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E.L.O Everything Live On

http://www.everythingliveon.com/superx-os-greases-the-classic-linux-wheel/

SuperX OS Greases the Classic Linux Wheel

SuperX OS is a solid Linux distribution that dispels all of the criticisms about using free open source operating systems.

SuperX is a relatively new distro developed by Libresoft. Based on Ubuntu and Debian, it adds a highly customized KDE desktop environment. Version 3.0 — dubbed “Grace” after computing pioneer Grace Hopper — was released March 23.

Version releases come out about every 10 months or so, but the maturity and impressive performance of this latest release makes the SuperX OS a prime replacement choice for whatever distro you now use — it is that good.

SuperX OS should be one of the first options for anyone looking to dump Microsoft Windows. It needs almost no learning curve.

A Better KDE

As an advanced Linux fan, I used to prefer the KDE desktop environment for its wide range of configurability and flexibility. However, traditional KDE implementations are often complex and confusing for newcomers, with sometimes overwhelming options to remember. What I especially like about how Libresoft’s SuperX KDE is the way developers tweaked it to be simple and effective.

SuperX OS uses a tweaked KDE desktop environment that is clean and inviting.

One example of this tweaking is the absence the Activity feature. Activity is a subset of Virtual Desktops. Each Activity space you create can have its own set of Virtual Desktops. The Activity feature is an alternative virtual desktop. In KDE, you can use both methods.

Each Activity workspace or screen can have its own wallpaper, icons and widgets. I never found the Activity feature in KDE to be anything near useful. It seems not to exist at all in SuperX OS. The right upper corner, the usual hot spot to navigate to the Activity controls, is not a part of SuperX OS.

Over the years I have switched to the Cinnamon desktop. I find its flexibility and configurability rivals that of KDE, but it is simpler and more convenient to access all of its overlapping features. That is the same reaction I have toward how KDE functions in the SuperX OS.

Under the Hood

What caught my eye in this KDE variant distro is its desktop responsiveness. Grace gives more priority to application performance.

The Grace engine compresses unused memory pages within RAM rather than swapping them out to the swap partition. This makes the OS responsive even when the system memory is low. Commonly used applications are preloaded and cached in memory for faster startup of favorite applications.

SuperX Grace comes in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. This release is a Long Term Support version. It will receive regular software updates and bug fixes until April 2019.

Lean Hardware

SuperX OS 3.0 runs on most legacy hardware. It excels on well-endowed modern gear.

System requirements are rather basic: minimum 1-GHz processor (dual-core recommended) with at least 1 GB of RAM (2 GB recommended) and 25 GB of disk space.

SuperX 3.0 ships with KDE 4.13.3, Linux kernel 3.13, and a full range of multimedia support. The installer offers an option to install non-open source drivers and codecs to ensure that all audio and video formats play, including Flash-compatible plug-ins.

KDE tends to make older, less-endowed computers sluggish. A favorite old laptop with 1 GB RAM locked up once it fully loaded Super X OS. Other older computers with 2 GB or more RAM worked fine.

Integration Works

The customized KDE 4 desktop environment works impressively well. It sports a dark plasma theme.

SuperX includes all the tweaks of KDE and QT, plus the benefits of some adopted Linux Mint tools.

I like one in particular: SuperX Sources is a fork of Mintsources from Linux Mint. The Package Manager is based on Muon. SuperX has social and instant messaging integration provided via Social Messenger.

Applications Included

SuperX comes preloaded with both the Mozilla Firefox and Chromium browsers, and a fully functional Flash player. The Firefox browser comes with the download manager/accelerator DownThemAll! extension preinstalled.

SuperX’s default video player is VLC. Musique is the default music player. OpenShot video editor is preinstalled, as is the Filezilla file transfer client.

Other solid software packages include KDE games such as Kapman and Potato Guy, LibreOffice office suite, GIMP image editor, Thunderbird email, Kate text editor, KTorrent torrent client, Java, K3B disc burner, GParted partition editor, Kamerka webcam, Konversation IRC client, and more.

Easy Navigation

Moving around the desktop is very easy in SuperX OS. The corners are hot spots. Push the mouse pointer into the upper left corner of the screen to see an Expo view or thumbnail presentation of all open windows on all virtual workspaces. Pull the mouse pointer out of the corner to return to the standard screen view.

Push the mouse pointer into the lower right corner to see a grid view of the open applications in each workspace. This view gives you the added advantage of seeing which apps are open in each workspace. Click the minus sign in the grid to remove an empty workspace. Click the plus sign to add another workspace.

Free or Donate

Libresoft Technology is a privately held company that provides commercial services based on SuperX and other open source technologies.

Do not let the prompt for payment on the download page deter you from trying SuperX OS. Just put $0 in the payment window and press the download button.

Of course, you can voluntarily pay whatever you want for this open source Linux distro. Besides the freemium version — which worked flawlessly on several of my old and new computers — Libresoft offers a professional version for business and enterprise use, with paid support.

Bottom Line

SuperX OS has almost all of the applications that an average home or office user would want out of the box. It is quick and easy to add much more.

Do not let the newness of this distro keep you from trying it. This latest release is far more developed than many Linux distros that have been around much longer.

Libresoft did not attempt to reinvent the Linux OS wheel or create a new desktop to add more confusion to an already crowded desktop field. Instead, it focused on fine-tuning one of the most productive Linux desktop environments.

SuperX lives up to its name. It is a superb operating system choice.

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E.L.O Everything Live On

http://www.everythingliveon.com/chrome-web-store-gives-bad-extensions-the-boot/

Chrome Web Store Gives Bad Extensions the Boot

Google recently purged some 200 extensions from its Chrome Store inventory. Extensions and add-ons let users add functions and features to the Chrome Web browser, but bad extensions can expose users to a greater risk of spyware and malware. A major problem with many browser add-ons is ad injectors.

The clean-up resulted from an extensive search for embedded code that violates Google’s policies, triggered by increasing user complaints.

Google has been studying add-on security risks with a team at the University of California, Berkeley, and will release a full report of its findings on May 1.

“It is not so much the security of the Chrome browser as the security in having an open store for downloading extensions,” noted Martin Zetterlund, founder of ScrapeSentry.

“I am sure Google automatically screens any extension uploaded — but the bad guys will, of course, do their best to trick automatic screening,” he told LinuxInsider.

Tip of the Iceberg

ScrapeSentry this week revealed its discovery of problems with the Chrome extension Webpage Screenshot: The extension could send any information visible on a browser tab back to an IP address located in the U.S., such as page title.

“Obviously, they need to put more work into screening of uploads to the Chrome Store if it should be considered a trusted source, as opposed to downloading from random sites on the Internet,” Zetterlund said.

Distributing malware is against the Chrome Web Store’s Content Policies, said Google spokesperson Veronica Navarrete.

“When we detect items containing malware or learn of them through reports, we remove them from the Chrome Web Store and from active Chrome instances,” she told LinuxInsider.

However, Navarrete declined to answer specific questions about the program purge process, ad injection programs or the Webpage Screenshot extension.

Google removed Webpage Screenshot on Tuesday, Zetterlund said.

A Growing Problem

Ad injectors are code within an extension or add-on that inserts new ads or replaces existing ads on pages the Web browser visits. Google has received more than 100,000 complaints from Chrome users about ad injection in the last three months, according to Google Software Engineer Nav Jagpal.

Injectors are related to unwanted programs. Both are deceptive, hard to remove, and often secretly bundled with other downloads.

It is unclear if ad injectors are able to work within the more rigid architecture of Linux as a function protected by the Web browser’s integration with the operating system. The study refers to browsers tested only on Mac and Windows operating systems.

Google does not ban all uses of ad injectors. People can choose to install injectors that clearly disclose what they do, noted Jagpal.

However, injectors that sneak ads into a browser violate Google’s policies. Google alerts Chrome browser users with red warnings when users attempt to download software that is deceptive or does not use the right API (application program interface) to interact with the browser.

Ad Injector Study

The problem with Web browser extensions and add-ons is not restricted to the Chrome browser. The UC Berkeley team studied more than 100 million page views of Google sites across Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer.

The results were anything but pretty, noted Jagpal. The researchers found ad injectors on browsers running on the Mac and Windows operating systems, but it is unclear if they found them on the Linux OS.

The researchers detected ad injectors in the Chrome, Firefox and IE Web browsers. The study results include these findings:

More than 5 percent of browsers visiting Google sites have at least one ad injector installed. Half of those browser visits showed at least two injectors installed. Nearly one-third have at least four installed.

Thirty-four percent of Chrome extensions injecting ads were classified as outright malware.

There were 192 deceptive Chrome extensions that affected 14 million users.

Action Taken

Google has removed or disabled those deceptive extensions. Google now incorporates the techniques researchers used to catch them to scan all new and updated extensions, noted Jagpal.

Google has several policies in play to limit or entirely prohibit ad injectors. Those policies affect both the Chrome browser and AdWords advertisers with software downloads hosted on their site or linked to from their site.

For example, all Chrome extensions hosted in the Chrome Web Store must comply with the Developer Program Policies. This means that extensions must have a specific understandable purpose.

AdWords advertisers must comply with Google’s Unwanted Software Policy and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX) Seller Program Guidelines. Both prohibit programs that overlay ad space on a given site without permission of the site owner.