Category Archives: Free Software

A Bit Of Internet Privacy – The Browser

Posted by on March 21, 2012 No comments

In my previous post on this subject, I talked a little about the search engines we use and how we can start our drive to recover control of our online lives with them.  This time, I’d like to look into web browsers.  I’m going to focus in on Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome here as these are the two I know.

Your web browser is most likely to be the primary tool you use when dealing with the Internet, in fact I’d take a wager that when most people think of the Internet they think of their web browser.  This means that in our push for control, this is our next step.

The first place to look is the method we use to get information across the Internet and onto the screen.  Generally, your browser will use a method called HTTP or Hyper Text Transfer Protocol.  This is a transfer protocol, one of many, and this one deals specifically with web pages.  The problem is that it transmits in the clear, but we can fix that by using the HTTPS (HTTP Secure) protocol which is encrypted.  This sounds complicated, but really it isn’t and there are already extensions for Firefox and Chrome, which are called HTTPS Everywhere and HTTPS Enforcer respectively.

Now we’ve got some protection on that aspect of things, we need to look inside the pages.  Ad networks are quite capable of tracking your behaviour as you browse the Internet, which makes sense as they want to serve you the most relevant ads.  For our part, we can do something about this with three extensions.  The first prevents adverts from being displayed and is called Adblock (Firefox) (Chrome); the second blocks all manner of tracking and ad networks and is called Ghostery.  The third sets permanent opt out cookies for 90 major ad networks and is called Beef TACO, as far as I know this one is Firefox only.

OK, that’s data transfer and tracking networks, now we need to think about information that’s been saved on the computer.  This is in two parts, the Cookies and the Cache.  Cookies are small files that are saved on your computer, websites can store a number of things in them, from the useful (site preferences) to the sinister (behaviour tracking data).  Generally cookies can be cleared from within the browser, and we have most of the sinister stuff covered with the above extensions, but if you’re using Adobe Flash Player then we have a problem.  Flash Player sets a type of cookie called LSO Cookies, which can’t be deleted by the browser as they’re managed by Flash Player, luckily there is a Firefox extension for this called BetterPrivacy.  If you’d like to see exactly what Flash Player has stored, click here.  Our next target is the cache itself, this is where your browser stores data that it’s downloaded during the browsing process.  It then uses this local store to save it having to fetch things over the network.  This speeds things up nicely, but does mean that if you’re concerned about somebody accessing this data (e.g. you’re using a computer for sensitive communications in a repressive regime), you have a problem.  The cache itself can be wiped by your browser, that’s fine.  But data can be undeleted, which is where these next two extensions come in.  The first secure wipes the Firefox Cache, the second restores the close down settings clear dialog to Firefox 3.5+, respectively, they are Secure Sanitizer and Ask For Sanitize.

Finally we come to an extension that allows you to control the operation of scripts that run in webpages, it’s called NoScript or NotScripts and is available for Firefox and Chrome respectively.  This is useful as these scripts can still betray a lot of information about your actions, but do be careful around public access WiFi (e.g. theCloud.net) as I’ve had this extension render that service unusable.

I think that covers the browser pretty well, but if anyone knows of anything else that can be added, please leave me a comment!

Compassionate Computing

Posted by on March 12, 2012 No comments

Let’s bring my two chosen fields of interest together for this one shall we?

I’ve talked yesterday about the idea that in Buddhism, compassion (or karunà) is a very wise kind of selfishness, a kind of enlightened self interest that starts at home but actually works to the benefit of all of those around us.  If you’re in Computing, or if you follow it, this sounds quite familiar when you think about it; it sounds like the Free Software movement.

Let me play on that idea.  Free Software is software that id defined by the four freedoms:

  • the freedom to run the software as you see fit.
  • the freedom to study the program code and change it.
  • the freedom to redistribute copies of the original software as you see fit.
  • the freedom to redistribute your modified version should you so wish.

The result is that an awful lot of programmers (or hackers if you prefer that term) are producing great software for nothing and giving it away!  This may look awful, but the result has been GNU/Linux, many of the services that run the Internet, Firefox, Chrome, VLC and many other great things.  So we’ve all benefited hugely, including those original hackers.  It’s not just hackers and the public, when you investigate you find that a lot of Linux kernel development is paid for by corporates.  They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t benefit, but by doing that their actions ultimately benefit us as well.

So this serves as a more practical example of what I was talking about yesterday, the idea that compassion that starts at home can reach out to, and benefit the wider society.

 

Walking with the GNOME

Posted by on March 10, 2012 No comments

I reinstalled my laptop recently, taking it back to Debian Sid.  It was running OpenSUSE 12.1, but I wanted to move towards a rolling release and not have to deal with static ones, plus I’ve always had a soft spot for Debian.

I’d started to tinker with Gnome 3 on OpenSUSE and have continued this on Debian, I must say that I’m growing more impressed with it.  It’s a huge break from the traditional Gnome and is causing a lot of controversy in Linux circles.  This is understandable when you consider that geeks are utter power users and we also tend to aspergic traits, thus disliking change.  For me it’s a simple and elegant environment and this desktop environment addresses a pet hate of mine, multitasking.

I’ve been a KDE user for a while on my main desktop, which runs OpenSUSE 11.4 though recently the KDE desktop has started to strike me as overly complicated.  I’m not a fan of this, I prefer something that is simpler but also I prefer to focus on one application at a time, multitasking isn’t something I think is a good thing at all.  Multiple windows are something I find distracting and I’m finding myself using Gnome 3 with the windows maximised all the time.  In light of this, I’m starting to give serious mental room to the thought that a taskbar is something which we should be consigning to the dustbin of history, it simply serves to bring all the distractions and put them front and centre!  If an application wants my attention, it can put an icon in the notification area, which I will deal with when I’m good and ready.  I want to see my screen real estate taken up by what I’m doing, not cluttered with the distractions.

The funny part is that even computers can’t really do two things at once, they just give the very convincing impression that they can.  Multitasking?  Humbug!

 

Sitquietly Web Edition update

Posted by on January 1, 2012 1 comment

I’ve been a busy bee over the last couple of weeks in my spare time.  The result of my work was uploaded just a few minutes ago and I hope you’ll like it.

After a long hiatus for various reasons, the web browser based SitQuietly meditation timer has received an update.  This new version removes the dependency on Adobe Flash, replacing that code with HTML 5 sound code instead.  I added a short section on meditation, with basic instructions and the site also sports a new format and has a few fixed bugs.

I’ve tested it in Firefox, Chromium, Opera, Internet Explorer, Safari and Konqueror.  I also know it renders fine on IOS and Android but the sound is not yet working on those platforms.  I have a handle on what needs to be done, but I had no way of finishing the work before my deadline of 1st Jan.

Anyway, you can find it here, please let me know what you think!

 

A Revolutionary Effect.

Posted by on October 16, 2011 No comments

The Occupy protests are spreading.  This is in spite of quite a bit of silence in much of the mainstream media, who only covered them when ultimately forced to.  I should except Russia Today and Al Jazeera from the above statement, their coverage has been very good.  I’ll chat about my views on the protest movement another time, but something else has caught my attention.

The protest camp in New York made it into the IT media earlier this week.  This was in the form of an article covering their IT infrastructure, which I must give praise where it’s due, seems very nicely put together given the circumstances.  The sentence that caught me is in the above article, it’s a quote from a protester referring to the disappearance of a laptop during a police raid,  and I’ll quote it below.

“We’d love to get an Apple, because a lot of the software we’re used to is on the Mac,” one said. “Linux machines are always nice, given Linux is having the same revolutionary effect on the industry as we are on society, but even Windows machines would be a help.”

The above is quite accurate, GNU/Linux is having a revolutionary effect.  But the thought struck me a little later that this isn’t the entire story, is it?  GNU/Linux is a great system, a colleague of mine was at a presentation given by a Microsoft employee where the MS guy went through the Windows Server 2008 kernel and the Linux kernel.  After 1 hour 45 minutes, the conclusion was that they’re much of a muchness, he had to admit that the Linux kernel is every bit as good as the Microsoft offering.  Of course, with tools like openQA from the openSuSE team, the future is looking even brighter.

So the software is great, we know that, but revolutionary?  I submit that it isn’t by itself revolutionary.  You can get the code to BSD Unix, but that doesn’t really seem revolutionary in the way that is implied above, so what do I mean?  Enter stage left, the GNU General Public License, or GPL for short.

My understanding of things is this.  The BSD code can be referred to as “Open Source”, which means you get access to the source code and can play with it as you see fit to do so. However, you’re not required to give your changes back.  This means that BSD code has found it’s way into both Windows and the MacOS, but they are not required to return any improvements they made on other people’s hard work to the community.

The Linux kernel is under the GPL, which comes with a string attached.  If you modify the program and distribute it, then you have to make the modified source available so that others in the community can do the same.  For this reason, GPL’ed code is known as “Free Software“, it is not “Open Source”.  For a background to how the GPL came to be invented, I recommend “Free As In Freedom” a biography of the founder of the Free Software Foundation, Richard M Stallman.

I’ve come to believe that the General Public license, and the associated “Four Freedoms” (see the “Free Software” link above), have been the thing that allowed the revolution to happen.  Think about it, a license that says high quality software and the improvements to said software are all available freely to everyone.  Individuals, communities and corporations alike.  We can study it, improve it, redistribute it, but not lock it away.

Now that’s revolutionary!

Happy Birthday KDE!

Posted by on October 14, 2011 1 comment

Well, this is a nice surprise. Today, the KDE Community is 15 years old.

The KDE community has created an advanced desktop environment for the Linux and BSD operating systems.  Personally, I’ve used it on and off for some years and am now more settled on it as my desktop of choice as an OpenSuSE user. There is often a question mark over the staying power of Free Software projects and that perception is often used to attack these projects. This milestone for the KDE community shows this question mark for the inaccuracy that it is.

All that remains is for me to offer my own congratulations to the KDE community, here’s to at least another 15 years!

Simplicity and Usability

Posted by on January 13, 2011 2 comments

I don’t slide over to the geek side of things too often, it’s something that I must do more often.

I came across a great post over on usability post the other day. The gist of the post is that as user interfaces get friendlier,  they eventually rob the user of the knowledge needed to actually do the job.  This can actually result in worse performance than when using the system without assistance.

The post itself contains more detailed information, including cited research so I highly recommend it if usability is your thing.  It resonated with me because I just started such an experiment myself with Linux recently. I switched the desktop environment on my Debian laptop over to the Openbox Window Manager,  which is very lightweight and much faster.

I’ve been finding that kicking away the crutches that Ubuntu and the GNOME environment provide has its benefits.  In line with the research cited in the post I am finding that forcing myself to do things without having my hand held gives a much better understanding of the system and a greater confidence when using it.

Most of this is stuff I already knew how to do, and I’m refreshing old ground, it’s good as it lets me relearn and bring a newer understanding to the things than the last time I covered them.

I can see the point of the usability features, don’t misunderstand me.  But it seems to me that for a more technical user, the crutches are in fact a hindrance.