Using Google Chrome – Think again!

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google-chrome-hacked

As most of the internet users, I am a heavy Chrome user while surfing the world of internet. But while this surfing I came along an interesting news from MWR Labs which work in security research activities. They demonstrated a full sandbox bypass exploit against the latest stable version of the Google Chrome browser at the annual Pwn2Own competition at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver. The researchers from MWR labs showed their hack which took a fully patched version of Google Chrome browser, hacked it, and then took control of Windows 7. They explained:

By visiting a malicious webpage, it was possible to exploit a vulnerability which allowed us to gain code execution in the context of the sandboxed renderer process. We also used a kernel vulnerability in the underlying operating system in order to gain elevated privileges and to execute arbitrary commands outside of the sandbox with system privileges.

According to MWR InfoSecurity managing director Ian Shaw:

The reason Chrome was chosen as the target for the demonstration is to encourage understanding, as a security breach of this nature could expose millions of users to serious risk.

MWR Labs decided to share the holes with the vendors so that they can be patched and didn’t provide specifics on the code it exploited to take control over Windows 7.

So, here is an opportunity for you to exploit Google Chrome browser vulnerability if you can, before they fix it in upcoming updates.

Source: http://labs.mwrinfosecurity.com/blog/2013/03/06/pwn2own-at-cansecwest-2013/

How To Free Up Space By Deleting Previous Windows Installation

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bleach bit logo clean driveWhen I first installed Windows 8, the first thing I wondered was how to shutdown Windows 8. Anyways, that was a quite easy. While exploring Windows 8, I found that my C Drive is pretty much full. I have a 100 GB space allotted for C drive and I did not expect it to be full. As you know, a full C drive leads to a slower computing experience, it was my foremast task to clean up the C Drive.

As I see later, my C Drive was full thanks to previous Windows installations. I had previously upgraded Windows 7 to Windows 8 Consumer preview and thus it was taking lots of space (almost 50 GB, can you believe it?). Lets see how you can clean up your C Drive to free up some space on your computer.

Step 1:

Search for Disk Space in Metro. To do that use the Windows key (the one with Windows sign on it) and start typing disk space. Click on Settings from right column to redefine your search. And then choose Free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files to open the disk clean up tool.

Windows Settings

Step 2:

In the disk clean up tool, you won’t see the option to delete the files from previous Windows versions. To see this option, click on the Clean up system files.

Windows 8 clean Up

Step 3:

Choose the drive where you install Windows. Usually its C drive.

Windows 8 clean Up

Step 4:

It will take some time to scan your system for removable files. Just wait here for some times.

Windows 8 clean Up

Step 5:

Now it will show you the option of deleting previous Windows installations and temporary Windows installation files. The previous Windows installation will delete all your documents, pictures, music etc that might be present there. So make sure that you have backed up all the things. In case you are not sure, you can check Windows.old folder in C drive to see what it is going to delete.

 Windows 8 clean Up

That’s it. Click on OK to delete the previous installation of Windows. You will have much more free space now on your C drive for a smoother Windows 8 experience.

How to find the saved Wireless passwords in Windows 7

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Ever found yourself in a situation when you need to provide someone or yourself the WEP, WPA, WPA2-PSK password of the wifi network you are using or have used it previously and you are left wondering: “How do I find the wireless password saved in Windows?“. By default Windows saves the wireless password when you choose “connect automatically”. All these keys along with the wireless network settings are stored in Windows. If in a case you need to see the passwords specific to a network, you can fetch it back from Windows in following simple steps. [Read more…]

How to solve Error Message “windows cannot find *.exe”

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A very common problem with Virus affected drives are that when try double click open it, it give you an option of “Open With“. To get rid of this problem you have to play a little bit with the registry of the computer. This is also helpful if you are getting an error message “cannot find *.exe“. Although altering the registry may be a bit risky, but being careful in modifying the registry prevents such mishaps. I would suggest you to back up the registry before applying any changes. [Read more…]

7 must have free softwares for Windows 7

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So you got rid of that hectic Windows Vista and got yourself this new stunning looking Windows7 (7 because its the 7th operating system from Microsoft Windows). You liked it don’ you? What next? You must have been searching for some good “free” software . I, from my personal experience, found out the 7 must have free software for windows 7. Here is the list:

1.Antivirus: The first thing you need in this dirty cyber world is a good anti-virus that can protect your computer from possible virus attack. If you are a simple user that uses internet for surfing and occasionally downloading (in short, you are a home user) then a free home edition of any good anti-virus will do the work. There are a number of anti-virus available that provide free home edition. But out of them AVG, Avast and Avira (BTW Avast is my personal favourite) stands out because of their frequent auto-update of virus database keeps you safe from the new born viruses. Following are the links:

Avast:

AVG: http://free.avg.com/it-en/homepage

Avira: http://www.free-av.com/

2.A new Web Browser: You definitely do not want the traditional and slow Internet Explorer that comes along with any Windows operating system. No matter how much Microsoft tries to improve their web browser, it still lags behind. So it’s time to change it to a faster and better browser like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.

Mozilla Firefox: Mozilla firefox comes with additional security features that makes it perfect for online transactions. Its faster, its better. And it comes with thousands of add-ons(like ad blocker and you tube downloader) that gives you a personalize web experience based on your needs. Private browsing option is also there. Firefox is rated no. 1 by a number of reviwers. You can get it from here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/firefox.html

Google Chrome: Chrome is the web browser from internet giant Google. When the name Google is there, you obviously expect a high quality product. And Chrome doesn’t disappoint. In fact, its a good competitor to Firefox. Its faster and sleeker then Firefox. Top of the Chrome starts from tabs itself so it gives a bigger panel for viewing and doesn’t eat first 2 inches of your screen. Though it does not have many add-ons but seems Google is working on that. Private browsing is not an option in Chrome so you have to delete your browsing history if you are a frequent “Private Browser”. Here is the link:

3.Open Office: One of the most important thing which you need on your computer is Office. But Microsoft office is not free. It comes on a hefty price. You got two option for Office. First is, check your wallet and see if you can afford to buy MS Office at such a heavy price. Second is, well, get a pirated version available on net. But piracy is crime, isn’t it? If you cannot go for any of the above two options then I’ll suggest you the third option. Go for Open Office. Open Office is a good and most importantly a free alternative of Microsoft Office by Sun MicroSystem/ Oracle. It has all the features you get in MS Office. It provides you with customer support also. There are a number of add-ons available to enhance the software experience. And all this is free and legal. So what you thinking. Get it here: http://download.openoffice.org/index.html

4. File Compression Software: You will always need a software to uncompress the various downloads from internet. While most of the known Unzip softwares are not free(for eg: Win Zip and Win Rar) and you can only download the trial version. There is an equally efficient “free” alternative of it. . 7 Zip can unpack ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z. For ZIP and GZIP formats while it can pack in 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR fromats. Here is the link form CNET downloads:

5. Windows Cleaner: Do you realize how much space unwarranted temporary files can eat? Well don’t clean your PC for a month and it can be around 1 GB. Memory space is not the only problem, it also slows down your computer. The best available software for this purpose is undoubtly CCleaner. Here is the link to download it: http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

6. Video Player: By this you might have realized that Windows Media Player cannot play all video formats. WMP is good enough for music playing but when it comes to video, it lacks the required codecs to play the particular format. A superb video player that can play almost all the available video formats is VLC. Originally developed for video streaming, VLC has an additional benefit in terms of Audio enhancement. It can enhance the volume upto 4 times (This may harm your speakers though) so in case if you have a video with very low sound and you are not able to hear it properly even after using headsets, VLC is your saviour. Apart from this, there is very friendly option for explicitly adding subtitles, in case the subtitles are not loaded automatically. Get it here: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

7. Virtual CD Drive: To have a virtual cd drive help you in playing games and running big softwares. Daemon Tools Lite (Lite version is free) provide you to mount an image file in to the system and install or run the software/game form the image.  Here you go: http://www.daemon-tools.cc/eng/products/dtLite

How to get the new Facebook chat with video calling

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Here is the response of Facebook to Google+. Skype integration into Facebook chat to provide video calling to users.  News was circulating that Facebook is about to launch something “awesome” and it comes exactly one week after the limited release of Google+. Facebook was missing the video call feature for a long time and Skype has a proven technology and experience. The integration seems to be a good add-on for Facebook. From another point of view it can also be seen as Microsoft’s rivalry with Google (Microsoft is the new owner of  Skype and a shareholder in Facebook). News apart, here is how you can get the latest video calling chat on Facebook:

  • Log in to your facebook account
  • Go to
  • Click on Get Started (Facebook can take you from here in steps but still I’ll write it), It will ask you to select a friend to video chat
  • Click on a friend, the chat window opens up
  • On the top of the chat window, there is the known video sign  , click it
  • It will ask you “Set up video calling?”
  • Click on Set Up
  • It will ask you to download a plugin exe file (on Windows)
  • Save the file, Run the file
  • Enjoy your video calling

If your friend does not have video calling installed on his/her computer you have an option of leaving a video message. Cool na?

Question, suggestions and a word of thanks is always welcome. Enjoy :)

How to solve: Windows was unable to complete the format

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Mostly there are no problems while formatting the USB drive but sometimes they just refuse to be formatted especially when they are in bootable format. I used my USB key as booting device to install Ubuntu. After that when I tried formatting the USB drive in Windows, I got this error “Windows was unable to complete the format”.

There are several ways to solve this problem. One of them might work for you. Try them one by one.

Try formatting with different file systems: Right click on the drive and click format. First approach should be to format the drive using different file systems. Try formatting with all the available file systems (exFAT in particular if it was a bootable drive).

Use Windows Disk Management:

  • Right click on Computer.
  • Choose Manage
  • Choose Disk Management under Storage on the left panel
  • Choose your disk and right click for formatting
  • Click yes for the pop-ups

Use Specialized softwares:  You can use Easeus Partition Master for a forced format. Here is the download link:

Hope it helps you. Questions and suggestions are welcomed. Enjoy :)

How to run ex_ file by converting ex_ to exe file

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Recently I came across a new type of file format which is “ex_” instead of “exe“. First I tried executing it by simply renaming it from “filename.ex_” to “filename.exe” but it did not work that way. “ex_” is actually compressed form of “exe” files and they need to be expanded. The most suitable way is to use command line. Follow the given steps:

  • Open the command prompt by going to “Start->All Programs->Accessories->Run” and then type “cmd” in Run window. Run can also be opened by pressing “Windows button + r“
  • In the command prompt go to the folder where your file “filename.ex_” is stored. For ease I would suggest you to manually copy the file into C drive. Make a new folder named say “new“
  • If you are in different directory than C then type “cd ..” and press enter. Do it a couple of time until you are :C directory.
  • Now use the command: expand filename.ex_ c:newfilename.exe
  • This command may result in following error: EXPAND.EXE Error Msg: Can’t Open Output File
  • The reason is very simple. You might not have write permission for the “filename.ex_” or for the folder “new” or for both
  • Right click on the file/folder and select properties. If the “Read Only” box is checked, de-select it.
  • Now run the previous command again. Use the expanded file in .exe format wherever you want.

Questions and Suggestions are welcomed. Enjoy :)

Sources: Microsoft

How to quickly change the Month/Year in Windows 7 calendar?

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You often use the Windows calendar for viewing the dates, don’t you? But sometimes you may also have come across the need of changing the month/year very quickly. For eg. If today is 4 Apr 2011 and you need to go to December 2004, it will take a hell of a time to reach there. Remember Windows calendar changes chronically day by day (or does it really?). Well, you might not have noticed that it can be changed in another function as well for say month by month, year by year or decade by decade.

How, you ask. Trick is very simple my friend. Open the calendar (by clicking on the time display at the bottom right corner of your desktop/taskbar). Click on the present day (see the red rectangle in the pic).

Now you can see the months in the year and can quickly change the months in that year. If you want to change the year click on the present year like this:

Here you can see the years. Similarly you can move on into decades.

The decade view.

Was it not very simple? Sometimes small things matter big times. Keep enjoying.