An Android phone hogs internet data much more than a normal phone. This is particularly because of all the background stuff going on like syncing contacts, photos, instant messages, social network updates, email and much more.

Some people might like to limit the connectivity to certain applications, the reasons being several like one our readers, ChrisPy. But Android doesn’t have any feature to do it apart from a new feature to monitor data usage in Ice Cream Sandwich. This can only be done through third-party apps on the market.

avast! Mobile Security and Internet Firewall are two of my favorite applications to do this job. They act like a firewall which restricts the connectivity to particular apps, just like in your PC. These two apps are super easy to use but there’s one catch – your phone needs to be rooted.

While avast! is a full featured anti-malware suite for Android including Firewall, SMS and Call Filter etc., Internet Firewall is just a tiny app to get the job done, nothing else. One way in which avast! excels over all other similar applications is its ability to block data connectivity while roaming too. Grab these two apps on the market.

avast! Mobile Security	Internet Firewall

Read the article on the Blog: [Tip] How to Restrict Internet Connectivity to Certain Applications in Android
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A Blog on Web 2.0 Apps and Softwares

 Firefox 10 has just been released and Mozilla is raving on the new improved add-on compatibility, UI tweaks and other minor enhancements. Is it worth all the noise? We will compare the latest Firefox iteration to its predecessor and latest stable versions of other major browsers to check out the performance improvements.

Previously we had compared firefox 8 and firefox 9 with the other browsers. You can refer them to track the improvement.

This time we have also included Internet Explorer 9 along with the rest of browsers.

Prerequisites for the test

• All the browsers were updated to their latest stable versions, that is Chrome 16.0.912.77, Firefox 10.0, Opera 11.61 and Internet Explorer 9.0.8.
• All browsers were 32 bit.
• Hardware Acceleration was enabled on all browsers except Opera where the support was missing
• The tests were performed on a HP G42-478TX laptop with Core i3-370M processor, 6 GB DDR3 RAM and AMD Mobility Radeon 6370 Graphics.

Performance Benchmarks

The benchmarks we performed were

• Sunspider
• Kraken Java Script
• Google v8
• Hardware Stress Test

Sunspider

With the inclusion of IE 9, the equation has changed and surprisingly it has managed to beat even Firefox 10 in this benchmark. Chrome 16 lags significantly.

Kraken JS

Chrome 16 managed to beat Firefox 10 in this test by a slight margin. Firefox 10 has made massive improvements when compared to Firefox 9. IE 9 was trailing by biblical proportions in this intensive benchmark.

Google v8

Chrome leads here too, this time by a significant margin of around 2000. Firefox 10 despite its improvements fails to inch closer in this benchmark. Other major browsers do not even come closer to Firefox 10, with Internet Explorer 9 being the slowest of all.

Hardware Stress Test

Due to the absence of hardware accelerated browsing, Opera 11.61 lagged significantly compared to all other browsers. The next major version of the browser though is touted to feature Hardware Acceleration finally.

Real World Metrics: Memory Consumption

The above benchmarks make little sense from a common user's perspective, as the difference is barely in milliseconds. So we decided to aggressively benchmark the Memory and the CPU consumption of these browsers. For this test , we opened in total 10 tabs with the following sites which users would commonly browse.

• YouTube, playing a 360p Video : Flash performance
• OMGUbuntu! and Phoronix (Linux Blog Sites) : for static content
• Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Google Reader , Google Plus Home page. : chosen due to heavy and very dynamic content.
• TechSplurge  Home Page and an article page : WordPress Performance

The results were really astonishing

Firefox 10 left every other browser far behind in the cold with an amazingly low memory consumption of 380 MB, with Firefox 9 and Opera 11 trailing closely. Chrome was the real monster, consuming nearly 1.15 GB of RAM, followed by Internet Explorer 9 at 845 MB. Mozilla definitely deserves the kudos once again for bringing down the memory consumption by massive margins. Chrome despite being really fast, is clearly not the preferred browser when you want your browser to use your limited resources judiciously.

Final Word

Firefox 10 has delivered on many fronts, but it still lags behind Chrome in few benchmarks.
With the browsers improving in performance everyday, it is going to be really interesting to see how Mozilla devs manage to cope up with Google Chrome. While the real challenge for Google Chrome developers would be to bring down the insane levels of memory consumption without the stability and performance taking a hit.

The latter part would be definitely anticipated in the upcoming Chrome 17 release.

Read the article on the Blog: [Browser Showdown] Firefox 10 Brings Massive Performance Improvements, Inches Closer to Chrome
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A Blog on Web 2.0 Apps and Softwares

Reopening closed tabs in browsers is an extremely handy feature especially when you have dozens if not hundreds of tabs open. What if Windows 7 had this feature too? Say you accidentally closed a folder (or an application) you just found after a cumbersome search but now even thinking of searching the folder all over again is really annoying. This is where a new app kicks in.

Enter UndoClose

UndoClose is an extremely light-weighed software which is inspired by the undo close tab functionality found in modern browsers in Windows 7. It is developed in-house by AddictiveTips. The app currently features infinite history and the author says that the memory usage of the app depends upon the number of applications closed in a session.

The beauty of UndoClose lies in the fact that you can reopen the closed apps and explorer windows in the exact same order as you closed them, by using the hot  keys Ctrl+Alt+F and Ctrl+Alt+A for Explorer windows and applications respectively.

Another good thing which it performs as expected is that it sits quietly in the tray and the hotkeys work brilliantly as advertised. Of course you can customise the hotkeys to your preferred key combination as well.

Missing Bits

Although this release is almost perfect and bug free, here is what we found missing and would like to see implemented in the future releases

• It only re-opens closed applications and not the files which were being worked-on within those application before getting accidentally closed. This feature would make it a killer app and we wish the developers take a note of it.
• Lastly, support for Windows Vista and XP would be more than welcome.

It is a portable app so you can carry it anywhere in your USB drive or a portable HDD.

Read the article on the Blog: UndoClose for Windows 7 Reopens Accidentally Closed Applications and Folders
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A Blog on Web 2.0 Apps and Softwares

Graphics cards are often unused for purposes other than gaming. It is not uncommon to wonder how exactly will a graphics card help improve PC performance. Because of this, people often mistake graphics cards as luxury products, and go with the integrated motherboard graphics, missing out with the huge performance boost which they would have obtained with even a mid range graphics card.

In this article, we shed some light into those rarely explored areas, where they come handy in improving the performance of the PC dramatically, taking the load off the CPU in many areas.

Prerequisites

AMD/ATI graphics card owners make sure you have the latest 11.12 or (12.1 Preview Driver) simply because of the amount of bug fixes and performance the newer drivers offer cant be just ignored. When it comes to NVidia, the graphics drivers are best in class , still its better to be in a safer side and use the latest graphics driver.

Video Playback

Read the article on the Blog: Improve Web Browsing and Video Playback Performance by 80% on Windows with GPU Acceleration
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A Blog on Web 2.0 Apps and Softwares

Ever wished to have multiple user accounts on your Android just like in your computer? A new app for Android, Switchme, lets you do that!

It can create multiple profiles (like a guest profile) in your phone which you can switch between anytime. It saves all the information for a particular profile including your applications and data as a file in the memory.

Wondering what is Dalvik? Learn more about it here.

The app, Switchme, is perfect for situations when you wish to give your phone to any of your friends/kids/parents without worrying about any changes that they can make to your phone. Oh yes, if you lead a double life like Dexter, this app was made just for you!

Features

• Profiles can be switched instantly, only a reboot is required.
• A new profile is like a fresh build of Android with default settings, nothing else, as if the phone is being activated for the first time.

• Profiles can be password protected.

The lite version is limited to only two profiles at a time without support for password protection.

Hey Google, can we see a similar feature for multiple accounts implement in Android 5, please?

Read the article on the Blog: Switchme App for Android Lets you Have Multiple User Accounts on your Phone
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A Blog on Web 2.0 Apps and Softwares

iPhone 4S in itself is a style statement and has a lot to offer to keep you entertained. Still, if you are looking for ways to enhance your phone and make it cooler, what better way than get an animated / video wallpaper.

This is the only feature, which Android fans can boast about, since Apple doesn't officially provide this feature. But thanks to the vWallpaper app, the jailbroken iPhone 4S can now get it, leaving Android fans furious

vWallpaper offers the ability to add videos, cool effects (particles, 3D objects), HTML widgets and more on your Springboard and device’s lock screen.

If you still haven't jailbroken your iPhone 4S, this tutorial will help you.

Instructions

1. Navigate to: Cydia >> Manage >> Sources >> Edit >> Add

deb.danstaface.net

2. Now Add source >> Done

i.danstaface.net should now show up in the options.

3. Click on it and look for "vWallpaper 2 for iOS 5"

4. Install it, the phone will restart.

So now that vWallpaper is successfully installed, you can choose your personalized style.

vWallpaper >> Manage current theme

Here are few screenshots from my iPhone 4S

There a host of effects to choose from to completely customize your wallpaper to suit your style. My personal favorites are the ripple effect and the panaroma view(picture follows springboard movements). Hope you like this tweak. You can also use the same tweak for your iPad and iPod Touch.

Read the article on the Blog: vWallpaper Brings Video / Live Wallpapers to your iPhone 4S
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A Blog on Web 2.0 Apps and Softwares

Youtube is the most popular website serving videos online, so much so that it generates about 4 Billion views per day. While its pretty convenient to watch videos online, there are few videos which we like to watch repeatedly; Some people face the problem of slow internet speed, causing issues with buffering. In such cases, downloading the videos is the best alternative.

While there have been many softwares around, some no longer work or some aren't user friendly. So finding the right Windows app for downloading the YouTube video is quite challenging.

We hunted down five best of YouTube Video Downloaders which don't just work brilliantly but are easy to use as well.

YouTube Downloader

Award winning, simple and feature rich, this application is quite old by now but still manages to make it to our list effortlessly.

Notable features include:

• Automatic URL capture
• Inbuilt Video Converter for converting the downloaded videos to various popular formats.
• Clean Interface and Lightweight

Imtoo Download YouTube Video

In short : A step above YouTube Downloader without being too clumsy. The app’s name makes me sad about Imtoo’s creativity though. The app interface is extremely user friendly. A negative aspect is the download speeds seemed to be slightly slower than the rest of the apps tested. Also note that you can not download HD Videos with the free version.

Key features include:

• Inbuilt browser
• Simultaneous Download of Videos
• Intuitive User Interface

A lack of converter is a glaring omission but considering the minimal  features and the functionality of the app, it is worthy of a mention.

Miro

This is my favorite. This app is actually a complete media center which can very well download YouTube videos with minimal fuss. But that's not it, this open source app, can let you download not only from YouTube but also from PBS, Hulu and many more sources. Perhaps this is the only app in the list which can play the YouTube video you just downloaded in a nice Media Center styled interface

• A full fledged media center
• Supports large number of sources apart from YouTube
• Very good support for Podcasts
• Inbuilt Converter which supports many formats
• Acts as a Torrent Client as well

The number of features flaunted by this app is well beyond the scope of a single article. The real beauty of this godsend app is in its completely open source nature, which means no more annoying ads or nagware while you are enjoying your favorite video.

VDownloader

Coming back to the normal downloaders, VDownloader is one of the best available free Video downloader supporting almost all major content providers unlike many video downloaders. VDownloader is very fast and features inbuilt browser as well. The interface is slightly clumsy though. One really cool feature that I found was the ability to search videos and download them in one click as evident in the screenshot below.

Key Features:

• Very fast download speeds
• Ability to search and download videos in one click
• Supports basic format conversion to AVI,VCD,DVD and 3GP
• Inbuilt browser for video downloading
• Multiple YouTube Download support

Overall if you are looking for something more than YouTube Downloader which provides multiple download support and fast transfer rates, VDownloader is a great choice.

Tube Master++

This app is a class of its own, despite the gaudy interface. While others require you to at least launch them and start downloading, TubeMaster++ directly captures the video playing in your browser without you hitting a button. You can rename the files conveniently while you download them, a feature missing in most applications. It also supports various format conversions.

Key Features:

• Direct Capturing from browsers, no user action required
• On the fly conversion to popular Video formats
• Inbuilt Video and Audio Search
• Supports multiple URLs and renaming while downloading
• Lightweight, completely free and open source

TubeMaster++ is a really good video downloader void of any sort of adware and the video capturing works brilliantly with minimum user intervention.

Please feel free to share your favorite downloader!

Read the article on the Blog: Best Five Free YouTube Downloader Software for Windows
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A Blog on Web 2.0 Apps and Softwares

Good news for iPhone 4S and iPad 2 owners. The much awaited untethered jailbreak for A5 devices is finally here.

This comes with the hard work put together by the Chronic Dev Team who are known for making Greenpois0n, the utility is called Absinthe A5.

Without much ado, let me lead you to the download links of the Absinthe for iPhone 4S and iPad 2

Windows & Linux versions are yet to be released, we will keep you updated.

Compatibility:

iPhone 4S: iOS 5.0 (9A334) and both builds of iOS 5.0.1 (9A405, 9A406)
iPad 2 Wi-Fi, GSM, CDMA: iOS 5.0.1

Please Note

Be sure to backup your iPhone or iPad.
This is still an early release so could have some bugs.
The Dev Team warns iPhone 4S users who want a software unlock to stay on iOS 5.0 or build 9A405 of iOS 5.0.1. There is no expected release of an accompanying software unlock.

Read the article on the Blog: Wait is Finally Over! Download Absinthe Untethered Jailbreak for iPhone 4S & iPad 2 [Download Links]
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A Blog on Web 2.0 Apps and Softwares

Wikipedia, the largest encyclopaedia known to the mankind containing more than 20 million articles in 280+ languages, has released it’s official application for Android. The application UI (user interface) is pretty sleek and very neat and packs in a bunch of features.

The app is more convenient to use than using Wikipedia's web-page, though there are few good un-official apps for Wikipedia in the market too, Wiki Encyclopedia and Wapedia being the good ones. Apart from few areas where the official app lacks, there are still many features that make it stand-out from others.

Few Handy Features

• Articles can be saved for offline reading
  Good for those times when internet connectivity is not available).
• Search nearby articles
  Very helpful when you’re travelling to a new city and want to explore the nearby landmarks/places etc.
• Read articles in different languages.

What’s Missing

• Integration with Google search. As a regular user of the search widget, I really want this feature.
• Support for accounts
• Lack of editing support for article editors

Read the article on the Blog: Official Wikipedia App for Android Released, Get it Now
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A Blog on Web 2.0 Apps and Softwares

I am one of those lucky few who got my hands on the Firesale of HP TouchPad. Though WebOS is a great operating system, it lack of many apps and an uncertain future are the major concerns. I had begun to doubt my decision of buying TouchPad.

Though HP had offered support to developers for bringing Android to TouchPad, it was more of a verbal support in the past. But since webOS became Open Source, the work really caught up pace.

As always, CyanogenMod were the ones to make the most out of this. They initially teased us with a sneak preview of a TouchPad running Android Ice Cream Sandwich. Today they have released the codes to install CM 9 on your touchpad which brings ICS to your TP. So it's a great news for all the TP and Android fans.

Though CM7 was successful in bringing Android to TP, but those android versions, unlike ICS, weren't really tablet friendly. Most of the features of ICS are working on CM9, I have mentioned the ones that don't work at the end of this post.

Without further ado, let me take you through a quick tutorial to install CM 9 on your TouchPad.

1) Download the necessary Files

First you need to download 4 important files. (found at rootzwiki)

New ACMEInstaller(do not use old installer with CM9):

http://goo.gl/wMsMK

md5: e0664157ed69f8999e1c3ee77cdc53ae

Clockwork Recovery:

http://goo.gl/WJIKw

md5: 1308300f38685d44afde730efd9132cc

Moboot:

http://code.google.c.../downloads/list

Alpha0 CM9 for Touchpad:

Mirror1: http://goo.gl/OIMNl

Mirror2: http://goo.gl/uYrWX

md5: 8e0e56d67bf8d24df0792fc3d4c4fd6b

2) Install Novacom Drivers

I recommend installing the Universal Novacom Driver that can be found here , you can also install the full webOS SDK supplied by HP.

Now copy ACMEInstaller file to

Drive(C) >> Program Files >> Palm, Inc

3) Connect your TP to your PC in USB mode and Create a folder on your TP named "cminstall"

4) Copy the 3 files (Alpha0 CM9,Clockwork Recovery,Moboot) to "cminstall"

5) Eject your TP (right click on the drive and select Eject)

6) Go to setting and have your TP restarted.

As soon as the restart process starts (flashing circle appears) hold the Volume UP button, don’t let go until you see a big USB symbol on tablet's display.

This makes your TP USB bootable.

Now wait while the novacom installs the drivers for the device.

7) Once successfully installed, open CMD (command prompt)

Now go to the folder:- Palm, Inc where we saved the ACMEInstaller

So finally you should be in this directory:-

C:\\Program Files\\Palm, Inc>

Type this command:-

novacom boot mem:// <ACMEInstaller

This command initiates the installation process on the Touchpad.

And you are good to go!

Wait while the installation completes and ICS should start after reboot.

The first boot may take a while and it way reboot 2-3 times as well (Don't panic).

What's Not Working

As I said previously, most of the features of ICS work fine, here are a few of those which don't work.

• Netflix
• YouTube works only in non-HD videos.
• Audio has few issues and the microphone does not work.
• Camera
• Market filters prevent some apps from being installed
• Gapps intended for CM7/Gingerbread will not work in CM9/ICS
• USB file transfers use MTP or PTP in Ice Cream Sandwich and Honeycomb.

But I am sure no-one is complaining! Have fun

I will leave you with a few screenshots I took of my own TP.

With ICS on TP, I am glad I bought it during the firesale!

Read the article on the Blog: Noobs Guide to install CyanogenMod 9 (Android ICS) on HP TouchPad in 7 Easy Steps
More Tech Related Articles: TechSplurge - A Blog on Web 2.0 Apps and Softwares