BleachBit - Clean your PC

Many of you may know that files deleted from the hard drive can be recovered using various mechanisms available. To protect or to avoid recovery of deleted files, we should re-write data over the location of data that is deleted. We cannot do that ourselves. This is where BleachBit comes into action.

XPrivacy - Xposed Framework Module

About XPrivacy

In  earlier post, I had explained about Xposed Installer and OpenPDroid. The former explaining about modifying your ROM without modifying an APK or flashing a custom ROM, and the latter explaining about protecting your privacy and providing fake or null information to the apps that access your private data.

Now, today I'm going to explain about a combination of both Xposed and OpenPDroid. Yeah, enter XPrivacy module for Xposed Framework.  Wondering what is it?

I am going to explain about it in a minute, read on..!!

XPrivacy can be used as an alternative to OpenPDroid, though not as restrictive as OpenPDroid can be, but still is a great option for those who cannot patch their ROM to run OpenPDroid. XPrivacy can be used to prevent applications from accessing your private sensitive data.

XPrivacy does this by providing an application with null or fake data.

XPrivacy does not block the permissions of an application, it just provides the application with fake data, hence there'll be no problem of a particular application getting force closed because of using XPrivacy.

If providing fake or null data to an application causes problems in working of an application, then the same can be reversed. By default, all newly-installed applications will not be allowed to access any data, so that any new application cannot leak any sensitive data after its installation. After every application installation, XPrivacy will prompt to ask for the data you want the application to have access to.

As the developer of the XPrivacy module says, XPrivacy will monitor attempts made by all applications to access sensitive data. XPrivacy will highlight (with a yellow triangle) a data category for an application (or an application name in the application browser) as soon as data of the data category has been used. XPrivacy will also display if an application has internet access, indicating that the application poses a risk of sharing the data it obtains with an external server. If an application has requested Android permissions to access data in a data category, it will also be displayed (with a green tick), but this will only be shown when looking at an individual application, since checking permissions for all applications is quite slow.

XPrivacy is built using the Xposed framework. XPrivacy taps into a number of selected functions of Android through the Xposed framework. Depending on the function, XPrivacy conditionally skips execution of the original function (for example when an application tries to set a proximity alert) or alters the result of the original function (for example to return empty calendar data).

Installation of XPrivacy

1.    Requires Android Jelly Bean (4.1 and above) and rooted phone.

2.    Requires Xposed Framework installed.

3.    Download XPrivacy and Xposed fix for your Android version from  here.

4.    Enable XPrivacy in Xposed Installer > Modules tab.

5.    Reboot into Recovery mode.

6.    Flash Xposed fix for the version of Android.

7.    Reboot your phone.

If you have any queries, feel free to comment.!!

Boosting Mozilla Firefox for Maximum Privacy

Firefox includes powerful features to prevent you from being tracked online, but they aren’t on by default. This blog will illustrate you about how to take control of your privacy online with Firefox’s options. Firefox also has some features that send personal data to Mozilla and Google, but these features aren’t mandatory. Mozilla and Google use the data to improve Firefox, provide you with search suggestions and block malicious web pages.

Thus friends these are few of those options in Mozilla Firefox which will definitely help to improve on your usage of the browser.

 

Fig1: Mozilla Option (Privacy tab)

Do Not Track:

Firefox can send a do-not-track request whenever you connect to a website, asking the website not to track you. It’s disabled by default, so you will have to enable it yourself.

Fig2: Do-Not-Track option

Click the Firefox menu --> select Options--> and click the Privacy icon.

 Fig3: Option tab

Click the “Tell websites I do not want to be tracked” check box at the top of the privacy pane to enable the do-not-track feature.

Unfortunately, few websites obey your do-not-track preference at the moment. Do not track is also available in Internet Explorer 9 and Apple Safari, but it’s noticeably absent in Google Chrome.

Search Suggestions:

Firefox sends every letter you type into its search box to your default search engine, which sends search suggestions back.

 Fig4: Search box

You can easily disable search suggestions by right-clicking the search box and unchecking Show Suggestions.

Safe Browsing:

Firefox uses the same phishing and malware detection technology found in Google Chrome. Like Chrome, Firefox automatically downloads an updated list of malicious websites from Google after every 30 minutes. If you try to access one of these websites, Firefox sends contacts to Google to confirm the website is malicious or not.

Fig5: Suggestions Option

It shouldn’t be possible for Google to determine the exact website you tried to access, but Google cookies you have on your computer may also be sent. Phishing and malware detection helps protect your personal data and your computer’s security, but you can disable it using the options on the security pane.

Cookies:

 Fig6: Security Certificate

Click the “Firefox will” box on the privacy pane and select “Use Custom Settings for History” to view Firefox’s cookie options.

 Fig7:  Security Tab

Many advertising networks track you across multiple websites with third-party cookies. You can disable these cookies by unchecking the Accept third-party cookies box. This may cause problems with some websites, so you may have to re-enable this check box.

 

Fig8: Privacy Tab

First-party cookies can be used for tracking, too. Many websites won’t work if you disable cookies entirely, but you can have Firefox automatically clear them each time you close your browser. This prevents websites from building up a profile of you over time, but you’ll have to log into any open websites each time you reopen Firefox. Just enable the “Clear history when Firefox closes” check box and click the Settings button.

 Fig9: Privacy Options

Select Cookies and any other type of data you want Firefox to automatically delete, and then click OK.

Crash Reports and Performance Data:

Firefox can send crash and performance reports to Mozilla. Mozilla uses these reports to fix problems and help improve Firefox.

 Fig10: Privacy Settings

The Submit crash reports check box on the advanced pane controls the crash reports feature. Firefox never sends crash reports automatically; it always prompts you. You’ll still see the prompt if you uncheck this check box, but the crash report dialog will default to not sharing any data with Mozilla. The Submit performance data option causes Firefox to send anonymous performance reports in the background. The reports contain information about how you use Firefox’s interface, how well Firefox is performing and what hardware your computer contains.

Fig11: History Options

The Submit performance data option causes Firefox to send anonymous performance reports in the background. The reports contain information about how you use Firefox’s interface, how well Firefox is performing and what hardware your computer contains.

Fig12:  Advanced Settings Tab

Remember to save your settings by clicking OK.

 Fig13: Settings Apply Box

Hence at the end of the day, there will be a feeling in your mind that these were few things which you were unaware of being a daily user of Mozilla, but which now you are equipped with.