Don’t Like Firefox’s Save Per Site Download Feature? Fix It!

Firefox users who recently switched from an older version of the browser to the latest available builds may have noticed a change in the browser’s file saving routine. The same download directory was displayed in the browser in older versions of the browser (pre-Firefox 7). In Firefox 7 and newer versions, you may have noticed that different download directories are displayed when you select to save files or data in the web browser. This can be confusing at first, especially if you do not recognize why the destination directories change sometimes.

Firefox still remembers the last saved download directory, and will select it automatically when you download files in the browser. This directory is however only shown if you have never saved files before on the site. Say you download an image from Ghacks to your local computer to the My Pictures folder. This folder is then displayed as the suggested download folder on all other sites for all file types. When you now head over to Facebook and download a photo from the site to the My Documents folder, you will notice that the My Documents folder becomes the new default folder for saved files. If you head back to Ghacks to download a second file, you will notice that Firefox will automatically suggest to save it into the My Pictures folder and not the My Documents folder.

Firefox basically remembers the save location on a per-site basis. This can be quite useful at times, for instance if you want your downloads to be sorted by site automatically. Firefox users who prefer the old way of saving files, can make a change in the configuration to restore it. Please note that the configuration setting is available in Firefox 11 and higher only (according to Sören Hentzschel who posted the tip on his blog).

Load about:config in the browser. First time users need to confirm that they want to continue. It is then necessary to right-click in the listing and select New > Boolean from the context menu. Paste the preference browser.download.lastDir.savePerSite into the window that pops up, click ok, and select false as the value.

Firefox from that moment on will not save the download directory on a per-site basis anymore. If you want to restore the functionality at a later time, change the preference to true.

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About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Monday March 26, 2012 -
Tags:Firefox, firefox tips, save files

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What do you like most about Windows XP?

What do you like most about Windows XP? .download-info .download-button {background-image: url(http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/page-addon/downloadbutton.gif);}.download-info .more-button {background-image: url(http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/page-addon/morebutton.gif);} HomeWindowsLinuxSoftwareInternet ExplorerFirefoxChromeOperaEmailContactAdvertiseWhat do you like most about Windows XP?

Windows XP, released in 2001 is for many people “as comfortable as an old shoe”, but why is this and why do people hold this insecure and buggy operating system in such high regard?  I was reminded of this today when installing a copy of Windows XP in the new Hyper-V client in Windows 8, a process that seemed to take forever by today’s standards for installing an OS.

Windows XP is still in use today across many businesses and even in many homes (not to mention it’s still the dominant operating system in countries like China because of rampant piracy that was stamped out with Windows Vista and Windows 7).  When the operating system was first released though people saw things differently.  They were used to the battleship grey of Windows 98 and, for those who were brave enough, Windows Me.  They had gotten used to the stark interface of Windows that had been staid since the very first version in 1985 and why should they change to something that was bright blue and had a desktop wallpaper straight out of Tellytubbyland?

Now though things have changed.  There can be no doubt that people love the look and feel of Windows 7.  It is clean, crisp and easy on the eye, but it’s no longer just the look that keeps Windows XP in people’s hearts.  So what is it?

I want to take the opportunity to look at some of the way that Windows XP does fail miserably by today’s standards, apologies in advance for this.  XP was released when the world wide web was still new and hardly anybody even had a dial-up connection.  I remember trying to connect to the Internet via my dial-up ISP and it was painful to say the least, reminiscent of trying to load a game from a cassette player on my ZX Spectrum in 1982.  When I did get online there was very little, if anything to do there.  The web was new, clean and above all else, clean!

I’m stressing clean here because this was the time before criminals found out how to exploit the Internet, and it’s users, for their own financial gain.  Unfortunately it was also a time when Microsoft had a 99% unchallenged monopoly in the Internet browser market and, as such, the version at the time, IE6, stagnated and has now become a millstone around the company’s neck for this very reason.

All of this aside however Windows XP was compatible like nothing else, and to be honest, nothing since either.  In order to get my legacy graphics package Microsoft PhotoDraw 2000 to work, the one thing I have left and use fondly because nothing has touched it since for power an usability, I have to install it in XP and while XP mode has been brilliant in Windows 7, I have to use the somewhat complex Hyper-V in Windows 8 to continue to run this software.

So what is it about Windows XP that we all love so much?  Is it like me, just software compatibility or is it something else?  Perhaps the non-glass user interface, perhaps the familiarity with the OS or perhaps something else?  Why not tell us why you love Windows XP in the comments.

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About the Author:Mike Halsey is a Microsoft MVP for "Windows Expert". He is also the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out from Microsoft Press and the Windows 7 Power Users Guide, a how-to guide for non-technical Windows users on how to get the best out of Microsoft's new operating system, with step-by-step and quick guides.You can follow Mike on Facebook, Twitter or on his own website The Long ClimbAuthor: Mike Halsey MVP, Saturday March 10, 2012 -
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Responses so far:Bart Degryse says: March 10, 2012 at 10:43 pm

In a professional environment it has all the features one needs and lacks al of the overhead one wants to avoid. While I do use W7 at home I wouldn’t like to use it at work because of all the bells and whistles that are just overhead.
Clean and simple, that’s what XP is.

ReplySaman says: March 10, 2012 at 10:48 pm

response time and hardware requirements!

ReplyBEL says: March 10, 2012 at 10:57 pm

XP may be buggy and unsafe, but it is nevertheless fast, logic and still very compatible. There are elements in XP that I miss in newer versions, the classic windows explorer interface, for instance. And the operating systems still get things done, no way Vista and 7 makes me more effective. It’s also minimalistic compared to Vista and 7. Buggy, maybe – bud stable as the wall of China.

ReplyMeena Bassem says: March 10, 2012 at 11:02 pm

for some people, low hardware requirements and good for old computers, reinstalling windows is dead simple.
what i don’t like about it.
after using windows 7, seems like cram to me, but i still can’t give it up in virtualbox :)

ReplyJojo says: March 10, 2012 at 11:15 pm

“insecure and buggy operating system”? Says who?

I have hundreds of programs installed ranging form payware to freeware. And I don’t get many BSOD’s at all. Maybe 3 or 4 one-time occurrences in the last year? And re: insecure, I don’t have any spyware and haven’t had a virus in many years (in fact the last time a virus tried to sneak onto one of my systems, it was back in the Win98 days and the virus was a Word macro thingy that came from a floppy I brought home from work.

I might be more inclined to upgrade if Microsoft added some real functionality instead of just messing around with eye-candy all the time.

- How about rewriting Windows from the ground up instead of just building on top of the existing spaghetti code that goes all the way back to the original WinNT? Doing this, they could introduce more stability, faster and cleaner code execution and possibly a smaller OS package.
- Where’s that new file system they have been talking about for at least 10 years?
- How about making Explorer more functional?
- How about isolating my applications from the OS so that I didn’t have to reinstall all of them (taking weeks of time) when I did an OS upgrade?
- How about making a true multi-user OS where each user is completely isolated form the others? Right now, users have their own personal files but they share the OS files making it easier for one user to corrupt the environment of anyone else on the same machine.

I could go on…..

Replyboris says: March 10, 2012 at 11:36 pm

I remember WIndows XP constant nightmares like few a day Blue screens and once a month complete system restores. Hard to believe positive replies.

ReplyBart Degryse says: March 11, 2012 at 10:31 am

I don’t agree Boris.
Our company’s 8000 computers run on XP sp 2 and we haven’t had a BSOD in the last 7 years.
I run W7 at home on one computer and my last BSOD there is less than a year ago.
Anyway both BSODs (the one 7 years ago on XP and the one on W7) where both caused by software (NVidia) rather than by the OS.

ReplyMy-T-Man says: March 11, 2012 at 12:11 am

I didn’t switch to XP untill sp2 but i have never had a BSOD and it is rock solid. What buggy? I use a third party firewall and anti-virus with heuristics. I have always wondered what people were doing to have so much trouble. Maybe it’s their computers as I have always built my own but whatever, I never have any issues at all. right now there are 148 objects in my programs folder like JoJo there are both paid and freeware. By the way I did the beta of seven and the rc and preordered 3 upgrades two of which i installed and uninstalled. I have spent years customizing XP and tweaking it to the perfect system for me. For those that like seven I’m glad for you but don’t pretend XP is a turd because it’s gold for many people.

ReplyNebulus says: March 11, 2012 at 12:12 am

Ok, now this is ridiculous… “this insecure and buggy operating system”? I’m using this OS since SP2 was released, and I have to say that my computer was NEVER compromised (security wise). As for the bugs, most of them are in the application that I run, not in the OS itself. Sure, Win7 is a solid performer, but it cannot really compete speed wise with my XP… I really don’t know what’s to dislike about XP.

Replyboris says: March 11, 2012 at 12:42 am

Yes, most bugs were from third party apps. Every second app required its own runtime system files. And if two applications with different custom runtimes were running at the same time, blue screen was almost a certainty.

Replywhino says: March 11, 2012 at 12:50 am

I agree that Windows XP had its faults when it started out. But even if third-party apps are to blame, they should not be taking down the whole system. Since then, updates and service packs have turned XP into a solid, more-or-less dependable solution, especially for corporate IT, without the overhead Bart is referring to.

One thing that really lifted my eyebrows though… “XP was released when the world wide web was still new and hardly anybody even had a dial-up connection.”
Really? Because when our family started using XP in 2002, we were on broadband cable. It was either that or ADSL, no-one bothered getting dial-up anymore. This was in Belgium so of course YMMV.

ReplyRoman ShaRP says: March 11, 2012 at 1:11 am

Bart Degryse said it better than I’ll say.

As Glenford J. Myers wrote in the “The Art of Software Testing” classic IT book, “…an error is clearly present if a program does not do what it
is supposed to do, but errors are also present if a program does what it is not supposed to do…”

Windows XP is just that: it does what user wants, and doesn’t what user don’t. All next improvements like UAC and Metro was just fail, because they wasn’t what users like me wanted.

Let’s face it: IE was never perfect, and Explorer and other MS tools weren’t and wouldn’t be either. Many people (and many IT pros) never expected much improvement in Windows shell tools. They just wanted platform, OS supporting plenty of 3d party tools (and games too).

The Windows XP compatibility and unobtrusive nature allowed maximum of it.

All subsequent versions were just decline in allowance and, therefore, in usability.

ReplyACow says: March 11, 2012 at 2:51 am

“There can be no doubt that people love the look and feel of Windows 7. It is clean, crisp and easy on the eye, but it’s no longer just the look that keeps Windows XP in people’s hearts”

I’m confused. Are you saying that Windows 7 or XP is clean, crisp and easy on the eye?

The thing I like about XP is that I can customize its interface to take up very little space and still look good. Clean like you said. I’m all about eye-candy (and to me that would be minimalism which the obese Windows 7 frames have nothing to do with unfortunately) as long as it doesn’t get in the way of functionality.

It took me a long time to fully get used to the weird Windows 7 anti-aliasing / contrast / overbearing whites everywhere, or rather, set it all up to look exactly like it did back in XP, using third party software (as its impossible to achieve without in-depth knowledge of the registry) and unsupported themes that used light greys instead of white for window backgrounds. I’m all for crisp; not so much for burn-my-retinas-out crisp.

ReplyAnonymous says: March 11, 2012 at 6:00 am

“XP was released when the world wide web was still new and hardly anybody even had a dial-up connection.” SAY WHAT?!
XP with SP2 put an end to BSODs if you avoided NVidia drivers.
What I really like about XP is that I can clean and align the heads in my workhorse HP 6940. These functions are no longer available in Win7's drivers, verified by HP… “no workaround.”

ReplyRN says: March 11, 2012 at 7:24 am

i was able to get rid of the Teletubby wallpaper, balloons, and other junk very quickly. Since then, XP has run everything I’ve put on it; commercial to freeware reliably and with few, if any problems. I will be keeping it on my personal machine. All I can see from W7 is more bloat and more resources diverted to flashy crap that has no bearing on my getting work done. For that, I will still have to add third-party programs and hope for the best. And I am paying attention to this because one day I will go to my office and the Mordacs at my company will make good on their threat to push W7 onto my machine overnight.

ReplyYoav says: March 11, 2012 at 8:19 am

I never had security problems with xp and in over ten years of heavy use I had only one crash. On the other hand I am using Win7 for 6 months and already had to re-install once (crash caused by a program I downloaded from Ghacks!) – so much for the more secure system!

Windows 7 added a cleaner look but not much functionality. Win7 also did not fix some big problems such as the explorer, which still sucks, and even added some problems such as backward compatibility and DRM. Windows also had all kinds of stupid and unnecessary design changes (such as the explorer).That’s not what you expect from an expensive, shiny, new OS.

XP was a system built for users. Win7 is s system that is half for the user’s benefit and half for Microsoft’s control. Win8 will be worse I am sure (for instance, you will not be allowed to dual boot on win8).

I would never have moved to Win7 if I did not get it as a gift, and I am certain this will be my last windows operating system.

ReplyBart Degryse says: March 11, 2012 at 10:35 am

Dual boot will be possible on W8, it’t just that M$ will try to make it harder. Nevertheless you right that Windows is more and more about control by M$. So for me too, W7 will – as things are looking now – be my last Windows OS.

Replyoss says: March 11, 2012 at 10:41 am

the Internet, and it’s users?

Replypd says: March 11, 2012 at 10:47 am

You lost me in the first few sentences and in a way this is why I like XP so much: idiots think that what has come afterwards is not ‘buggy’ and more ‘secure’. Mate you need to wake up to the reality that all software is a living thing. It has strengths, weaknesses and can suffer from regressions that degenerate it’s quality the more you tweak it. Let’s look at XP. Having learned their lessons with hybrid 16/32 bit systems by building NT, Microsoft developed Windows 2000 and then XP. Now if Xp was not the third-gen refinement that it is, and they had taken the enormous backwards step they did with Vista under the XP release, I’d be sticking with Windows 2000! However XP was the ultimate refinement of the solid, stable and reliable foundations set by NT4. XP is also lighter, faster and with the most flexible and aesthetically reasonable feel of any Windows to that point. What have we got since? A completely broken and insecure OS in Vista along with a desperate insecure attempt to fix Vista in 7. Note ‘insecure’. All software is and will always be insecure! To claim that a system that has been patched as match as XP has is inherently more insecure than Vista or 7 is highly dubious indeed. In fact it shows your ignorance.

XP is the perfect refinement that has been even further refined over the years. In this respect is like a fine wine. What has Vista given us bug a scheduler that created some mystical higher-than-realtime priority level which rendered it impossible to do trivial tasks like listening to music whilst also using the network card. A more complete ballsup could not have been invented if the best farce writers had been in charge! Add to this a broken butchering of the start menu and messy macified glitzy eye-straining UI for doing ultra simplified tasks like file management. What has 7 given us but fixes to Vista – taking it back to pre-Vista or, therefore, XP – plus more glitz that quite frankly, only the small percentage of mac users want.

I think it’s high time I dismiss this blog given that you clearly display a total ignorance of computing from a non-mainstream perspective. I mistakenly thought you had the ability to see through the latest-is-greatest and drink-the-koolaid trends that infest the IT industry. My mistake, won’t happen again.

ReplyMartinJB says: March 11, 2012 at 11:58 am

Plain and simple – still could drop to DOS – vast improvement over ME – less fancy eye candy to fiddle with – at that time was looking after 20 odd donated computers all low end Pentiums and XP never let me down – but then again looking under the bonnet of any new car makes me yearn for the old carburettors and tuning by ear LOL. Sometimes progress is great but progress for the sake of progress not so great. I used to be a bring back DOS guy when Windows first came out – if I wanted all that graphic GUI etc then I could have bought a Mac ;( Maybe it’s age but WinXP seem one hell of a lot easier to maintain than Win7. IMHO

Replyilev says: March 11, 2012 at 12:42 pm

“why do people hold this insecure and buggy operating system in such high regard? ”

I think it is time to stop the XP insecure. XP isn’t less secure than Windows 7 or Windows 8 where they both got hacked in the pwn2own a couple of days ago, bypassing the laughting stock of the security community, UAC,DEP and ASLR.
Windows was never in the past and will never be in the future, secure, due to Microsoft’s laziness of copy & pasting old code without any security checks, just as we have seen in pwn2own were IE9 and IE10 were hacked using an exploit dating all the way to back to IE6.

ReplyRoman ShaRP says: March 11, 2012 at 12:43 pm

2 Anonymous
//XP with SP2 put an end to BSODs if you avoided NVidia drivers.//

There are many other drivers, and I had BSODs in SP2 with drivers installed by 3d party software.

2 Yoav
//I never had security problems with xp and in over ten years of heavy use I had only one crash.//

To be honest, we should acknowledge that XP had many notorious security problems – infamous Conficker worm, other worms making botnets, trojans (including disk-encrypting ones, ransomware), rootkits….

According to MS, Win 7 is much safer (for infection rates), but nobody guaranties that new vulnerabilities won’t be discovered. Also, in out world security comes at a price, which many users don’t want to pay.

ReplyJohnMWhite says: March 11, 2012 at 4:14 pm

What price? You’re being rather cryptic, there. If you mean a monetary price, most of the best security software is available as freeware, including Microsoft’s own. You could pay a premium for something like Norton but it is not statistically any better and is a nightmare to handle for many users since it acts like the malware it is supposed to be rebuffing in the first place.

If you mean a more philosophical price, something like giving up functionality or privacy for the sake of improved security, I do not see how that is true. There are plenty of ways to secure one’s system without crippling it or transmitting everything to the cloud. So what price do you mean?

I agree that with 7, there’s always the possibility that new vulnerabilities will be discovered. All those arguing that XP is less secure than Windows 7 because it used to have significant vulnerabilities are making the mistake of forgetting the order in which causality happens. XP has been in the wild for a decade and patched significantly. It has had its problems, some rather alarming, but those have been largely repaired. Windows Vista, 7 and 8 are nowhere near as seasoned or as patched, so who knows what stuff in the code is waiting to be exploited. It’s possible, though unlikely, that there’s not much, but arguing that 7 is more secure than XP is like car X is faster than car Y when you’ve only road tested one of them.

I love Windows 7 and have been happy with it from the moment I switched. It is a vast improvement over Vista, which on the exact same hardware would crawl and crash frequently. I still like XP, though, and don’t see any significant problems with it at this point. I think I, like a lot of people, am getting tired of constantly being told there’s something wrong with not upgrading. This isn’t IE6 we’re talking about.

ReplyCharles says: March 11, 2012 at 4:25 pm

I have been using Outlook Express for my e-mail since Windows 95. Since switching to Windows 7 I am no longer able to use it. I don’t want to change my email address so I have had to use my ISPs email service since June and am currently using over 70% of my allowable storage space. What do I do when I run out of space?

Replykalmly says: March 11, 2012 at 4:46 pm

In eight years I never had a BSOD – only knew what they looked like from pictures on the web – except when my power supply started to die, and that wasn’t XP’s fault. Maybe that’s because I didn’t use the OEM version of XP that came installed on the HP computer, but went to Office Depot and purchased my own copy, wiped the hard drive, and installed the untouched MS version.

I love software and have over 100 (yes, I counted) installed. I use them all. Many won’t work on my Win 7 laptop.

My XP system does not take up all the screen space with sidebars that serve no purpose and a huge task bar – which I don’t use because of some of those lovely applications I was just telling you about that render it inessential. (Those applications do not work on the Win7 computer).

The XP machine is set up to my specifications (not Microsoft’s). It is quite beautiful to look at, decorated as carefully as my living room. I love the sight of it and when I feel like doing something more exciting, I change the wallpaper. The Win7 laptop has trouble remembering where things should be and does odd things to the resolution of the wallpaper.

I can run as many applications at the same time as I want – without a glitch. I can size the windows of applications to any size I want. I can find things. I can tweak to my heart’s content.

Explorer was never a problem for me until Win7. I’d read they were going to improve it. HAH! Luckily I have another file manager to use, but Win7 is bossy about things and I’m often stuck doing things the MS way. Not so, on my XP system.

MY XP isn’t and never was buggy. It has always been stable, dependable, and lovable. It has served me well through the years. I treasure it and have no intention of abandoning it for an OS I’m not very fond of.

As for WIN8 – I won’t be signing up to be a slave to MS’s latest and most useless. The rest of you are welcome to all of its limitations and you’re welcome to cloud computing, too. Whose brilliant idea was it to move everything into the public domain? – No thanks, I like my private office.

Another thing people complain about is that XP users have stuck with Internet Explorer 6. They have? I can’t remember ever using it. I use Opera and sometimes FF.

Oh yeah. I had a dial-up connection when Win95 was brand new. So did everybody I knew. And, yes, there were “things” out there, places to go, places to see, and very few bugs.

Replyfirefoxlover says: March 11, 2012 at 5:09 pm

I had XP for 9 years and loved it. Only 1 BSOD and never had any virus/infections on it, smooth sailing it was. Felt completely in control. Only switched to Win 7 recently due to possible hardware failure in the near future. Now I don’t feel in control any longer, consider Win 7 bloat and don’t need all that eye candy.

ReplyRoman ShaRP says: March 11, 2012 at 5:58 pm

JohnMWhite
//So what price do you mean?//

You know, free security software was never perfect. I don’t want to blame it much, but when trying to use it I uninstalled most of it soon, mainly for inability to make it recognize that some files I compiled myself with one toolkit are my trusted files, not viruses/trojans. For many years of all AV my most trusted were Dr.Web and Kaspersky. IMHO. On the other side, I would prefer AVG or Avast to Symantec.

As for price I think of many things:
- user training (and not forgetting of threats yourself)
- installing some security apps (firewall, AV, trojan-hunter, adware-hunter, even rootkint-hunter maybe)
- processing power, memory and time (slower loading times, checks) if you turn proactive defense on
- need to regularly run non-proactive tools
- using permission tools like UAC
- bearing interrupting popups in other defense tools
- updating software (with risk that something stop to work)
- using sandboxing or virtualization

Not all of this is money price, but time and resources price.

So far I wasn’t able to bear proactive defense slowdowns, sometimes grinding work to a halt and requiring considerable memory resources.

Even if Win7 is really more secure than XP – for me it is considerably slower too.

Just IMHO, – I wouldn’t argue if you say that my reasons are not that serious.

ReplyJohnMWhite says: March 11, 2012 at 6:21 pm

I see what you mean now by the price of security, but I do have to say I don’t think those prices are particularly onerous for most users. If running a malware scan now and then and clicking a button to sandbox something is too much, I worry how people treat their homes and property that require security. My machine is far from cutting edge but handles robust security without being bogged down, running Windows 7, and the majority of non-proactive tools can be easily automated, leaving you with very little to do after the initial setup. Not to mention, all those issues would be the exact same when running XP. Or Windows 2000. Nothing really has changed in how one handles security (except maybe UAC, which is annoying for users and too easily circumvented to be a serious line of defence).

Replyriski irawan says: March 11, 2012 at 7:40 pm

support for dual sound card..

Replyriski irawan says: March 11, 2012 at 7:52 pm

Can you run two sound cards simultaneously in windows 7??

ReplyRoman ShaRP says: March 11, 2012 at 7:53 pm

JohnMWhite,
may be you are right, but too many IT-illiterate or not caring people around me in my country, that I’m skeptical.

And as for homes – in my country many people don’t have watching or security systems too, just old locks.

As for “nothing really changed” from XP to Seven – I would rather agree, and I’m not proponent of Win 7 or 8. It’s Microsoft who says that 7 is less prone to infections or botnet-forming trojans than XP, but for me it is not crucial argument.

ReplyJojo says: March 11, 2012 at 9:09 pm

I notice a lot of people are attacking the “insecure” tag, which is one of the original points that Mike Halsey used as a justification for upgrading from WinXP.

Funny, that is also one of the arguments that Mozilla has been using to try to force people on the 3.6 branch of FF to upgrade to whatever the FF release flavor of the week is.

Trying to scare users into upgrading by spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt) that your system is “insecure” and some mean old hackers are going to break in and steal your first born child is an old vendor trick that really doesn’t work very well any longer.

So vendors and vendor front men like Mike, please stop trying to scare users into upgrading by spreading FUD.

Replyxpclient says: March 11, 2012 at 9:44 pm

Really I mean seriously? You can’t ignore the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_Vista and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_7. XP was my idea: http://xpwasmyidea.blogspot.com Later versions reduce productivity and usability.

ReplyMike Hasley is Retarded says: March 11, 2012 at 10:03 pm

Mike Hasley is a retard. Just look at PWN2OWN 2012, your “most secure” Windows 7 crap with IE9 got HACKED. So much for being more “secure” than XP SP3(HINT: IT’S NOT).

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/pwn2own-2012-ie-9-hacked-with-two-0day-vulnerabilities/10621

Just ignore retards like Mike Hasley, a retard that is clueless and stupid. I don’t know why he’s even allowed to post this crap here.

ReplyMartin Brinkmann says: March 12, 2012 at 9:21 am

There is no need for name calling here, please be polite, even to those who you do not agree with. We do not want an atmosphere here like the one you find on all those gaming sites where everyone is defending their most-liked game with name calling, flaming and god knows what.

Replyschmurtz says: March 12, 2012 at 1:23 am

Response time : for example in explorer try to rename a lot of file manually : it’s faster in Windows XP.

When you add QTtabBar for better explorer, supercopier for better file copy, winpatrol to replace UAC, etc you have a Windows XP with better functionnalities than Windows 8 and faster than any other Windows.

With a SSD Windows XP doesn’t seem very slower than Seven to boot.

Futhermore there is a lot of skins for XP that look great…
Seven is not bad, I have dual boot but I still use my old XP :)

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Firefox 14 Gets Built-In PDF Reader PDF.js

Browser plugins may soon become a dying form of adding functionality to web browsers. We are already seeing first signs of that, for instance with Chrome’s built-in pdf reader, or the drive towards HTML5 video and media in general. The biggest issue with plugins, besides compatibility, is security, and here the need to keep plugins up to date to avoid attacks that exploit known vulnerabilities that have already been fixed in the latest plugin versions.

While there have been some attempts to inform the user when plugins are not up to date, it is still nothing that prevents users from running outdated plugin versions on their computer.

Mozilla has now started to integrate a native PDF reader into Firefox 14 versions. We have talked about pdf.js before, a script that is rendering PDF with HTML5 and JavaScript. While it may not look that different from Google Chrome’s internal pdf reader, it is not the same thing.

Andreas Gal, one of the authors of pdf.js, highlighted some of the benefits in a blog post in 2011.

Displaying PDFs directly in the browser would definitely improve the user’s experience. There are literally millions (billions?) of PDFs floating around the web, and on many devices loading PDFs switches to a different application (e.g. Preview on OS X and PDF View on Android). Also, external PDF readers and many plugins don’t support important PDF features well, including content links and fetch-as-you-go (HTTP range requests).

The traditional approach to rendering PDFs in a browser is to use a native-code plugin, either Adobe’s own PDF Reader or other commercial renderers, or some open source alternative (e.g. poppler). From a security perspective, this enlarges the trusted code base, and because of that Google’s Chrome browser goes through quite some pain to sandbox the PDF renderer to avoid code injection attacks. An HTML5-based implementation is completely immune to this class of problems.

Firefox 14, which is currently available in the Nightly channel, includes the pdf reader already. It is listed in the extensions menu of the browser, and deactivated by default. Firefox users who’d like to test the reader capabilities need to enable it first, before they disable any plugins in the browser with pdf reading capabilities.

The pdf reader opens pdf documents in browse tab. A small toolbar at the top allows you to go to a specific page, change the zoom level, print the document, download it, or bookmark the current location. It is quality-wise not on pair with Adobe Reader’s plugin, but still ok and comparable to Google Chrome’s pdf reader.

Firefox users who would like to try the extension right now can install a stable or nightly version of it from the project site. And yes, it works in all recent versions of the Firefox browser. (via Sören Hentzschel)

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About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Friday March 23, 2012 -
Tags:Firefox, firefox news, pdf reader

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Google Play My Music Hotkeys for Firefox

Google Music has been moved to the new Google Play subdomain along with the Android Market, part of Google Books and Google Movies. The main purpose for the move was to consolidate all services under one address, to make it more attractive and accessible to users of the service. The main aim of the service is to create a counterweight to Apple’s iTunes service which is also offering different media in one interface.

Google Music users who open the service’s website now are automatically redirected to the new website, where they can use the service in the same way as they did previously. Users from all over the world can upload music to the service, or grab free music to add it automatically to their account. Only users from the United States can use the music store right now to purchase music on Google Play. Everyone else receives the dreaded “unavailable in your country” error message.

For those users, Google Play My Music is nothing more than an online storage for music that they have uploaded or grabbed freely. If you like to play music in the interface, you probably have noticed that you can only control the music if you click on the tab first to activate it. The service does not support global hotkeys or media keyboards at this point in time.

The Firefox extension Google Music Hotkeys adds global hotkeys to the browser that let you control Google Music even if the service’s tab is not active in the browser.

The latest version of the extension, which is fully compatible with Google Play, supports the following three hotkeys:

Play / Pause – Ctrl-Alt-PNext – Ctrl-Alt-.Previous – Ctrl-Alt-+

The hotkeys work even if Google Music is opened in a different window. There is no option to change the hotkeys, which means that you may run into incompatibilities if other extensions are also making use of the same hotkeys.

Enjoyed the article?: Then sign-up for our free newsletter or RSS feed to kick off your day with the latest technology news and tips, or share the article with your friends and contacts on Facebook or Twitter. Extension.Fm Play Music Comfortably In Google Chrome
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Global Hotkeys Windows Media Player Plugin About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Friday March 9, 2012 -
Tags:firefox add-ons, google music, google play

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Portable File Syncing Software Synchroncity 6 Released

More than two years after my initial review of the file sync and backup software Synchronicity comes an update to Synchronicity 6. Has the software changed in those two years, and if it did, for the better or worse? Lets find out.

The program is still offered as a portable version and installer, in a tiny 300 Kilobyte package. When you first launch the app after unpacking or installing, you are asked whether you’d like to enable automatic updates. The program then starts the profile listing where you see all synchronization and backup profiles that you have previously created, and a button to create new profiles.

The core information about the selected profile are displayed right on the screen. Here you see the selected source and destination root directories, the synchronization method, filters and scheduling.

New profiles are created in a separate window where you can configure the data syncing. Here you select the source and destination directories, with options to sync all or only select folders and files. As far as files go, you can select to either include or exclude (but not both) specific files or filetypes.

The program supports copying all matching files from the source directory to the destination directory, incremental synchronization (which copies everything but keeps the files that are already in the directory), or two-way incremental synchronization which makes sure that files in the source and destination directory are always kept in sync and never deleted.

So far so similar. When you use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Alt-E in the main window, you enable Expert mode, which adds new advanced features to the program. The new settings add backup integrity checks and the dynamic creation of destination folders as options to the synchronization process. Besides expert mode, there is also a hidden feature section that need to be enabled in the profilename.sync file. Hidden features include excluding hidden files and folders, excluding specific folders, diff/file comparisons, text-only logs or beta features like wake-up actions. You can read up on both expert and hidden features in the program here.

Synchronicity 6 in particular comes with new command line options (the /all switch to sync all profiles), new hidden settings like the ability to ignore files that are older than a specified number of days, or the option to send log files to email addresses.

Here is a selection of features that have been added in the past two years:

(Hidden setting) Customizable delay between queued profiles.Send logs by e-mail (see “scripts/mail.bat /?” for more info).(Hidden setting) Forget (discard) files older than a custom number of days.(Hidden setting) Exclude hidden files.Command-line switch to sync all profiles (/all).Improved error reporting.(Expert setting) Estimate remaining time (experimental).(Expert setting) On-the-fly BZip2, GZip compression(Expert setting) Show diff for modified files.(Expert setting) Compare file size in addition to last modified date.Full PDF manual.“/log” command-line switch: forces the creation of an application logSpecial server builds.Localized installer, in most of the supported languages.Add a setting to catch up missed backups (when a scheduled backup has been repeatedly missed, forces its immediate execution).

Add to that the standard features like the backup scheduler, a preview option to test run a profile, and a bunch of command line options, and you come to the conclusion that the program has evolved in the past two years without becoming bloated. Great program, highly recommended for users of the Windows operating system.

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About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Wednesday March 21, 2012 -
Tags:file synchronization, portable software, windows software

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Download BBC Radio Programs With Radio Downloader

If you cannot listen to the various BBC Radio channels directly, you may consider downloading your favorite shows to your computer to listen to them at a later time. Maybe you are on holiday and do not want to miss a show, or you are living in a country that has limited or no access to BBC Radio shows.

Radio Downloader offers a solution. The free program comes with two main features right now: It can be used to download BBC Radio shows, and it can also be used to download Podcasts. When you first start the program, you see both options displayed as icons in the program interface.

A click on BBC displays a genre, formats and A to Z listing in the interface. If you know the show’s name, you may want to use the A to Z listing to find it. If you are not sure or want to explore the various options, you can either click on a genre, like drama, children’s or music, or a format, like readings, reality or magazines & reviews.

A list of shows is displayed on the next page, and if you have selected a genre, sub-genres may be listed on the page as well. You can furthermore filter results at the top. This allows you to switch from the current show filter to a listing that is only highlighting shows that are available on the BBC iPlayer, or all shows.

All available shows are listed on the next page. You can now select a show and click on the download button in the toolbar to download it to your computer. Here it is also possible to subscribe to a show, which can be useful if you do not want to miss a single show.

You may want to click on Options > Provider Options > BBC Radio Provider Options first to configure the audio download rules. The program will convert AAC radio shows to mp3 by default, which you can change in the program options.

The podcast download works by adding the RSS feed of the Podcast to the program. There is no directory of podcasts included in the program, which makes it less appealing.

The program itself feels a bit clunky at times, for instance when you realize that going back or forward take their time even if the page had been loaded previously.

The downloading of BBC Radio programs does not seem to work for all users. A friend of mine had no issues whatsoever using the program, while I could not download a single show to my computer. The developer states on a help page that this is usually caused by a firewall, or by the router.

Radio Developer, if it is working properly, is a useful program for users who like to download BBC Radio shows to their PCs.

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About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Friday March 9, 2012 -
Tags:internet-radio, radio, windows software

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How To Install The Windows 7 Mac OS X Lion Theme

Windows 7 users have a lot of personalization options right at their hands, without having to modify system files to do so. These basic themes make a handful of modifications to the system, they change the wallpaper, sounds or cursors for instance, but leave the rest of the interface alone. Full conversions and custom themes on the other hand require the manipulation of system files, which many users may shy away from.

This guide explains how you can install a Mac OS X Lion theme for Windows 7. Lets start with the requirements.

The first thing that you need to do is to download the UXTheme Patch program. It is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 and Windows 7 SP1 systems. Start the appropriate version (there is one for 32-bit and one for 64-bit systems), and click on the Patch icons to patch the three system files.

You can use the program later on again to restore the original file versions. The changes take effect after a restart of your computer.

CustoPack Tools has been designed to make the installation of themes easier by installing them as packs. The Mac OS X Lion theme is such a pack, and you need this program to install it on your system.

You can download the free CustoPack Tools from the official website. There you also find additional themes in the gallery in case you are interested in those.

Make sure you pay attention to the installation dialog, as you may end up with the Ask Toolbar otherwise. If you do, check out how to remove the Ask Toolbar here.

Please note that you need to have a full Aero theme running before you can install the Mac theme on Windows 7. While the installation will complete just fine if you do not, you will end up with only half of the theme installed.

Now that you have installed all the prerequisites, you can install the Mac OS X Lion theme for Windows 7.  Download it from its Deviant art project page and extract it to a directory on your computer. Switch to the themes Setup folder and start the installation by executing the Mac OSX Lion Inspirat (Transformation Pack).exe file.

You will notice that the CustoPack interface is now loaded. The author suggests you select the full installation, but you can theoretically block parts of the conversion from being installed. If you do not like Rocketdock for instance, you can block the installation quite easily in this step. For a total conversion, you should install all theme components though.

Just follow the instructions to install the OS X theme on your system. Please note that you need to make a final restart after the installation before you will see the theme in all of its glory on your computer.

Here is how it looks like once it has been installed completely:

Uninstallation

You repeat the same process, only backwards. Start CustoPack (for instance from the start menu), and select the Choose a CustoPack option in the main interface. Select Default Windows theme there by hovering your mouse over the theme and selecting the restore option that is displayed afterwards. Uninstallation may take a while, and you will have to restart your computer to finalize it.

The second thing that you need to do after your computer reboots is to restore the patched system files. Start the UXtheme patcher file again and select the restore option this time.

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About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Wednesday March 21, 2012 -
Tags:personalization, uxtheme patch, windows 7, windows theme

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Best Man Speech Help

During wedding receptions, the best man, who is usually the brother of the groom, the brother of the bride, or the best friend of the groom, is tasked to deliver a brief wedding speech for the newly wed couple. But then again, delivering a wedding speech or toast can sometimes be quite nerve-wracking, especially for those people who aren't used to speaking in front of a huge group of people. So if you are in need of best man speech help, then here it is.

For the first part of your speech, it would be wise and polite to give a short greeting and a simple introduction about yourself. Take a look at this example: "Ladies and gentlemen - a pleasant evening to all of you! Looking at this crowd, I can see a lot of new faces - most of which belong to people who I haven't really got to know and people who probably don't know who I am as well. And so, to begin with, please allow me to introduce myself as the best friend of the groom, as well as his best man. The reason I stand here before you is so I can welcome you all in this celebration!"

"To all of you - family, friends, and relatives of this lovely couple - thank you. Thank you for sharing in this wonderful moment in time when our bride and our groom here finally join hands in marriage and exchange vows to be together through all of life's ups and downs. You have made this occasion more memorable and more meaningful for them, and I am pretty sure that they are very happy to have shared this moment with the people they love and hold dearest to their hearts."

Click Here For Wedding Speeches Instant Access!

"And now, to the bride and the groom - congratulations! My only hope for the both of you is that your marriage stays strong and that your love for each remains as deep and as real. The fact that you understand each other in a way that others don't will help you make it through anything. I guess what I'm saying is that the kind of love that you two share is just so surreal that I don't think anything could break you two apart."

"With that being said, I now propose a toast. To the bride and groom, ladies and gents! To the kind of love that's both magical and inspiring."

This, now, is the best man speech help that you've been looking for.

Click Here For Wedding Speeches Instant Access!

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System Ninja 2.3.2 Released With Blacklist Support

System Ninja is a temporary file cleaner like CCleaner or Bleachbit. The program scans a system for junk files, temporary files and other unwanted files, to free up disk space. System Ninja is available as a portable version and installer, which both offer the same functionality.

When you first start the program you are presented with three tabs at the top that lead to the program’s core functionality. The Junk Scanner scans select hard drives for temporary files. It does not offer as many third party cleaning options as CCleaner or Bleachbit, but is pretty solid when it comes to cleaning browser and operating system traces and temp files.

The two remaining tab link to a startup and process manager that can be used to remove programs from the system, and kill running processes, and a PC analysis section that lists hardware information. The startup and process manager are basic, and usually not needed as Windows tools can handle the same job just fine.

System Ninja has been updated to version 2.3.2 today. Existing users can check for updates under Options > Settings > Check Now. The program should recognize the new version and offer to update to it automatically. New users can download the latest version from the developer website over at Singular Labs.

The new version introduces new features to the program that include an option to ignore specific programs which basically protects its data from being cleaned by the application. The new System Ninja version ships with Polish, Russian and Swedish interface languages, improved Windows 8 compatibility and an option to include beta versions in the update checks.

The software is not as feature rich as CCleaner. There is for instance no option to add custom folders or locations to the cleanup. Users who are just looking for a temporary file cleaner on the other hand find both programs to be more than capable for that task.

Are you a CCleaner user, or do you prefer a different program to clean up your system?

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About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Tuesday March 20, 2012 -
Tags:ccleaner, portable software, windows software

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Microsoft Slash TechNet Product Keys from 10 to 5 to 3

In September 2010, citing concerns over piracy, Microsoft slashed the number of product keys available to subscribers of its TechNet service from 10 per product down to 5.  This caused some arguments but Microsoft still insisted that the annual subscription of $349 was great value for what you got.  Now though the company has announced that the number of available product keys is to be slashed even further to just 3 per product.

So what does this mean?  Fortunately it doesn’t mean that for $349 you only get three Windows product keys and three for Office.  You will get three for Windows 8 Home Premium, three for Windows 8 Professional, three for Windows 8 professional Plus, three for Windows 8 Ultimate and so on.  For office it’s three for Office 15 Standard and three for Office 15 Professional etc.  That’s still excellent value for money for software that’s just “for evaluation purposes”.  Each licence will still also do 10 activations so so that will make up 24 installations of Windows 8 which is enough for anyone to “test”.

In a blog post that can only be seen by current subscribers the company said…

Beginning in mid-March 2012, subscribers to TechNet Subscriptions (excluding TechNet Standard which are entitled to 2 keys per product) may access a maximum allocation of three (3) product keys for Microsoft Office and Windows Client products in connection with their subscription. The allotted keys may only be used for software evaluation purposes. Once the maximum keys have been activated, no more keys will be made available. Additional product keys may be acquired through the purchase of an additional subscription.

There is another restriction though in that subscribers will now only be able to claim 44 keys in total in any one 24 hour period…

Reaching your limit means that you have claimed the maximum number of keys allowed for your program benefit level within a 24 hour period. Every 24 hours you may claim another set of keys, up to your program levels maximum.

So why is the company doing this?  Again they say it’s because of piracy concerns…

Why has Microsoft limited my access to product keys?

We are acting to protect the value of your subscription. If we did not act to prevent abuse of subscriptions we would eventually have to either limit the products available in a subscription or raise the price of your subscription. We believe that this is the best compromise to continue to deliver the highest value to you while limiting abuse at the same time.

Some people might turn off TechNet now or perhaps take up a pricier MSDN subscription instead, though the question now needs to be asked how long it will talk for Microsoft to reduce the number of MSDN keys as well.

It’s a blow to existing subscribers, especially to long-time subscribers such as myself who need to be able to test different hardware configurations, dual boot systems and virtual machine environments.  For those however there are the trial versions of Windows and Office.  Office 2010 has a 60-day trial verstion and hopefully this will continue with Office 15.  Windows 7 also offers a 30 day trial version and we can only hope that Windows 8 does to.  This will help circumvate some of the issues regards fewer keys being available from TechNet.

It just seems a pity though that the move isn’t coming with a price reduction but never mind  :/

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About the Author:Mike Halsey is a Microsoft MVP for "Windows Expert". He is also the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out from Microsoft Press and the Windows 7 Power Users Guide, a how-to guide for non-technical Windows users on how to get the best out of Microsoft's new operating system, with step-by-step and quick guides. You can follow Mike on Facebook, Twitter or on his own website The Long ClimbAuthor: Mike Halsey MVP, Thursday March 22, 2012 -
Tags:microsoft, technet

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