September, 2017 - Softonic English

How to Link to the Exact Part of the YouTube Video You Want to Show

YouTube is great. So great that you can easily lose hours searching through its vast database of videos and watching he best ones you find. Then when you find a really great video there is only one thing you want to do once you’ve watched it. Share it! With over 5 billion videos watched on YouTube every single day that means there will be a hell of a lot of videos getting shared every day. How much time is being wasted, though, once these videos have been shared?

Often when you share a video you like there is a specific part of the video that you want the other person to see. Now you can tell them when they should start watching but true YouTube power users don’t do that. YouTube power users have a simple trick up their sleeve that lets them share the video and make it start at the exact moment they want it to. Let’s see how they do it.

3 different ways to share a YouTube video that starts at an exact moment

1. Start at box

The 1^st way is to click share and then you’ll see a tickbox saying “Start at” and a box for inputting the time you want the video start at. You’ll notice if you play the video whilst this box is open the time will automatically change to match the time of the video.

2. Right click

The 2^nd way is really simple. When the video is at the moment you want to share you simply pause it and then right click anywhere on the video. You then select “Copy video URL at current time” and you’ll have a link that’ll start the video at that exact moment.

3. Add the time yourself

The 3^rd way involves manually adding the time at the end of the link. For example, if you want the video to start at 0 minutes and 28 seconds simply add ‘&t=0m28s’ at the end of the link before you share it. Like so https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX3zxcV8yLg&t=0m28s

So there you have it. 3 easy ways to share a video so that it starts at the exact moment you want it to.

This article was originally published on May 17th 2017.

Follow me on Twitter: @PatrickDevaney_

How to Stop People Commenting on Your Instagram Posts

Instagram has introduced a whole raft of new tools for controlling who can comment on your posts. This is great news for anybody who only wants to share their posts with people they’re close to. We’ll go over these instructions soon but for now we’re going to look at turning off comments completely. If you’re posting for your own satisfaction, why should an inappropriate comment from some anonymous troll ruin things.

How to Stop People Commenting on Your Instagram Posts

1. Go to Advanced Settings

Once you have your image, either one you’ve just taken or one from your gallery, and you’re ready to post you’ll find yourself at the first stage Instagram menu.

At the bottom of the menu you’ll see the “Advanced Settings” button.

This is what you want to click.

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2. Turn Off Commenting

The Advanced Settings menu is pretty simple. It only has the single “Turn Off Commenting” toggle switch. Click this to on and

nobody will be able to comment on your Instagram posts. This option only works on a per post basis, however, so

we’ll quickly go over how to Turn Off Commenting for older posts.

3. Select the Post You Want and Click the 3 Dots at the Top of the Post

This works for any post that you don’t want people commenting on.

All you have to do is go through all of your old posts and select the post that youd on’t want people commenting on.

Then, click on the 3 dots icon that is found in the top right hand corner.

This’ll open the Settings Menu for that particular post.

4. Turn Off Commenting

Once this menu is open all you have to do is select Turn Off Commenting and you’re safe from internet trolls.

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Was this tutorial useful? Would like some more Instagram tutorials? If so, please let us know in the comments below.

The Google Chrome App That Could Block Your PC

Up to now, we’ve seen Chrome extensions with hidden malware and Chrome extensions that spy on you, but now we’re at a whole new level: Chrome extensions that, unbeknownst to you, squeeze the resources out of your computer to mine crypto coins.

The controversial extension we’re talking about is SafeBrowse, an extension that blocks ads and saves you time. Everything was running smoothly until the latest version, version 3.2.25, set off some alarm bells. The Bleeping Computer security portal discovered that the extension had a JavaScript app inserted into the code. This little app is called Monero, and users don’t even know that it is there while it is making money for SafeBrowse by mining crypto coins.

So what exactly is “mining crypto coins?” We looked at crypto coins in detail a while back, and we’ve seen certain scams similar to this one that use your computer’s power to mine crypto coins for cyber criminals. Mining crypto coins is the processing of transactions in block chains. This complicated procedure creates virtual money that can then be traded for real world currency.

The problem is that it is an incredibly complex procedure that requires a lot of your PC’s resources. If your PC is busy making money for SafeBrowse, it will no doubt run a hell of a lot slower whenever you’re using it for whatever you use it for.

Bleeping Computer has shown how much power SafeBrowse actually uses:

The Task Manager of the Bleeping Computer test computer was blocked literally seconds after installing the extension.

Of course, SafeBrowse users realized that something was wrong and immediately besieged the Chrome Web Store with negative ratings. At the time of writing this article, the extension is no longer on the Web Store, but before it went missing over 140,000 users had downloaded it.

The team behind SafeBrowse has claimed that they haven’t released an update for months. They say that the rogue update must be the work of a hacker. On their official page it says that latest version is 3.2.1.

There are 2 possibilities, then. Either SafeBrowse is lying, which is bad. Or SafeBrowse is telling the truth, which is even worse, because it means that there could be back doors and security flaws all over the Chrome Web Store. Either way, we need to be very careful about what we download these days.

How Do I Know if Someone Is Stealing my Wi-Fi Connection?

One of the biggest advantages that wireless connection brings to its users is the possibility of accessing the internet anywhere (malls, cafes, shops, markets etc.) without needing cables. The result is easier access to information and increased mobility for everyone.

Our users are talking about the best resources for checking your Wi-Fi status and who is using it. Join the conversation now!

After the dawn of the wireless connection, however, it didn’t take long before most devices started supporting Wi-Fi. This has ended up creating amongst users the need to have a wireless router at home.

The problem is this: just as you can connect to wireless networks in a mall, for example, it could be that your neighbors are also connecting to your network, “stealing” your bandwidth or accessing your folders and files.

Ever wondered what WiFi actually looks like?

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How do you find out if someone is using your internet without your permission? Below you will find some tips and solutions to avoid letting any Wi-Fi “hackers” interfere with your internet browsing and compromise your security.

How Do I Know if Someone Is Stealing my Wi-Fi Connection?

Router lights

Although this is not an accurate or even recommended method, it could be useful for a first diagnosis, quickly indicating if someone is stealing your internet. It basically consists of analyzing the router’s lights.

Usually these devices have lights that indicate the traffic through the network. These lights blink according to the amount of data the router is transferring. To use this method you must turn off every single wireless device in the house and check if the traffic light continues to flash.

If the LED indicator blinks frantically even with all devices with wireless connection turned off, there is a good chance that someone is using your internet. However, before taking any drastic measures use one of the following methods presented in this article just to be sure.

List of Apparatuses

The router settings center can be very useful to check if you have any unauthorized devices connected to your network. The IP address for center settings’ access is different for each type of router. One way to find out the IP access is by using the command prompt.

Press the shortcut “Win + R” and in the screen that appears, type “cmd”. Now, at the command line, type “ipconfig” and look for the “Default Gateway” line. Usually the IP listed on this line is the one that gives access to the router’s settings.

Once you have the IP address enter in the address bar, of your browser, the username and password to access the router and wait for the configuration screen to load.

Once again, all routers are different so in each manufacturer and model the list of connected devices is found in a different place. However, companies follow a naming pattern. Therefore, to find the list of recognized devices on the network, look for options such as “Device List”, “Attached Devices” or “My Network”.

List of devices present connected to the router

Lists typically provide the connected devices’ MAC address and IP address. Compare the devices with the electronics you have at home that allow you to access the internet. At the end of the comparison, if there is any item left on the list, it may be compatible with your neighbor’s wireless card.

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Monitoring through software

If you do not want to access the router settings to find out if someone is improperly using your internet, you can use applications developed exclusively for network monitoring.

For management, monitoring and security of wireless networks, two good program options are Zamzom Wireless Network Tool Basic Version and WiFi Manager, both are free and easy to use.

Network monitoring, in general, can be done using programs such as BitMeter, Wireshark, NetWorx and many others. With them, you can track data traffic on the network and verify if information flow is not greater than it should be. Some of them, even, allow you to see which devices are consuming more bandwidth.

What to do if somebody is stealing your internet?

And if you come to the conclusion that they are actually using your internet without the proper permission, what do you do? The first attitude is to protect your network by entering passwords and access filters.

Calm down and solve everything peacefully!

One of the best methods of protection is to filter access through the boards’ MAC address. Since the devices’ physical address works as if it were a fingerprint, which means it is unique, limiting access to the network through it is a great option.

Another alternative is to change the passwords for WPA2-AES, which is safer than the others. Changing the password itself can also be a solution. Remember that a good password is composed of numbers, letters and special characters and have no connection with the user’s personal life.

This article was originally published on April 26th 2017.

A Secret WhatsApp Web Trick That’s Perfect for Gossips

Are you a bit of a gossip? Do you love knowing anything and everything that is going on in all your friend’s lives? Well, if you are, you might be interested in this little trick for WhatsApp Web. This trick, which only works on the browser version of WhatsApp, allows you to discover exactly when a message has been read. It could be particularly useful for group messages.

There are two ways you can check the time that each contact has read a message.

The first involves double-clicking the two blue ticks of the message in question. This will open a window where you can see who has read the message and at what time.

The second consists of pressing the button that appears above the date the message was sent and clicking message information. This will show the same window from before.

So there you have two quick and simple ways to find out who has read your message and when, and you don’t even have to get your phone out of your pocket to use them.

A $32,000 House That Can be Built in a Day and Placed Anywhere You Want

These days buying or building a house can be both time consuming and expensive. Self build projects can run into months and even years before reaching completion and many often go way over budget.

A new Ukranian startup called PassivDom believe they have the answer to this problem. PassivDom have a specially designed robot that can print off the parts necessary to build small autonomous houses in about eight hours. The robot can’t print off everything with windows, doors and plumbing still needing to be added by a human worker but the capabilities of PassivDom’s robots are impressive nonetheless.

Another unique selling point of the PassivDom homes is that they are completely autonomous and mobile. This means that they can be moved around if needs be and when they’re based somewhere they don’t need to be connected to external plumbing or electrical systems. Solar panels collect energy that is then stored in batteries that are included in the house and the houses feature their own sewage systems and water filtration units to ensure you have a supply of safe drinking water.

The plans for the houses are mapped out using 3D design software and then printed out by PassivDom’s robot. The robot prints roof, floor and 20cm thick walls using carbon fibers, polyurethane, resins, basalt fibers and fiberglass. Extras including doors, windows, appliances, an alarm system, solar panels and the septic, electrical, heating andcooling systems are then added.

All in all PassivDom say they can complete a 380 square foot home in about 24 hours that’ll cost you just $31,900. There are other more complicated designs available as well as the possibility for custom builds but they’ll obviously take longer to build.

This article was originally published on May 16th 2017.

Do not use all your data again

We all run out of data once in a while. Often at the worst of times.

Whether you’re trying to message friends, send your boss an important picture, or just watch a video of your child’s first steps – that “connection lost” message hurts.

There are so many data plans to choose from, too – all with their own limits and prices – so it’s difficult knowing exactly how much you can use and when. Just watching a 3 minute YouTube video uses up to 25MB, and with most social media apps now autoplaying videos and autoloading pictures, you can use up your monthly allowance in days.

But Databack can help.

Databack is a free app that saves up to 25% of your monthly data, whether you’re on a 2G, 3G, or 4G plan. You can think of it a loyalty reward scheme: you use your favourite apps as normal and earn some of the data back. Once you’ve saved a minimum of 150 MB, you can top up your data plan, keeping you online for longer.

You’ve probably experienced the slow, intermittent connections of 2G and 3G. They’re weak, don’t always work indoors, and take longer to connect. 4G is ideal for mobile internet, but the plans can be expensive if you use the internet a lot. But with Databack, you don’t need to choose between speed and data – just select a cheaper 4G plan and top up with the FREE data you earn through the app.

And there are other ways to earn free data, too. Refer a friend or family member and they’ll give you up to 100 MB for each person who joins. They also offer daily competitions, including a “spin the wheel” game where you can win up to 50 MB, and you get a 5 MB joining bonus when you sign up.

You’ll want to keep an eye on your data, and Databack includes a live tracker which shows you exactly how much data your apps are using, and how much you’ve earned. This means you can spot those data-hungry apps before they use up all your allowance, or request a top up to keep on surfing. There’s also a speed test so you can test the connection in your area, and choose the right speed and data plan for you.

So if you find yourself running out of data, or counting MBs every time you go online, give Databack a try. It’s completely FREE and gives you peace of mind when there’s no wifi. So go on – do yourself a favour and download Databack today.

7 Awesome Tricks for Chrome That 99.9% of Users Don’t Know About

There are dozens of hidden tricks within Google Chrome that can change and improve your navigation experience completely! We have searched the internet high and low in order to bring you 7 tricks for Chrome that hardly anybody is aware of!

Here are 7 hidden features for Google Chrome that you didn’t know about!

1. The automatic password generator

One of Chrome’s producers, Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, recently revealed his favorite trick on Chrome – the automatic secure password generator.

Now, why would you want Chrome to generate a password for you? At first, it may seem scary to leave such an important aspect of your online security to just a browser, but it’s perfect if you’re (a) terrible at choosing safe passwords and (b) have the bad habit of repeating the same password for various accounts.

By using this trick, Chrome will generate a special, original password for each of your accounts, and save them so you never have to input them again!

Click here to activate the Chrome autogeneration feature (please note, that you will need to be logged into your account in order to do this).

2. How to find out how long it’ll take you to read an article

Do you ever come across a really interesting article, however you’re afraid it’s going to take a bit longer than expect to read it? Well, thanks to Readism, that’s now a thing of the past.

Readism is strangely accurate, and gives you an estimated time of how long specific articles will take you to read. You can download it onto Chrome here.

Once you’ve added the extension to Chrome, and when you hover over an article, a “READ TIME” will appear that tells you how long it’ll take you to read the entire article!

3. How to disable Chrome notifications

Are you getting tired of all the notifications that disrupt your surfing time? Well, disabling them is easy!

In order to deactivate your Chrome notifications, all you need to do is go to the Setting option in the top right of the screen. Scroll down and click on “Show Advanced settings” > Content Settings > Manage exceptions…

You can select the type of notifications you wish to receive right here:

4. Turn Chrome into your own personal language teacher

Everyone has their own way of learning languages. Some of us choose to watch foreign series, reading books, etc, but there is a new way that could help – the Chrome extension Liangua.ly.

This extension asks you which language you’d like to learn. Then, every time you open a page in that language and you don’t understand something, you can double click on a word or phrase, and it will give you a translation.

But there’s more – Lingua.ly has a way of remembering all of these words and phrases that you have not understood, and later will find other texts containing them, so that you can slowly start to see them in context.

To start using Lingua.ly, do the following:

1) Install the following extension here.

2) Choose the language you wish to learn

3) Activate the Alt + Double click option

4) Highlight the word you do not understand and click Alt while double-clicking on the word itself.

5. Integrate your Office documents with Chrome in five seconds

Are you using Windows 10 but choose Chrome over Edge for your internet browsing? Well, you should know about the extension Office Online. Created by Microsoft themselves, Office Online provides you instant access to your Office document on Chrome, in just one click!

How to start using Office Online:

1) Install the extension from here.

2) Copy and paste chrome://extensions into your search bar

3) Find Office Online and activate this option:

4) Click on the Office Online icon from the extension bar and connect to your Office account. From now on, when you click that icon, you’ll be presented with your most recent documents on Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.

With Office Online, you can instantly drag files into the browser and save them onto your OneDrive. It’s a great time-saving platform!

6. Don’t let the internet distract you anymore with StayFocusd

Thanks to the realms of the internet, we’ve all managed to get distracted on many occasions while trying to finish an important piece of work. Well, you don’t need to worry about that anymore with a great Chrome extension called StayFocusd.

StayFocusd allows you to choose the periods of time in which you can surf certain pages. For example, you can set timers on Facebook which means it’ll only let you surf for a set amount of time.

Do you think this could help you? Here’s what you need to do:

1) Install the extension from this link.

2) You can then decide if you want to block certain pages after spending a set amount of time on them:

If you go to “Settings”, you can even choose the amount of time you’re can discipline yourself to stay on certain pages per day.

7. Navigate faster and save up to 70% of mobile data on Chrome on Android

Just as the title suggests, this trick only works if you are using Chrome on an Android device.

There is a new mode available on the Chrome app that saves you up to 70% of your mobile data. Using this feature also helps you browse much faster as the quality of the multimedia is decreased, therefore pages take less time to download.

To enable this feature, do the following

1) Go to Chrome settings

2) Select the option “Data Saver” under the Advanced Options

3) Activate it

From this moment on, Google will be using its own servers to compress the pages you visit before downloading. Please not that this will affect the quality of the content, however you can change it back whenever you like!

If you’re an Android user and want to find out other ways you can save you mobile data consumption, here are six app settings you can change to stop them devouring your data!

This article was originally published on May 23rd 2016.

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Why Starz will make you love winter

Brrr… it’s a bit chilly out there. To quote a certain king, winter is coming – and that means it’s time to slip into your snuggly pyjamas, chuck some popcorn in the microwave, and get cozy with a loved one on the sofa…

It’s binge-watching season, folks.

And we’ve got the perfect antidote to the winter blues: Starz Play.

Starz Play is the streaming service from Starz, creator of such iconic original shows as Golden Globe® nominated Outlander, swashbuckling pirate adventure Black Sails, and the blood-spattered Roman drama Spartacus.

Having joined the streaming set fairly late in the game, Starz has already outdone Netflix with some of the most critically-acclaimed shows around. According to this report from Cut Cable Today, Starz original content is among the highest rated on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic – beating even that of its euphemism-spawning rival – making it a solid choice for an evening’s entertainment.

Starz has a long history of showing the best movies. It started in 1994 with Scent of a Woman and the harrowing, multi-award winning drama, The Crying Game. Today, it shows hundreds of box office hits such as Inferno, Passengers, and Don’t Breathe, as well as classics like Ghostbusters, Top Gun, and Mrs Doubtfire.

And let’s face it: going to the cinema is pretty expensive nowadays – especially once you’ve bought that stale popcorn and a litre of soda you’ll need to pee out halfway through the film. Not to mention the queues, noisy patrons, and ads at the beginning (what the heck happened to just showing movie trailers?).

Why brave all that (and the rain) when Starz provides your own stockpile of awesome movies and TV shows for just $8.99 a month? That’s less than the cost of a movie ticket.

There are over 1,000 TV shows and movies to enjoy, with new content every week, so you’ll always have something fun and exciting to watch, whatever mood you’re in. Starz covers all genres – from horror to romantic comedy – so you’re guaranteed to find something your friends will love for your next movie night.

And that price gives you unlimited streaming, anywhere. The Starz Play app lets you download movies and TV shows so you can take them with you wherever you go – meaning your morning commute just got a helluva lot more fun.

Better yet, Starz are offering a 7-day free trial. That’s a whole week to decide if you want to subscribe, or just go on a marathon binge for free – either way, you win. So as the nights draw in and the weather changes, invite your friends and family over to enjoy the best movies and TV shows from Starz.

Google and the UNHCR Team Up to Create Searching for Syria Project

For six years now the civil war in Syria has raged on and sent millions of Syrian families running from their homes in search of safety. It has caused a refugee crisis on a scale unseen since the Second World War. Despite this, however, it is all too easy to allow this terrible crisis to escape your attention. In an attempt to combat this crisis fatigue, Google and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have teamed up to create Searching for Syria.

The idea behind the project is to highlight what people around the world are searching for relating to the war-torn nation. The site highlights the top 5 Google search queries and then presents data and results relating to each one. Everything is presented in a very visual manner, and often the results can be quite surprising.

As well as being surprising, sometimes Searching for Syria can whip up emotions and can be quite distressing. This is all part of the plan of course, and it is a plan that has been executed well. As well as graphs showing the impact of the war and Syrian search terms highlighting just how similar the average Syrian family is to the rest of us, Searching for Syria includes tours of vibrant parts of the country before the war destroyed them.

All the questions presented on the site are the most searched Google terms from around the world. The final question “How can I help Syrian refugees” offers three important ways for people to get involved and help deal with the crisis.

Take some time to check out Searching for Syria. It will touch and move you, and it may just break your heart. It is good to see tech companies taking the lead and teaming up with the UN to try and sort out some of the problems facing humanity.

We hope to see more initiatives like this one in the future.