Tag Archives: chrome extensions

How To: Use Long Urls to aviod Twitter Scams

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Lately, Twitter scams have become a big problem. Twitter scams are for example tweets containing links to sites that have viruses etc. Not only have normal internet users been fooled by these scams but also some of the pro-users have become victims.

This issue has developed along with the increased use of URL shortening services, such as bit.ly and tr.im

A while ago Bit.ly announced that they are making an effort to prevent this, since they are the default link shortening service for twitter.

To you avoid clicking on shorted links or checked, I recommend that you use a web browser add-on/extension that automatically shows the “real” link instead of the shorter version. This way you see the correct Url for the site that the link is taking you to, and it is easier to determine whether it is a site that you trust or not.

For those of you, who just occasionally click on shortened links, I recommend that you check the links at websites who lengthen links, such as LongUrl.com.

Here follow a list of plug-in for Firefox  and Chrome, that will help you avoid the scams by using Long Urls:

Chrome
ChromeMUSE – Shorten and expand URLs with different shortening service providers.
Explode – Expand shortened URLs (e.g. TinyURL) with LongURL
Bit.ly – (shorten, share, and track your links (only bit.ly))

Firefox

LongURL Mobile Expander 2.0.0
Long URL Please 0.4.1 (Article about this addon)

Internet Explorer

Since I do not use IE, I have not tried any IE extension that solves this problem. Unfortunately search did not help me either, so my tips to those of you who use internet explorer are to use one of the universal services that does the same thing.

Check your URLs no matter what browser you use

In case you do not want to use any of these plug-ins you could always use LongUrl.com which is a universal way to show were the short links are taking you. It will take more time to check the links this was as you have to enter the website. But that might be time you’re willing to offer as you do not want the links to be leading you to the wrong place.

General Online Safety

Internet gives us a lot of opportunities and makes things easier, you can save both time and money with the internet. But as it develops faster than many out there has time to follow, I encourage you to stay updated on the news threats that emerge for you as internet develops, and hope that you encourage your friends and families to do the same.

The 3 Best Chrome Extensions and The Most Popular Notifiers

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About a week ago, Google Chrome released Extensions Beta with over 300 extensions. I have been using the extensions a while longer, with the developer channel, so I thought it was about time to share some of my favorites.

The notifiers that you cannot live without:

All the extension looks neat, although some of them still need some cleaning up. Especially the Facebook extensions layout could become better. The idea behind the extensions are simple, here is what piece Google said in their announcement:

“Extensions are as easy to create as webpages. Users can install and uninstall them quickly without restart, and extensions have a great polished look that fits in with Google Chrome’s minimalist aesthetic”

Three of my other favorites are extensions that change the “behavior” of the web browser.

Google Preview

The first on is GooglePreview, which gives you small previews of the pages in your google research. This sometimes speeds up searching even more as you can quickly see what the page looks like and if it is the one you are interested in. It is also great if you forgot the name of the site and want to find it, because hopefully it won’t have changed looks.

chromeextensions

The only downside is that sometimes it cannot provide previews or it shows old previews, but hopefully this is something the developers are working on.

Docs PDF/Powerpoint Viewer

The second one is the Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer, which “automatically previews pdfs, powerpoint presentations, and other documents in Google Docs Viewer.” I like this, because it opens all the documents a lot faster than adobe reader would, which I enjoy. This is an extension that I really see potential in. It would be nice to be able to excel and doc files in it as well. Also I would enjoy being able to save the documents somewhere, so that they can easily be reached again, in Google docs for example. Either way if you want to speed up the time it takes to open a pdf, this is the extension you should use.

IE Tab

Last but not least I have the IE tab which opens a new tab, where you can view a page in Internet Explorer while still using Chrome. Might sound a bit confusing, but for all of those who have not changed to chrome as all web pages do not support it this extension is the solution. The plug-in has been very popular by Firefox users and seems to be for chrome users to as it is ranked 4th in amount of users already.

How to uninstall

However, though all these extensions are great, I hope that you think about what plug-ins you choose to install. Because they are unfortunately not as easy to uninstall as they are to install. But here is a guide to how you do it: “How To Uninstall Google Chrome Extensions.”

Enjoy!

Are you using Google chrome extensions? Which are your favorites?