Web

When using Twitter on your Android or iOS device, the Connect tab is where you can find all of your interactions (by default as of an update in February) such as mentions, retweets, and new followers. While this may be the desired view for some, for others it can lead to a cluttered experience.

Luckily there's a simple solution to remove retweets and new followers from the Connect tab.

Mozilla just released Firefox 20 (download for Windows | Mac | Linux), which introduced a few new features, including a brand-new download manager. The new download manager works similarly to the old one, but with a couple of new twists.

The first change you'll notice is a new Download button next to the Home button. This gives you quick access to the last three downloads. The Download button will actually display the time remaining during a download, then change to an arrow when the download completes.

You can click on "Show All Downloads" or use the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+… Read more

The risk that an Internet-connected computer is infected with malware will never be reducible to zero. It's just the nature of software that errors happen. Where there are software-design errors, there are people who will exploit those errors to their advantage.

The best PC users can hope for is to minimize the chances of an infection and to mitigate the damage a piece of malware can inflict -- whether it intends to steal a user's sensitive data or to commandeer the machine as part of a cyber attack on servers thousands of miles away.

Last week, Internet users … Read more

Whether it's attaching your name to social-based ads that your friends will see, or  resurrecting old messages onto your Timeline, Facebook has become quite the source of over-sharing and headache.

Unfortunately, by simply clicking "Like" on a Facebook that you want to read updates from, your Timeline can become more cluttered than ever. You might see more sponsored posts related to your Likes, and you'll be announcing each Like to all of your friends. Wouldn't it be nice to follow pages without announcing them to everyone or flooding your updates?

A … Read more

My mid-afternoon most work days, my laptop begins to drag as I am stare at dozens of open tabs, many of which I may need to save or return to before shutting down to preserve the day's twisting and winding research and Internet meanderings. With Chrome extension TabJuggler, I am able to slice and dice and search all of my open tabs, which is a huge help in cataloging my day's worth of work before closing up shop for the day.

After TabJuggler installs, it places a button to the right of the URL bar. Click on this … Read more

Each social-media profile lets you use images to convey your personal (or professional) brand. Unfortunately, not every Web site allows you to use the same size photos. In the end, you'll have some social-media profiles with images that look stretched or squished. Instead of fussing with images to make them look proper, try using the Social Media Image Maker.

The great thing about this site is that it's easy to use, and can make your social media profiles look much more professional (or at least like you know what you're doing to friends and family). You won'… Read more

Earlier this week Forecast.io was announced by the same team behind the iOS weather app Dark Sky. The app would provide alerts based on the immediate weather forecast, allowing you to get inside just moments before the weather would get nasty. With the launch of Forecast.io, the team is able to get the same type of forecasting into the hands of more users since it's a Web based app.

To use the app simply visit Forecast.io using your browser. You can then create a Web shortcut and save it to your mobile device, or a bookmark … Read more

Facebook's messaging system can sometimes be more distracting than useful. The ability for everyone you have as a friend to contact you in a real-time chat can eat a large chunk of your time each day (depending on the number of friends, of course). Instead of allowing everyone to talk to you at their whim, why not just enable chat for the people you would actually want to have real-time conversations with?

Luckily Facebook has options to turn off chat for everyone except those you select, or simply turn it off for people who contact you too often. Here'… Read more

You're in the middle of a city park. You're at a rest stop on the side of the road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe you're simply in your living room. You turn on your computer and have instant, secure access to the Internet without requiring any network cables or log-ins -- or even any payment to an ISP.

Yeah, right.

Ubiquitous, free, and safe Internet access is a long, long way off, and many skeptics believe such a day will never arrive. The glass-half-full among us will point out that the number of people … Read more