Category: Useful Applications & Tips

[New App] Most popular windows malware detection tool Malwarebytes now available for android
One of the most popular dedicated anti-malware suite for windows now debuts for android smartphones to protect your most precious gadget that you keep along with you whereever you go. It’s about time that android environment has a dedicated malware detection tool that can protect your smartphone against any intrusion.

However, according to Google only 1 of the 100th app is actually capable of carrying malware to your android gadget by envading buit-in defenses in both android and Google Play store.

In addition to updating the protection database automatically, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Mobile proactively scans third-party applications and files for malware and spyware, and comes equipped with a number of features that identify and close potential security vulnerabilities.

Additional security features found in Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Mobile include:
- Privacy Manager, which collects and categorizes what personal information is being accessed from third-party apps and breaks down access privileges in detail, so you can track what apps are using unauthorized personal data or costing you money by employing premium services without your knowledge.
- Security Audit, which flags security vulnerabilities, like GPS tracking and unsecured WiFi, and suggests steps to close them.
- Application Manager, which identifies what applications are currently running or installed and their CPU usage so you can terminate non-essential operations to conserve battery life and system resources, and to identify unauthorized applications.
[Download Malwarebytes from Google Play]
October 16, 2013
[How To] revoke permission from Google to use your name and face in advertisements

If you are a regular user of DigitFreak, you must have heard about the Google’s recent ‘Privacy Policy’ update? If you didn’t — there is something you should know about.

Starting from 11th November, Google will be able to legally use your face (profile picture) and name (account name) for commercial purposes — why? because, you have agreed to the Terms and policies when you happily check the boxes and click on ‘continue’ while signing up your brand new account!

See Also: Don’t fret if you see your friends face on Google Ads – Its just a new policy!

When you are the one searching for some products then it’s highly likely that you will see the recommendation of some of our friends. If you don’t want to appear on one of the advertisements from Google when your friends are searching for the similar product you like or commented on — you can simply opt-out of it.

While you might be afraid of this tutorial to be a long list of really frustrating instructions, It is ridiculously simple. Literally, it’s just two clicks away.

Instructions:

1. Click this link. (And, if necessary, log into the Google. I promise that’s a link to actual Google, not fake Google that steals your password and uses it to order handbags.)

2. Uncheck the check box. Unless it’s already unchecked — in which case, leave it unchecked. Oddly, some people are saying they’re opted out by default; others say they find it checked. TL;dr: check = bad.

3. Hit save!

October 13, 2013
[How To] auto-mount partition at boot in Ubuntu | Pysdm alternative

Ubuntu (A Linux Distribution) handles partitions differently than Windows Operating system. It is more tightly integrated and securely packed environment and handles the user interaction in more precise manner by executing only necessary commands and performing useful tasks without clogging up the system.

One of these steps taken by Ubuntu or any other Linux operating system is — mounting only root drive (the one where Ubuntu has been installed) at the boot. If you want to access any other partition, you’ll need to mount that partition manually from the file browser. It is very useful when you don’t want any intruder to access all your data, but sometimes it proves to be very frustrating.

Previously, We could use the GUI like “mount manager” or “pysdm” to automatically mount the partitions at boot on Ubuntu 12.10 and below, but due to lack of support and maintenance Ubuntu community removed the package from the repository altogether and this is the good thing. pysdm and other mounting GUI applications are known to cause issues to the system and many users reported the same.

You don’t need to be worried, we are always here to help you out. The method is as easy as you used to accomplish the same task by GUI application, but it is easier than other manual methods to mount the partition.

Instructions:

1. First you need to find out the uuid (universally unique identifier) of the partitions you want to automount. To do so, you can use the following command in terminal:

ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid

You’ll get the output like this:

2. To Find out the partition you want to automount – simply open “Disks” utility and select the partition you want to mount. (See screenshot):

3. Now open startup applications from the “unity dash” and add the following command to your startup application window. Replace “500D4BE5454B55ED” with your own UUID from the terminal as mentioned above.

/usr/bin/udisks –mount /dev/disk/by-uuid/500D4BE5454B55ED

(Screenshot):

4. Click on close. and restart your system. Next time when you boot Ubuntu, you’ll find the partition mounted automatically.

October 12, 2013
[How To] trace the IP address of a website
Usually, You certainly don’t want to know the hidden IP address of a website, because it is too difficult to remember the long numeric address which leads to the information you sought on the internet. However, there are few cases where IP address of a website plays a crucial role.

For instance, if due to some reason website’s DNS server is unable to link the IP address to the domain name, you cannot reach the website without knowing the IP address or,

if you are migrating your website to the new web server and updated the nameserver for the same, you might not be able to see files until your DNS information has been propagated globally. To access the data on the new server temporarily you’ll have to use the IP address to make sure your website is working properly and files has been migrated as they should.

Whatever is the case, we are here to help you determine the IP address of the website you want to gain access to — just follow the simple tutorial below.

Instructions:

1Simple “tracert” command

If you’re using a windows OS powered computer, you can simply perform a “tracert” in the command prompt. traceroute is a computer network diagnostic tool for displaying the route (path) and measuring transit delays of packets across an Internet Protocol (IP) network. I prefer “tracert” or “traceroute” to detect the IP address over “ping” command because it provide more detailed information and I like the way the information is displayed on the command prompt/terminal window.
- Press Window+R > type “cmd” > Enter
- In the Command prompt type – “tracert -h 10 digitfreak.com” or “traceroute -m 10 digitfreak.com” on linux system (without quotes and replace digitfreak.com with the domain address you want to look up).
- The first IP adress displayed beside the domain name is the one you need.
2Web application

If you are not into all that do not rely on others thing, you would probably like to stick with the third party services. There are plenty of IP lookup services that is capable of performing the job we are seeking. It’s upto your personal taste to select one of the web services that you personally think is best suitable for your interest. Personally, I like who.is domain lookup website.
- Just Go To > www.who.is
- Enter the name of the website you want to search.
- The search result will return the detailed information of the website, including whois lookup, website information, DNS records and diagnostics.
- Don’t get distracted. We are looking for the IP address and you can find it under the “site status” block (see screenshot below)
There are certainly many different ways to determine the IP address of a website, but we only need to get our work done and neglect the other detailed information or methods that can give the similar results.

If you have other favorite method to trace the IP address of the website, simply mention it in comments. Maybe we will include it in this article.
October 5, 2013
5 Apps that has been redesigned to use Apple’s new 64-bit processor

Apple released the new iDevice few days ago, and it does power some unique technology that could be sought to the mainstream cautiously by Apple once again. The new iPhone 5S is packed with two amazing features – “fingerprint ID scanner” and world’s first “64-bit A7 CPU” on the smartphone.

While most of the people won’t see any visible benefits of the new CPU, but it can certainly improve the performance by distributing the application thresholds efficiently. There is only a handful of applications that benefits from the 64-bit architecture of the processor.

See Also: Apple announced iPhone 5S, Is it better than iPhone 5? [Specs]

Apple is pretty confident about the performance of their new CPU which is complemented with their new M7 sensor — together performs all the magic we see on the iPhone. Apparently we got to know that Apple’s A7 64-bit processor was actually manufactured by the furious rival “Samsung”.

See Also: Apple A7 64bit chip was actually built by Samsung

The new iPhone 5S features cortex A7 64-bit chip, which is claimed to be twice as fast as the previous generation of the gadget. Apple attached a new sensor to the device – “motion coprocessor,” that determines whether the owner of the device is stationary or in motion (like walking, driving, sprinting etc.), which could be very useful for the app developers.

So, which of the top apps really benefited from the Apple’s new CPU? We have a small list of random ones here:

1. Infinity Blade III ($4.99)

Infinity Blade III is one of the most loved games on the iPhone, and the latest release looks incredible on an iPhone 5S. The game now has full-screen anti-aliasing, full-screen vignettes, high-resolution shadows, and environmental reflections. The developers made a few other improvements to cut down on loading times, too.

2. 123D creature show

With 123D Creature Show, also made by graphics powerhouse Autodesk, you can take 3D models of, well, various creatures and pose them on top of your own photos. The app uses the A7 processor as if it were a chip inside a full desktop workstation rather than a mobile phone to pull off some pretty complex posing and deformation calculations.

3. Total Conquest

Gameloft’s Total Conquest is a social strategy game about the Roman Empire, and it’s been updated to make use of the 64-bit power of the A7 for graphics. A fire effect in battle mode has been enhanced, for example, and you’ll find some animated semi-transparent clouds that you can move through as you zoom in and out.

4. Pixlr Express Plus

Count on Autodesk (known for its professional-grade software applications in design and graphic arts) to make use of the A7 processor with an image editing app. Pixlr Express Plus lets you edit images right on your phone but with tools that make the experience comparable to using a desktop application. The number of editing tools is remarkable, and the precision with which they work is astounding. There are simple buttons for whitening teeth and removing red-eye, but the most exciting ones can balance colours or lighter areas of an image that were cast in shadow. Very cool.

5. djay 2 for iPhone ($1.99)

The next generation of the world’s best-selling iOS DJ software and winner of the Apple Design Award has been redesigned from the ground up to match the iPhone 5S standards. The app has been optimized for the new A7 processor on iPhone 5S, fully leveraging the new 64-bit architecture.

October 5, 2013
5 things you should do to improve your iOS7’s battery life

Apple’s new iOS 7 was released publicly few weeks ago, but it has been a tremendous pain if we count it in the discussion of battery performance.

There’s no doubt iOS 7 is an amazing improvement over its predecessors by offering fabulous features and crazy new options to interact with the device. New gesture based techniques and wireless data transfer mechanism keep us stunned every time we use them.

No matter how much if hate it for few things that went wrong, you still don’t want to go back to the same old chunky, fat and boring OS that has been exactly the same since the beginning.

See Also: 5 things about iOS7 that you’ll hate and how to fix them

So, what actually making the iOS 7 ‘wanna’ go back to the iOS 6.1? You guessed it! As discovered by Ars Technica, iOS 7 kills battery life faster than iOS 6.1 on every device you can use it on. Here are some tips to keep you happy.

1. Turn Off Parallax and motion

Do you love your new iOS 7 right? It got all those funky moves and 3D user interface that gives you a new feel and for the first time a new environment to work upon. But, these effects and animations sucks juice from your battery. We don’t actually need to turn it off completely, but you can reduce the effects to minimize the parallax usage.

Go To Settings > General > Accessibility > Toggle Reduce Motion.

It will stop the parallax effect, and you will notice some minor battery improvements.

If you have noticed, the new moving backgrounds that iOS 7 offers are super cool, but they will totally kill your battery. To change your iPhone’s wallpaper, just

Go to Settings > then Wallpapers & Brightness. Try out one of the beautiful new static wallpapers or use a photo of your own.

2. Tell iOS 7 exactly what to index for spotlight

iOS 7 enables users to search for anything from the home screen of your phone, with the new gesture-enabled “spotlight” feature. As the name suggests, the spotlight can help you search pretty much every part of your phone, from notes to music, to mail by simply activating it from the pull-down gesture on your home screen. Convenient right? but, it sucks battery because searching and indexing data requires high processing power, and thus reducing the battery juice.

So, what really you can do to minimize this? Fortunately, you can change exactly what Spotlight looks in when you use it for search.

Go to Settings > General > Spotlight Search

You can specify what you want to index and search for.

3.Turn Off Bluetooth, Airdrop and WiFi whenever not in use

It is a general suggestion to turn off your Bluetooth, WiFi, and other non-frequent mobile modules to save some battery juice. You can keep these features turned off when not in use – and yes, you can live with it.

iOS 7 also introduced a new Airdrop feature that allows you to quickly and easily share files with your friends’ iPhone. This is only available for iPhone 5 and newer. It is a great feature, but you don’t need to keep it on when you’re not using it. It’s not like the girl sitting beside you in a public transport is going to share some awesome shots with you. Just, minimize the chances of sharing unwanted stuff and still keeping your phone battery up to the par by simply turning it off when not in use.

If you are a lazy one, Apple has introduced a new Control Center that you can activate by simply applying the “pull up” gesture from the bottom of your screen. It has most basic functions listed to be toggled, with ease.

4.Turn you brightness down and disable Auto Downloads

This is a classic way to save battery life, and it’s been made even easier with iOS 7. Instead of going through Settings to get to your brightness, you can change your screen’s brightness from the Control Center. Just pull up from the bottom of any screen.

Your iPhone now downloads app updates from the App Store automatically, draining your battery. This feature also automatically downloads purchases from iTunes and the App Store you’ve made on different devices to your iPhone, which you may not want. To stop this and just update your apps and music manually:

Go to Settings > iTunes & App Store > and scroll to Automatic Downloads. There you can turn Automatic Downloads off for music, apps and books.

5. Turn Off Frequent Locations

Your iOS 7 powered device now tracks your every move to “provide locations related information.” It might be useful for some, but I always prefer to minimize the tracking events by my digital devices. I am sure most of the DigitFreak followers believes the same.

Tracking your device and location, drains the battery and yet it is not very much beneficial for you unless you are a sole traveler and are really keen to know your history of daily activities.

Go to Settings > Privacy > then Location Services. There, scroll all the way to the bottom and hit System Services.

There you can also turn off Location Based iAds (ads from Apple based on your frequent locations). Then go to Frequent Locations and turn that off, too.

October 2, 2013