If you feel the need to rebel against the capitalism and global media dominance of Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp, then this Chrome web app should save you the hassle of entering a list of Murdoch’s owned websites into your block list. To install the app, go to this page of Chrome Web App Store. There is a similar addon available for Firefox which can be found here: Firefox Addon – Murdochblock

For the comprehensive list of the websites that are blocked by the app, go to this wiki page. As rightly pointed out by commenter Alec on the app page, the websites of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph have been incorrectly blocked as well, even though these are not owned by Newscorp, but are owned by1Barclay Brothers. Probably, this is due to some confusion since Murdoch owns the Australian The Daily Telegraph (thedailytelegraph.com.au).

This is an open-source app and the source-code is here:  http://code.google.com/p/murdoch-block/

All of us whose work involves staring at a monitor for 6 out of 8 working hours in a day, are also aware that most organisations have PCs with Internet Explorer as the default browser. If you are unfortunate, this could well be something like the dreadful IE6. For us who love the flexibility, stability and customability of Firefox/Chrome on our home PC, settling for a stone-age browser like the IE6 is just very unsettling. After all, the sole purpose for IE over its life time is to download the other browsers. So you have decided which browser you want. But it is not always fully allowed to install them on your work PCs. There’s always that nanny IT dude restricting your admin rights on your work PC. But there’s always a sneaky way to dodge these.

Option 1: C:\Temp , or D:\Temp:

Most of the times, IT admin guys restrict you from installing files in the default applications folder, such as C:\Program Files etc. Installing it in a folder where write access is provided is an easy work around. Most importantly, it works like a charm.

Option 2: Portable Browsers:

There are lots of browsers available in the portable format. i.e. they can be installed on a removable storage device such as a USB stick. You can find more on this in this article.

Option 3: Convince/Bribe the IT dude or make friends with him:

Chances are, your USB drives are also disabled from use, since the organisation you work for is worried about data security etc. Hence, the next best option is to make friends with the IT dudes. This always works, provided you don’t get caught on ethical grounds. And possibly, IT dudes are well aware of the superiority of Chrome/Firefox over IE.

Those are the three options that I could think of. If you do have any other ideas/ options that could serve as a work around this problem, drop us a comment. Cheerio!

[Image Courtesy: Reddit]

Now it is not a secret anymore that Firefox rules the Browser pie.

And Axiis have produced an awesome flash interactive pie chart of the browser share of Firefox, Chrome, IE 6/7 and all the other browsers from Jan 2002 onwards. You just need to move over your mouse to see the respective browser share from Jan 2002 to Aug 2009. Go to the link below and have a go.

Axiis – Browser Share Pie

Stan Schroeder from Mashable raised an interesting question of the frequency of visitors now to the main homepage of Google, i.e. Google.com ( etc. depending upon your geographical location). It is true that with browsers which have in-built search functionality in the address bars viz. Chrome and Opera, the middle layer of the Google homepage has been largely eliminated. Add to that, other browsers like Firefox, IE and Safari include a search bar. It’s pretty safe to state that the entire spectrum has been covered. So, is anyone really using Google homepage and why?

One of the major reasons for people still using the Google homepage is that fossilised browser that it still breathing. Yes, IE6. There are no search bars, and the only option to search is Google. Of course, users here would be able to install Google Toolbars and stuff. According to W3counter statistics, as of Sep 2009, IE6 still maintains the fourth position in browser usage share with 13.28%, behind IE7, Firefox and IE8. It is difficult to segment the share of people out of this percentage who use search solely through Google’s homepage. There were no Google toolbar statistics to help us out.

Secondly, mobile devices and gaming devices have their own apps to surf and search through the Google search engine. So no interference here from the homepage.

Having said that, we must not forget the technological knowledge of the common user which cannot be gauged properly by us who use Google 24X7 in our address bars and are very conversant even with the exact syntaxes of Google hacks. If I was to tell my mom to search for anything over the phone, I’d just say Google it. And the first thing she’d do is to go to Google.com. The percentage of users who go to Google.com by default is also not only influenced by the ease that Google’s homepage suggests, but also by habit. Of course, we by now are quite used to typing straight away in the addressbar. But who will install Chrome on my mom’s laptop?

And lastly, I don’t believe that people return to Google for the doodles. Those doodles are just buzz creating tributes to legends and historical figures, and in a way one of those brand marketing exercises which never fails. The blogosphere will never fail to mention them, and other bloggers who read them will surely give it a visit. [ Guilty as charged. See here, here, here, here and here].

So, did I give you enough reasons already? Shout it out in the comments.

Initially, when I heard about the idea of a browser on a USB portable pen-drive, I started questioning about its applicability. I mean, why would someone not install an actual browser on the machine itself, and rather have it on a USB pen drive. The answer is simple: Portability. Not only of your favorite browser experience, but also of all that comes with it – bookmarks, addins etc etc. The applicability does not actually matter much if you access internet only at home, through your own machine [ in case of which, its better to just install it]. Or if work does not allow access to USB ports and installing of any new browsers, you are indeed forced to use whatever is available. But, if you do have access to USB ports at work, and you do not want to install your browser [ or are not allowed so by corpo firewall] , and also share your history data, bookmarks etc on your work machine – Portable browsers are the way to go.
Good news is – all your favorite flavours are available in their portable avatars. And here’s the list.

1. Firefox 3.0 on USB:

Portable Apps bring the Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition. So, now you can take your bookmarks, passwords, history, extension with you. Visit the PortableApps website - Mozilla page to download the browser. It is just 9 MB in size, and after installation it expands to 27 -77 MB. I really don’t know what that * sign, beside the 77MB figure, means on the Download button.
Works fine on Win XP SP2 onwards, Win Vista SP1 and Win 7.

2. My favorite – Sabka favorite – Google Chrome 2 Portable

No installation required. Just unzip the files in the folder and you can get started. To download your copy of Chrome Portable, go to this site [ the site is in German ]. The download link is here. Don’t worry, the software is indeed in English.
All your Chrome goodness are saved on the portable device. User settings such as Web History, Cookies are saved in the ‘Profile’ folder. And Program Settings are saved in ‘Chrome’ folder. Works fine in Win XP SP2 onwards, Win Vista SP1 and Win 7.

3. And finally, Opera10 @USB

Opera USB is actually a private project by an Austrian Web Developer called Markus Obermair. Opera@USB has been certified to be tested by Opera. The portable version of the browser can carry out all the usual functionalities, and stores all the user data in the portable device itself.
Go here to download the USB version. Languages supported are: Deutsche, English and Russian, and there is an International Version as well.
The developer’s webpage suggests the only requirements to install Opera@USB are: a computer with an internet connection, and a USB Flashdrive with about 15MB space left. And oh yeah, it works with every Windows PC. hmmm, not quite sure about ‘EVERY’ Windows PC, but it surely works on WinXP SP2, Win Vista SP1 and Win 7.

P.S. Sorry Linux and Mac users. And oh yeah, talking of browser, I am at work, where I don’t have access to USB drives, nor the admin rights to install Chrome/Firefox. That means I am using IE6. And this is what Tumblr reminds me.