top of page

Online Pointers For Your Consideration

  • Writer: tebowingwithkimkar
    tebowingwithkimkar
  • Feb 16, 2018
  • 8 min read

The biggest book sale in the world is now in Manila

In case you're a book lover and you haven't heard, there's a ongoing massive book fair called Big Bad Wolf which started on Feb. 16 and ending on the 25th at the World Trade Center in Pasay. The event is touted as the biggest book sale in the world offering discounts of up to 80% on over two million books from various genres, including classic novels, literary fiction, sci-fi, children’s books, young-adult literature, and nonfiction. The paperbacks and hardcover book prices start at P190. The new books on offer here are at least a year old. There’s a customer storage area, so when your cart is full you can deposit your books and go back for more. This book fest is being held for the first time in the Philippines and a unique thing about it besides being the biggest ever book sale is it is open 24 hours (you can go in as early as 4 AM and as late as 11 PM). Awesome, right? You could go there during the wee hours so there would be less bargain hunters there AND it would not be so HOT. The Mall of Asia is not too far from the venue too. Entrance is free. Do wear your COMFIEST pair of gym shoes.

JULY 7, 2017

The lawsuit filed against Facebook by plaintiffs accusing the social media giant of violating federal and state privacy and wiretapping laws was dismissed recently. This adds to the increasing concerns of netizens surrounding Facebook's handling of sensitive information and off-site tracking. The plaintiffs claimed Facebook stored cookies on users' browsers allowing them to track activity on websites containing the “Like” button even after they logged out of Facebook.

The reason for the dismissal of the case was the plaintiffs didn’t show a reasonable expectation of privacy or any ‘realistic’ economic harm.

“Facebook’s intrusion could have been easily blocked, but plaintiffs chose not to do so,” said District Judge Edward Davilla, adding that steps could be taken to keep browsing histories private by installing plug-ins or using incognito mode.

This is not the first time Facebook has encountered privacy concerns. In 2011 it was discovered that Facebook tracked users' web browsing after they had logged off; the company explained that it was simply a safety measure.

Here’s how you can protect yourself from Facebook-related privacy violations in the future:

1) Opt out of interest-based advertising: Since 2014, Facebook uses web-browsing data for targeted advertising. Here’s how you can opt out in user settings:

2) Install a VPN: A VPN will disguise your Internet traffic and encrypts your information making it unreadable to anyone else. Although there is an array of VPN providers, it would be wiser to choose from the paid options like NordVPN, KeepSolid or TunnelBear. However, VPNs tend to reduce Internet speeds.

3) Block third-party cookies:

Chrome

Go to Settings, then Advanced. Under Privacy and Security, click on Content Settings and then Cookies. Add “facebook.com” under ‘Block’.

Firefox

Go to Menu, choose Preferences. Uncheck ‘Accept Cookies’ to disable them.

4. Install these extensions:

Chrome

This extension encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure. HTTPS Everywhere is an extension created by EFF and the Tor Project which automatically switches thousands of sites from insecure "http" to secure "https". By switching from http to https, the communication (transport) is encrypted. EFF is a highly respected organization dedicated to protecting privacy in electronic communications. It would be against their interests to jeopardize people's privacy through their products. This extension will protect you against many forms of surveillance and account hijacking, and some forms of censorship. HTTPS connection will only work if the site has HTTPS certificate installed. HTTPS Everywhere depends entirely on the security features of the individual web sites that you use; it activates those security features, but it can't create them if they don't already exist.

No need to use this if you are behind a VPN.

As far as Google is concerned, unencrypted HTTP web connections should be nearing the end of the road. In 2014 at the I/O conference, it declared “HTTPS everywhere” as a security priority for all web traffic, followed in 2015 by the decision to downrank plain HTTP URLs in search results in favor of ones using HTTPS (where the latter was available). A year ago, it started labeling sites offering logins or collecting credit cards without HTTPS as ‘not secure’. In a symbolic moment, it has now confirmed that with the release of Chrome 68 in July, this label will be applied to all websites not using HTTPS.

It’s a small change that streamlines the slightly confusing way Chrome denotes the presence or absence of HTTPS in address bars. From July, the ambiguous grey ‘i’ icon used to tag many non-HTTPS sites today will be supplemented by a clearer ‘not secure’ label. This will look like this:

HTTP sites only have about 4 months to switch to HTTPS (starting from Mar. 2018).

B. Browsec VPN

Browsec encrypts your traffic and routes it through their secure cloud network. No one will be able to identify, track you or sniff your traffic. It hides your real location from the sites you visit.

This controls your cookies. It auto-deletes unused cookies from your closed tabs while keeping the ones you want. If you just logged out of Facebook, always remember to close the page or tab or browser that you were using to access Facebook. This extension will automatically delete the cookies that Facebook created in your browser cache.

D. Self-Destructing Cookies

This extension deletes cookies when browser is closed or once the tab is closed to prevent tracking. This extension supports 2 modes to deal with cookies:

1. "session" mode: delete cookies once the current session is closed (all browser windows are closed).

2. "tabs" mode: delete cookies related to the current tab once the tab is closed and there are no other tabs of the same domain.

Some of the above extensions are also available in Firefox & Opera.

Disposable Email Providers

It's pretty easy for most websites to detect whether an email address is temporary or not. When websites know your email address is the disposable kind or temporary, they can block you from signing up with their services.

Maze Runner: The Death Cure

This movie concludes the Maze Runner trilogy. Before you decide to buy a ticket to this movie, lemme just warn you this is definitely not an Oscar contender by any stretch. If you are expecting an artsy fartsy movie or a film with some intellectual or dramatic depth, go choose another movie. This flick is more of a popcorn movie than anything ... lots of kick-a$$ action, guns blazing and huge explosions ... you know, a fun-to-watch movie that most guys love to watch. Gone are the days when movies were meant to just entertain, not intellectualize their purpose. The ticket sales of this movie surpassed the first two movies in its trilogy.

Successful Black Movies

These movies obliterate the Hollywood myth that “black films don’t travel.”

Moonlight

This movie, about a young, gay black man growing up in an impoverished Miami neighborhood, had only made more than $27.8 million domestically and $37.4 million internationally. But it reportedly cost only as little as $1.5 million to make. And to top these figures, it won "Best Picture" of the year at the Oscars. "Moonlight" never received a wide theatrical release after hitting theaters in October 2016, topping out at around 1,100 theaters in the U.S. only.

Get Out

This movie is the most profitable film of 2017. "Get Out" was made with a budget of only $4.5 million, and has grossed over a massive $252 million worldwide. "Get Out" was made with no A-list stars. Its male lead was played by Daniel Kaluuya, a British actor largely unknown in America.

Hidden Figures

"Hidden Figures" has crossed the $235 million mark at the worldwide box office. It is important and inspiring that "Hidden Figures" is a U.S. box office smash. It beat every Denzel Washington flicks save for "American Gangster". “Hidden Figures” has topped Disney-Lucas film’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” by about $700,000 for the No. 1 spot at the North American box office. This film follows a group of pioneering African-American women in the early days of the American space program.

Black Panther

This Disney/Marvel movie has grossed an estimated $900M globally. This movie made so much money in Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, demonstrating the strong appetite in South East Asia despite initial concerns. Take note that the gross ticket sales does not include CHINA yet where it opens this week (week of Mar. 4, 2018). The advanced ticket sales is currently at the level achieved by "Spider-Man: Homecoming" (opened to $71M last September). And ... HOLY COW! ... the movie will hit 510 IMAX screens there. Filipino film producers should be marketing their crappy movies there with such a HUMONGOUS market. Pero baka di nila pansinin doon. HAHAH!

DNS Servers

A DNS server is the device that translates the address of the website (also known as the URL) you want to access (ex: http://www.google.com) using your browser to its IP address which consists of 4 numbers separated by dots. Most internet service providers (ISP) operate their own DNS servers. Some DNS servers may provide faster access times than others.

One reason you might want to change the DNS servers assigned by your ISP is if you suspect there's a problem with the ones you're using now. An easy way to test for a DNS server issue is by typing a website's IP address into the browser. If you can reach the website with the IP address, but not the name (or URL), then the DNS server is likely having issues.

Another reason to change DNS servers is if you're looking for a better performing service. Many people complain that their ISP-maintained DNS servers are sluggish and contribute to a slower overall browsing experience.

Another increasingly common reason to use third-party DNS servers is to prevent logging of your web activity and to circumvent the blocking of certain websites. Google DNS DNS 1: 8.8.8.8 DNS 2: 8.8.4.4

Google also has IPv6 public DNS servers: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and 2001:4860:4860::8844.

OpenDNS

DNS 1: 208.67.222.222

DNS 2: 208.67.220.220

Norton DNS

DNS 1: 198.153.192.50

DNS 2: 198.153.194.50

Globe Telecom has the following DNS that you can test:

202.52.163.6

202.52.163.7 202.52.162.39 (ns1.globeidc.com.ph) 202.52.162.40 (ns1.globeidc.com.ph) 202.52.167.70 202.52.167.71 203.127.225.10 (g-net.globe.com.ph) 203.127.225.11 (g-net1.globe.com.ph)

PLDT has the ff. DNS you can try:

210.14.4.37

112.206.232.66 119.92.150.133 122.52.136.140 119.92.233.159 58.69.254.3/58.69.254.8

Smart Bro has their own DNS as well:

121.1.3.81 202.57.96.3

Here’s for Sky Cable: 202.78.64.83/202.78.64.84

This page lists all the emojis you can use anywhere on the internet. Enjoy!

How to keep Google from redirecting to your local Google homepage

When you're using a proxy server to get around geolocation restrictions of certain websites, like Pandora or Netflix or Hulu, and you try to search using Google, your browser will take you to a local Google search page based on the location of the proxy you are using. Hence, if your proxy is in Germany, your browser will take you to Google in Germany which will be written in German. To access Google Search without this annoying redirect, go instead to http://www.google.com/ncr. Anytime you visit this page, you’ll be taken to Google.com. The “ncr” at the end of the address stands for “No Country Redirect” so if you attach this on Google's URL, Google won’t geolocate your Google homepage based on your IP address. Bookmark it or put a link to it on your browser's Bookmarks Bar. Note: If you delete your cache or cookies, you'll need to bookmark the link again.

SOURCES 1. A List of Free and Public DNS Servers. (2018). Lifewire. Retrieved 16 February 2018, from https://www.lifewire.com/free-and-public-dns-servers-2626062

2. The biggest book sale in the world is now in Manila. (2018). cnn. Retrieved 18 February 2018, from http://cnnphilippines.com/life/culture/literature/2018/02/15/big-bad-wolf-book-sale.html

3. Palmer, M., & Palmer, M. (2017). How to prevent Facebook from tracking your browser history. immunizeNet. Retrieved 4 March 2018, from https://www.immunizenet.com/news-alerts/2017/7/7/how-to-prevent-facebook-from-tracking-your-browser-history

4. Dunn, J., & Dunn, J. (2018). You have five months to switch your website to HTTPS. Naked Security. Retrieved 5 March 2018, from https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2018/02/12/you-have-five-months-to-switch-your-website-to-https/


 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page