No web site on the Internet is particularly unique. Below is a list of other
"tester" web sites.
- Infected thumb drives: In
Test your defenses against
malicious USB flash drives I provide a sample autorun.inf file that can be used on a thumb drive to test how well
your computer is defended against malware that may live on a USB flash drive. January 2009.
- OpenDNS: Are you using OpenDNS? I think you should, these
buttons indicate if you are. So too, does their home page, in the top right corner.
- FLASH: Java competes with Flash for making interactive web pages. Adobe has
a Flash tester web page (they don't call it that)
that reports the currently installed version of Flash. Windows users running IE and another browser should do
this for all browsers installed on their system as they can be using different versions of the Flash player.
There is also another Adobe Flash tester
page.
Incomplete Flash version history:
NOTE: There are now two current versions of Flash: 9 and 10.
- As of February 26, 2009 the latest versions are 9,0,159,0 and 10.0.22.87
See
Advice on updating the Adobe Flash Player from February 28, 2009.
- As of November 7, 2008 the latest version of v9 is 9,0,151,0
- As of October 2008 the first and latest version of v10 is 10.0.12.36
- As of April 9, 2008 the latest version is 9,0,124,0
- As of December 18, 2007 the latest version is 9,0,115,0
See
Update your copy of the Flash player now. And do it the right way from December 21, 2007
and Problems updating
the Flash player in Firefox from December 22, 2007.
- As of July 10, 2007 the latest version is 9,0,47,0.
- As of December 9, 2006 the latest version is 9,0,28,0.
- As of July 1, 2006 the latest version is 9,0,16,0.
- As of March 20, 2006 the latest version was 8,0,24,0.
- As of October 2005 the latest version was 8,0,22,0.
- As of June 2004 the latest version was 7,0,19,0.
- As of September 2003 the latest version was 7,0,14,0.
- As of March 2003 the latest version was 6,0,79,0.
- As of February 3, 2003, the latest version of Flash for Windows was 6,0,65,0.
Note: If your computer has the Flash Player version 8.0.22.0 or earlier,
you should upgrade to get important bug fixes.
- The Adobe Flash Player Settings Manager are web pages that let you configure Flash cookies (a.k.a. local shared objects) as well
control how often Adobe checks for updates to the Flash player. For more from Adobe on this see: Flash
Player Help and How
to manage and disable Local Shared Objects.
- The Global
privacy settings page controls whether Flash based web sites can use your camera or microphone
- Global
Storage Settings control how much disk space websites can use to store information, or you can prohibit
websites from storing any information at all
- Global
Security Settings lets you specify if SWF or FLV content that uses older security rules can access the Internet.
Beats me too what that means.
- Global
Notifications Settings is where you configure how you want to be notified about updates to the Flash Player
- At the Website Privacy
Settings page you get a list of websites you've visited. For each you can specify rules about using your camera
or microphone or storing data on your computer.
- This what Adobe says about the Website
Storage Settings panel: "Use this panel to specify storage settings for any or all of the websites that have requested
permission to use your camera or microphone or to store information on your computer."
- The Secunia Online Software Inspector
scans your computer looking for software with know security bugs. It requires Java version 6.
- The Conficker Eye Chart is a simple
web page that reports whether your computer is infected with Conficker worm. Joe Stewart came up with the idea and he
has a copy of the same page at his personal website.
The H security also has an online Conficker tester.
- Windows Update: Conficker and other malware blocks access to Windows Update.
A quick and easy way to verify that Windows Update is working correctly is to manually run Microsoft's
Malicious Software Removal Tool. In Windowx XP, do Start -> Run -> "mrt.exe". In Vista, click the Start
button and type "mrt" into the search box to locate the mrt.exe file. For more see my February 5, 2009
blog posting
What
you don't know about the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool.
- IPChicken is my favorite website for reporting on your IP address. The "Name Address"
field often makes the ISP name obvious.
- Test your firewall with ShieldsUp! from Steve Gibson.
- The PC Pitstop Quick Program Scan is an ActiveX based test that
tells you what's running on your computer, including background processes. For each process, it reports who made it and
what it is. Most importantly, perhaps, processes are color coded based on threat level: unknown, safe, optional,
spyware/adware, virus. Only works with Internet Explorer and will not run if IE is run in restricted mode with DropMyRights.
- My favorite Internet speed test is from SpeakEasy. It's Flash
based and shows both download and upload speeds. DSLreports.com offers
many speed tests including one in Flash, one in Java, a Simple Mobile Speed Test for "dumb" phones and an iPhone
Speed and Latency test.
- The JavaScript tester page on this site verifies if JavaScript is working
(at least working on this site, it may not
work on other sites if you use the Firefox NoScript extension), reports the version of JavaScript your web
browser supports and displays your browsers "user agent", a string of characters that websites can use to
identify which web browser you are using.
- To manually check what the latest version of Java is, go to the
Java SE Downloads page
and look for the "Java Runtime Environment (JRE)" download.
- As befitting any large company, Sun has three Java tester pages and they have often, for me at least,
returned different results. In January 2009, I last tested the three pages below. On a machine with Java 1.6.0_07 installed,
the first and third pages said that Java was not functioning correctly, while the second one said all was
well and correctly reported the installed version of Java.
- Adobe has a page which tests for both
Flash and Shockwave (alternate link).
Note that if JavaScript is disabled in your browser, this page will incorrectly report
that Flash is not installed.
- I don't know of an Apple QuickTime tester. If you go to the main
QuickTime for Windows page on a computer without QuickTime with IE, you
will prompted to install the QuickTime ActiveX control. Firefox will tell
you to install the missing plug-in. If your computer has QuickTime
installed, I don't know a web page that reports the installed version.
Download the latest
QuickTime for Windows from Apple.
- ClickJacking demos put together by Steve Gibson in October 2008.
As of May 2009 the demos seem to have gone stale, not sure.
- Test if your ISP is manipulating BitTorrent
traffic from the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems
- Testing VRML plugins: cic.nist.gov/vrml/vbdetect.html
- Testing the Clock/Pitch and Phase controls
on an LCD monitors with analog-input. Go directly to
the pattern or
learn more about the topic.
- Cyscape also has a very
complete web browser report in their BrowserHawk
demo page. It shows the Java version and vendor and, for Microsoft JVMs, it
shows the build number. In addition, it reports the installed version of Flash, Director, QuickTime,
Acrobat, Real Player, Windows Media Player and much more.
- Mickey Segal has a Configuration
Test for Java that is very similar to the Version page here
- Another Java tester is available at gemal.dk
as part of their BrowserSpy
- A low end Java tester is available from upshot.com
- Click and Learn has a browser tester in German that tests
Java, Flash, Acrobat, Windows Media player and more.
- What is My IP / IP / Proxy / System Information reports on
information about your browser, computer and network environment.
- ScanIt has a web browser
security tester (a bit off this subject, but good to know)
- www.mailtester.com validates an
email address and reports on the email server
- www.dnsstuff.com offers domain name
tests, IP tests and hostname tests
- PC Pitstop has an ActiveX
tester, very similar in concept to the Version page on this site. Martin
Heller has one too.
- Testvirus.org allows you to send a harmless test virus to any email address. If
your mail server or email hosting provider is running anti-virus software, these emails should get blocked.
- Analyze Your Internet Privacy at
privacy.net has a Java tester and much more.
- This isn't a tester, just a useful page. Microsoft's free
Office Online File Converters and
Viewers
- Test if a web page contains hidden illicit content at
Unmask Parasites
- Who made that Ethernet network adapter? See the
Mac address lookup at the H security
- The ICSI Netalyzr tests your Internet connection for
signs of trouble. Very techie stuff. Requires Java. From their website: The International Computer Science
Institute (ICSI) is a leading center for research in computer science and one of the few independent,
non-profit research institutes in the United States.
- Test your popup blocker at
