9 Features kicked out of Windows 8.1 by Microsoft

Forget about the desktop improvements and Bing smart search: Windows 8.1’s biggest draw may be the sheer volume of new and hidden features. Seriously—it’s jam-packed.

But apparently Microsoft needed to clear room for all the fresh ideas. Windows 8.1 shaves away many of Windows 8’s auxiliary features. Some of the removals are blatant once they’re pointed out, while others are more obscure, but all are off the table in Windows 8.1.

1. Messaging app

We’ll miss you, buddy. Maybe.

Windows 8’s IM capabilities were handled by the aptly named Messaging, one of the core apps shining front and center on the live-tiled Start screen. No more: Microsoft has kicked Messaging to the curb less than a year after the app’s arrival, replacing the Windows 8 native with Skype.

As high-profile as the swap is, it’s no great loss. Messaging was pretty lackluster and largely overlapped Skype’s core functionality. Meanwhile, Skype’s Communication services are also being baked into the Xbox One and Outlook.com (but not Windows Phone). One bummer: Messaging supported Facebook Chat, while Skype does not.

2. Windows Experience Index

Ever since the Vista days, Windows provided a “Windows Experience Index” score in your My Computer properties. The WEI score was supposed to be a numerical indicator of your PC’s brawn. Powerful PCs received higher scores, and so on.

Unfortunately, the WEI’s scoring criteria weren’t well known, and it placed odd, seemingly artificial caps on the highest possible scores. (Windows 7’s cap was 7.9, while Vista’s was 5.9.) Whether for these or other reasons, the WEI never seemed to catch on, and it’s nowhere to be found in Windows 8.1.

3. Facebook and Flickr in the Photos app

Windows 8’s gorgeous Photos app. Note the Facebook and Flickr integration. (Click to enlarge.)

Regrettably, Windows 8.1’s Photos app no longer supports Facebook and Flickr image integration.

“In Windows 8, we wanted to provide a way for folks to view their photos on other services, knowing there would be few (if any) apps in the store at launch that would do so,” a Microsoft representative said. “Now there are many apps in the store that offer ways to view photos on other services.”

Windows 8.1’s Photos app is far more lackluster in both aesthetics and capabilities. (Click to enlarge.)

A Facebook app launched in the Windows Store the same day as Windows 8.1, but its image-management and sharing capabilities aren’t as flexible as those in Windows 8’s Photos app. And despite Flickr’s sudden disappearance from the Photos app, an official app for that service has yet to appear in the Windows Store.

4. Libraries?

Your Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos libraries aren’t visible by default in Windows 8.1—but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Activating them is easy, as shown in the single screenshot below.

Click View > Navigation Pane > Show Libraries in the desktop file explorer. Boom! Done.

Some websites are reporting, though, that Windows 8.1’s libraries ditch Public Folders. Our experiences are a bit more hit-and-miss: Public folders appeared in my Windows 8.1 libraries after I upgraded from Windows 8, but they were a no-show in the libraries of another PCWorld editor.

Don’t let that bring you down! After reenabling libraries using the method outlined above, just right-click a library and select Properties > Add… to toss additional folders into the mix.

5. Windows 7 File Recovery, kind of

Ominous portents swirled when the Windows 8.1 Preview pushed out without the ‘Windows 7 File Recovery’ image-backup option found in Windows 8, especially since Microsoft has clearly stated that the tool is being deprecated in favor of Windows 8’s File History. And yes, it’s still missing in Windows 8.1.

A system image utility by any other name...

But fear not! Though Windows 7 File Recovery is dead in name, it lives on in spirit as ‘System Image Backup’. Just head to Control Panel > System & Security > File History, and then look in the lower-left corner.

6. Apps splashed on the Start screen

In Windows 8, all newly installed apps and desktop programs automatically received a tile on the modern Start screen. That isn’t the case in Windows 8.1: Now, you have to dive into the All Apps screen and manually pin new software to the Start screen.

A Start screen cluttered by Windows 8’s default tile creation. The feature will not be missed in Windows 8.1—at least not by me.

That’s a big win in my book, since installing desktop programs often plopped tiles for dozens of auxiliary executables, languages, and other options on the Start screen alongside the link to the base program, resulting in a distressing amount of clutter. Less-seasoned computer users may become confused when installed apps fail to appear on the Start screen by default, however—especially since the returned Start button’s behavior trains you to consider the Start screen as a “modern”-day Start-menu replacement. Steel yourself for the support calls from family and friends.

7. My Computer

Yes, the nearly 20-year-old ‘My Computer’ moniker has retired, giving way to the more cloud- and cross-platform-friendly ‘This PC’. Desktop fallout from the focus on “One Microsoft” continues—though this is an admittedly trivial change.

8. SkyDrive desktop program

Keen-eyed SkyDrive users will note that jumping to Windows 8.1 erases the discrete (and optional) SkyDrive desktop software that served to keep local files in sync with the cloud. And that makes sense: Microsoft’s cloud service weaves itself tightly into Windows 8.1, and the desktop program’s functionality has largely been replaced by the update’s native SkyDrive support.

9. SkyDrive desktop-program functionality

Continuing with that theme, some of the more obscure yet helpful functions of the SkyDrive desktop program haven’t been replicated by Windows 8.1’s native features. For one thing, upgrading to Windows 8.1 kills SkyDrive’s remote Fetch feature.

Also be aware that unlike the desktop program, SkyDrive in Windows 8.1 relies on symbolic links to point to cloud-stored files in File Explorer, even though everything appears to be saved locally at first glance. This “smart files” functionality can save a lot of space on tablets and other storage-restricted devices, but if you’d like to keep local copies of your stuff, right-click the SkyDrive icon in File Explorer and select Make available offline.

Your SkyDrive-stored files aren’t fully saved locally by default in Windows 8.1. Here’s how to fix that.

You can also right-click individual files and folders and choose to make them online-only or available offline.

Still worth the upgrade

Don’t let these little omissions dissuade you: Windows 8.1 is superior to Windows 8 in virtually every way. It represents a much less jarring version of Microsoft’s grand vision of a cross-platform future—though it still won’t win over folks whose lips instinctively curl at the merest mention of the word “Metro.” Check out PCWorld’s definitive review of Windows 8.1for all the juicy details. (And if you’re one of those desktop diehards, you might want to check out our guide to banishing the modern UI from your Windows 8.1 PC.)

How to Run 750,000+ Android Apps on Windows 8 PCs and Surface Pro for Free

BlueStacks is an app player that allows users to run over 750,000 Android apps on Windows and Mac Computers. Currently above 5 million people's using Bluestacks app player to use with computers.  Now the company released a latest version of Bluestacks App player with optimized for Windows 8 computers and new Surface Pro devices.

The BlueStacks app player now available for free of cost,  Just install this freeware then play with your favorite Android games with your Windows 8 devices.

“The Surface Pro is an innovative device, but it has none of the top apps,” says BlueStacks CEO, Rosen Sharma. “This fixes that and adds a lot of value for buyers.” and “We have had a lot of people write us that they were on the fence about getting a Surface Pro, and were waiting for something like this,” John Gargiulo, BlueStacks VP of Marketing and Biz Dev,-Tech crunch




Download Link-  BlueStacks

Avast 8.0 Public beta 3 Released, available to Download now

One of the most popular free antivirus software gets an update Avast 8.0.1478 public beta 3 released and available to download now for all users. The new version comes with new user interface and new tools like Software updater, Browser Cleanup and Access anywhere features. The Avast 8.0 Public beta 3 supports latest Windows 8 operating system.

What's New:

• avast! v8 now runs on Win8 too
• Data Shredder for wiping files, drives, and partitions
• Software Updater in autoupdate mode
• AccessAnywhere for remotely connecting to your PC no matter where you are
• There is also a Browser Cleanup tool; it's a great utility for getting rid of invasive toolbars. 
• Ad Blocker is introduced; this feature allows you to block ads

And also the new version contains some bug fixes from its previous version.

Download - Avast 8.0 Public beta 3

How to Play Puzzle Game in VLC Media Player

Hi everyone. As i said in my earlier post that exams are near and  am a bit busy, but i will try my best to update you all with latest Computer tricks and tips.

So now today we will see how to play puzzle game with your video In VLC player.

While playing a video in vlc you can puzzle up your video and try tu unpuzzle it with fun.

so lets check how it is done, Follow the below steps.

1) First of all opent VLC media player.

2) Now Click on Media tab and open any video you want to watch.

3)Now the trick begins, Now Navigate to  Tools –> Effect & Filters –> Video Effects –> Geometry.

Now you will see a box like this :

4)Tick mark The Puzzle game and also black slot as shown in the above picture. Thats it.... now click on close.

5)Thats it you will see your video is now puzzled and start solving the puzzle and have fun.

To Undo this you will have to do the same procedure and uncheck the Puzzle game and Black slot and close, Everything is back to normal now after having Fun.

I hope you learnt something new today and had fun with this cool trick.

Keep visiting. :)

Troll #2 :P

Bored of adf.ly links? Check it out to remove them all

Many of you have been bored by adf.ly ,linkbucks,adfoc.us links which has been spread all over the net , It pays very less amount which is useless but many dont understand about it ,So I searched alot and got this site which i am sharing with u ,In this site ,if you enter the links from (adf.ly,adfoc.us,linkbucks) ,This site will get you the real link of it and thus save your time

Link :

http://www.dead.altervista.org/index.php

Preview of that site

Dont forget to check it ,Share it with your friends and enjoy ad free environment 

Troll #1 :P

Fuuccc !!! :P

Indian National Informatics Site(NIC) Hacked !!!

Indian hackers Code injector and Yash have breached the Indian National Informatics centre website(NIC.in) , the exclusive registrar for government domains (.gov.in).

According to Cyber News report, the hackers claimed to have uploaded a PHP based shell over the site and gained complete control over the Indian domains managed by NIC.

Image uploaded in  NIC

However, since hackers are from India and since they are patriotic hackers , they have sent notification about the vulnerability to NIC Department.

To demonstrate the fact that they have gained access , the hackers just uploaded an image file and a text file in the files directory.

The hack was done with a upload Misconfigured section. Hackers claimed to have Modified the Section with a Complete patch to prevent other hackers to exploit the Indian NIC.

Slow and Steady wins the race :P LOL

Real Use of Poke which no one uses in Facebook

Some people have wrong understanding that poke at Facebook is symbol of disturbing someone .

Hence here are the uses of poke which i have stated below : 

1.A “poke” is basically someone trying to get your attention.It’s one of the meaningless features that are used just to annoy someone.

2.If you poke someone not in your network and they poke back. You can view their profile even if your not their friend!

3.A poke is when you allow someone to see your Facebook profile for 3 days, so they can know who you are and hopefully add you as a friend.

Like,Share and Tweet it for your friends ;) so that your friends can know the real meaning of poke and use it properly

Enjoy Happy Poking.....

Why does no one realise the fact ??

Y U NO EXPLAIN IT ??

Two XSS Vulnerabilities found in Mediafire Site by THER00tC0de

Vulnerability in Mediafire :

An Security Researches with handle name " TheR00tC0de" has found two Cross Scripting (XSS) Vulnerabilities in the most famous file hosting website "Mediafire"

In an email Sent to some sites, the researcher provided the two vulnerable links that executes the code injected by hacker. 

XSS Vulnerability in Mediafire

The researcher claimed that he sent notification about the vulnerability to Mediafire Team and waiting for their response.  The researcher asked the site owners not to publish the vulnerable link.  

And many have confirmed those vulnerabilities . But this type of vulnerability can be used only in social engineering attacks ,So it cannot be mostly used to deface large sites like Mediafire,So we hope our files are safe ;)

Recently, a security researcher - Mahadev Subedi identified a XSS vulnerability in the File Uploading service of Mediafire .

BUUURRRNNN!!!!!

Have you ever tried it during school days ??

Ports in a Computer

Life of Programmer

Emails of Israel News site Haaretz hacked by Syrian Electronic Army

The hacker group Syrian Electronic Army hacked into mail system of Israel News Paper Haaretz.

The hackers claimed that they gained access to more than 80 email accounts and passwords of Haaretz employees and leaked the data in their official website.(syrian-es.org/leaks/Haaretz/Haaretz-EmailsAndPasswords) 

According to Haaretz report, the hackers sent a spoofed emails to Haaretz employees and asked them to click a link that leads to an article on website of The Guardian, about talks between the United States and the Syrian opposition.

Once the employee click the link, it redirect the victim to a page requesting them to enter their login credentials that allowed hackers to breach their work email accounts.

(Which is basically called phishing) 

A small list of breached accounts

Haaretz take down the email server after the security breach. The Haaretz Group responded by saying that all employees' email passwords will be changed.  Readers' data from Haaretz Group websites  are not affected by this breach.

The employees used very simple passwords.Some of them are "lol" and "abc123"


"It's just the beginning ... Next hacks will include Israeli government targets  "              Hackers said in their post.

OWASP Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP)

The OWASP Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) is an easy to use integrated penetration testing tool for finding vulnerabilities in web applications. It is designed to be used by people with a wide range of security experience and as such is ideal for developers and functional testers who are new to penetration testing as well as being a useful addition to an experienced pen tester's toolbox.



Team is now releasing weekly updates on every Monday. These are not the full releases , like stable one, but to give more enhancements as soon as possible, ZAP team decide to release weekly updates also.

The following new features are included in weekly releases:

• Completely rewritten 'traditional' Spider (c/o Cosmin Stefan and the GSoC)
• New Ajax Spider (using Crawljax, c/o Guifre Ruiz and the GSoC)
• Web sockets support (c/o Robert Koch and the GSoC)
• Performance improvements (both speed and memory)
• Session awareness
• Authentication handling
• Contexts
• Modes (Safe, Protected and Standard)
• Online links in menu

Download ZAP week update

Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET) 4.1.3 Released

TrustedSec Release the latest version of Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET) as 4.1.3. As most of us know that, It is an open source, python-driven, social-engineering penetration testing framework of custom tools which solely focuses on attacking the human element of penetration testing.

It was designed in order to arm penetration testers and security researchers with the ability to effectively test heavily advanced social-engineering attacks armed with logical methods. The Social Engineer Toolkit leverages multiple attack vectors that take advantage of the human element of security in an effort to target attackers.

Change version 4.1.3:
* Added multiple checks when importing file, no longer exits the entire application

Download Social Engineer Toolkit 4.1.3:
http://svn.trustedsec.com/social_engineering_toolkit set/

Remote Root access vulnerability in Routers with Broadcom chipsets

DefenseCode researchers have discovered a critical security vulnerability that allows remote unauthenticated attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code under root privileges in the UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) implementation developed by Broadcom and used by many routers with Broadcom chipsets.

Routers with vulnerable Broadcom UPnP stack are mostly based on Broadcom chipset. "We have found that, in fact, same vulnerable firmware component is also used in at least two other Cisco Linksys models - WRT54G3G and probably WRT310N. Could be others." researchers said.

The vulnerability is located within the wanipc and wanppp modules of the Broadcom UPnP stack, which is used by manufacturers that deliver routers based on the Broadcom chipset. The UPnP service is intended to be used on local networks, but Rapid7 found that there are over 80 million devices on the Internet that respond to UPnP discovery requests, making them vulnerable to remote attacks.

The vulnerability can be exploited to read the memory of a device that uses the vulnerable Broadcom UPnP stack or to write arbitrary values at arbitrary addresses in its memory.

Full exploit was previously demonstrated in a video on Cisco Linksys WRT54GL, that is also based on Broadcom UPnP stack. DefenseCode hasn't compiled a complete list with affected router models, but believes that some devices from Broadcom, Asus, Cisco, TP-Link, Zyxel, D-Link, Netgear, USRobotics and other vendors probably use the vulnerable Broadcom UPnP stack.

Russian Hackers Behind Gozi Malware charged for Infecting Millions users

The mastermind Russian Hackers who coded and distributed the Gozi malware, Nikita Vladimirovich Kuzmin, 25 was charged along with Deniss Calovskis, 27, and Mihai Ionut Paunescu, 28 for infecting more than a million computers worldwide in order to steal banking and other credentials from tens of thousands of victims.

They may face a maximum penalty of 95, 60 and 67 years in prison, respectively. Kuzmin allegedly created the Gozi program in 2005, hiring a programmer to write the source code and then leasing it to other criminal customers.

According to latest reports, Nikita has agreed to cooperate with the United States. As potential evidence, the feds have been able to retrieve 51 servers in Romania as well as laptops, desktops and external hard drives. The data seized amounts to 250 terabytes.

Paunescu, a Romanian national who went by the name “Virus” operated a bulletproof hosting service that provided criminal customers with servers and IP addresses from which to send out phishing emails containing the Gozi virus as well as the Zeus and SpyEye banking trojans.

Calovskis, who went by the name "Miam," was purportedly hired by Kuzmin to develop "web injects."

Authorities say the virus infected at least 40,000 computers in the U.S., including more than 160 computers belonging to NASA, and cost victims tens of millions of dollars in losses. The malicious code allowed Kuzmin to remotely control the compromised systems as a botnet, installing additional code to steal information and access banks accounts.

Disclosure of vulnerabilities in many of Pentagon Sites by a Hacked

 A hacker named (~!White!~) released a list of many sites of the American Military and pentagon domains which were vulnerable to Sql Injections.He posted it in Pastebin - http://pastebin.com/Cpgp9jHE .

It includes many top domains which needed to be very secure including Pentagon Defense Post Office Website, Office of the Deputy Director for Science Programs, Wiesbaden Military Community, NMCI Legacy Applications, Darby Military Community, Department of Economic and Social Affairs at United Nation and many more......

SQL injection is a technique by which hackers can easily get databases of the site.It allows them to find all members ,admin ,passwords,emails,etc.

Hence if the sites are not gonna be secured soon ,Hackers may get the secret details of Pentagon and many other sites 

Dump of the list of sites

Buffer Overflow Vulnerability in VLC Player

VideoLAN recently published a security advisory warning of a buffer overflow vulnerability in versions 2.0.5 and earlier of VLC Media Player, which might be exploited to execute arbitrary code. This vulnerability was reported by Debasish Mandal , a vulnerabilty researcher

   The vulnerability is caused due to an error in the “DemuxPacket()” function (modules/demux/asf/asf.c) when processing ASF files and can be exploited to cause a buffer overflow via a specially crafted ASF file. To exploit the vulnerability, a user must explicitly open a specially crafted ASF movie. 

Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code, but requires tricking a user into opening a malicious file. 

VideoLAN advises users to refrain from opening files from untrusted locations and to disable the VLC browser plug-ins until the issue is patched. A patch will be included in VLC 2.0.6, the next version of the media player, which is only available for testing purposes at the moment.

United Nations High Comissioner for Refugees in Sri Lanka (UNHCR.lk) website defaced

The  hacker named Davy Jones who has been hacking many important Sri Lankan Websites has come up with a new deface , He hacked UNHCR’s website. UNHCR is a refugee agency of United States which has been helping and protecting the Tamil people who had been termed as Internally Displaced People(IDP’s) and helping people returning from India after the war .

 He hacked the website and leaked the whole database  in Pastebin http://pastebin.com/5UaZ6XgB .

 The dump contains all info including the admin password which has been MD5 hashed ,Even though it is MD5 hashed ,the password is ‘ admin ‘  which is easy to be guessed by a normal user too.

 And he has recently announced that he ddosed the Columbo Stock Exchange(cse.lk) for a few hours as a protest against the corruption of Sri Lankan Government.

One of his defacement pages:

[HOT] How to use proxies to your browser (Stay anonymous)

Note: 

1. Get a good proxy from http://hidemyass.com/proxy-list/ 
2. Make sure it’s anonymity is high
3.  And if you are a beginner ,better use a HTTPS proxy 

Instructions to apply proxy to your browser:

1. Mozilla Firefox:Tools > Options > Advanced > Settings > Manual proxy configuration. 
2. Google Chrome:Options > Under the hood > Network > Change proxy settings > LAN settings > Use a proxy server > Advanced > HTTP. 
3. Internet Explorer:Tools > Internet options > Connections > LAN settings > Use a proxy server > Advanced > HTTP. 
4. Opera:Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Network 

Note:

1. It will lower your speed to a greater extent 
2. We cannot assure full anonymity 
3. To assure full anonymity ,use a paid VPN which is the best 
4. You can also use free vpn’s like proxpn,openvpn,etc….. 
5. Use it at your own risk 

Enjoy Safe Hacking………