8 hacks to make Firefox amazingly fast

Double your browser's speed in just five minutes

For about five minutes work and for the cost of precisely nothing at all. Here's what you need to do to make your Firefox extreamly fast.

1. Enable pipelining

Browsers normally sends a request to a server then wait for a response before continuing. Pipelining is a more aggressive technique that lets them send multiple requests before any responses are received, often reducing page download times. To enable it, type about:config in the address bar, double-click network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining so their values are set to true, then double-click network.http.pipelining.maxrequests and set this to 8.

Keep in mind that some servers don't support pipelining, though, and if you regularly visit a lot of these then the tweak can actually reduce performance. Set network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining to false again if you have any problems.

2. Render quickly

Large, complex web pages can take a while to download. Firefox doesn't want to keep you waiting, so by default will display what it's received so far every 0.12 seconds (the "content notify interval"). While this helps the browser feel snappy, frequent redraws increase the total page load time, so a longer content notify interval will improve performance.

Type about:config and press [Enter], then right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) somewhere in the window and select New > Integer. Type content.notify.interval as your preference name, click OK, enter 500000 (that's five hundred thousand, not fifty thousand) and click OK again.

Right-click again in the window and select New > Boolean. This time create a value called content.notify.ontimer and set it to True to finish the job.

3. Faster loading

If you haven't moved your mouse or touched the keyboard for 0.75 seconds (the content switch threshold) then Firefox enters a low frequency interrupt mode, which means its interface becomes less responsive but your page loads more quickly. Reducing the content switch threshold can improve performance, then, and it only takes a moment.

Type about:config and press [Enter], right-click in the window and select New > Integer. Type content.switch.threshold, click OK, enter 250000 (a quarter of a second) and click OK to finish.

4. No interruptions

You can take the last step even further by telling Firefox to ignore user interface events altogether until the current page has been downloaded. This is a little drastic as Firefox could remain unresponsive for quite some time, but try this and see how it works for you.

Type about:config, press [Enter], right-click in the window and select New > Boolean. Type content.interrupt.parsing, click OK, set the value to False and click OK.

5. Block Flash

Intrusive Flash animations are everywhere, popping up over the content you actually want to read and slowing down your browsing. Fortunately there's a very easy solution. Install the Flashblock extension (flashblock.mozdev.org) and it'll block all Flash applets from loading, so web pages will display much more quickly. And if you discover some Flash content that isn't entirely useless, just click its placeholder to download and view the applet as normal.

6. Increase the cache size

As you browse the web so Firefox stores site images and scripts in a local memory cache, where they can be speedily retrieved if you revisit the same page. If you have plenty of RAM (2 GB of more), leave Firefox running all the time and regularly return to pages then you can improve performance by increasing this cache size. Type about:config and press [Enter], then right-click anywhere in the window and select New > Integer. Type browser.cache.memory.capacity, click OK, enter 65536 and click OK, then restart your browser to get the new, larger cache.

7. Enable TraceMonkey

TraceMonkey is a new Firefox feature that converts slow Javascript into super-speedy x86 code, and so lets it run some functions anything up to 20 times faster than the current version. It's still buggy so isn't available in the regular Firefox download yet, but if you're willing to risk the odd crash or two then there's an easy way to try it out.

Install the latest nightly build (ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/), launch it, type about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Type JIT in the filter box, then double-click javascript.options.jit.chrome and javascript.options.jit.content to change their values to true, and that's it - you're running the fastest Firefox Javascript engine ever.

8. Compress data

If you've a slow internet connection then it may feel like you'll never get Firefox to perform properly, but that's not necessarily true. Install toonel.net (toonel.net) and this clever Java applet will re-route your web traffic through its own server, compressing it at the same time, so there's much less to download. And it can even compress JPEGs by allowing you to reduce their quality. This all helps to cut your data transfer, useful if you're on a limited 1 GB-per-month account, and can at best double your browsing performance.

20 registry hacks to make your PC more awesome as never before

Exploring the lesser-known Control Panel applets is another useful technique, and browsing the command line applications in Windows' System32 folder can be interesting. But let's be realistic. There's nothing that quite compares to the Registry.
It's packed with useful settings that can improve performance, fix security holes and change even the most fundamental Windows behaviour for the better. And many of these features simply can't be accessed in any other way. Be careful, though: the Registry has more than its fair share of traps.

If you're not cautious, you could cause more problems than you solve. But with a little care you can get on with creating a better system that's tailored towards your needs.Here are some great registry hacks

1. Improve security

If strangers have physical access to your PC, it's easy for them to plug in a USB flash drive and make copies of your data. If you're using Windows XP SP2 or later, though, there's a simple way to prevent this from happening.

Go to 'HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies', create a DWORD value called 'WriteProtect' and set it to 1. You'll be able to read USB drives, but not write to them any more.

2. Tame UAC

Windows Vista's User Account Control raises so many alerts that many people just turn it off. But do that and you'll also lose useful features like IE's protected mode. If you really can't live with UAC, try disabling the alerts for administrators: you won't get any more hassle, but UAC will run in the background and you'll still get its other features.

To do this, set 'HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin' to 0. You can restore normal UAC behaviour by setting it to 2.

3. Change the owner

Install Windows on your PC and you'll be asked to enter your name, which is then stored as the registered owner (run WinVer to see this on your system). If you've got a second-hand PC, you probably want to change the name stored as the registered owner. There's no obvious way to do this, and that's where the Registry comes in.

Browse to 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion' and you'll see both a 'RegisteredOwner' and 'RegisteredOrganization' value. Double-click either to change them.

4. Sort files properly

Sorting filenames in Explorer can be a problem. By default, it will place 'File_v2.txt' before 'File_v15. txt': that's not ASCII ordering, but it seems to be sensible. But what if the 'v' refers to a version number, and actually File_v15.txt should come first? Suddenly Explorer's default system doesn't work at all.

To restore regular ASCII file ordering, go to 'HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Currentversion\Policies\Explorer', create a DWORD value called 'NoStrCmpLogical' and set it to 1. Delete the key to restore the standard Explorer approach.

5. Troubleshoot startup

If Windows is taking its time to start up or shut down, there might be a problem. To find out what's going on, go to 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System', create a DWORD value called 'verbosestatus' and set it to 1. Restart your PC and Windows will tell you what it's getting up to.

6. Manage folder types

Windows Vista's Explorer will 'intelligently' choose your folder type based on its contents. But this means that a Download folder will change to a Music folder if you grab a few MP3s. To fix this, go to 'HCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell', delete the 'Bags' subkey and then create a new Bags key in the same location.

Create a key called 'AllFolders' beneath Bags, and a key called 'Shell' below that. Click it to open 'HCU\Software\Classes\LocalSettings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\ Bags\AllFolders\Shell'. Right-click the right-hand pane, choose 'New | String Value' and call this 'FolderType'. Then double-click FolderType and set its value to 'NotSpecified'. You'll still be able to change the folder type, but Vista will no longer assign one. (See steps 10 to 20 here if you need more help.)

7. Easy encryption

Some versions of Windows have always allowed you to encrypt files, but it's an awkward process; you must right-click the file, select 'Properties', click the 'Advanced' button, check 'Encrypt contents to secure data' and then press 'OK' twice.

For a simpler alternative, go to 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced', create a new DWORD called 'EncryptionContextMenu' and set it to 1. Now you can just right-click a file and select 'Encrypt'.

8. Access folders fast

Get speedy access to any folder by pinning it to the Start menu. Run REGEDIT, go to 'HKCR\Folder\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers', right-click 'ContextMenuHandlers' and click 'New | Key'.

Type '' (as ever, without quotation marks) and press [Enter]. Now hold down [Shift], right-click a folder and select 'Pin to Start Menu'.

9. Speed up copy times

Vista gives a high priority to your soundcard, so you should get glitch-free audio no matter what you're doing. This can cause slower network copy speeds, however.

To tweak this, browse to 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile'. Try setting 'NetworkThrottlingIndex' to more than 10 – 50 or 60 should be effective – then reboot and test your network speeds again. Read more here.

10. Fix the drive listing

If Explorer no longer lists your DVD drive (or thinks that it's a DVD-ROM and can't burn discs), go to 'HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\' and delete the 'UpperFilters' or 'LowerFilters' settings.

This usually works, but it may break whatever application caused the problem in the first place. If a program stops working, check to see if it has an update, then reinstall it.

11. Access display settings quickly

Right-click the desktop in Windows Vista and you can't directly access the display settings. Windows 7 will fix this, but in the meantime go to 'HKCR\Directory\Background\Shell', right-click 'Shell', select 'New | Key' and call it 'Display Settings'.

Double-click '(Default)' in the right-hand pane and enter 'Display Settings' in the Value Data box. Now right-click Display Settings in the left-hand pane, select 'New | Key' again and call this key 'command'.

Double-click this new key's (Default) value and enter this text: 'rundll32 shell32.dll,Control_ RunDLL DESK.CPL,@0,3'. (That's a zero following the @ sign, and take care to use the right cases.) Click 'OK' and right-click the desktop to see the new Display Settings option.

12. Multiple Live Messenger log-ins

By default, Windows Live Messenger only lets you log into one account at a time. To rectify this situation, go to 'HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsLive\Messenger', create a DWORD value called 'Multiple Instances' and set it to 1. Delete the value to restore things to the way they were beforehand.

13. Clean the menus

You've uninstalled an application, but it's left you a gift: several now-useless right-click context menu entries. To fix this, go to 'HKCR\*' and 'HKCR\Directory'. Expand the shell, then the 'shellex\ContextMenuHandlers' keys and look for any keys beneath these that relate to your unwanted command.

On our PC, the key 'HKCR\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\7-Zip' links to the 7-Zip context menu, for instance, so to get rid of that we would right-click the 7-Zip part in the left-hand pane and click 'Delete'. But be careful – only delete a key if you're really sure it's the right one.

14. Speed up backups

Windows XP's NTBACKUP improves its performance by maintaining a list of system files it knows you won't want to back up (such as the paging file). Add your own files and folders that you're not bothered about and you'll get even better results.

View the list at 'HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToBackup'.

15. Change the default installation folder

Most installations default to the Program Files folder, but if you want to point this elsewhere, navigate to 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion', change the 'ProgramFilesDir' entry to point at your chosen folder and reboot.

16. Rename drives

Add a memory card reader to a PC and Explorer will often cram the Computer folder with similar sounding drive names ('Removable Drive D:', 'Removable Drive E:' and so on), making it difficult to tell them apart. But it doesn't have to be that way.

If drive G: is a CompactFlash slot, say, then a few Registry tweaks can change it to read 'CompactFlash (G:)', making things much clearer. Start at 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer' and create a key called 'DriveIcons'.

Within that, create a key with the drive letter ('G' in this example), and within that, create a new key called 'DefaultLabel'. Double-click this key's (Default) value entry, give it the name 'CompactFlash' (or whatever you like) and click 'OK'. Restart Explorer or press [F5] to see the change.

17. Wipe the page file

Windows stores memory pages in its paging file as you work. That's fine unless an intruder gets access to your system. If so, they may then be able to browse the paging file and extract confidential information.

To avoid this, go to 'HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\MemoryManagement', set the 'ClearPageFileAtShutdown' value to 1 and reboot. Windows will now wipe the page file every time it shuts down, lengthening the process but increasing your security.

18. Crash on cue

Blue-screen crashes are usually bad news, but occasionally you might want to initiate one yourself. You might need to test Windows' error reporting, for example. There's a Registry trick that can help achieve this.

Go to 'HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters', create a DWORD called 'CrashOnCtrlScroll' and set it to 1. Reboot your computer, and to crash it just hold down the right [CTRL] and press [Scroll Lock] twice. Use this sparingly: it's a crash like any other, and there's a chance of hard drive corruption. To be safe, delete the CrashOnCtrlScroll value when you're done.

19. Save CPU time

The average PC has several programs wanting to use the processor at any one time, and so Windows allocates each a period of CPU time – a 'quantum' – before moving to the next. By default this is very short, which makes for a responsive PC, but it sometimes means that Windows wastes time just switching between processes.

The solution? You can try what Windows Server does: set up your system to use a long quantum. Set 'HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl\Win32PrioritySeparation' to 16 (hex).

Longer quantums mean fewer switches between programs and so less wasted time. It can push some programs too far, though, and you might begin to notice games lagging or video playback becoming less smooth. If you spot any problems, just restore the original Win32PrioritySeparation value (probably 26 hex).

20. Disable AutoRun

Windows' AutoRun feature is a potential security risk because it automatically runs code when you connect removable devices to your PC. If you can put up with the inconvenience of doing things manually then it's safest to disable it.

On some systems, this can only be done from the Registry. To do so, go to 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping' and create a key called 'Autorun.inf'.

Next, double-click the new key's (Default) value and enter the new value '@SYS:DoesNotExist'. Now delete the Registry key 'HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MountPoints2'. Windows now won't automatically run any code on CDs, DVDs or removable drives; you will have to manually launch it.

How to Detect invisible persons in yahoo

trace invisible users in yahoo

Many people nowdays prefer to stay offline while using Yahoo! Messenger - mostly done to avoid someone. There are many ways of finding people who are online but yet invisible.

First Method: Doodle Method

1. Double Click on the user whose status you want to check.
2. A message window will open.
3. Click IMVironment button, select See all IMVironments, select Yahoo! Tools or Interactive Fun, and click on Doodle.
4. The last step and the most important step. After loading the Doodle IMVironment, there will be two possibilities.
a) If the user is offline, the Doodle area will show “waiting for your friend to load Doodle” continuously.
b) If the user is online (in invisible mode), after few seconds (it can take up to one minute, depending on connection speed), you will get a blank page. So the user is online!

Second Method: Voice Chat Method

1. Double Click on the user whose status you want to check.
2. Click on “Voice” icon on the toolbar, or select “Contact” menu and select “Enable Voice Chat” .
3. The deciding part… there are 2 possible results:
a) If the user is offline, you will get this message: “Internal server error. Cannot obtain voice token to start voice chat.”
b) If the user is invisible (actually online), you will see the Voice Toolbar.

Third Method: Conference Invitation

1. Right Click on the user whose status you want to check.
2. When the menu appears, select Invite to Conference.
3. A window will appear. See at the right pane, the username you selected will be there. Now, click Invite.
4. The deciding part… there are 2 possible results:
a) If the user is offline, you will get this message: “None of the users in the invite list are available to join the conference. Please try at a later time.”
b) If the user is invisible, you will get a window similar saying: “You are now logged into voice conference -

beside this you can use website like
www.scanyahoo.co.cc
www.scanyahoo.com
www.ydetector.com

to know invisible guys

Quick Tutorial to hacking for autorun for USB Flash drives

Autorun will not work with “regular” USB flash drives the way that they do with CD-ROMs, but there are some tricks that you can do that will come very close. I say “regular” in that as many may know there are ways of modifying U3 drives so that they appear as CD-ROMs on Windows systems and can thus use autorun to silently run your “tools” without any indication anything is happening. The U3 hack however is a bit more complicated, I will do another “How to” on that later. For now let’s just discuss how we can create an autorun.inf file on a regular ‘ol USB flash drive that will do some interesting things.

Also it is important to mention that some of these techniques will even work if autoplay is disabled!

First, although we cannot have an application run automatically with a traditional USB drive, we can make it so that when a USB drive is plugged we have Windows make a suggestion to the user and all they need to do is click “OK” to a specific application or script you have deployed to the flash drive.

First in Notepad create a file called autorun.inf and save it to the root of your USB flash drive of choice. In the autorun file put this:

[autorun]
icon=lilguy.ico
open=howdy.bat
action=Click “OK” to play this fun game!

The first parameter is “icon” this tells Windows what icon to use as the icon image for the drive etc. This is important for the social engineering portion of the trick, you must consider your target. The image you choose should help instill trust in the application they are about to run, maybe a tantalizing icon of a scantly clad babe, a puppy, or my favorite a cute little cartoon devil holding a USB flash drive.

The “open” parameter indicates the program you wish to run, this can be an executable, or as in this case a .bat file. You could even call a .bat file which calls a series of executables. Go crazy.

The next parameter is “action” this is what will trigger the autorun dialog to appear. This text will appear in the dialog box along with your icon, so you probably want make this friendly, something like “Fun Game,” you probably don’t want to put something like “Click ‘OK’ to install backdoors and trojans!”.

Now unplug your flash drive and then replug it in, a dialog box like this should now appear:


So this is not as good as automatically running the application, but is useful nonetheless and there have actually been successful simulations where this has been used. A security consultancy used this technique as a proof of concept to test a credit union client of theirs. Several drives used this simple technique to run exectue a trojan that sent some simple data to an external email account. They scattered the drives in the parking lot, several employees picked the drives up on their way into work and within a short amount of time the email account they had set up was receiving emails.

Now we have our basic autorun.inf setup. But notice that if you click cancel and then click on the drive you just see the contents of the drive. However we can take this one step further, if the user is smart and their spidey senses are tingling from the dialog menu that appears and they click cancel, with the addition of one more line of code to the autorun.inf file that will automatically execute the code we specify when they click the drive either from “My Computer” or Explorer. This is different than a true autorun as it still requires a user to take an action to exectue the application, but still a significant security risk.

Add these lines to your autorun.inf file

[autorun]
icon=lilguy.ico
open=howdy.bat
action=Click “OK” to play this fun game!
shell\open\command=howdy.bat

OK save it and then unplug and plug the drive back in again. This time when the prompt appears hit “cancel”. Now go to double click the drive under “My Computer”. The application will automatically execute. By the way, this second portion will still work even if autoplay is disabled on a system and is actually more dangerous than the dialog in my opinion.

So what if we don’t want to execute a command on the drive and just open a webpage? You could execute Explorer in your .bat file to do this, or in the exectuble you run, but there is a quick and easy way to do this in the autorun.inf file. Replace the last line with this instead:

[autorun]
icon=lilguy.ico
open=howdy.bat
action=Click “OK” to play this fun game!
shellexecute=http://www.usbhacks.com

There we have it. An introduction to the wonderful world of autorun.inf hacks for USB flash drives. Again this should only be tested on your system, or systems you have permission to use this on, we are not responsible for your stupidity. Removable media devices don’t deploy malicious code and steal data, people do

Disclaimer: This tutorial is designed to show existing vulnerabilities and should only be used on systems you own, or have permission to execute this on. Removable media devices don’t deploy malicious code and steal data, people do.

Nmap for USB

Nmap is a free open source tool used for network exploration and vulnerability auditing. Using Nmap a user can quickly scan large networks as well as target specific hosts. Nmap uses IP packets in unique ways to figure ouw what hosts are available on a given network and can determine what operating system it is running as well as determine what services (including versions) it is running and can also discover what type of packet filters and firewalls are in use. Recent versions have been modified to run straight from a USB flash drive download it here

Wireshark for USB

WiresharkWireshark is a free protocal analyzer, also called a packet sniffer that is used for network troubleshooting, analysis and protocol development. The tool allows the user to see all traffic being passed over a network when putting a network card into what is known as “promiscuous mode”.

S0me versions now have the capability to run independently from a USB flash drive and no longer require that WinPCap or other third-party packet capture drivers to be installed on a system

Torpark an ultimate browser for hackers

The Torpark browser is a modified version of Firefox that can run off of a USB drive and uses anonymous proxies and encryption to mask user behaviour. The browser has been developed by Hacktivisimo, a group of hackers, human rights workers, lawyers and artists.

The browser uses the Tor network of routers setup by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to anonymize web traffic.All you need to do is copy the files to your USB thumb drive. The browser will encrypt traffic between the computer and the Tor router network, this makes it difficult to spy on traffic and pinpoint who is doing what in terms of browsing behaviour.

The Tor netwok also regularly changes the users IP address which makes it even more difficult to track browsing sessions.On one hand this tool is a wonder for online security, however it has a darkside. One feature of the Torpark browser is that it can run directly off of a USB flash drive. This could cause headaches for some IT administrators who may be restricting employee’s browsing behaviour for intellection property issues , or acceptable use policies. Since the browser does not need to be installed on the system and can simply be run from a USB flash drive, it opens the door for a long list of potential endpoint security threats.