These Free Chrome Extensions Are Exactly What You Need

Chrome is one of the most widely used internet browsers and users are always looking for ways to make their experience on Chrome better. One of the best things about Chrome is that it is very flexible as it allows third-party extensions to be used with ease. However, finding good extensions isn't always easy. Below you will find some Chrome hacks that will completely change the way you use Chrome. The best part about all of these extensions is that they're completely free!

Sunrise Calendar

Google Calendar is free and very powerful, but it's a little dull in the aesthetics department and is also missing some pretty important features. The Sunrise Calendar extension fixes both of these problems. In addition to that, it also comes with a mobile companion app for iOS and Android that could be better than the actual extension.

Calculator

Some Chrome extensions are complicated, but the best ones don't have to be. Calculator for Chrome is probably one of the most useful Chrome extensions out there. No longer will you have to use the calculator on your smartphone or open a separate calculator app on your desktop every single time you need to add up some numbers.

NEnhancer

Netflix is the most popular video streaming service around today. You use it all the time, your mom uses it all the time, practically every single person you know uses it all the time, but there are ways to make the service even better, especially on Chrome. NEhancer is a free Chrome extension that adds a lot of key information onto Netflix's website for TV shows and movies. This information includes things like trailers, Rotten Tomato ratings, IMDb info and a lot more.

WorkFlowy

WorkFlowy is the ultimate list extension for Chrome. WorkFlowy is, according to its creator, "simple enough for a shopping list, and powerful enough to run a company." The key features include infinitely nested lists, tag and filter list items, full offline functionality, collaboration with others with live syncing, click to edit, mark items as complete, zoom in on any sub-list, works on phones and tablets with live syncing between devices, automatic syncing between your phone, tablet and computer, add notes to any list item, quick expand and collapse lists, and instant full text search.

Criptext for Gmail

Criptext is a very comprehensive Gmail enhancement that adds a lot of important features to your Gmail experience. Almost everyone uses Gmail these days so extensions like Criptext are pretty handy. Criptext allows users to un-send emails before or after they've been read with the click of a button. In addition to that, they can also send self-destructing emails and attachments Mission Impossible style. Moreover, Criptext allows you to attach secure files up to 100MB in size and know exactly when emails are opened and when attachments are downloaded.

These are just a few of the Google Chrome hacks that are available for your internet browser. These extensions help make things easier and more manageable and add a lot of benefits to using Chrome. If you want to make what is arguably the best internet browser out there even better then take a look at some of these awesome extensions.

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Internet Access Shut Down In Most of Syria

According to Renesys, a service that focuses on monitoring Internet connectivity, due to the civil unrest that is going on in Syria, most of the country’s Internet services have been shut down.

According to a blog post that was posted by Renesys on Friday, June 3 at approximately 6:35 a.m. local time, close to two-thirds of the entire country’s networks were disabled. The company said that “over the course of roughly half an hour, the routes to 40 of 59 networks were withdrawn from the global routing table."

Unfortunately for Syrians, most of their Internet access is brought to them by a company called SyriaTel, which is state-owned. "They buy most of their Internet transit from Turk Telekom and Deutsche Telekom, with some contribution from PCCW, Tata, and Telecom Italia," Renesys said. "Connectivity has historically come in over submarine cable from Cyprus; activation of new terrestrial fiber connections to Turkey have been delayed by this year's political unrest."

Well, what about the other third of the networks, some might ask? Unfortunately, Renesys said that all of those connections belong to the Syrian government. Of course the country’s Oil Ministry Web site is still online, as is Syrian Telecom’s official page, but government sites like the Ministry of Education, the Damascus city government page and the Syrian Customs site are all down.

Although Renesys had lots of great information, they did not have any evidence of what specific regions or cities were affected by the outages or how the massive outage was coordinated; however, they did say that "if Egypt and Libya's Internet outages are any guide, one might conclude that events on the streets in Syria are reaching a tipping point."

Google confirmed the outages in Syria via its Twitter account, tweeting on Friday afternoon: "Google services currently blocked in Syria."

For months the citizens of Syria of have been protesting against the conditions of their country, but according the Washington Post, the real turning point for everything was this past Wednesday. The Post reports that more than 300 opponents of the current Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, held a meeting at a hotel in Turkey to discuss what their next move should be. According to the Post, "It was significant that the government's opponents were finally coming together to try to present a united front to a world that remains skeptical about the Syrian protest movement."

Just this past February, there were reports that the Syrian government was planning to lift the then current bans on YouTube and Facebook. These bans had been present for over four years and were supposed to be lifted due to the “popular upheaval” about the situation.

In the past year, there has been plenty of civil unrest around the globe. Protest and violence exploded in the Middle East in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria. In January Internet services went down in Egypt for a couple days, due to the protests concerning the country’s governmental issues, including the nearly 30-year rule of its “President” Hosni Mubarak. In March Internet services were also disabled in Libya due to similar issues and protests.

The outages in Syria, however, ironically occurred on the same day that the United Nations released its Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression. Frank La Rue’s report discussed the recent increase of governmental restriction on the flow of online information. He noted that this was mostly due to the Internet’s ability to unite individuals together in protest of something; however, in his report he encouraged governments to not restrict their country’s citizens' Web usage. He instead asked them to work on developing a plan that would make the Internet widely available, accessible and affordable to all.

"There should be as little restriction as possible to the flow of information via the Internet, except in a few, very exceptional, and limited circumstances prescribed by international human rights law," La Rue said in a statement.

"The report by the Special Rapporteur raises concerns about justifying broad surveillance powers under the name of national security or counter-terrorism," said the U.S.-based Electronic Frontier Foundation in a statement. "La Rue should be commended for questioning the ostensible motives for online surveillance."

"As Rapporteur La Rue affirms, the Internet's unique ability to provide ample space for individual free expression can lead to the strengthening of other human rights, including political, economic and social rights," said Cynthia Wong, the Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Project on Global Internet Freedom. "In order for these rights to be realized, governments, civil society and industry must all continue to build on the work begun by the Special Rapporteur."

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Keeping Your Child Safe Online

Kids are getting online more than ever these days, especially those who are into social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. I've seen kids as young as six or seven years old with Facebook accounts. While these websites can be fun, they can also be dangerous if they fall into the wrong hands and as a parent, it's your duty to make sure your child know the risks and how to protect themselves from harm's way.

Kids love to get online and are often more knowledgeable than their parents and teachers. That's why it's important that parents and teachers should take steps to learn about what's happening online and what their kids are involved with. Kids left to their own devices could end up in a number of troublesome situations, from dealing with a cyber-bully or a schoolmate with ill intent, to facing child predators or even con artists.

Communication is important. Talk to your kids about what they're doing online and remind them of the danger they could face and what to be on the lookout for. But there are other things to do to keep your kids safe.

1. Take advantage of parental controls. Children don't want their parents watching every move they make but many websites offers ways for parents to monitor or control their children's online activity while respecting their privacy. Talk to your kids about exactly what you plan to monitor or control and be honest with them to gain their respect.

2. Keep your computer in an area of the house where you can be there to keep an eye out, without hovering over your child's shoulder. Insist computers stay in the kitchen or living room and not in a bedroom or office, where your child can lock themselves away to get online.

3. Don't allow your children to meet random strangers whom they've met online. In the event your child absolutely has to meet someone, make sure a parents or trusted adult accompanies them. Make sure your children know the potential risks of someone not really being who they say they are.

4. Make sure you know the "code" your kids are using online. Acronyms such as "TAW" means teachers are watching and "PA" means parent alert. There are dozens of other ways kids use code to let their online friends know there is an adult around. If you see these frequently, you may want to investigate further what your child is doing.

4. Make sure your child's teacher is monitoring their online usage. Many schools have blocked certain websites but with kids' knowledge of the web, they can find other ways to get into trouble. With computers in almost every classroom these days, teachers should constantly monitor their students' use. If a student is clicking out of a window when you walk by or a group has gathered around one computer screen, chances are, your students are not doing what they should be.

5. Let your child know that they do not have to feel uncomfortable having a conversation online, just as in real life. Whether it's a friend or stranger they're talking to, make sure they know that feeling scared, trapped, threatened, or offended is not OK and it is OK to end that conversation. Talk to them about how they can end the conversation promptly and let them know they can talk to you about how they feel.

6. If you do set up a Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or other social networking website, make sure your child is taking advantage of the privacy settings. Make sure your kids are only adding friends who aren't safe to talk to and keep an eye out for anything suspicious.

7. Make your children aware of malicious information, such as spam or virus threats. Help them understand what it means and what they should and shouldn't open or click on.

8. Google your children's names on a regular basis. Again, you don't want your child to feel like you are spying on them, but you can do this to show them just how easy it is for ANYONE to find out anything about them. If your child has a blog, a social networking site you are not aware of, or have posted any information about themselves online, it will most likely come up in a search.

9. Again, communication is key. Make sure your kids know that not everything they see online is legitimate and talk to them about incidents in the news, so they know the risks.

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Windows Internet Explorer 8

Windows Internet Explorer Version 8 is designed to be faster and more convenient. Some of the features that make it faster are accelerators, enhanced navigation, increased performance, instant search and web slices. For example with web slices it allows you to keep up with frequently updated sites directly from the new favorites bar.

It is also safe and reliable. With tab isolation when a website or add-on causes a tab to crash in Internet Explorer 8 only that tab will be affected. If one or more of the tabs are closed or crash your tabs are automatically reloaded and you are returned to the site you were on before the crash.

You can now visualize your search with pictures. As you type in a search bar an image and text suggestions will appear. And with InPrivate Browsing makes it possible for only certain peopleto see what is searched on the computer which makes it easier to shop for family members without them seeing it on the computer.