There are many hidden tweaks in Windows 7 and they can be found in forums and also in tweaking software. You can find a couple of tweak software that contains changing of hundreds of hidden settings but then most of the time they are too many and sometimes you are not sure whether is the tweak necessary or not. We found a Windows 7 tweaking tool called GIGATweaker which doesn’t have too many unnecessary hidden tweaks but only the useful ones.
After installation, we found that the interface of GIGATweaker is really clean and categorized properly. Some of the useful tweaks that we found on GIGATweaker are automatic logon, show message before logon, disable UAC, remove Action Center icon at system tray, deactivate warning of low disk space, restricting applications, adding OEM info and many more. Every settings can be easily enabled or disabled by placing a checkbox on the options.
It also has some useful Windows 7 optimization settings such as turning off Search Indexer, startup boost, disabling built-in CD/DVD burning feature. If you are using an evaluation version of Windows 7, it can even help you to reset the 30 day trial period three times which extends up to 120 days.
GIGATweaker is free and is meant to be used on Windows 7. We will have to say again that this tool is just nice without having too many unnecessary hidden tweaks. Most of the tweaks available in GIGATweaker are useful. When starting of the program, it recommends you to create a restore point in case you messed up something.
Download GIGATweaker
Windows 7 comes with an improved alt+tab task switcher with thumbnails support and also temporarily putting the program in full screen. That is if your computer supports Aero and has it enabled or else your task switching will be similar to what you see in Windows XP. If for some reason you are running the Windows 7 basic theme and wants to have a better alt+tab task switcher, you can give VistaSwitcher a try. Although the name of the program is VistaSwitcher which sounds like it is meant for Vista, but it works on XP and Windows 7 as well.
VistaSwitcher is an elegant and powerful task management utility for Windows OS. Once installed, it replaces the default Windows Alt-Tab dialog with a nice box that shows a list of all running tasks, with their names and preview snapshots, and enables the user to take actions on them using the mouse and keyboard shortcuts. You can set programs to exclude from being included in the Alt+tab, customize how it should behave and appear, and also you can set the task switcher to run with mouse without using the Alt+tab.
Vista Switcher needs to be running in background to hook the Alt+Tab hotkey and it takes up only 2MB of memory. VistaSwitcher is compatible with Windows XP, Vista and 7 both 32 and 64 bit although you will need to install a different version for 32 and 64 bit.
Download VistaSwitcher
With the private browsing and incognito mode for current web browsers, it offers absolute privacy for web surfers because all cache and history won’t be saved and automatically cleaned when the session is terminated. There are also third party extension that auto cleans up browser temporary files when exit but there are times when you have too many extension installed and will cause some incompatibility problems. One method is to use the portable version of Firefox browser and run the private browsing mode or manually clear the recent history.
Another way is to use Browzar, a very small and lightweight browser that is only 209KB in size which allows you to search and surf the web without leaving traces on your computer. Browsing history, stored files, cookies and search auto-complete won’t be saved on the computer. The only reason why Browzar is so small in sizer is because it is based on Internet Explorer’s engine. Most websites have better compatibility with IE so you won’t be facing problems in opening complicated websites.
Browzar doesn’t support third party extensions like Chrome or Firefox. It is meant to be a portable and private browser which you can run directly from a USB stick. When you close Browzar, you will notice that it automatically perform cleanup by deleting history, cookies, temporary internet files, temporary java files and flash local shared objects.
Browzar might be a little old as it was last updated on December 2008 but it is still a good alternative for a portable and private web browser.
Download Browzar
Facebook is currently the most used social website in the world. If you lost contact with a few good friends you known during high school, chances are they will end up in Facebook and you can get in touch with them from there. However Facebook being the most active social website, search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing tends to crawl and index your facebook profile and your name is now searchable in search engines. Signing up Facebook does have it pros such as getting in touch with old friends but it can be a privacy intrusion.
Imagine this situation, a stalker wants to get to know more about you so they search for your name in Google. Voila they found your Facebook account and surely there are a lot of private information which are protected by default. They can sign up a new Facebook account and try to trick you into accepting them as your friend using social engineering methods.
Fortunately there is a setting in Facebook where it can protect your privacy by stopping your Facebook profile from showing in search engine without deleting your Facebook account. Login to your Facebook account, click on Account and select Privacy Settings. Click on Search and uncheck the Allow button for Public Search Results.
Normally when a flash component is embedded to a webpage, there is nothing much you can do about it other than zooming in and out, setting the flash quality and printing it. For some custom players such as YouTube, it offers a bit more features such as stop download, watch on youtube and copy embed html. You can now manage flash contents on webpages by installing FlashPlus extension for Chrome browser.
FlashPlus is an extension that helps you manage flash content on web pages. By installing this extension, you can drag or resize flash movie files on any webpage, maximize flash content to the whole browser window, darken the areas around the flash content, pop out the flash to a new window, and block the flash to speed up page loading and also removing annoying music in the background.
After installing this extension, a FlashPlus icon will be added to the end of the address bar whenever you are on a page that contains flash contents. Clicking on that icon put the flash in full screen, locate the flash element, download and block. To have more features such as resizing, moving and darken, click on the thumbnail and the flash component will be highlighted. You can move the flash area and resize it. There are also buttons on top of the flash that lets you darken the area around the flash, make it full screen, block the flash and pop out into a new window.
Download FlashPlus
