Take Your Media Offline (For Control and Convenience)

I suggest downloading all you media and storing it offline. You will then be less reliant WiFi and cell phone data transfers. For example can store all your media pCloud (details here). This privacy-friendly service supports playlists and media playback in general. You can mark media for offline use, and play them back without an internet connection. You can also …

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How To Use A Disposable Email Address (For Signing Up To New Services)

These days, many companies ask for your email address. Often you end up with spam in your inbox, or, worse still your email is sold to various other mailing lists. It makes sense to use a disposable email address, at least until you trust a company enough to give them your real address. I recommend these free disposable mail services: …

Streisand Makes Installing Your Own VPN Easier

One of the easiest way to install your own VPN is to use a piece of free software called Streisand. It is a remarkable open-source project that allows you to set-up and deploy your own VPN server with the minimum possible fuss.

How To Install Free Ad-Blocking Using AdGuard DNS

AdGuard DNS is a free Domain Name System service provided the AdGuard company. You can use this DNS service to block advertising and trackers. It works like this: when a website sends a request to an ad network, the DNS sends back a “null” response. For example, when a web page looks up the domain name “ads.facebook.com” the DNS will …

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How To Run a VPN & Ad-Blocker On a Router

Why Run A VPN On Your Router? Using a VPN at the router level makes a lot of sense. It is a convenient way to make all your network connections private and encrypted. Every device that connects to your network will be able to access the VPN — there is no need to install a VPN application on each device. …

Getting Started With Ethereum

Ethereum is a decentralized computing platform and crytocurrency. Ethereum uses Bitcoin’s blockchain technology to create a protocol for “smart contracts”.

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Using Firefox’s Reader View To Remove Web Clutter

The Firefox browser has a useful feature called “Reader View” which strips away clutter like buttons, ads and background images. It also adjusts the page’s text size, contrast and layout for better readability. You can find the Reader View button here: Here is an article from Reuters as it appears in Page View Mode: There is also a Firefox extension …

A Field Guide To Malware In 2016

Malware is used for a wide variety purposes from sleazy business practices to blatant crime. Discussions of malware often mix up the technology of malware and their uses. You will see below that the same technology can be used to direct ads to you that normally you would not see, or steal your credentials to your online banking account. It’s …

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A Guide To Avoiding Ransomware (Part 1)

Ransomware is malicious software that allows a hacker to access an individual or company computer, encrypt your data resident on it and then demand some form of payment to decrypt it. This lets hackers hold your data hostage – and hence the term “ransom”. Victims can regain access to their files only by paying the ransom, or by restoring from a backup that was hopefully not on a network that was accessible to the compromised computer.

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Encryption 101: Which Encryption Type is Most Secure?

Apple’s recent revelation about a U.S. government order to create a “backdoor” for undermining iPhone encryption will leave lots of people wondering which encryption methods are reliable. Here’s a quick run-down of which encryption algorithms to trust, and which ones are flawed. First, you should understand that there are three basic ways that encryption can be broken: Keys can be …