Free users can increase their storage quota up to a total of 8 GB by referring their friends.

Sign-up for Dropbox Now (Referral Link)

Free Storage available* : 2 GB
Pricing* : $9.99 a month for 50 GB, $19.99 a month for 100 GB
Mobile Apps Available : Yes (Android, iOS, BlackBerry)

SugarSync

SugarSync is another good cloud backup service that also lets you sync and share files anytime, anywhere. The service is competitively priced and offers 5 GB of free accounts.

SugarSync makes it easy to back up, share and access your files, anytime, anywhere. With SugarSync you get online cloud storage for all your files — documents, music, photos, and video. When you make a change or add files on any of your PC or Mac computers, SugarSync automatically syncs your files to the cloud, where you can get access to them from any Internet-connected device — including your smartphone or iPad.

Sign-up for SugarSync Now (Referral Link)

Free Storage available* : 5 GB
Pricing* : Plans starts from $4.99 a month for 30 GB to $24.99 a month for 250 GB
Mobile Apps Available : Yes (Android, iOS, Windows, BlackBerry, Symbian)

SpiderOak

SpiderOak took a different approach when we compare it with the above two services. It offers free online backup, sync, sharing, remote access and storage. All in one a complete solution for a computer users backup needs. Another security feature of SpiderOak is users can only change their password using the downloaded client and not through the web interface. This ensures their zero-knowledge privacy environment. Users can add more storage space to their account if they exceed the limit, but the increments comes in the size of 100 GB.

SpiderOak provides an easy, secure and consolidated free online backup, sync, sharing, access & storage solution for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora & openSUSE)

Sign-up for SpiderOak Now (Referral Link)

Free Storage available* : 5 GB
Pricing* : $10 per month per 100 GB increment.
Mobile Apps Available : Yes (Android, iOS, N900 Maemo)

CX

CX is a cloud storage service that allows users to back up, synchronize, share, and manage their documents, photos, music and videos across all of their devices – which includes desktops, laptops, netbooks, and mobile devices. CX offers 10 GB of free storage space while the paid plans are the same as that offered by Dropbox.

CX is a new kind of cloud experience that takes content to the next level with a range of unique features: secure storage, real-time syncing, public and private sharing, interactive group collaboration, and intelligent discovery. Easily organize your content, access it on the go, share it with friends or publish it online — you decide what and when. Want to discuss a file with a team? CX does that too with group functionality and a unique file commenting system.

Sign-up for CX Now (Referral Link)

Free Storage available* : 10 GB
Pricing* : $9.99 a month for 50 GB, $19.99 a month for 100 GB.
Mobile Apps Available : Yes (iOS, Windows, Android and BlackBerry App coming soon)

IDrive

IDrive assists you to create multiple accounts and let other people manage the files too. If a users computer crashes, the user can order a portable hard drive from them for quick retrieval of data.

Sign-up for IDrive Now (Referral Link)

Free Storage available* : 5 GB
Pricing* : Plans starts from $4.95 a month for 150 GB.
Mobile Apps Available : Yes (Android, iOS)

What do you do to back up your important data? Are we missing out any solutions that offers similar kind of services or do you use a specific solution in the list above? Let us know in the comments below.

*At the time of publishing. If a service changes their pricing structure or changes their free storage quota, please comment below, we will update it.

Disclosure: Sign-up links are referral links that will earn both you and me extra storage space. If you don’t want to use the referral link, simply click on the name of the service at the start of its description to visit their homepage.

Android Market has exceeded 10 billion app downloads, Google announced on their Google blog. To celebrate the milestone, Google has announced that for the next 10 days, starting from December 6, they’ll have a new set of apps available each day for only 10 cents each.

“Of course, none of these apps would have existed if it weren’t for the developers who created them. Every day, these developers continue to push the limits on what’s possible and delight us in the process. For that, we thank them,” said Eric Chu in his post at the Android Developer’s blog post.

The celebration started with the following ten apps:

Asphalt 6 HD, Color & Draw for Kids,Endomondo Sports Tracker Pro, Fieldrunners HD, Great Little War Game, Minecraft, Paper Camera, Sketchbook Mobile, Soundhound Infinity and SwiftKey X.

In their announcement Google said,

One billion is a pretty big number by any measurement. However, when it’s describing thespeed at which something is growing, it’s simply amazing. This past weekend, thanks to Android users around the world, Android Market exceeded 10 billion app downloads—with a growth rate of one billion app downloads per month. We can’t wait to see where this accelerating growth takes us in 2012.

As you can see the exponential growth in the graph below, Android Market took around 22 months to reach 1 billion downloads. But it took only 9 months to reach the 10 billion mark from the one billion mark on July 2010.

By July this year, things started moving exponentially for the Android Market as it hit the six billion mark. In the last four months alone, four billion apps have been downloaded to mobile devices using Google’s operating system.

The premium apps offered by Google for 10 cents are really worth checking out!

Visit https://market.android.com/details?id=apps_timed_promotion for joining the 10-day-10-cents celebration. We also noticed that the apps already offered earlier day are still available for 10 cents each. So, if you have missed buying the apps featured earlier, you can search the Android Market and still buy them for 10 cents.

(Thanks to Android Developers Blog)