• Cached DNS Entries: In order to be able to surf the internet you will need use a DNS server to resolve the URLs and this will be cached locally into your machine for a while to speed up your internet surfing, this entries also get cached in private mode browsing.

You can see this yourself opening up the command prompt inWindows, type command.com or cmd.exe at the search box to get to the Windows command prompt box.

Now type:
ipconfig /displaydns

Windows Command Line Prompt cmd.exe

You will see the full list of cached DNS entries, open up a new private browsing session, re-run the command again and see how the sites you just visited got added. Anyone with access to your computer, such as a noisy College systems administrator or your boss at work can see this too.

To clean up the cache just type in:
ipconfig /flushdns

• Flash Cookies: Even in privacy mode evil flash cookies will get stored into the %appdata%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects directory, and they can reveal what sites gave them to you, and what day and at what time you visited them, you can delete these flash cookies manually.

SpeedDial: With Speed Dial, you can easily access your most used websites. Speed Dial will be automatically loaded in blank new windows, it can also load in blank new tabs. To configure this, and other options, use the extension settings panel.

PDF Download: PDF Download is a tool for viewing and creating Web-based PDF files. The browser extension lets you convert any (unsecured) Web page into a PDF document for archiving, printing and sharing.

Xmarks: Install it on all your computers to keep your bookmarks and passwords (optional) backed up and synchronized.

LastPass: LastPass is a free online password manager and form filler, allows you to import from every major password storage vendor and export too, captures passwords. Your sensitive data is encrypted locally making use of javascript before upload so even LastPass cannot get access to it.

RefSpoof: Easy spoofing of the URL referer (referrer) featuring a toolbar.

Firefox browser customization

If you want your Firefox browser to look like the screenshot above simply skin it, take a look at Noia (eXtreme) combined with Firefox B persona.

You can see Firefox SpeedDial add-on in action, the 3×3 squares with easy to access thumbnails to the user favourite websites.

Spoof your referral page

There are also some websites that will only make their content available to those being referred from certain place, the Wall Street Journal for example wants you to pay in order to read their articles, but they have an agreement with digg and Google News. If you search for a Wall Street Journal in Google news and you follow the link  through them you will be able to access the complete article for free, but there is even an easier way to read the Wall Street Journal online for free, you will need to fake your referral website as digg.com, you can do this easily with a Firefox extension called RefSpoof.

After installing the Refspoof addon visit WSJ.com. Then, in the “spoof” field of the Refspoof toolbar type digg.com. Then, click on the “R” icon to the right and select “static referrer”. That is all, you can now read all of the Wall Street Journal for free.

UPDATE: As of 1st December 2009 the trick above seems to have stopped working, therefore here goes another way for you to read the Wall Street Journal online for free:

1) Copy the headline of the Wall Street Journal article you want to read.

2) Visit http://news.google.com and paste the headline on the search box.

3) Clink on the link leading to the Wall Street Journal article. That is it, now you will be able to read the full article for free, the WSJ journal has an agreement with Google News to let people referred by them read the full article.

Wall Street Journal Newspaper

Here goes a list of free antivirus software that claims to be compatible with Windows 7, there is no reason why you should not look after your operating system security, even more given that you have to pay nothing, this is not a free trial this is truly free antivirus software with regular updates, if you want extra features you can upgrade to their paid for version, but otherwise it works just fine.

• Avira Antivir Personal Edition

• avast! Antivirus Home

• AVG

Windows 7 Minimum System requirements:

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

There is an easier way to know if your PC will run Windows 7, simply download Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, an official tool by Microsoft itself. You can get it from here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/upgrade-advisor

This tool will also tell what software installed in your computer is not compatible with Windows 7.

Windows 7 minimum system requirements

Simply follow these instructions:

1. Perform a clean installation using the Upgrade disc, you should have no problems here

2. Make sure there are no Windows Updates pending — if there’s an orange shield icon next to the Shutdown button in the Start Menu, that means you need to reboot before attempting the next steps.

3. Open ‘regedit.exe‘ from the Start Menu — just type it in there, where it says: Search programs and files. Accept the User Account Control dialogue that pops up to give yourself Windows 7 superpowers.

4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/

5. Change MediaBootInstall from ‘1‘ to ‘0‘

6. Open the Start Menu again and type ‘cmd’ — use ctrl+shift+enter to run it as an elevated-permissions user

7. Finally, type slmgr /rearm — and press enter.

Windows 7 hacked

Your computer will now reboot and run the Activate Windows utility. Type in your product key, and there you go… a full Windows 7 with all of its utilities for eighty dollars less than the original price.