Google is soon going to enable the new navigation menu replacing the current black navigation bar.

“The Google bar, which runs across the top of the browser of nearly all Google services and offers easy access to Google’s products, has recently updated its look for a more consistent, streamlined user experience and increased visibility of the most popular services,” explains Google.

The new navigation looks much more elegant and compact. You will find the gray navigation bar above each of Google’s products. The bar basically has three main areas. When you hover your mouse pointer over the Google logo on the left or click on it, a drop-down menu will appear with links to Google services. The menu links to Google+, Web Search, Image Search, Google Maps, YouTube, Google News, Gmail and Google Docs, but you can mouse over “More” to see more services. The central area has a search box for the Google service you are using now. The right side features a share box and notifications to take part on Google+ from any Google page.

Watch the introductory video below:

How to enable and test Google’s New Navigation Bar?

If you use Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari or Internet Explorer 8+, than simply visit www.google.com in a new tab.

If you’re using Chrome, open JavaScript console by pressing Ctrl+Shift+J. In Firefox, open Web Console by pressing Ctrl+Shift+K. IE Developer Tools can be accessed by pressing F12.

Apple Safari users are need to turn on the ”Develop menu” first before they can get access to the “Web Inspector.” To enable “Develop Menu,” follow the steps below:

1. Open Safari Preferences and click on the ”Advanced” tab.
2. Check the box beside ”Show Develop menu in menu bar”. Close the Preferences window.
3. A new Safari menu item appears, labelled ”Develop”.
4. Now, right-click on the Google.com web page and click on Inspect to bring Web Inspector.

Now, all users of the above browsers, just select the “console” tab. Paste the following code and press Enter. After that you can close the “console”.

document.cookie="PREF=ID=03fd476a699d6487:U=88e8716486ff1e5d:FF=0:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1322688084:LM=1322688085:S=McEsyvcXKMiVfGds; path=/; domain=.google.com";window.location.reload();

After reloading, you will be greeted by the new navigation bar:

If you’re not in the US and you’re using a different Google domain, replace .google.com with your domain in the code. For instance use .google.co.in in India.

Please note that this cookie hack only works for the English interface, so if you are using a localized version of Google, you many need to adjust your language preferences to English.

Google is testing a new homepage design for YouTube (not the Cosmic Panda test). Even though there is no official announcement, you can get a taste of it using a simple cookie trick. If you don’t like it or want to get back to the old YouTube interface, simply delete the cookie.

YouTube visitors can enable the new test homepage layout by following the steps below:

• First, visit http://www.youtube.com using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
• Now, in Chrome, press Ctrl + Shift and J to open the Developer Tools. Alternatively, you can click on the spanner icon, go to Tools and select Developer Tools.
• Firefox users need to press Ctrl + Shift and K.
• Now, click on the “Console” Tab and type the following text and press Enter to confirm.
  document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=ST1Ti53r4fU";
• Reload YouTube and Google will greet you to the new layout.

The new YouTube homepage layout is divided into three columns (as explained later) and looks like the screenshot below after a reload.

After logging in, you will notice neat Google+ and Facebook integration along with very well laid out subscribed channel information prominently displayed on the left side. Below it, under From YouTube, you can now easily access Trending or Popular videos. Further below, you will find suggested channels for you to subscribe to. The middle column is filled with updates from subscriptions, or if you click on From YouTube link, it displays the trending/popular videos. In the third (right) column, YouTube displays recommended videos based on your activities on YouTube and videos you have watched in the past.

Do you like the new test homepage layout of YouTube or like the old one? Share your thoughts with us.

Note: Google is testing this new layout and there is no official announcement if Google will finalize this as the new YouTube homepage in the future.

Thanks to Moritz Tolxdorff on Google+ for sharing the cookie trick.

CCleaner is one of the most popular Windows system maintenance program. Piriform, the developers of CCleaner has released a minor but very important update, CCleaner version 3.05. The update now includes full support for recently-released browsers, Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4.

The updated version of this app now has better registry scanning for unused file extensions, obsolete software references, and invalid BHOs. The improved registry cleaner now has trimmed out old Firewall entries and added a lot more third-party cleaning rules. You can view the full range of changes present in the latest version below.

If you are installing the application for the first time, you will get a dialog box (see screenshot below) asking you, if you want to Intelligently scan for cookies to keep. This function allows the application to keep your persistent login cookies for websites such as Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo Mail.

Full Features in CCleaner 3.05

• Added support for Internet Explorer 9.
• Added support for Firefox 4.0.
• Added Internet Explorer Cached Feeds cleaning.
• Added Internet Explorer Add-ons Statistics cleaning.
• Added iTunes cookie management.
• Added Opera cleaning for saved/opened directories paths.
• Improved Firefox/Mozilla Saved Password cleaning.
• Improved Intelligent cookie keeping functionality.
• Improved Registry cleaning for Obsolete Software.
• Improved Registry cleaning for Unused File Extensions.
• Added Registry cleaner for Windows Services.
• Added cleaning for obsolete Firewall Rules.
• Added detection of invalid Browser Helper Objects.
• Added new environment variables for user documents. (i.e. %CommonDocuments%, %CommonMusic%, %CommonPictures%, %CommonVideo%, %MyDocuments%, %Documents%, %MyMusic%, %Music%, %MyPictures%, %Pictures%, %MyVideo%, %Video%).
• Added cleaning for Adobe Air, Advanced Searchbar, Steam, Xfire, Skype, AOL Instant Messenger, Camfrog Video Chat, Miranda Instant Messenger, Pidgin, Yahoo Messenger, ooVoo, TeamSpeak, Ventrilo Client, Ventrilo Server, FrostWire, uTorrent, Shareaza, iMesh, BearShare, DC++ and Ares.

CCleaner runs on Microsoft Windows 7, Vista, XP and 2000, including both 32-bit and 64-bit version of the operating system.

You can download both the CCleaner 3.05 standard installer and portable version from the Piriform’s site.

Is it too much if one is asking for one’s own privacy on the Internet these days? First, we had normal browser cookies, then we had more persistent Flash cookies and now the Evercookie that can provide everyone from advertisers to malware authors with useful information about the sites you have visited and more. Evercookie, an open source JavaScript API developed by security researcher Samy Kamkar, when implemented by any website stores a user ID and cookie data in eight different places. This makes evercookie a more persistent cookie form than Flash cookies or normal browser cookies.

Its goal is to identify a client even after they’ve removed standard cookies, removed Flash cookies (Local Shared Objects or LSOs), and others. This allows websites to track user behavior even when users have enabled private browsing because an Evercookie stores data in locations outside of where standard cookies are stored, an Evercookie can rebuild itself unless users go through a number of steps to completely clear and reset their local storage.

Generally, the Evercookie JavaScript API will make use of the following storage mechanisms if supported by the web browser.

• Standard HTTP Cookies
• Local Shared Objects (Flash Cookies)
• Silverlight Isolated Storage
• Storing cookies in RGB values of auto-generated, force-cached
• PNGs using HTML5 Canvas tag to read pixels (cookies) back out
• Storing cookies in Web History
• Storing cookies in HTTP ETags
• Storing cookies in Web cache
• window.name caching
• Internet Explorer userData storage
• HTML5 Session Storage
• HTML5 Local Storage
• HTML5 Global Storage
• HTML5 Database Storage via SQLite

“Simply think of it as cookies that just won’t go away,” reads the evercookie FAQ.

ArsTechnica has posted an article “It is possible to kill the evercookie,” that shows different ways to protect yourself from evercookie but Firefox users can protect themselves by just using a simple add-on named “Anonymizer Nevercookie.”

Anonymizer Nevercookie eliminates the manual steps required to completely remove Evercookies. It does so without removing all the necessary cookies that you may actually want to keep, such as those for browsing history and remembered logins. When Anonymizer Nevercookie is engaged along with Firefox’s private browsing mode, it quarantines an Evercookie and removes it after the browsing session.

Quick Start Guide to use Anonymizer Nevercookie add-on:

1. After installing the add-on, launch Firefox browser again, go to Tools > Start Private Browsing
2. A new browser window will open. It will be branded with a blue Navigation Menu bar.
3. Use this window for your private browsing session.
4. To leave private browsing mode, close the private browsing window and in the parent Firefox window go to Tools > Stop Private Browsing.

Note: Leaving private browsing mode will release Flash and Silverlight cookies from quarantine and make you trackable again, so don’t end private browsing mode until you are finished your private session.

Important: If you haven’t used Firefox profiles before, you will probably notice a Profile selection prompt when starting Firefox after installing the extension. This is because the extension creates a temporary profile for each browsing session. If you don’t wish to see this prompt, select the default profile and check the box marked “Don’t ask at startup”.

Google has recently released a Web browser add-on that will stop the browser from sending information to the Google Analytics service.

To provide website visitors with more choice about how their data is collected by Google Analytics, we have developed the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. The add-on communicates with the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js) to indicate that information about the website visit should not be sent to Google Analytics.

Mainly websites use Google Analytics service to know their site’s traffic pattern and to optimize their website further for their visitors. When a person visits a site, Analytics creates a cookie on the person’s computer. Cookies are small data files used to record information about how a person interacts with a website. You can easily remove cookies from any browser.

Google’s new Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on when installed in the supported browsers, basically tells the Google Analytics service that information about the website visit should not be sent to Analytics.

Other add-ons that were available to Firefox users before Google’s official Analytics opt-out add-on is released to block Analytics are Adblock Plus add-on and NoScript add-on. They both can be set to prevent Google Analytics from receiving any information from the browser. Another add-on called OptimizeGoogle, entirely blocks the Google Analytics cookie in addition to modifying other aspects of Google’s behavior, including blocking Google advertisements and modifying the user ID cookie Google assigns to users of its search engine so that they can surf anonymously.

Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-on does not stop Google from putting other cookies such as Google DoubleClick cookie, which tracks the Web pages a person visits and then serves advertisements related to that content.

The Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on is available for Internet Explorer (versions 7 and 8), Google Chrome (4.x and higher), and Mozilla Firefox (3.5 and higher).

Few days back, we shared with you a portable Windows application, “Flash Cookie Cleaner” for cleaning Flash Cookies. Today, we are going to share a similar application “Flush.app” which is made for Apple Mac OS X users. We described in our previous article what these Flash Cookies really are. For those who are still ignorant about Flash cookies or super cookies, which is called Local Shared Objects (LSO), they work in a similar way as any regular browser cookies but are stored outside the purview of your browser.

What this means to you is, you cannot delete these Flash Cookies by deleting your browser cookies from within the browser. This doesn’t change for whether you are a Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari or any other browser. Typically these LSO’s can be used by websites to collect information on how people navigate the website and for other tracking processes. These LSO’s are also used to track users and store information about them. Normally, you cannot delete these LSO’s by using the privacy control settings present in your browser. If you want to know more about LSO then check out the Wikipedia entry here.

In Mac OS X they are stored in the following location:
//Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects

The settings for the Flash cookies are typically stored in the following location:
//Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys

In OS X, Local Shared Objects, or Flash Cookies, are appended with a .sol suffix. Flush.app will help you remove these Flash cookies (.sol) and their settings.

[ Download Flush.app ]

Note: If you are an OS X Tiger and Panther user, then you can try using Flush Tiger.app. You can download Flush Tiger.app from here.

Flash Cookies also known as super cookies or Local Shared Objects (LSO) are a collection of data like cookies stored as a file on your computer. LSO’s can be used by websites to collect information on how people navigate them. These LSO’s are also used to track users and store information about them. You cannot usually delete LSO by using the privacy controls present in a browser.

To clean these persistent Flash cookies which is a great threat to the privacy, you can use a simple application known as Flash Cookie Cleaner. Flash Cookie Cleaner is a portable application available for free. It helps you to easily clean Flash cookies or super cookies from your computer with just a single click.

Flash Cookie Cleaner works on all previous Windows versions including Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7. As it is portable, no installation is required, just download the application and run it. Click on the Scan button to scan for LSO. You can then either view which Flash cookies are installed on your computer system by clicking on View Cookies or you can directly delete all Flash cookies by clicking on Delete Cookies.