Nuts and Volts - September 2013

Need Another Mobile OS?

If you are of the opinion that — even with Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry OS, and others — there still are not enough mobile operating systems in existence, you'll be happy to note that smartphones employing Mozilla's ( www.mozilla.org) Firefox mobile OS are beginning to appear, initially in lower-cost phones and emerging markets. The ZTE Open smartphone is already on sale in Spain, and Alcatel soon will be offering its One Touch Fire unit with the Firefox OS. As of this writing, Sprint has announced plans to release a related product, but so far the commitment has yet to translate into a product.

According to Mozilla, "Firefox OS includes all the things people need from a smartphone out of the box — calls, messaging, email, camera, and more — as well as the things you wish a smartphone offered. Firefox OS also includes built-in social features with Facebook and Twitter, HERE Maps with offline capabilities and smart walking, driving, and public transit directions, much-loved features like the Firefox Web browser, a new ability to discover one-time use and downloadable apps, Firefox Marketplace, and much more." The organization claims that "operators, OEMs, and developers" are showing keen interest in this open source alternative platform that —

being based on a web browser — is more Web friendly and can run HTML5 apps. Many observers aren't convinced that the world needs it, however, or even that it will be possible to slip into an already crowded market. Either way, you can watch the official demo at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu8q-oISbas& feature=youtube. ▲

COMPUTERS and NETWORKING

Free Secure Browsing

While your standard garden-variety browser comes with an optional setting for "private browsing," we all know that it isn't really all that private. Some sites manage to set cookies in spite of your settings, and because your IP address is readily detectable, they can tell if not exactly who you are, pretty close to where you are; plus, what kind of computer and software you are using, and some other information. That's why you get customized ads telling you about the homemakers in your neighborhood who make $3,000 a week tasting bran muffins. If you really want to browse anonymously, you need to go through a proxy server so your IP address isn't detectable. If you want to be nearly impossible to trace, you need to go through an entire network of proxy servers. That sounds complicated but, in fact, you just need to download the Tor browser from www.torproject.org, install it, and start surfing.

Tor ("The Onion Router") was designed as a project of the US Naval Research Laboratory and is an adaptation of Firefox.

Be aware that: (1) no browser is 100 percent anonymous, but this comes pretty close; and ( 2) you will experience noticeably slower data transfers because of all the "virtual tunnels" that the signals traverse. Right now, the Internet thinks my machine's IP address is 78.108.63.44, which places me in Vallentuna, Sweden which is a bit north of Stockholm. I'm pretty sure that is incorrect.