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In the battle to protect our data, passwords are the first line of defense. Unfortunately, passwords are a pain to manage.

We're told not to use the same passwords over and over, and we're discouraged from using ones that are easy to guess, but the complicated passwords Web sites and IT managers prefer--and often require--are difficult to remember. Many people continue to use passwords that are too simple: Help Net Security's analysis of 32 million breached passwords found that nearly half were trivially easy to guess.

Firefox 4 introduced app tabs, a highly convenient way to organize your favored Web pages. Instead of normal, wide tabs that open at the top of the browser, an app tab is a tiny tab that sits to the left. App tabs are convenient not only because they take up less space than a regular tab (an app tab is hardly any wider than the favicon it displays), but they also cannot be accidentally closed. When you quit Firefox and reopen it, however, you'll soon discover that your app tabs aren't saved from one session to another.

If you have only a handful of app tabs, it's easy to simply pin pages as app tabs each time you open them up. But if you use more than a handful of app tabs, the pinning process session after Firefox session is annoyingly time consuming. There is a word-around to this problem, though it's not perfect.… Read more

It's been a long time since CNET's first collection of Google Chrome tips, so we've got a new batch of tricks to help you get the most out of Google's browser. We've split our advice this time around into three categories: using Incognito, powering up with the "about:" commands, and keeping your hands on the keyboard with a list of 30 hot keys. You can download Google Chrome for Windows, Mac, or Linux.

Tip one: Keep your browsing private with Incognito. Incognito mode is a private browsing mode that turns off the regular … Read more

The Android Market offers plenty of great apps, but using your device to scan through them all can be a pain, unless you already know exactly what you want and it's got a name that's easy to type on a teensy keyboard. Google recently added some sweet new options to its Web-based Android Market that make life much easier for those of us who are always looking for the next big thing.

If you've never used the Market on the Web before, you'll need to register your devices first. It's easy if you've already … Read more

Wikis are great sites dedicated to either a specific topic or collection of topics. Sometimes you may come across that your niche hobby or interest isn't well-represented in the wiki community. Fortunately, you can remedy this by creating your own, and then let other users across the Web edit the wiki to help you out. Follow these steps to get started:

1. Open a Web browser to Wikia.com.

2. Near the top there will be a Create Wiki button, click on it.

3. Pick a name for your wiki, followed by a Web address. The Web address cannot … Read more

Google Books has great tools for keeping track of things you've read, are reading, or want to read. However, it can be a cumbersome task to add each book to the virtual bookshelf individually. So instead of spending countless minutes keying in numbers, follow these steps so you can easily scan and add all your books at once:

1. Install Barcode2File from the Android Market.

2. Open the app and press the Scan barcode button to start collecting a list of ISBNs from the books (one list at a time).

3. Once you're finished scanning, press … Read more

Whether you're in transit, waiting in line at the DMV, or between appointments, mobile browsing can be a sanity saver. It's not all disposable entertainment, of course, as sometimes you stumble onto a page you want to investigate later on your laptop or desktop machine. It's not that hard to e-mail yourself a link and open it later, but there's a better way. Android2Cloud lets you send links directly to the Chrome browser running on a particular machine, saving you time and making you more likely to actually follow up. Here's how to get started:… Read more

Maybe you want to give credit where it's due, or just make a note of that one awesome site that seems to point you toward all the answers to your tech questions. Searching your browser history can be hit or miss, especially if you want to know how you came to find any particular page. Firefox users have an easy way to keep track of browsing history in threads, like email conversations. Here's how to get started:

First, head over to Mozilla and install the FromWhereToWhere add-on.

The next time you want to head down Memory Lane, instead … Read more

Having multiple computers can be great when one of them is a laptop for mobile computing and another stays at home for the family. Fortunately, Google Chrome lets you sync your bookmarks and extensions so you don't have to add or transfer them to your other computers. So how can you turn on this feature? Follow these five quick steps for enabling sync on Google Chrome:

1. Open the Settings menu in your Chrome browser (the wrench icon off to the right) and choose "Options."

2. In the new Options tab that opens up, choose "Personal … Read more