Google has launched a number of changes including a black nav-bar with gray font color, the navigation bar present at the top, which links to many Google services. But for many users this contrasting change is unacceptable unlike many who loved it. They want to get back good old white navigation bar. For those users who wants to get back the old interface, here’s a very quick tip (actually a userscript).

Google Light Navbar userscript restores back the original white nav-bar and blue font color on all Google pages. The userscript works in the Firefox, Chrome and Opera web browser. Here’s how to get the userscript working on your favorite browser.

New black nav-bar

Old white nav-bar back after using the script

Simply download Google Light Navbar userscript from http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/105735 and install it.

Firefox users will first need to install Greasemonkey or Scriptish add-on before they can install and use the script.

Chrome users can directly visit the userscript page and install it to instantly use it.

Opera users will need to specify a directory on their computer where they put userscript in, if they haven’t done so already.

You can do so by clicking on the Opera button, than on Settings, Preferences, Advanced, Content, JavaScript Options. Now browse to specify the directory. Download the script and put it into the directory specified for use.

The userscript works without restarting the browser. If you are having the page open already, you may need to reload the page to see the changes in effect.

The author of the script also mentions that the user is free to customize the nav-bar color to any color of their choice.

For changing the color, click on the spanner icon on the far right of the bar and click on the colors to change the hex values of the colors. [via]

Web browsers are the primary application used to browse the Internet by all users. Hence, it’s attacked the most from various forms of malicious threats. The most common example that we can see is when computer systems are getting infected without user’s knowledge during web browsing.

Even though most security systems are capable of blocking this attacks but, isn’t it a better idea to prevent the infection from the browser itself? BitDefender TrafficLight warns users about malicious websites and filters malicious web traffic.

Although, almost every major antivirus company offers similar solution today, but BitDefender TrafficLight has one key advantage over them: it’s available on all five major browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari.

Another deferential feature of BitDefender TrafficLight is that, the program installs itself as a service in Windows. This service than carefully monitors and analyzes the web traffic before the web browser even executes the codes. TrafficLight displays only a small slide-out grab tab that you can click to display its analysis of the current page. When malicious activity is detected, TrafficLight will spring into action and prevent the offending code from executing.

On performance cause, it does need 20 to 30 MB of RAM to run, which anyone can spare when security is concerned and memory comes cheap.

List of protections covered by TrafficLight:

• Each search result from Google, Yahoo! or Bing is labeled to show the safe and risky links. TrafficLight leverages the intelligence from BitDefender Cloud services to flag the search results appropriately.
• Each click on the links from Facebook or Twitter is scanned and the link could be blocked in real-time if the link appears to be malicious.
• Link shortening tools that works with Saf.li is included to make sure only safe links are shortened.
• Detect and block links pointing to malware or phishing sites.
• Ad-blocker (To be available in future)

To install TrafficLight in your browser, visit the BitDefender site. After installing it, you’ll have an unobtrusive malware protection hiding just below your browser’s toolbar. Here’s the direct link to the installer: WebInstaller.exe

Opera Software has released Opera 11.01 final version, which is an update of Opera 11. The latest updates fixes many security issues and improves overall stability of Opera, one of the popular web browser. This final version of Opera has come up after many snapshot releases and two RC (release candidates) updates. Opera 11.01 is a highly recommended update for every Opera 11 user.

The full change logs for Windows, Mac and Linux and FreeBSD are linked from the blog post announcing about the new version release.

The security issues fixed in Opera 11.01:

• Removed support for “javascript:” URLs in CSS -o-link values, to make it easier for sites to filter untrusted CSS.
• Fixed an issue where large form inputs could allow execution of arbitrary code.
• Fixed an issue which made it possible to carry out clickjacking attacks against internal opera: URLs.
• Fixed issues which allowed web pages to gain limited access to files on the user’s computer.
• Fixed an issue where email passwords were not immediately deleted when deleting private data.
• Fixed an issue which could cause the wrong executable to be used to display a downloaded file in its folder.

Users can update to the latest version of Opera web browser directly by clicking on Help > Menu > Check for Updates.

Users can also download the latest version of Opera directly from Opera Software.

The day at last came, when one of the world’s fastest browser, Opera gets the much wanted feature, support for extensions. Even though Opera is one of the most customizable browser, yet its lack of support for extensions till Opera 10 was like the missing puzzle piece for Opera users. Now, Opera with the release of Opera 11 alpha has added this missing piece. Opera browser is unique in many ways and has its own fan base. Many of the modern features, like tabs, speed dial, integrated web search, data synchronize, etc that are now defacto for almost all browsers today were first seen in Opera.

Opera has Widgets feature that is still unique feature. Now, Opera extensions allows you to easily add new functionality to your Opera browser. These extensions are created using familiar open standards: HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript, along with supported APIs. Opera has also launched Opera Extensions website: https://addons.labs.opera.com/addons/extensions/. Opera 11 alpha is available directly from Opera software for all supported operating systems and only available in English. Only the windows version is directly available for download on Opera Next, the Mac OS X and Linux versions can be downloaded from Opera’s Snapshot server.

As of now, Opera has 17 extensions available for testers of the Opera 11 alpha version. Opera extensions are installed by clicking on the Install button, available from the extensions website, then by clicking OK in the prompt that is displayed. Opera 11 extensions does not need any browser restart after installation, they are immediately available and functional.

Once installed, managing extensions is very easy. Simply clicking on Menu > Extensions > Manage Extensions opens up a list of all installed extensions, with options to disable or uninstall them. This process does not need a restart either, which is very comfortable and similar to how Google Chrome handles extensions. Soon, Opera will add support for auto-updating extensions. Also, the extensions do not seem to have any options to configure them at this point. It is however likely that this will be changed in upcoming versions.

One of the unique feature of Opera 11 alpha which I like the most is including an option to enable plug-ins only on demand. This feature is especially useful when you want to have plug-ins such as Flash content load only when clicked on and helps speeding up browsing on computers that have difficulty handling lots of plug-in content. Opera keeps this feature disabled by default, but you can activate it from Menu > Options > Advanced > Content > Enable plug-ins only on demand.

Below is the list of extensions available at the time of writing:

• Bit.ly Extension – Shorten URLs using the Bit.ly URL shortening service
• Delicious Extension – Save on delicious
• Edit the Page – Edit the page like a WYSIWYG editor
• External Scripts – noscript, noscript, script, external, bs-harou
• FaceChat – Facebook Chat from your browser
• FastestTube – YouTube Video Downloader, download any video from YouTube
• Mouse trail – This extension show red tail behind cursor in mouse gestures
• Opera Configurator – Full control of your opera settings just 1 click away
• Opera to Phone – Adds a button to Opera that lets you seamlessly push links, maps, YouTube videos, phone numbers and text to copy to the clipboard directly to your Android device
• Reddited – Has this page been on Reddit?
• Slashdotty – Hide Slashdot side blocks you don’t need
• StumbleUpon – Discover the best of the Web
• Translate – Automagically translate foreign web pages into English
• VideoFullscreen – View HTML5 videos in full-screen
• YR.no forecast – No bells and whistles, just your forecast, right in your browser. Simple. Clean. Efficient
• miniFeed – Facebook feed in a click
• Яндекс.Погода – Погода в десятках городов мира (available only in Russian Language)

With extensions available, it is only a matter of time until all popular Firefox add-ons and Google Chrome extensions get ported to Opera. It will be great when LastPass gets ported to Opera. At this moment Google Chrome (Canary build) is my personal favorite browser. Opera 11 alpha looks very promising and when the final is released I may shift to Opera!

As you can see in the extensions list above and how Opera handles extensions, Opera Software did a good job, although most of these features are available in Google Chrome. In Opera not having to restart the browser when installing or uninstalling extensions, just like Google Chrome is a big plus point. Mozilla Firefox also wants to do the same but that may take a while, till then I am happy with Chrome and now with Opera.

Other new notable new features of Opera 11 are:

Opera leaped ahead in recent versions with a new JavaScript engine, and our developers have been hard at work fine-tuning our browser to put Opera even further ahead of the pack in a number of benchmarks with further improvements in browser performance.

A new mail panel gives you control over the order in which your accounts and mail items show up. You can just drag items where you want them. You can also now create folders for organizing your mail and news feeds. A smart behavior is now implemented that can show the mail panel when you are using it, and hide it when you leave a mail tab.

A new bookmarks bar can be enabled that has replaced the personal bar. This conveniently located toolbar allows quick access to your favorite bookmarks.

To offer the latest support for rich, dynamic web applications, Opera 11 alpha supports HTML5 server-sent events and websockets. Server-sent events allow a server to push notifications and new content to the browser in real-time, while websockets allow for sophisticated communication within web applications that can allow for rich next-generation web applications and multiplayer games.

Have you tried Opera 11 alpha yet? What are your thoughts after using it? Let me know through the comments below.

Xmarks is a bookmark sync browser add-on that lets you synchronize all your bookmarks, passwords and other data over several computers, across almost all popular browsers. I am a Xmarks user myself and use it to sync my bookmarks across all the browsers that I use. Sadly, this awesome bookmark sync service will be shutting down service on January 10, 2011.

According to the blog post update on the official Xmarks blog, from today Xmarks will start sending notifications to its users (I still haven’t received one) that the service will be shut down in 90 days. The reasons for the shutdown are explained in detail in the blog post. It can be understood that the main reasons behind shutting down Xmarks are funds running out and Xmarks being unable to find a viable business model or a buyer.

Xmarks (founded in 2006 under the original name Foxmarks) started out as a Firefox plug-in that lets users sync their bookmarks on several computers. Later, Foxmarks rechristened as Xmarks, as it extended support for other browsers and added more functionality, such as browsing recommendations and password syncing.

Xmarks claims it serves around 2 million users across 5 million desktops, and still adding nearly 3,000 new accounts per day (their registration page is still online). You may be wondering, then why Xmarks is seeing the end of the road?

Well, when big players like Google, Opera and Mozilla starts providing sync service and with most of the features that Xmarks offers, free, it becomes really difficult for startups like Xmarks to survive.

A quote from Xmarks CTO and Co-founder Todd Agulnick:

“For four years we have offered the synchronization service for no charge, predicated on the hypothesis that a business model would emerge to support the free service. With that investment thesis thwarted, there is no way to pay expenses, primarily salary and hosting costs. Without the resources to keep the service going, we must shut it down.”

Its not like the Xmarks developers never tried. They tried various ways to make a profit out of its business, including a “smarter search” idea based on data gleaned from its anonymized collection of 100 million bookmarks. “If you were looking for the Web sites in a particular category, the results were shockingly complete and entirely spam-free,” Agulnick said. They also launched a 99-cent iPhone app to extend sync to Apple’s devices and had begun work on an equivalent for phones using Google’s Android OS. Though the iPhone app will continue to work with bookmarks cached on the phone, but the Android app will never be released.

It is really sad to say good-bye to such a good service. You can easily understand this even if you are not a Xmarks user, when you see comments by users willing to pay for the service, at the official announcement blog post.

Xmarks Alternatives

If you are presently a Xmarks user, you should check Xmarks’ guide to alternatives for advice on the best way to keep your data.

Browser Sync Alternatives

While you may have to give up cross-browser sync when Xmarks goes away, there are a lot of good browser-specific sync options available:

In that page we found two suggestions by Xmarks as its alternative for users who wants more than bookmark sync: Evernote and SugarSync. Xmarks seems to have tied up with the two to offer some exclusive plans for its users. SugarSync is offering free 2 GB storage space for all Xmarks users who signup through the link available here.

Google Scribe is a new Google Labs project that helps you speed up text typing. Google Scribe basically provides text completion service. Using information from what you have already typed in a text field, Google Scribe provides related word or phrase completion suggestions. In addition to saving keystrokes, Google Scribe’s suggestions indicate correct or popular phrases to use.

You can use Google Scribe on any active text field in a webpage. For example, you can now type faster in Twitter to send updates faster, fill comment form of a blog, compose email, be it GMail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, or any other email, etc. With the handy keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures you can now fasten up text typing while also cut typing errors.

If you are using Google Chrome, then you can enable Google Scribe using the official Google Scribe (Labs) Chrome Extension. If you are using any other browser like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera or Apple Safari, then you can use the Google Scribe Bookmarklet to enable Google Scribe.

Handy Google Scribe keyboard shortcuts:

If you use a Mac, you can use the shortcuts below by replacing Ctrl with Command/Meta key.

More detailed help on using Google Scribe can be found here.

Opera Developers has released Opera 10.62, which is a recommended upgrade offering security and stability enhancements. It is highly recommends for all Opera web browser users to upgrade to the latest version to take advantage of the security and stability improvements.

Opera 10.62 is based on the brand new version of Presto, Opera’s rendering engine. It now uses Presto 2.6.30 that includes support for several new HTML5 features, such as GeoLocation, Web Workers and Offline applications.

The change log for Opera 10.62 can be found at the following links:

[box type="info" style="rounded" border="full"]Windows Users[/box]

[box type="info" style="rounded" border="full"]Mac Users[/box]

[box type="info" style="rounded" border="full"]Unix/Linux Users[/box]

You can download Opera 10.62 from the download link below:
[box type="download" style="rounded" border="full"]Download Opera Latest Version[/box]

Read our other interesting articles!

Opera web browser fans should rejoice as Opera has released Opera 10.60, “faster than the fastest browser” recently. Opera 10.60 is based on the new version of Presto 2.6.30 rendering engine. It now includes support for several new HTML5 features, such as GeoLocation, Web Workers and Offline applications. It has also notably improved Javascript and DOM performance. The latest version also have thousands of bugs fixed since 10.54. Opera 10.60 is the first web browser that supports for the high quality video format WebM.

Opera 10.60 is a recommended upgrade offering new and improved features, plus security and stability enhancements. Interested users can see the changelog here.

[ Download Link ]

Opera 10.51 is released today and is a highly recommended update by the Opera team. This release addresses a couple of security issues, as well as various stability improvements and other bug fixes. According to the official change log, the two security vulnerabilities found in Opera 10.50 have been patched. Opera 10.51 fixes “an issue where the HTTP Content-Length header could be used to execute arbitrary code; an issue where XSLT could be used to retrieve random contents of unrelated documents”.

This update also improves the stability of the browser. A lot of Bugs are fixed in this update which spans across multiple components of the Opera web browser. This includes the user interface, mail, news and chat components, display and scripting, networking features. Numerous improvements have been done to the JavaScript engine “Carakan” which improves performance. However even after this long list of Bug fixes, Opera Software considers Opera 10.51 as an important security release only.

The other notable changes that are introduced with Opera 10.51 is mainly to speed up the browser even more, more than Opera 10.50. As stated by the Opera Desktop Team in the release announcement, “Peacekeeper can be up to 20-30% faster than in Opera 10.50 (in fact, Opera 10.51 is currently listed as being part of the fastest system at Peacekeeper”.

Opera 10.51 final is a Windows-only release, but we are working hard on bringing the Mac and Unix versions to product quality. The build is the same as RC3. Interested users can read the official change log, users can also read more about the performance improvements in Opera 10.51 at Choose Opera and the Opera Developer Network.

This update is an automatic update as made clear by the Opera Desktop Team, “As this is a security release, it will be available as an automatic update for Opera 10.50 and older versions that support automatic updates.”

If you want to manually update to Opera 10.51, then you can download from the link below:

[ Download Opera 10.51 ]

Opera team has released the final version of its much awaited web browser Opera 10.5010.50. Opera 10.50 brings a lot of new features to the table, most noticeable the speed improvements which leaves Firefox behind in the dust, at least for now. Opera 10.50 is currently only offered for the Windows operating system with the likelihood that versions for other operating systems follow suite later this month.

The most notable changes includes:

• Better integration with Windows Vista and 7
• Opera Carakan JavaScript engine
• New Opera “O” tab and its associated menu on the left side of Tab bar
• Opera Presto 2.5 rendering engine
• Opera Vega graphics library
• Opera Widgets for Desktop
• Download acceleration software compatibility
• Non-modal notification messages
• Private browsing
• More here.

The latest release candidate of Opera 10.50 had some bugs, mostly interface and accessibility related. It is unclear if all of those bugs have been fixed in the final release of Opera 10.50.

[ Download Opera 10.50 Final ]

I always use a number of browsers for surfing. The main reason is the features that I like in one but is not present in the other. One more reason is I test My Technology Guide by loading it into different browsers. This helps me to make My Technology Guide appear and work as flawlessly as possible in different browsers. Once before, I covered a nice small portable application called “Browser Chooser” which helps me dynamically assign default browser. Which is very handy for anyone who is having a number of browsers installed.

Today, I will share with you a few keyboard shortcuts that are common to all the common browsers, viz. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, Safari. Just remember these keyboard shortcuts and use them in any of your favorite mentioned browsers. After all using keyboard shortcuts is always faster than with the mouse!

If you know any more shortcuts other than the above don’t forget to share them with us!

Opera today released Opera 10.10 with Opera Unite, a powerful technology for personal content sharing directly between all your devices. Opera 10.10 also offers new and improved features, plus security and stability enhancements. Opera Unite allows you to stream music or share files, photos and more, right from the browser.

New Features:

Opera Unite

1. Use applications to share content with others in a quick and easy way.
Opera Unite is a new technology platform allowing you to share content directly with friends without having to upload anything to a Web site. You can stream music, show photo galleries, share files and folders or even host your own Web pages directly from your browser.

Opera Turbo

2. Boost your speed with our powerful servers to compress Web pages, so you get them faster.
Use Opera’s powerful servers to compress Web pages, boosting your browsing speed on crowded Wi-Fi hotspots, tethered mobile phones or even dial-up.

Visual tabs

3. With Opera you can show open tabs as larger thumbnails to find them more easily.
Drag the handle underneath the tabs to show thumbnails of your open Web pages.

Customizable Speed Dial

4. With Speed Dial you can choose to display between 4 to 25 favorite Web sites for quick access every time you open a new tab.
Get easy access to your favorite sites every time you open a new tab. Choose the layout and the background you prefer.

Opera Link

5. Synchronize your Speed Dial, bookmarks, notes and other useful data.
With Opera Link you never have to leave your browser information behind. Opera Link makes your bookmarks and other useful information available wherever you go – at work, at home, on your phone and on the road. Synchronize your bookmarks between multiple computers and even Opera Mini on your mobile phone, or log on to the Web version of Opera Link (which is useful if you happen to use another browser but still want to access your Opera bookmarks).

You can download it using following link:

[ Download Link ]
[ Released Notes ]
[ Opera Blog Press Release and more information ]

The Opera developers have released an update version 10.01 of Opera web browser. This update of Opera is a security and stability upgrade with no other apparent changes. As this release is a security update it is highly recommended for all Opera 10 users to update Opera to protect themselves, the browser and the computer system from malicious attacks.

The security and stability update is available for all supported operating systems (Windows, Linux and Mac). Interested users can view the change logs for a complete release information. Opera 10.01 does not include Opera Unite which is still slated for a release in the final version of Opera 10.10.

Opera 10.01 is available for download at the official Opera website. If you have Opera 10 installed already, you can update to the latest version through Opera’s in-built auto-update functionality.

[ Download Opera 10.01 ]

Opera 10 has been released recently, which brings with itself a lot of new features and more faster browsing experience. Opera 10 comes with Opera Turbo. Opera Turbo is a server-side optimization and compression technology that speeds up data transfer and reduces the amount of data that needs to be downloaded in order to view the page by up to 80%. Among other means, the compression is achieved by image down-sampling therefore some level of distortion in graphics may occur. This feature is helpful for users who are on a slow connection. Just activate Opera Turbo and surf the internet faster.

If you are yet not an Opera user and want to try out Opera 10 without installing it or if you are an Opera user and wants to carry your favorite browser with you then Opera 10 Portable is what you need. You can run it and test Opera 10 and if you like the new version, you can either keep continue using portable version or install the normal installable version.

Major benefits of using Opera 10 Portable version:

• It works without modifying existing installed browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Google Chrome, etc.
• Even if you are having Opera 9.x installed, you can try out the portable version with out the fear of messing your main browser settings.
• After you remove your USB disk drive, no traces are left. For security, files are overwritten, not just deleted
• All program files and data are stored in a temporary folder in the host computer, reducing USB disk’s overhead of frequent accessing.
• You can create multiple profiles without affecting each profiles settings.

You can download the portable version using any of following download links:

[ Download Opera 10 Portable via Opera-USB.com]
[ Download Opera 10 Portable via Kejut.com]

Opera 10 Final is released officially and is now available for download from the official site as well as from the Opera ftp site. The final version of Opera is apparently the same build as the Opera 10 Release Candidate 2 (except for a few minor changes to standard files and a few new folders) that was released last week.

The Opera browser is the first major web browser to hit a two-digit version and it is well deserved as it was source for a series of web browsing enhancements and improvements that were copied by other Internet browsers throughout its existence.

The changes since RC2 according to the official Opera Desktop Team blog is as follows:

• Icon fix for Unix
• Minor fixes default search engines and bookmarks

The Windows version of Opera 10 is currently the only one that is being offered in additional languages next to English. The Linux and Mac version are currently only available in English.

Downloads are available for Windows, Linux and Mac at the Opera ftp server or from the official site.

It is recommended to upgrade to the final version of Opera 10.