Ubuntu is already pretty speedy compared to some bloated OSes out there, but here’s a way to make it a bit faster.

Optimize ubuntu boot sequence by profiling it

• While you are in grub menu highlight your preferred kernel version and press “e”.
• Highlight the line beginning with kernel and press “e” again. Press End key in order to goto end of that line.
• Add a word “profile” without quotes to that line and press Enter.
• Now press “b” to continue booting.

This one time special boot may take more time than ordinary boot. But during this boot ubuntu monitors file usage and preloads those files during subsequent boots.

prelink

Any executable that makes heavy use of shared libraries can benefit from prelinking. Prelinking resolves addresses of shared libraries in advance this reduces number of relocations.

Prelink is also useful in the context of security since we can tell prelink to make libraries load at random addresses until next run of prelink. This is useful since libraries won’t load at fixed addresses on every system.

You can install prelink by issuing following command.

sudo apt-get -y install prelink

Change a line inside the configuration file /etc/default/prelink from

PRELINKING=unknown

to

PRELINKING=yes

We will do our first prelinking by executing following command

sudo /etc/cron.daily/prelink

Thats it you don’t have to do anything else. Prelink daemon will run periodically to optimize your newly installed executables.

preload

Preload is a little application that monitors files of frequently used applications and and loads them in to the memory when system is idle. This usually results in lesser startup times for those applications. Install preload by executing following command.

sudo apt-get -y install preload

deborphan: Find orphan packages

After doing several installs and removes apt leaves lot of packages that are not needed anymore. You can find these packages using deborphan. Install deborphan by issuing following command.

sudo apt-get -y install deborphan

Now to see the list of packages which are not needed anymore just run following command.

deborphan

To remove these packages give following command.

sudo apt-get remove `deborphan`

To get full list of packages that are not essential for functioning of the system execute the following command.

deborphan --guess-all

This command will list data,dev and many other types packages that are not essential for system functioning. Please see man page of deborphan to find out more options.

localepurge

Remove locale information(language tables) of the applications that are not needed for you. localepurge maintains specified locales and removes the remaining. To install localepurge issue following command.

sudo apt-get -y install localepurge

During installation localepurge will ask you to select locales that you want to preserve. At this step select what you need and press OK. From now on localepurge will maintain only those locales which you selected during configuration step.

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chage changes the number of days between password changes and the date of the last password change. This information is used by the system to determine when a user must change her password. The chage command is restricted to the root user, except for the -l option, which may be used by an unprivileged user to determine when her password or account is due to expire.

With the -m option, the value of mindays is the minimum number of days between password changes. A value of zero for this field indicates that the user may change her password at any time.

With the -M option, the value of maxdays is the maximum number of days during which a password is valid. When maxdays plus lastday is less than the current day, the user will be required to change her password before being able to use her account. This occurance can be planned for in advance by use of the -W option, which provides the user with advance warning.

With the -d option, the value of lastday is the number of days since January 1st, 1970 when the password was last changed. The date may also be expressed in the format YYYY-MM-DD (or the format more commonly used in your area).

The -E option is used to set a date on which the user’s account will no longer be accessible. The expiredate option is the number of days since January 1, 1970 on which the accounted is locked. The date may also be expressed in the format YYYY-MM-DD (or the format more commonly used in your area). A user whose account is locked must contact the system administrator before being able to use the system again.

The -I option is used to set the number of days of inactivity after a password has expired before the account is locked. The inactive option is the number of days of inactivity. A value of 0 disables this feature. A user whose account is locked must contact the system administrator before being able to use the system again.

The -W option is used to set the number of days of warning before a password change is required. The warndays option is the number of days prior to the password expiring that a user will be warned her password is about to expire.

If none of the options are selected, chage operates in an interactive fashion, prompting the user with the current values for all of the fields. Enter the new value to change the field, or leave the line blank to use the current value. The current value is displayed between a pair of [ ] marks.

NOTE

The chage program requires shadow password file to be available. Its functionality is not available when passwords are stored in the passwd file. 

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Screenshot here, config file below:

# .conkyrc configuration
# basics by Tristam Green, 11-21-2007
# edited by fusion.fake

# maintain spacing between certain elements
use_spacer yes

# set to yes if you want tormo to be forked in the background
#background yes

use_xft yes

# Xft font when Xft is enabled
xftfont Vera-8
#xftfont Andale Mono-9
#xftfont Clean-8
#xftfont cubicfive10:pixelsize=8
#xftfont squaredance10:pixelsize=14
#xftfont swf!t_v02:pixelsize=10

# Text alpha when using Xft
xftalpha 1
mail_spool $MAIL

# Update interval in seconds
update_interval 1.0

# Create own window instead of using desktop (required in nautilus)
own_window yes
own_window_type override
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
own_window_hints below

# Use double buffering (reduces flicker, may not work for everyone)
double_buffer yes

# Minimum size of text area
minimum_size 200 5
maximum_width 250

# Draw shades?
draw_shades no

# Draw outlines?
draw_outline no # amplifies text

# Draw borders around text
draw_borders no

# Stippled borders?
stippled_borders 3

# border margins
border_margin 5

# border widt5
border_width 6

# Default colors and also border colors, grey90 == #e5e5e5
default_color grey90
default_shade_color black
default_outline_color DarkGrey

# Text alignment, other possible values are commented
#alignment top_left
alignment top_right
#alignment bottom_left
#alignment bottom_right

# Gap between borders of screen and text
gap_x 24
gap_y 24

# Subtract file system buffers from used memory?
no_buffers yes

# set to yes if you want all text to be in uppercase
uppercase no

# *** RHYTHMBOX FORMAT SETTINGS ***

# ${rhythmbox-client –print-playing}
# Print the title and artist of the playing song

# ${rhythmbox-client –print-playing-format}
# Print formatted details of the song

# *** PARAMETERS ***

# %at Album title
# %aT Album title in lowercase
# %aa Album artist
# %aA Album artist in lowercase
# %ay Release year of album
# %an Album disc number
# %aN Album disc number with leading zero
# %ag Album genre
# %aG Album genre in lowercase
# %tt Track title
# %tT Track title in lowercase
# %ta Track artist
# %tA Track artist in lowercase
# %tn Track number
# %tN Track number with leading zero
# %td Track duration
# %te Elapsed time of track

# Variables can be combined using quotes. For example “%tn %aa
%tt”, will
# print the track number followed by the artist and the title
of the
# track.
# stuff after ‘TEXT’ will be formatted on screen

TEXT

${color white}${font OpenLogos:size=14}Ubuntu Linux ${font}${font
Vera:size=8}$alignr ${time %a } ${time %e %B %G} | ${time %I:%M
%P}${font}
${color #5da5d3}User ${hr 1}
${color #e5e5e5}${execi 30 whoami} @ $nodename $alignr $sysname
$machine $kernel
${color #e5e5e5}uptime $alignr $uptime_short

${color #5da5d3}System ${hr 1}
${color #e5e5e5}cpu usage $color $alignr $cpu%
${color #e5e5e5}load $alignr $loadavg

${color #5da5d3}Memory ${hr 1}
${color #e5e5e5}total $alignr ${memmax}
${color #e5e5e5}used $alignr $memperc% $mem

${color #5da5d3}Wired (${color #ff9900}${addr eth0}${color #5da5d3})
${hr 1}
${color e5e5e5}down ${color #ff9900}${downspeedf eth0} ${color e5e5e5}k/s
${color e5e5e5}up ${color #ff9900}${upspeedf eth0} ${color e5e5e5}k/s
${color e5e5e5}total down: ${totaldown eth0}
${color e5e5e5}total up: ${totalup eth0}

${color #5da5d3}File Systems ${hr 1}
${color #e5e5e5}/dev/sda1 ${color white}${fs_free /}
(${fs_free_perc /}%) ${color #e5e5e5}free of ${fs_size /}
${fs_bar /}

${color #e5e5e5}/dev/mapper/sdb1 ${color white}${fs_free /home/gnuisancev3/Docs2}
(${fs_free_perc /home/gnuisancev3/Docs2}%) ${color #e5e5e5}free of ${fs_size }
${fs_bar /home/gnuisancev3/Docs2}

${color #e5e5e5}/dev/sdc1 ${color white}${fs_free /home/gnuisancev3/Docs}
(${fs_free_perc /home/gnuisancev3/Docs}%) ${color #e5e5e5}free of ${fs_size
/home/gnuisancev3/Docs}
${fs_bar /home/gnuisancev3/Docs2}

${color #5da5d3}Processes ${hr 1}
${color #e5e5e5}total $alignr $processes
${color #e5e5e5}running $alignr $running_processes

Highest CPU usage:
${color #ff9900} ${top name 1}${alignr}${top cpu 1}
${color}${top name 2}${alignr}${top cpu 2}
${top name 3}${alignr}${top cpu 3}
${top name 4}${alignr}${top cpu 4}

Highest memory usage:
${color #ff9900} ${top_mem name 1}${alignr}${top_mem mem 1}
${color}${top_mem name 2}${alignr}${top_mem mem 2}
${top_mem name 3}${alignr}${top_mem mem 3}
${top_mem name 4}${alignr}${top_mem mem 4}

${color #5da5d3}Currently Playing ${hr 1}
${color white}${exec rhythmbox-client –print-playing}
${execi 30 wmctrl -a conky}

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Screenshot

Right Click the file below and save it to your home folder.

Backup your current bash profile by  “mv .bashrc .bashrc.bak

then mv bashrc.txt .bashrc

File: bashrc

Kudos goes to ayoli for this.

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GNOME Do (Do) is an intelligent launcher tool that makes performing common tasks on your computer simple and efficient. Do not only allows you to search for items in your desktop environment (e.g. applications, contacts, bookmarks, files, music), it also allows you to specify actions to perform on search results (e.g. run, open, email, chat, play). Want to send an email to mom? Simply type “email mom.” Want to listen to some music? Simply type “play beatles.” Do provides instantaneous, action-oriented desktop search results that adapt to reflect your habits and preferences. For example, if you use Firefox web browser often, typing “f” in Do will launch it. Or, if you visit The New York Times webpage often, Do will open it if you simply type “nyt.” Unlike other search tools that present search results as flat, homogeneous lists, Do provides familiar graphical depictions of search results that assure you that your intent is being realized correctly; searching for “mom” will show a picture of mom, and searching for “beatles” will show a Beatles album cover. Do has many more powerful and exciting capabilities that must be seen to be appreciated.

To Install (as root in all cases)

• On Ubuntu: sudo aptitude install gnome-do gnome-do-plugins
• On Gentoo: emerge gnome-do gnome-do-plugins
• On OpenSuse 11: GNOME Do is installed by default but it’s version 0.4 and new plugins aren’t compatible with this version. To install the newest version just click here.
• On OpenSuse 10.3: Just click here.
• On Fedora: yum install gnome-do

To Use

Start GNOME Do by selecting the GNOME Do entry in the Applications > Accessories menu, or by executing the command gnome-do.

Once the application is running, you can summon it by pressing Super + Space. On most keyboards the super key is the same as the Windows key or the Command key.

You should see a dialog with a search icon and two panes in the center of your screen. The pane on the left is the item pane, which shows the item you have selected, and the pane on the right is the action pane, which shows the action you wish to perform on the item.

To start GNOME Do without showing its window, use the –quiet option:

$ gnome-do –quiet   or    $ gnome-do -q

Launching Applications

Launch GNOME Do and begin typing the application name - for example Rhythmbox.

Press enter and the selected application will launch. Be aware that GNOME Do will start matching as you type, so you shouldn’t need to type the entire name.

File Management

GNOME Do can help open files for you as well. For example, start typing home. You should get an option to open the home folder in Nautilus by pressing enter. This will work for any folder in your home folder.

Open Websites

Just type it in. For example, www.tuxtraining.com

Email and IM

Type the name of the contact, then tab across and select the required Action.

Enjoy

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TimeVault is a simple front-end for making snapshots of a set of directories. Snapshots are a copy of a directory structure or file at a certain point in time. Restore functionality is integrated into Nautilus - previous versions of a file or directory that has a snapshot can be accessed by examining the properties and selecting the ‘Previous Versions’ tab.

Snapshots are protected from accidental deletion or modification since they are read-only by default. The super-user can delete intermediate snapshots to save space, but files and directories that existed before or after the deletion will still be accessible.

A snapshot is a copy of a directory at a certain point in time. Snapshots don’t use space for the files that haven’t changed but instead simply increment the link count for them. On Linux, when a file is deleted, the link count is decremented, but it isn’t actually removed until the link count hits zero.

Only files are hard-linked this way. Directories have to be recreated for technical reasons (since a hard-link is actually the file it points to, you would find yourself in a completely different path if directories were hard-linked).

Go to the site here: https://launchpad.net/timevault/ and grab the latest .deb file.

To install:  sudo dpkg -i timevault*.deb

After installing the .deb file, there are two steps required to complete installation:

• You must configure TimeVault, the backend will start automatically but the notifier needs to be started: To get the notifier app to start in your systray whenever you log in you can add it to your startup programs in System>Preferences>Sessions in the tab Startup Programs you should have an option to add a program click that, name it TimeVault and put:

  '/usr/bin/timevault-notifier'

in the command box, you can put whatever you like in the comments box. After you have done this if you log out and back in again you should magically have the TimeVault notifier app sitting in your systray. Right click on it and go to preferences to configure TimeVault as you wish.

Configuration

When you start the TimeVault Notifier for the first time the tray icon will be greyed out and if you hover over it it will say that it is unconfigured. Listed below are the steps needed to configure TimeVault:

There are three tabs: General, Include and Exclude.

General

• Enable Automated Snapshots: By default, TimeVault will not automatically take snapshots of your system. Checking this box will tell it to automatically take daily snapshots.
• Show snapshot notifications: This switch toggles on and off whether snapshot notifications are to be shown or not.
• Snapshot Root Directory: Where to store the snapshots. Ideally, you should pick a directory that is mounted onto another physical drive from the data you are backing up. This is so that, in the case of a hard-disk failure, the backups will remain intact (unless the drive containing the backups fails, in which case the current version of the data remains).

Include

Backup paths are listed here. Every directory that you want to be snapshotted should be added to this list.

Exclude

• Paths or patterns to exclude from the snapshots should be listed here

When you have finished making the necessary changes press the save button and TimeVault should pop up a message saying

You have included new directories in the TimeVault. File signatures will now be computed.

Click ok in this box and TimeVault should be active and will start watching your files.

TimeVault/Restructure (you should check this page for development information)

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In Firefox 3, the Location Bar received a number of improvements. Among those improvements was the move to a XUL richlistbox widget for the auto-complete dropdown. This allowed styled URL/title information, favicons, and highlighted match information. This preference determines how many entries should appear (at most) in the dropdown.  Many find Firefox 3’s “awesome bar” quite annoying.  Luckily  this is easy to disable.

First, in the address bar type:   “about:config”  (without the quotes).

In the about:config search bar type:  Browser.urlbar.maxRichResults

The default value is set to 12.  If you set this interger to 0, nothing will display in the “awesome bar” any longer.

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I prefer a clean desktop with no icons cluttering it up, but by default most Gnome based distros adds icons to the desktop for every single removable drive that you attach to your system.

Having recently transitioned to using Ubuntu and Gentoo full-time at home away from Suse/KDE, this was one of the first things I wanted to disable. Sadly there’s no option in the default configuration screens, so we’ll have to use the “registry editor” for Ubuntu, called gconf-editor.

Just type in gconf-editor into the Alt+F2 run dialog to open the app or your terminal.

Now browse down to the following key:

apps \ nautilus \ desktop

You should see a key in the right-hand pane called volumes_visible. Remove the checkbox from it, and the icons will instantly disappear from the desktop. Remember that you can always access the drives from the “Computer” icon, or easily in the file browser.

I’m much happier now with my beautiful desktop.

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Want to avoid throttling? Hide your location from peers connected to the same torrent? Block Comcast’s TCP packet resets? Or use PeerGuardian blocklists in your torrent client? Then read on.

How to Encrypt Bit Torrent Traffic With Ktorrent and Azurues

More and more ISP’s are limiting throttling BitTorrent traffic on their networks. By throttling BitTorrent traffic the speed of BitTorrent downloads decrease, and high speed downloads are out of the question.

The list of ISP’s that limit BitTorrent traffic, or plan to do so is growing every day, and according to the BBC, the ‘bandwidth war’ has begun.

Are you not sure if your traffic is being throttled Check the list of bad ISP’s.

But there is a solution. Encrypting your torrents will prevent throttling ISP’s from shaping your traffic. I will explain how to enable encryption in Azureus, ktorrent, Deluge the three most popular torrent clients in Linux.

What does encryption Do?

The RC4 encryption obfuscates not only the header but the entire stream. This means that it’s very hard for your ISP to detect that the traffic you are generating comes from BitTorrent.

Note that RC4 uses more CPU time than the plain encryption or no encryption. It is however harder to identify for traffic shaping devices.
How can I do this?

This is different for all clients; check the setting for your favorite client below.
Azureus

1. Go to: Tools > Options > Connection > Transport Encryption

2. Check the ‘require encrypted transport’ box.
3. Choose RC4 in the ‘minimum encryption’ dropdown box

note that RC4 uses more CPU time than the plain encryption or no encryption. It is however harder to identify for traffic shaping devices
4. You can choose to tick the ‘Allow non-encrypted outgoing connections if encrypted connection attempt fails’ box. This will ensure compatibility with clients that are not using encryption. However, it makes it easier for your ISP to detect BitTorrent traffic. I recommend that you try to tick this box first. If you are still not getting proper speeds untick it
5. Tick the ‘Allow non-encrypted incoming connections’ box

KTorrent

1. Go to: Settings –> Preferences –> General
2. At the bottom of the General tab there’s a check box to Use Protocol Encryption. Checking this box and unchecking Allow unecrypted connections will encrypt the headers for you in this application.

Deluge

Deluge already has this turned on by default.

Import PeerGuardian Blocklists into Ktorrent & Deluge

Many lovers of PeerGuardian are out there, and some just happen to use linux. Luckily we have bit torrent clients that support PeerGuardian blocklists directly in the client, rather than affecting our entire internet connection. This is a rather simple prodcedure in both cases of Ktorrent and Deluge.

Note: Blocklists are not a fool proof protection and can come with their own problems. Please read up on the effectiveness of blocklists. That being said, every little bit helps.

Deluge

1. Download a blocklist from here: http://peerguardian.sourceforge.net/lists/
2. Now Deluge can’t read 7z files, so you will need to have the pk7zip installed and extract the file into your home directory.
3. Open Deluge, go to Edit –> Plugins –> Check Blocklist Importer
4. Press the Preferences button
5. Select “Peer Guardian Text (Uncompressed)
6. In the blocklist URL type the path of the extracted file “/home/username/level1

And all done here.

Ktorrent

Settings in Ktorrent is even easier.

1. Open Ktorrent and go to Settings –> Configure Ktorrent –> Plugins –> IP Filter –> Hit the Load button on the Right hand side.
2. Now the IP Filter will be in your Left hand column, select that.
3. Check “Use PeerGuardian Filter?”
4. You can use the default “http://www.bluetack.co.uk/config/splist.zip” or you can specify another file online or on your hard-drive as you specify. As mentioned above http://peerguardian.sourceforge.net/lists/ is a great place to get up to date lists.
5. Hit the Download/Convert button
6. When it’s done downloading another window will open, hit the “Convert” button.
7. When it’s done hit Apply and hit OK

Now you’re done for Ktorrent as well :).

Beating Sandvine on Linux with iptables

Multiple sites reported a while ago that Comcast was using Sandvine to do tcp packet resets to throttle BitTorrent connections of their users. This practice may be a thing of the past as it’s been found a simple rule in the Linux firewall, iptables, can simply just block their reset packets, returning your BitTorrent back to normal speeds and allowing you to once again connect to all your seeds and peer. So, if you are tired of Sandvine (the application used by Comcast to throttle Bit Torrent with fake TCP packet resets) screwing with your BitTorrent and a user of GNU/Linux, then this is for you. I will tell you how to take your bandwidth back.

If you are using a Red Hat Linux derivative, such as Fedora Core or CentOS, then you will want to edit /etc/sysconfig/iptables. First, make a backup of this file. Next, open this file in your favorite text editor. Replace the current contents with this, substituting 6883 with your BitTorrent port number:

(Note: the values state, reject, dport and tcp-flags begin with a double dash )

*filter
:INPUT ACCEPT [0:0]
:FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0]
-A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
#Comcast BitTorrent seeding block workaround
-A INPUT -p tcp –dport 6883 –tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP
-A INPUT -m state –state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
#BitTorrent
-A INPUT -m state –state NEW -m tcp -p tcp –dport 6883 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -m state –state NEW -m udp -p udp –dport 6883 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -j REJECT –reject-with icmp-host-prohibited
COMMIT

Reload your iptables firewall with service iptables restart. You should now see a great improvement in your seeding.

If you are using Ubuntu or another non-Red Hat Linux derivative, then place the following in a file and execute that file as root.

#!/bin/sh
#Replace 6883 with you BT port
BT_PORT=6883
#Flush the filters
iptables -F
#Apply new filters
iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
#Comcast BitTorrent seeding block workaround
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport $BT_PORT --tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
#BitTorrent
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport $BT_PORT -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m udp -p udp --dport $BT_PORT -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-host-prohibited

If you are using Gentoo or another distro, it is important that your iptables rules includes this line, feel free to change the port number (or make it a range of ports).

-A INPUT -p tcp –dport 6883 –tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP

Your firewall is now configured and you should have great upload speed now. You will have to run this script every boot, by the way. One easy way is to call the script at the end of /etc/rc.local.

Use a VPN

Using a VPN such as Relakks, among many others will prevent sniffing by your ISP, avoid throttling via TCP packet reset or by traffic type, and hide your location from the other seeds and peers attached to the torrent you are downloading/uploading.

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A while back I wrote a piece about how to Secure the hell out of your Linux box, and I thought I’d follow up with the same but for the Windows world. Yes yes, this is a Linux blog and this kind of post won’t happen all that often, or possibly never again, but security I feel is far more important than technological allegiances.

Encrypt your Entire Drive

Truecrypt has added the ability to encrypt your entire drive.  Simply install the application and in the setup process request that it encrypt your entire drive.  If you have additional drives it would benefit you to encrypt those too, or to at least create an encrypted container on those drives for sensitive information.  I would point to a tutorial, but the process is incredibly simple.

In the United States, you cannot be forced to give a password for an encrypted file or drive. It’s protected under the 5th Amendment and this has already been tested in the courts.

Law Enforcement can take their chances in trying to break it, but most encryption nowadays (aes, bluelfish, serpent, etc..) would take them damn near forever.

There is a punishment in the UK for not revealing the passwords if law enforcement requests them for a criminal investigation, but in most cases of possible fines you could owe  it would cost you less trouble to not reveal the password anyways.

It’s also a good idea to set a BIOS password.  How to do this will vary depending on your BIOS.

Permissions

Yes, Windows has poor management of user permissions. There’s no su, sudo, gksu, etc.. and using a limited account on Windows can be a bit more painful that using one in Linux, but it still should be done.

Your day to day account should be set to a Restricted User (you can do this in Start –> Control Panel –> Users) . The Restricted user cannot install applications, modify the registry, and a good portion of the system files.

You have a seperate Administrator account to perform these functions when necessary, and only use this account for that purpose. Luckily you can right click many apps and select “Run as…” to perform an install with Admin credentials as a regular user.

Make sure you have a strong password on both accounts.

SafeXP

It is also a good idea to run SafeXP, a portable app that makes changing many security settings easy and quick.  SafeXP allows users to quickly tweak various security and privacy related settings in XP. The options include Media Player settings, Hiding the NetBIOS name, blocking ICMP, turning off Remote connectivity and hidden folders, allow you to tweak Services settings (error reporting, time synch, remote registry etc.), as well as and option to remove items from the Start menu, network security settings and more.  Safe XP improves your system performance and makes Windows to run faster, more secure and reliable.

Firewall

It is best to use a Firewall that meets two requirements.  1.  Has little or no reports of collaborating with governments, of any nation and 2. Allows the upmost amount of control over ports, protocols and processes.  And of course we would like our firewall to not cost us a thing.  Incomes Comodo.  It’s learning period takes a bit of time, but after a while you will have a solid firewall for both outgoing and incoming traffic.

Anti-virus, Rootkit Checking, and Spyware cleaners to keep on hand

1. Spybot
2. Ad Aware
3. Super Anti-Spyware
4. AVG or Avast
5. RootKit Revealer
6. HiJack This

Keep Track of Temp Files and Deleted Files

1. CCleaner - Use CCleaner to keep temp files to a minimal, stay aware of what temp files it doesn’t delete and maintain as necessary.  Make sure to set it to do a NSA 7 pass overwrite on the files it rewrites.
2. Cybershredder - Use this application rather than your recycle bin.  Cybershredder deletes and over-writes every file with a NSA 7 pass.
3. Restoration - Restoration is great for recovering deleted files so you can easily see what files could be recovered. It also will allow you to re-write overtop of the deleted files to make them non-recoverable.

Secure Your Communications

1. Use GPG to secure emails on Thunderbird when necessary.
2. Use the OTR plugin for Pidgin for your IMs to avoid sniffing.

Know How to Stay Safe Online

Earlier I wrote a tutorial on how to stay safe online covering topics of what browser to use (firefox) and helpful extensions that would aid in increasing Firefox’s security.  Furthermore there are helpful tips about avoiding data collection on websites and preventing sniffing.

Protect Your Bit Torrent, If You Must

I would not recommend using Bit Torrent, but there are safe ways to go about using it.

1. Encrypt the Bit Torrent headers.  Azureus and uTorrent both have this option in their preferences.  This keeps your ISP from immediately knowing what you are downloading/uploading.
2. Use a VPN such  as Relakks.  This works beautiful at masking from seeders where you are downloading from, it hides the traffic from your ISP, and prevents throttling beautifully.
3. Use PeerGuardian (I prefer PeerGuardian Lite ) to block unwanted IPs from connecting to your torrents.  Remember, always get your blocklists here.

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