Useful Software Thread

Chrome is a strange beastie. Usually it's faster than IE but sometimes it just isn't, for no apparent reason.

I find that restarting it works sometimes, as does clearing its cache.

Well, I did both, and neither worked. So far the only solution that I found would always work is to restart the computer; not even logging out and then relogging in does the trick. Oh, and I forgot to mention that it seems to coincide with Windows File Explorer suffering a similar slowdown in many but not all of its functions — particularly the right-click menu takes a lot longer than usual to show up for any folder or file.

Strangely enough, the Chrome slowdown does not manifest if I'm clicking on links or entering a URL in the same browser, and it leads to a page within the same site that I'm on; it only comes up whenever a new tab has to be opened or when I'm going to a different site. Even more strange is that the error seems to be a random occurrence; yesterday I worked considerably longer and should've put a bigger load on my computer than I did today within the 4-5 hours that it took for the slowdown to come up, and yet it worked all fine.

edited 2nd Aug '13 11:43:32 AM by MarqFJA

Sounds like a problem that runs deeper than Chrome.

I've just discovered an excellent Firefox plugin called Vim FX — it adds vim-style keybindings to the web browser. j to scroll down, k to scroll up, J and K to switch tabs... it may not sound like much, but it is really quite useful. It allows for completely mouseless browsing (barring stuff like flash-heavy websites). I understand that there is an equivalent for Chrome.

Anybody know a good download manager for Google Chrome?

Something that does not completely replace normal download, but neither refuse to work half the time. Few I have tried completely replace the download system. Except when they miss a download.

Is there something that asks whenever user wants to use download manager or Chrome for downloading?

You might find this link useful (I can't personally vouch for any of them, since I'm a firefox user).

I remember trying Download Master and Download All.

Those don't help downloading or work as accelerators, they just help you to download entire content of the site with one click.

@Fighteer: Which makes me wonder how I could determine said problem. Note that I never faced this problem until quite recently, within the past couple of months. I've been working with Google Chrome for way longer, and never had such a problem. Firefox, which I use whenever I need Tor-based browsing, doesn't appear to suffer any such lag.

edited 2nd Aug '13 1:36:44 PM by MarqFJA

Anyone here familiar with the Link Shell Extension? I'm trying to figure out which of the symlink options allows for copy-pasting the resulting symlinks to other locations rather than having to repeat the same process for each individual location, since according to this one webpage that I've come across, copy-pasting regular hardlinks would actually copy-paste the original file/folder rather than the created symlink.

So I just learned that Manga Traders, which I have an account on, has had its user database hacked and leaked on the Internet a few days ago, and my account may be among over 1 million others that are in the process of having their private data's apparently-mediocre encryption cracked. And since I've been using the same password for pretty much everything, it is thusly imperative that I change that.

Are there any reliable software that can help with large scale use of the "one different password per each site" approach? The linked article suggests LastPass and 1Password, but I am unfamiliar with either and don't really have the time to spare to test-run every suggestion that comes my way.

edited 20th Jun '14 3:18:09 AM by MarqFJA

There are lots of "password safe" applications out there. Norton 360 comes with one. I really couldn't give you a comprehensive list, but you seem to have started the search fairly well yourself.

Yeah, apparently so. In fact, just a few minutes after I made my previous post, I got a PM response from a troper who can view OTC threads but apparently is banned from posting in them, and the resulting discussion firmly convinced me that LastPass is the best option to me.

On another note, I'd like to know if anyone here has ideas about how to force Windows Explorer in Win7 to implement a "natural" alphanumerical sort rather than the current method that seems to look at the whole filename, extension and all, and thus leads to situations where it ranks names with Roman numerals at the end (I, II, III, etc.) as coming first before otherwise identical names that lack said numerals (i.e. "Back to the Future II.avi" is put above "Back to the Future.avi", because "I" comes before "."). Or perhaps if there's a third-party alternative to Windows Explorer that does address this problem.

And now, after going through the harrowing ordeal of forgetting the exact makeup of my new Win 7 login password (which used to be the reused password I had mentioned earlier) and finally overcoming it, I highly recommend Offline NT Password & Registry Editor for dealing with these situations if you don't 1) have a password reset disk, 2) can't use a System Repair Disc for some reason (in my case, because the only available computer with Win 7 64-bit is apparently set up so that you have to log in with an administrator account to access both system recovery tools and the command prompt, and there's some "HomeGroupUser$" admin account that we lack the password for), 3) can't use a password cracker because you know your password is too long or contains special characters that the tool can't deal with, and 4) don't want to do a clean install since it would erase every scrap of personal data that you have on the machine.

Wow, how long has it been since I saw this thread?

Anyway, I'm looking for adequate alternatives to Windows 7's default File Explorer.

Total Commander is the go to alternative.

Any particular reason?

New question: Any recommendations for a Word-to-HTML conversion program that doesn't require me to open each Word document individually and copy-paste the contents into the converter?

Pandoc. It doesn't have batch processing capabilities on its own, but since it's command-line, you can just search for scripts to do so for your OS's command line .

A +1 on Pandoc. Helped me considerably one time I had to convert a bunch of HTML documentation into Markdown for a Github migration.

edited 2nd Apr '16 11:07:20 AM by Tangent128

... I don't have experience with command-line scripts.

On a different note, what EPUB reader would you guys recommend?

I extract them with 7-zip then read them in my browser.

I use calibre. It lets you convert between formats easily, and is very customizable. Only downside I've found so far is that there's no easy way to add annotations.

edited 6th Apr '16 7:58:30 PM by whimsyful

Now that you mention it... Is 7-zip a decent substitute for Win RAR? At one pro in its favor is that unlike the latter, it apparently can perfectly extract files whose pathnames include special characters (so far I only tested it with folder names).

I can vouch for 7zip, it often can open files Win RAR can't open and is less prone to lagging when unpacking larger files on weaker machines.

Personally I use I Zarc for my compressing and decompressing needs.