3 precautions that you should take on social media

In 2010, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, predicted that "every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends' social media sites".

Indeed, if we take time to research ourselves on the internet, most of us will be surprised by how much personal information we've posted online. Our Facebook posts disclose who our friends are, what we 'Like', our relationship status; our tweets broadcast our opinions; the photos we are tagged in reveal what we've done, who we've done it with; our Instagram and Flickr photos provide an insight into the type of people we are; our Foursquare account divulges our favourite locations and hangouts, where we went on holidays; our LinkedIn profiles display our professional history.

All this data-dubbed as our digital footprint-could be taken out of context; be investigated by potential employers; mined by marketing firms; could cause problems at the time of prospective marriage alliances, or during college admissions, or even be used by cyber criminals for identity theft.

But all is not lost yet; and while it might seem like an extremely time-consuming chore, it makes sense for you to..

1) Manage your digital footprint

First, make a list of all social networking sites, online services, and smartphone apps where you have an account. Google your full name (within quotes) and your e-mail address to find accounts you might have forgotten about.

Systematically, start closing the accounts and unsubscribing yourself from the services that you do not use any more. Try websites like AccountKiller.com, DeleteYourAccount.com and JustDelete.me for quick links and how-tos.

When it comes to your social networks, make sure your posts and photos are not freely available to the public.

In Facebook, click on the 'lock' icon in the top right corner of the blue bar and change the settings to private, or share them only with close friends. Importantly, also disable the setting that lets search engines link to your timeline.

In Twitter, under Settings > Security and Privacy, choose the option Do not allow anyone to tag me in photos. Check the Protect my Tweets box so only people you approve can see them. Similarly, uncheck the Add a location to my Tweets box. Also, click the Delete all location information button to erase geo-tags from past tweets. Additionally, uncheck the Discoverability box that lets people find you by your e-mail address.

Delete tweets, updates, blog posts, photos that could be misunderstood or taken out of context... Monitor comments made by others in your networks. More importantly, be careful about whom you befriend.

After you sanitize your digital footprint, exercise full caution when making new blog posts, tweets, and picture posts. Request friends not to tag you in the photos that they post online.



2) Stop websites from tracking you

It's true, they're watching you. Every time you surf the web — even in the privacy of your home — your actions are constantly being tracked. For instance, if you have signed-in to your Google or Microsoft account, your searches are monitored by Google Search and Bing to serve you tailor-made results. If you are 'window shopping' online, the websites you visit leave cookies on your PC, which are used to serve you advertisements throughout your browsing session. Similarly, Facebook recently announced that it would be tracking user's browsing habits.

To avoid being tracked:

Sign out of all your accounts before browsing websites, or using search engines. Uninstall search tool bars that you might have installed. Check the extensions that your browser is running (refer to the browser Help section to know more about extensions), and disable the ones that you don't recognize.

Try the DuckDuckGo.com search engine that doesn't track your activity.

Most browsers — Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari — have a 'do not track' option (found under Settings) that requests websites not to track your online activities. But as it stands, this request might either be honoured, or completely ignored. Still, it makes sense to always use this option when surfing the web.

Install the DoNotTrackMe browser addon (www.abine.com) that's available for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari — and even as an app for Android and iOS. This software blocks ad networks, social networks, and data-collection companies from tracking your browsing. It also protects your email address, phone, and credit card from being abused by companies on the web and on your mobile device.

Install and run CCleaner (www.piriform. com) to clear temporary files, cookies, browsing, download and form history to protect your privacy, and make your computer faster and secure.

Importantly, be careful when installing free software you might have downloaded from the internet. Most of these include 'adware', which are third-party tracking tools, that can be quite hard to uninstall unless you know what you're looking for.

3) Useful browser extensions

Disconnect: Blocks trackers from popular sites (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari) HTTPS

Everywhere: Redirects to secure (HTTPS) versions of sites where possible (Chrome, Firefox)

Adblock Plus: Blocks intrusive ads (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari)

How To Install Firefox 29 in Ubuntu

How To Install Firefox 29 In Ubuntu-

 

It is very easy to install Firefox 29 in Ubuntu, just open a new terminal (CTRL+ALT+T) and run the following commands shown in each step.

Step 1. Add the Official PPA provided by Mozilla Security Team

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-security/ppa

Step 2. Update The Repository

sudo apt-get update

Step 3. Then Upgrade.

sudo apt-get upgrade

How To Install Firefox 29 In Your Linux Distribution-

 

Step 1: Download Firefox 29.

Step 2: Extract firefox-16.0.2.tar.bz2 using following command.

tar -xjf firefox-16.0.2.tar.bz2 -C ~/Desktop

Step 3: Remove previously installed Firefox if any, using following command

sudo rm -r /opt/firefox

Step 4: Move the extracted Firefox directory from Desktop to /opt directory.

sudo mv ~/Desktop/firefox /opt/firefox

Step 5: Create Symbolic link.

Backup your old Firefox launcher.

sudo mv /usr/bin/firefox /usr/bin/firefox-old

Create symbolic link for new Firefox

sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

Step 6: Launch newly installed Firefox using following command

firefox

Once the installation of the Mozilla Firefox web browser has finished you can go to Applications, Internet and then Mozilla Firefox or if you are using the Unity desktop environment launch it from the Dashboard.

   After the Firefox web browser is opened you will be presented with a simple tour that will show you what is new in this version of Firefox like shown in the following screenshots.

Then you will see a redesigned, intuitive menu.

Mozilla Firefox 29 Is Available For Download

    Mozilla today officially launched Firefox 29 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. This is a massive release: Firefox Sync has been revamped and is now powered by Firefox Accounts, there’s a new customization mode, and the company’s major user interface overhaul Australis has finally arrived.

Firefox 29 has been released over on Firefox.com and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically.

 Mozilla Firefox 29 is available for download with a new user interface known as Australis and with many important changes and new features.

The Gamepad API is finally finalized and enabled and I am sure that gamers will be very happy to play web games with a gamepad. The Gamepad API is designed to be very simple and to work with the traditional gamepad controllers, however it is difficult to support every device.

What are some other new things in this release of Firefox? Firefox 29 has many other new features such as a redesigned and improved customization mode, an interactive on boarding tour to guide users through new interface changes and the ability to set up Firefox Sync by creating a Firefox account.

There are also two known unresolved issues: Text Rendering Issues on Windows 7 with Platform Update KB2670838 (MSIE 10 Prerequisite) or on Windows 8.1 has a workaround and Without affecting security, after restoring your session, Extended Validation Certificates might not display.

The following is the full list of changes and developer features in this version of Firefox:

 

Here’s the full changelog for Firefox 29:

• New: Significant new customization mode makes it easy to personalize your Web experience to access the features you use the most (learn more).
• New: A new, easy to access menu sits in the right hand corner of Firefox and includes popular browser controls.
• New: Sleek new tabs provide an overall smoother look and fade into the background when not active.
• New: An interactive onboarding tour to guide users through the new Firefox changes.
• New: The ability to set up Firefox Sync by creating a Firefox account (learn more).
• New: Gamepad API finalized and enabled (learn more).
• New: Malay [ma] locale added.
• Changed: Clicking on a W3C Web Notification will switch to the originating tab.
• Developer: ‘box-sizing’ (dropping the -moz- prefix) implemented (learn more).
• Developer: Console object available in Web Workers (learn more).
• Developer: Promises enabled by default (learn more).
• Developer: SharedWorker enabled by default.
• Developer: input type=”number” implemented and enabled.
• Developer: input type=”color” implemented and enabled.
• Developer: Enabled ECMAScript Internationalization API.
• Developer: Add-on bar has been removed, content moved to navigation bar.

Jonathan Nightingale, Mozilla’s Vice President of Firefox, told TNW that users found Sync really difficult to set up. Mozilla has also made it easier to discover, since many didn’t know it even existed, the VP admitted.

You can try the new Firefox Sync by simply creating an account: all four platforms support it. According to Mozilla, the revamped feature “makes it even easier to setup and add multiple devices.”

Mozilla announced the new Accounts and Sync back in February. Firefox Accounts, which is part of Firefox OS as well, lets users keep track of their login credentials for various services, as well as their bookmarks, history, and any open tabs.

Firefox Sync, the service that actually lets you take your bookmarks, tabs, and personal information with you to another device, is now more secure. More specifically, Mozilla underlines three improvements:

• Client side key stretching: a technique that protects against man-in-the-middle attacks, even when SSL credentials are compromised.
• End-to-end encryption: even if Mozilla’s servers are compromised, it is extremely difficult to access a user’s data.
• Public key cryptography and the BrowserID protocol: Separation between authentication, authorization, and data storage servers to minimize the number of servers that handle authentication material, and thus reducing our attack surface.

 Mozilla has also removed a few things from the main toolbar. The act of bookmarking and management has been combined. The download manager now only shows up if you’ve downloaded a file recently. The same goes for the forward button: it only shows up if it might be needed, which is naturally much less frequently than the back button.

         Customization is now “front and center” in Firefox: the second you exit customization mode, everything stays exactly where you put it. While the feature is very straightforward to use, Nightingale said it “took the most engineering and design time” than any other feature.

Last but certainly not least, is Australis. All the aforementioned customization is being done in what Mozilla calls “the most carefully designed browser interface on the planet.” Nightingale says “the look of the entire UI has changed” as the company has spent quite a lot of time making it “more beautiful” and making sure information is present in a cleaner way.

The company says Firefox’s overall look and feel now focuses more on your Web content, particularly thanks to the new tab structure. Tabs have a “more fluid and streamlined shape,” are positioned higher up in the browser, and those that are not in use have been visually de-emphasized.

As part of the redesign, there’s a new menu panel that includes all of your browser controls, features, and add-ons in one place. You can find familiar tools like copy/paste, print, full page, save, and so on, but there’s also a permanent section for Firefox add-ons, so this is where you can find them all after the download is complete. Nightingale told that the single menu not only makes using Firefox simpler, but it actually brings the browser closer to a mobile UI, which helps the team develop the app across platforms.

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