Raj Agrawal

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Unmasking the hidden potential of Windows XP

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The best approach to boost the system performance

Truely, Windows XP is the most flexible, fast and very easy to operate. I think Ubuntu, being a freeware and a community developed OS, can give a good competition to Windows XP in future only if it is consistently worked on for improvement. I won’t call a Windows OS or any of the Linux derivatives “secure”, as one thing i’ve understood that no matter how capable human can be, everything will be vulnerable to something, as being “imperfect” is the stubborn rule of the system we live in.

Below are the  useful topics related to boosting, securing and again speeding the operations in Windows XP.  So, in this one, i’m clubbing all of them into one to make a complete user guide to ‘Unmasking the hidden potential of Windows XP’ :

Too Many Accounts To Remember

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I have a lot of registered accounts at various free & useful websites. We all do it because of the “free” factor. But, what if i have forgotten my login details of a particular website? I usually don’t encounter such issue as i keep common login details(for discussion forums and freebie portals only)  at most of the times, at the rest, i am forced to use a different login for registration as it’s already in use. For such cases, i have to manage the login details at one place cause if i try accessing the websites after a long time and i don’t remember the access keys, reluctantly, i have to follow the sucky login recovery procedure.

To avoid that, there is a tiny freeware utility, Text Locker, that helps me Cipher + Password protect the Ciphered text i need to keep in private. The output file can be saved in a txt format which adds portability to the file.

Cipher, also called as “encipherment” is a term used in cryptography to encode the text to conceal its readability and meaning.

Download the application at http://binprojects.com

Screen 1
Screen 2

Note: You can re-cipher the ciphered text if you need to but, if you keep on hitting the Cipher button, the application will take more time to complete the request each time.

How To Achieve Better Security

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Being infected with a malware or/and a spyware is one of the most common issues that every internet-enabled computer encounters, not to forget the annoyances if such infections. No Anti-malware or any Internet Security package is always up-to-date. There always is a fluctuation of performance of the Security software from time to time. This is something that might never change, you can’t control it!

Hacker!

There is a way where you can brick your security to level that it blocks any connection with the harmful websites, thus reducing the threat level in your computer. This can be achieved by adding the ip address followed by the web address of the harmful website (explained ahead) in the HOSTS file (Windowssystem32driversetcHOSTS).

If you do not wish to waste your time on manually adding each crappy website then install the Host File Updater.

What it does (via mvps.org)

The HOSTS file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. This file is loaded into memory (cache) at startup, then Windows checks the Hosts file before it queries any DNS servers, which enables it to override addresses in the DNS. This prevents access to the listed sites by redirecting any connection attempts back to the local (your) machine. Another feature of the HOSTS file is its ability to block other applications from connecting to the Internet, providing the entry exists.

You can use a HOSTS file to block ads, banners, 3rd party Cookies, 3rd party page counters, web bugs, and even most hijackers. This is accomplished by blocking the connection(s) that supplies these little gems.

Example – the following entry 127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net blocks all files supplied by that DoubleClick Server to the web page you are viewing. This also prevents the server from tracking your movements. Why? … because in certain cases “Ad Servers” like Doubleclick (and many others) will try to open a separate connection on the webpage you are viewing.

For XP SP2 users you should see a Security Center prompt about allowing this connection. [screenshot]
Simply click No and continue. Yes the prompts can be annoying but at least you’ll know, however you should not see these prompts if these entries are included in the HOSTS file.

Note: this prompt only occurs if (example) *.doubleclick.net is included in the “Restricted Zone“.

The downside of this great tweak is that after installing the new HOSTS file with the installer program it adds thousands of harmful websites to be blocked which even includes projectwonderful.com and some others that you might find important! That means, if you are a publisher or advertiser on projectwonderful.com, make sure you remove the website from the blocked section in the HOSTS file.

To unblock a useful website

  1. Disconnect the LAN and the internet.
  2. Open up the HOSTS file in the notepad program, Ctrl + F and type projectwonderful, after you find it, remove the entry and save it so that you can easily access your projectwonderful.com account!
  3. Restart you computer, if you do not see any changes.

Way to get around DNS Propagation

  1. Also, if you wish to access a website that is a victim of the Delayed DNS Propagation or any restricted website,
  2. Again, loose all the connections with the LAN and the internet and open the HOSTS file in the notepad
  3. Look for an entry that says ‘127.0.0.1  localhost’ in the very beginning of the list
  4. Go to the next line after the ‘127.0.0.1  localhost’ add the ip-address of the website to be un-restricted, leave a space and the web-address of the website without the ‘www’. Again, in the next line, add the same IP and the web address with the ‘www’  It should look like:

127.0.0.1 localhost
11.22.33.44 example.com
11.22.33.44 www.example.com