@Sax25

.... who is Mark?
1. How does Mark know Jessica? (is he a friend, a bf, an ex-bf, an acquaintance, a co-worker, a stranger twit...etc)
2. How does he know where she lives? (he's a frriend, a bf, an ex-bf, an acquaintance who's been to a party at her house, a close co-worker)

If he's 'close' enough to know her personally in any way and where she lives then wouldn't it be safe to say that she'd probably tell him she got a new LCD and Blu Ray anyway, and that she'd be just as screwed then? I mean of course, he could be just outside her circle of friends, but still....it's highly doubtful.

Otherwise:

He'd be some stranger schmuck who
1. doesn't know who she is
and
2. doesn't know where she lives

I'm not going to call it a stupid idea or say it won't catch on because there are MANY things I see people sharing on facebook, myspace and twitter that I personally would not.

The service seems to be safe in that there are no location details there? But I could be wrong. It's actually kind of sad that this, as a service is able to do more than our bank and credit card companies currently does for us.

That being said, for some people it may be fun to share info about certain purchases. But it's a little odd to have to watch or censor what you buy based on what you have signed up on Blippy.

And let's not forget, this is a social tool - so it's def. not catering to paranoid "everyone wants to steal my identity" folk. I wouldn't use it, but I wouldn't judge anyone who chooses to.

I have less addons running in FF than Chrome and Chrome is way, way, way faster. Invisible Hand is also much quicker in Chrome than FF. In fact, IE opens faster than FF on any given day.

I'm also running 7 64bit on a C2Q 6600@3GHz and 8GB of RAM.

Similar behavior on my other machines as well - laptop, other PC etc.

I bit the bullet and purchased a subscription to admuncher. They're getting a little greedy now, but so far it's been as invaluable to me as anti-virus software. As long as they don't raise the prices for a subscription I'll be tacking it into my 'security' budget. Admuncher covers everything...all or most browsers as long as they're based on mozilla, ie or webkit and even IM programs etc. Because of that I haven't needed to find tools like these for a while.

You should look up lastpass. Nothing compares except maybe billeo or robopass - and those store the data PER machine, so you STILL have to usb or xfer files across to other machines - which, face it, can turn sour if you leave the information on a usb key and it's lost/stolen. In the cloud they're safe unless there's some dedicated hacking attempt to steal the data and even then, each passworded file and entry is encrypted, so hackers would have a helluva time hacking each account and getting things like passwords to downloadsquad.com and twitter.

I have 3 computers and 2 laptops, no built in password manager satisfies this kind of traffic. That's why bookmark syncs and password managers are important for me, and people like me. 1 account in a cloud somewhere and the ability to sync bookmarks and passwords across multiple computers is simply necessary.

My list from 1 to 10 and why I've completely switched to Chrome as my default browser:

1. Lastpass (Can't live without it, I hope to God they never start charging for basic functionality)
2. Xmarks (Same as above. It's way more robust than Chromes bookmark sync - and of course is browser independent technically)
3. WOT. An all round great tool, especially when it blocks a website that something redirects to if you say, make a typo.
4. Invisible Hand. GREAT, has helped me find deals maaaany-a-time.
5. Google Voice.
6. Google Calendar.
7. Zoho Notebook and Google Docs.
8. Feedly
9. Send this with Gmail.
10. Bitly. I'm lazy, and typing bitly.com is just too much work.

Once lastpass, xmarks, wot and invisible hand became extensions I was an insta-Chrome user. Been admiring it for a long time for the sheer efficiency and speed but now it's got it all.

I'm not too sure about that. Some of us still like the separation of clients. I can't STAND the clients like trillian and miranda that stuff them all into 'fields', separating them by icons. For one, they're a bit too lightweight...underpowered and missing the little knicks and knacks (probably what you call bloatware) of the respective clients.

I run WLM, Yahoo and AIM on my PC and Notebook and I don't mind....in fact, I prefer it this way.

Here's the thing. You can avoid google completely. Just don't use an Android phone, Gmail, Gtalk, and the many Google services out there (Picasa, Voice, Dictionary, Docs, etc.).

Eventually, you'll be handing your information over to someone, anyway.
Your ISP, first of all has pretty much enough information on you or whoever signed up for the account. Their dns servers and your ip address are also constantly logged.

My point is that if you're a 'user' of the internet or a social human being, chances are that your information is out there somewhere. So if you're concerned or paranoid about that, the best thing to do is to move into the hills somewhere and live out the rest of your life - as long as noone steals your identity or, I'll rephrase - as long as some terrorist doesn't steal your identity and do something horrific, you can sit up there fish, grow potatos and enjoy life as a recluse.

Otherwise, you're going to have to live with the fact that as we move more and more in/on to the digital domain, information that's normally privy and only seen by say Government eyes is going to get out there. All your chats and emails are snapshotted and saved someplace and as of facebook, pretty much everything is out there.

As Mr. S says though, as long as you're not doing something you shouldn't or have something you're not supposed to - there's no need to be paranoid.

That...is...of course assuming that noone at all will ever be able to go in there and change details of your chats/emails/life. But that's another story.

Sebastian,

Oh they are rivals in different aspects...they compete OS-wise, of course but arch-rivals is just too strong a description of their relationship. And yes, I think Apple takes MS more seriously than the other way around, because every person that decides to not want/need OSX, doesn't need a Mac, and Apple sells them as a team or neither...whereas MS sells just the OS, even to people who buy Apple hardware so Apple HAS to compete with MS in that aspect. Apple OSX is as much of a "threat" to MS as Linux is.

But as arch-rivals, companies do not by any means collaborate. And Apple and MS have a long history of collaboration and software initiatives.

Apple has no Archrival......the closest I can think of as a company is HP, which builds and brands their own computers, printers, laptops and accessories. If HP ever decided to embrace some Linux variant and market their own proprietary OS for use on their computing hardware, then they'd be an example of a company that competes directly with Apple, and so, would be an Archrival. Likewise, if MS ever decided to buy some hardware vendor like Dell and brand computers, printers and accessories as Microsoft, even with Windows being more 'open' than OSX, they would then be direct compet.

MS also has no real Archrival. As a direct compet. there's Linux - but, well I won't get into that. And while OSX DOES compete directly with Windows, the fact that Apple ONLY sells OSX to/on Macs puts it in a different league.

Apple, Microsoft and Google are 3 completely different monsters that rival each other on different levels, but offer each collaboration as well. None are archrivals, just companies with a few competing products/technologies.

Archrivals?

Chevrolet and Honda.
GE and all major brands not GE.
Sony Music and EMI
NBC, FOX, CBS, ABC (although they technically use each others studios, production companies, etc.)

How exactly are MS and Apple arch-rivals? They're OS rivals and that's where it ends. True rivals don't work with each other and make software for the others' systems.

MS has been making Mac compat. software for years and Windows runs in Bootcamp, something MS could easily sabotage for whatever the reason, if there were truly any big rivalry.

WLM and Bing working on the Iphone is as logical as Itunes for Windows. It's a great, logical business decision. Apple could have kept Itunes locked away in OSX forever, OR open up to the millions using Windows. It was initially locked away, with Apple hoping that people would buy their hardware to run their Ipod, and it worked but not in the masses they hoped so the smart thing was to make a Windows variant.

MS could keep WLM and Bing locked away but they'd be missing millions of Iphone users who are constantly using their data services, vs. Windows Mobile Phones which operate independently of a data connection (and thus, render the point moot).