So You Wanna Hack Someone's Facebook?

This theory's a little bit of a longshot but it can work with a little bit of luck and a little bit of the smart touch. A report indicates that with Facebook's "Three Trusted Friends" password recovery system, user accounts are actually pretty easy to hack into without knowing any sort of special code. The first step is to create three fake Facebook accounts and friend your targeted victim. This is where the luck and brains come in. You need to make sure that your victim accepts these friend requests and therefore you need to make them look like actual people that they might know. After they've accepted all three friend requests, the easy part begins. On the account login page, click the "Forgot your password" tab. That will take you to a page asking for either your email, Facebook username, or your name and a friend's name. Getting these details of your victims account is no biggie at all.

Note the "No longer have access to these"

After this, you'll be taken to a page where you're asked to verify the account in question with a profile picture associated with the account (in this case, your victim's profile picture). A variety of ways to send a reset password will also be provided including the victim's phone number and email address. At the bottom of it all, there's an option that says, "Can't access these right now" which if you click on, takes you to the three trusted friends page. Here, you're given a list of the account holder's friends, and you choose the three friends you created. A reset password will be sent to those friends and you use that to hack into to your victim's account.

There are two flaws in this system, both of which are not too major. One, which is already mentioned, is the fact that your victim actually has to accept these friend requests. Two, when you choose the option of not having access to any of those email address, an email is sent to the victim saying that they have chosen to reset their password. They'll know that suspicious activity is going on with their account but they won't really be able to do anything since changing their password will not be effective. The most they can do is report back to Facebook that they haven't actually been trying to reset their account information.

Note: More than a how to hack someone's account, this is meant to be more of a warning. Be careful who you're accepting friend requests from and of course, respond to an email saying that you've requested to reset your password (when you haven't) immediately.

News from - http://tech2.in.com/news/social-networking/so-you-wanna-hack-someones-facebook/227452

Now download free anti-virus from Facebook’s new AV market

Facebook is known primarily for its social networking service, it’s apps and games and finally, its massive user base. Today, they start caring about your security and they’ve setup a market that offers free anti-virus solutions. The market, that’s now accessible here offers five free security solutions from five very popular vendors. The solutions being offered are - Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition, Microsoft Security Essentials, Norton AntiVirus, Trend Micro internet security for PCs and Macs, and McAfee Internet Security. The versions available to Facebook users offers security coverage for six months. Of course, you can’t go about downloading all of the five solutions that are up for offer - each account is limited to just one security solution. The solutions are completely free for use. There’s a major announcement detailing the reason for this collaboration. 

Facebook starts offering security solutions

The announcement talks about the efforts made by Facebook to try and reduce malware on Facebook by implementing all kinds of defense mechanisms as well as manually shutting down pages, apps and accounts that are up to no good. The tieup with these companies will now enable Facebook to build a database of malicious web pages, so the whole of the 900 million+ Facebook users won’t be exposed to them. Facebook claims that this filter now scans trillions of web pages a day. The Facebook Security Blog is put in place to keep its users updated on security updates.

Of late, there’s a growing trend that shows lots of malware being written to target social networking services such as Facebook. The service is known to support apps and games within its service and simply clicking on a masked link is an easy way to get infected. It’s not uncommon to find the signs of malware attacks on your contacts' walls. Security agencies of late have updated their security solutions that scan local PCs, mobile phones and now even Facebook walls and content for any kind of malware. If you want more information on this recent anti-virus offering update from visit, check out their blog post. 

News from - http://tech2.in.com/news/social-networking/now-download-free-antivirus-from-facebooks-new-av-market/301742

Top 10 YouTube Videos of All Time

YouTube has come to define the era of online video, so let's take a look at its most popular videos of all time. Our latest update has Justin Bieber still at number one with Baby, which was the first video to earn a half a billion views! Currently, Bieber and Eminem between them make half of the top ten. Also of note is a music video by Jennifer Lopez called On The Floor ft. Pitbull, which has risen to number two with 500 million views in less than a year.

We first did this list in August 2007, at which point Evolution of Dance by comedian Judson Laipply was number one with nearly 56 million views (it's now outside the top ten). The next update was September 2008, when Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend pop music video was number one with 103 million views. In January 2010, Charlie bit my finger - again ! was number one, with 148 million views. By the beginning of January 2011, Justin Bieber was at number one with over 400 million views for Baby.

Here is the top ten, as of March 2012:

1. Justin Bieber - Baby ft. Ludacris; 712,600,789 views

2. Jennifer Lopez - On The Floor ft. Pitbull; 501,192,531 views

3. Shakira - Waka Waka(This Time for Africa); 451,603,556 views

4. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance; 451,120,167 views

5. Eminem - Love The Way You Lie ft. Rihanna; 437,947,726 views

6. Charlie bit my finger - again !; 426,305,215 views

7. LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem ft. Lauren Bennett, GoonRock; 390,873,446 views

8. Eminem - Not Afraid; 321,474,885 views

9. Justin Bieber - Never Say Never ft. Jaden Smith; 304,062,562 views

10. Justin Bieber - One Time; 287,071,749 views

News from -http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_youtube_videos_of_all_time.php

A Brief Guide To Pinterest Marketing

Pinterest is no longer the underdog after coming in third behind Facebook and Twitter in Experian Hitwise’s ranking of top ten social networks. With more than 100 million visits for the month of May, Pinterest has become the talk of the blogosphere and for good reasons. The site is less than 3 years old, having just dropped anchor in the Web in late 2009. Today, the site is visited daily by more than 1 million visitors who can’t stop pinning their favourite photos and images that depict style, recipes, craft, children, pets, recipes etc.

(Image source: marketoonist)

Pinterest is useful not only for personal usage, but also quite effective in business promotion. This visual-based social network drives a lot of referral traffic and is of a great value for marketers. Its members number in the millions despite being an invite only website (although getting in is not very hard) and the amount of unique visitors is increasing every day. So how do we tap into the potential market that is hiding inside Pinterest?

How Pinterest Works

Let’s look at the inner scheme of Pinterest. It’s a huge virtual pinboard that allows people to look through interesting stuff, pin them and and leave comments below what was pinned. But we have to look deeper to see the real significance of this technology. What is Pinterest famous for? The great selling point of Pinterest that wins people over are its cool and captivating pictures. We are visual creatures and we love to look at beautiful pictures of people, nature, food, scenery, etc. On Pinterest, we pin what we like to see, and other people pin what they like to see. The trick here is to let your visuals get pinned as often as possible.

Every pin is a link to the source of the image, usually an external site – in this case, a link to your site. So every repin of the image can lead readers in a straight road back to your site. Talk about a crowd puller. Users who are searching for data may click on a nice-looking image, arrive at your website and may be converted from a simple passerby to the future customer and hopefully loyal fan. Moreover, if your pins are eye-catching and worthwhile, they may be repined by other pinners or even be embedded on your fans’ sites or blogs.

Making Pinterest Work For You

To gain confidence and loyalty you should neatly build your following on Pinterest. First of all, you have to create a good-looking account. It doesn’t matter if you activate the profile with your own name or with your company brand. But remember, people are more inclined to believe and follow individuals, not so much for companies, unless they are very popular and well-known brands.

You can tie your profile to the email which is used for your Twitter account, so you can quickly share pins in both social networks. To increase visibility, on your Profile picture, check ‘Hide your Pinterest profile from search engines’ and be sure that it’s ‘Off’. This will allow your page to be indexed in a search. Don’t forget to add the Pinterest social media button to your website, blog or portfolio and your Pinterest signature to your email These two tiny, but significant gestures will help you in promotion and to build your fan base.

How To Get Pinned

In preparing your images to be pinned, check out its quality and overall design. Always remember that Pinterest doesn’t sell your products or services, you sell them using Pinterest via their technology and their social platform. The real value ofPinterest is in its pictures and shots.Hence, the appearance of the images that can link back to you has to be pleasant to the eye and, where possible, remarkable. However, don’t expect that it’s easy to do, that is don’t think that you will win over the fans only by showcasing photos and adding new images of your products and brand. To receive lots of repins and shares you have to follow these simple but effective tips.

1. Creating Unique Boards

Create boards, organize them in a unique way so they stand out in a crowd of common names such as "cool stuff" or "things I like". If the name of your board is unique, people will be curious to know what is hidden behind that crazy, unusual or unexpected board names. Don’t just brand your digital boards. Pinterest fans will follow your boards more often if they feature original content. Establish a separate board with images that make your followers smile and laugh or some other kind of shots that raises their mood at once and make them return to your pins.

2. Quality Images

Pinterest is a picture-based website, so the quality of your images is a must! Use only extremely high quality shots, their size should be about 600 or 800 pixels wide and 1000 pixels deep. The quality of the photos, images or artworks is part of your marketing strategy so take your time to choose them well. It will be worth your effort in the end. Always keep an eye on the size of the images: if the size is too small, pinners can’t share it, but if users can easily find the same image in another blog or website at the right size or resolution, they’ll pin that one, and you will lose out on the traffic generated from that pin.

3. Make Your Images Share-Able

Don’t watermark your images. That makes it exclusive, a property of an organization, and as a result, people won’t pin your images. It’s better to not also put any marketing pitches in there, like the price of your services or products on pictures or your company logo. This may backfire, making your images unpinnable. On Pinterest, you let your product sell itself by its appearance. Keep everything else that reeks of corporate marketing out of the images. Pinterest is not a promotional website where you share your advertising, it’s a place where everyone is connected through the things and stuff viewers find interesting. At most, you can mark your image with a price tag and pin it under Gifts which is a category that caters to this kind of images marketing.

4. Vamp Your QR Code

The Pinterest community loves cool images so if you can make a cool QR code that is worthy of being pinned around, the Pinners will spread the image carrying details to link back to your organization or to you. Make it beautiful with stylish designs so readers can take it for an artwork and repin it over and over again.

5. Detailed Descriptions

If you want your images to be noticed, it would help to write detailed descriptions. With the right keywords people will find your images more quickly and you’ll have more chances to be noticed, ensuring more traffic to your website.

6. Reward Your Pinners

If your budget permits, give a prize to the pinner who gets more shares, likes and tweets of your discount. In such attractive way you’ll make people like your brand and to get to know you better.

7. Interact With Your Pinterest Friends

One original pin can bring you traffic for several weeks or more, compared to a tweet that on average works its charms for only one day. When you just start pinning, don’t begin your Pinterest existence with commercial messages, get involved with emotional, fun and eye-catching pins. By repinning viral stuff you’ll draw the attention and people will start following and liking you. The best tactic is to reciprocate and follow them back, repin their artworks, but add your personal message to the repinned image.

Conclusion

The whole Pinterest Universe is based on the content that people share. Despite the millions of images being pinned now, it’s not difficult to get your photos noticed and repinned. Just showcase things that might be interesting and the network’s simple system and user-friendly interface will help drive traffic and to your page. Remember, people on Pinterest like looking for creative things and enjoy the process of finding and discovering new images. Let’s take advantage of all this and make Pinterest work for your business. Happy Pinning!

News from - http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/pinterest-marketing-guide/

Facebook for Android gets updated, new features added

The official Facebook application for Android has been upgraded to version 1.9 and this new update brings in a few new features. Firstly, there are a couple of performance related upgrades that have improved the feel of the user interface and have made it less laggy. It’s now smoother and faster. In case your phone hasn’t got the update option yet, you can manually go to the official Facebook application via the Google Play Store and click update. 

• Here’s a brief list of the improvements in this version of Facebook for Android:
• Improved performance and various bug fixes
• More messaging features like creating group messages and adding friends to existing group conversations
• Shortcuts to share photos and messages right from your home screen

  

We did the update last night itself and we got a new Facebook messenger icon that lets you chat with your Facebook. The camera itself loads up into a separate ‘Facebook camera’ app and not the default camera application. It lets you instantly post the photographs that you’ve clicked from your phone. What’s pretty cool about the interface is that it is pretty minimalistic and lets you instantly tag, upload and share your photos with location enabled (or disabled, based on your preference). Scrolling through the news feeds was feeling a lot smoother and quicker. Once the app got updated, it did take a while to load initially but once it did, things were pretty smooth. No force closes or freezes or crashes were visible so far, so it looks like a pretty stable update. The messenger application is pretty nifty as well and lets you chat with your Facebook buddies on the go. You can also differentiate between who is online and who is not. There’s been a major overhaul with the settings menu as well. However, if you’re not using the separate camera and messenger application then it might just add to the clutter in the number of icons on your menu. Anyway, we quite liked it because we do use the messenger app more than the main app in itself. 

Either way, it’s good to see that more and more features from their web version have started appearing on Android now. 

News from - http://tech2.in.com/news/android/facebook-for-android-gets-updated-new-features-added/300642

Windows 8 Release Preview coming this June

Microsoft has announced another preview edition of Windows 8 will be released to the general public in June, called Windows 8 Release Preview, which will be closest yet to the final version.

The Redmond giant has already released two preview editions of Windows 8 before this – the Developer Preview was released in September last year, while the Consumer Preview released at the end of February. Interestingly, more than 100,000 changes have been made to Windows 8 since the Developer Preview.

So far, Microsoft has also detailed the SKUs of Windows 8 that will hit the market, Windows 8,Windows 8 Pro, and Windows RT (for ARM), as well as a host of their respective features. The first two, meant for x86 systems, will be available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Windows 8 has been called the “most significant redesign” of the operating system since Windows 95, and a lot of hopes are riding on the platform, a much bigger gamble than just a way into the tablet, and in the future, with Windows Phone 8, phone markets.

The new operating system is due to be released this October-November, and Microsoft's already at work on the Windows Store, a marketplace for both Metro-style apps, and regular Windows software. Our recent poll of our readers " What do you think about Windows 8 Consumer Preview?,"  showed much interest in the Windows 8 platform, with the majority answering: "It's great, I am excited!"

News from - http://www.thinkdigit.com/Software/Windows-8-Release-Preview-coming-this-June_9376.html

10 Most Asked Interview Questions: How to Tackle Them

How many of you had stumbled upon an interview question you haven’t prepared yourself for, and your mind drew a blank? Sensing that awkward silence, you blurted out whatever words you could find and desperately made sentences out of them. The interview ended moments later, and as you reflect back on what you had said, you dreadfully realized those words don’t make much logical sense!

Okay, if you are looking for a job now, then you’re in luck. This is a guidance post of ten most common interview questions that you might be asked for your upcoming interviews. Without further ado, here are the top 10 questions, let’s get started!

1. “Tell me about yourself?”
This is typically the first question the interviewer will ask once you’ve taken your seat. This is the opportunity for the interviewer to assess you as a person through what you say and how you deliver it. As they always say, first impression is at utmost important, so you’ve to make sure you’ve prepared yourself adequately to answer it. Keep it short and succinct, preferably within 2 – 3 minutes.

How should you reply then? Like I said, you should have done your research on what the company expects from the candidates before heading for the interview. Your answer then, is to address how your qualities (e.g. qualifications, personalities and work experience) are relevant to the position in question. Therefore, you should only convey information applicable to what is required for the job, but not irrelevant ones pertaining to your family or personal events, for instance.

2. “What are your weaknesses?”
At first glance, this seems tricky. On one hand, you can’t reveal that you lack what it takes for the job; on the other, it will be an obvious lie if you claim you don’t have any weaknesses. What should you disclose then?

If you have thoroughly gone through the company’s profile and such, you will by now understand what qualities are considered strengths, and what are not. Now, there are several ways to answer double-edged questions like this.
With your knowledge of what constitute as weaknesses that are frown upon by the interviewer, you can admit to those which you have that are impertinent to the job requirement. Secondly, you can mask strengths as weaknesses. For instance, you can say you are a very meticulous person who gets picky with details of a project (for this to work though, the job must be one that is particular about specifics). Last but not least, you can confess to past weaknesses but show how you had triumphed over them.

3. “What is your greatest accomplishment?”
Although the interviewer is asking you about your greatest accomplishment, you still have to choose one that is more professionally relevant. This is a good time to illustrate how you can contribute to the company if you are successfully recruited, so it will be to your advantage if you mention an achievement that applies to the position.

Let’s say you are applying for a position that requires a significant amount of problem solving and troubleshooting. You might want to talk about a time when you resolved a persistent problem that had plagued your company for years. You can explain how you initiated some research and made a useful suggestion that was eventually implemented to all departments. If possible, quantify your results in terms of savings made and increased productivity for instance.

4. “Why did you leave your last job?”
There are various legitimate reasons for leaving a job. Yet, when it comes to interview, try to answer positively rather than complain about what made you unhappy. Talk in relation to your career goals and how the job you are applying provides a better environment for growth than your previous job. As always, angle your reply in such a way that what you had learned in your previous job had enriched you with valuable skills for the current position.

Here, the interviewer is trying to gauge how much the job fits to your expectations. You had probably quit your last job because you were unhappy about something. The interviewer wants to make sure that you will be committed to the job and not leave because your expectations are not met again.

5. “Why do you want to work with us?”
More likely than not, the interviewer wishes to see how much you know about the company culture, and whether you can identify with the organization’s values and vision. Every organization has its strong points, and these are the ones that you should highlight in your answer. For example, if the company emphasizes on integrity with customers, then you mention that you would like to be in such a team because you yourself believe in integrity.

It doesn’t have to be a lie. In the case that your values are not in line with the ones by the company, ask yourself if you would be happy working there. If you have no issue with that, go ahead. But if you are aware of the company culture and realize that there is some dilemma you might be facing, you ought to think twice. The best policy is to be honest with yourself, and be honest with the interviewer with what is it in the company culture that motivates you.

6. “Why did you apply for this position?”
Even if it’s true to a large extent, don’t give them the vibe that you applied for this job because you were retrenched from your previous company. Or for that matter, don’t give the impression that you are here because you need to make a living. Any company wants someone who is committed to the organization and eventually developed a sense of belonging with it. It doesn’t help claiming that you’re here for the monthly paycheck.

In fact, the best way to answer this question is to spend some time examining what you like or would like about your work and the company. It is likely you will find something, such as the culture, work environment, meaning of your work, etc. If you didn’t find anything, then you should seriously consider if this is the right job for you. Once you know why you want this job, you can then answer them in a manner that’ll relate how well you fit with the position. For example, if you like the customer service work involved because you enjoy communicating with people, bring up that sociable personality of yours. Convince them that you’ll fit in very well here, and you’ll in turn convince the interviewer that you’ll be an asset to the company.

7. “What would you like to be doing five years from now?”
Again, this question is asked to find out whether you are committed to the job. The fact is that there are people who hop from job to job, and that is because they don’t really have a solid plan to follow.Another reason for popping this question is to see whether you are someone who sets goals in life. It’s undisputable that people who set long-term goals are more reliable than those who don’t. I mean, knowing what you want in life says a lot about your personality, perhaps as a person who can lead and stay motivated.

Your reply should assure the interviewer that your career progression goals are in line with the actual advancement route in the company. The interviewer wouldn’t want to disappoint you in the next five years and end up with you resigning. As such, it is crucial that you do your homework on the company’s prospects so that you know what to expect for yourself, and whether it will meet your long-term career objectives.

8. “Why should I hire you?”
This is the part where you link your skills, experience, education and your personality to the job itself. This is why you need to be utterly familiar with the job description as well as the company culture. Remember though, it’s best to back them up with actual examples of say, how you are a good team player.

It is possible that you may not have as much skills, experience or qualifications as the other candidates. What then, will set you apart from the rest? Energy and passion might. People are attracted to someone who is charismatic, who show immense amount of energy when they talk, and who love what it is that they do. As you explain your compatibility with the job and company, be sure to portray yourself as that motivated, confident and energetic person, ever-ready to commit to the cause of the company.

9. “How much are you expecting for the salary?”
Salary negotiation is a tough and delicate matter. Preferably speaking, you should avoid going into this topic until the later stage of the recruitment when you are being offered the job. That said, some recruiters might be hoping that you’d yield in to this question and be the first to give the number and set the benchmark. The repercussion? You might end up making less than what the position is worth!

Hence, research on the salary range in your field to have a rough estimate of how much you should be earning. Give a large range rather than a specific amount if you have to answer it. An alternative is to pose the question back at the interviewer by asking what kind of salary does the position warrants. At other times, interviewers might just be testing you to see if money is the only thing that matters. So, do emphasize that your priority lies with the nature of the job and not the salary per se. Remember that when the job is finally being offered to you, the interviewer would have to quote the salary. That will be the best time to negotiate your way because you will then become the one being sought after, and not the other way round.

10. “Do you have any questions to ask me?”
This is normally the last question posed to you, so it’s your chance to finish the interview elegantly. True enough, your doubts about the job position might already been allayed by this time when the interview is almost done. Nevertheless, you’ve got to say something other than replying that you’ve got nothing to ask. Doing otherwise might leave the impression to the interviewer that you are not exactly keen to get the job. Unless an employer is interested in recruiting a passive employee, the interviewer is likely to be attracted to proactive candidates who ask intelligent questions. If you must ask, do make sure that they aren’t those with obvious answers that you can get if you have done the research thoroughly. Yes, there’s no such thing as a stupid question, except those that you ask for the sake of asking. Try to incorporate your knowledge of the industry and the company into a question that will address a genuine concern of yours. That way, you get to amaze your interviewer and assess for a final time whether the job aligns with your expectations.

One of the best responses to this question is to find out about your chances of landing this job. Thank the interviewer for the opportunity and express your enthusiasm for the position before asking if there is any reservation for hiring you. This will be your final chance to address any concerns the interviewer might have of employing you. Stay calm and reply objectively rather than taking any criticism personally.

News from - http://www.fs4i.com/2011/10-most-asked-interview-questions-how-to-tackle-them/

Increase Your Iphone Battery Life With These Easy To Use Tips

If you are an iPhone users then you must be aware of the less point of Apple’s iPhone is its Battery. With every usage of it the %age of battery decreases. Iphone offers its users whole new world of features, apps, games which cannot be resisted from exploring. But the main concern for the user will be saving the battery throughout the day. Maximum iPhone battery is 100% and it rapidly decreases according to the usage.

But every problem has a fix to it and Apple has done that for the battery issue. So let’s explore these few simple and few little tricky ones to get that extra bit of battery.

When Not in Use Turn off Your iPhone All Wireless Applications

All the latest phones, being specific Smartphone come with inbuilt wireless applications like Bluetooth and wifi access. So it is advised to switch off such features when they are not in use. As these features tends to deplete your iPhone battery fast. So turning them off can help you extend the battery life for several hours.

If not required then disable the 3G as well. As the 3G technology survives on the battery of the phone. If possible to turn off it will give you long battery life for whole day.

Make use of the auto brightness feature of your iPhone. This will automatically adjust the back light of IPhone as required. This adjustment also helps in saving battery.

Manually Lesser The Screen Brightness

Although you have enabled the auto brightness feature but in some scenarios it does not dim the light as required. There you can manually lower the brightness of the home screen for saving of the battery. Preferred is to keep your brightness to 49% to make optimum use of the iPhone battery.

End Background Apps

According to Apple, the background apps are not technically ‘running’, unless they are front and centre, which means they should not draw any power.

The multitasking application for the iPhone continues to use resources of system more efficiently depletes your battery.

Applications, for example, Skype or even other VoIP can be especially benefit from the battery when you perform within the setting and so it is better to start launching the applications only when you need which can save the battery life.

Cool Off The IPhone Temperature

High temperature of iPhone also eats up its battery life. If you find that while charging your phone the temperature is increasing, then remove the phone cover before plugging in for charging. Let it also have a breath of fresh air so place it on a table or in open space instead of your pocket. The optimum temperature for iPhone and its battery is between 32°F to 95° F.

Make Use of Solar Chargers

Solar chargers give you freedom of charging your iPhone from anywhere. So if your battery is dying out, you can save it with solar power.

Also another advantage is that you can follow the motto “Go green” while saving the electricity which in turn protects the environment.

Frequently Use your iPhone:

We all know that iphone is a precious thing for anyone but that does not mean that you restrict its use to protect it from daily wear and tear. It is best valued with optimum use of it. Not using the iPhone for a long time can reduce its battery life. Therefore one should use it regularly and change iPhone battery at least once every 6 months.

Apple has also strongly recommends that you should charge your iPhone when the battery is completely finished i.e. 0%.

So follow these tips and you can easily save your iPhone battery life and enjoy it for long.

News from - http://www.techpraveen.com/2012/04/increase-your-iphone-battery-life-with-these-easy-to-use-tips.html

50 Essential WordPress Plugins You Should Know

Nowadays, just about everyone can consider themselves a blogger. The tools and plugins made available online are making it even easier to break into the blogging scene. Competition is rife and you might do well to get help from any source you can find. One of the ways is to get yourself plugins that will help make certain processes smoother for you and your readers. There are plugins for various purposes including to aid caching and image optimization, SEO, anti-spam, commenting, content-sharing, bookmarking and so on.

In this article, I have compiled a list of WordPress plugins that WordPress users might find a use for. Instead of searching in the Internet jungle, take your pick from the list of plugins below. The plugins are free unless stated otherwise.

Shortcut to:

• Caching plugins
• SEO plugins
• Anti spam (security) plugins
• Comment plugins
• Social-bookmarking plugins
• Statistics plugins
• Backup plugins
• Forms plugins

Speed Up & Caching Plugins

CloudFlare

CloudFlare ensures better protection of your blog from spammers. It shows the correct IP addresses of commentors who are commenting on your blog. You can protect your site from online spammers and hackers, and it helps your website load faster as well.

Hyper Cache Extended

Hyper Cache Extended is a very flexible and easy to use caching plugin for the WordPress platform, designed mainly for users who run their blog on low resource hosting providers.

Quick Cache (Speed Without Compromise)

If you want real speed then Quick Cache is the plugin you must have. This plugin takes a snapshot (or cache) of each and every page of your blog and serves these snapshots to the visitors during every visit.

WordPress Advanced Image Lazy Load (Premium)

If your website has a number of images to load every time a visitor visits your site but it takes a lot of resources loading them up, then you should definitely consider this plugin. This plugin will ensure that only the images on demand are loaded first, thereby saving valuable bandwidth and improving user experience.

W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is the most complete WordPress caching plugin available. It can improve your website’s performance by caching the pages, objects, minifying the databases by content delivery network support.

WP File Cache

This plugin implements object level persistent caching which caches only the data that WordPress explicitly asks it to cache, instead of the entire page.

WP Smush.It

This plugin reduces the file sizes of the images by using the Smush.it API from WordPress. The images are compressed almost without any loss and automatically in WordPress. It also has features to compress multiple images in bulk.

WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache is a very fast WordPress caching plugin that generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. So instead of loading the heavy PHP scripts of your blog, your visitors will be served with these static html files which will make your blog appear to load faster.

SEO Plugins

All In One SEO Pack

This plugin is the first choice for new and inexperienced WordPress users, who want their blogs to be fully Search Engine Optimized without digging deep into SEO. It provides you with almost every function needed in just a single page.

Google XML Sitemaps

This Google XML SItemaps plugin generates XML sitemaps for your WordPress blog, so that it becomes easy for crawlers like Google and Bing, to index your site better.

Robots Meta

This plugin enables you to add relevant robot meta tags to your pages, unfollow some links and not index unimportant pages and archives.

Scribe SEO (Premium)

Scribe is a powerful SEO plugin for WordPress which helps you reveal profitable keywords, tweak your pages for ranking better in the search results and build high quality links based on particular content that you create.

SEO Pressor (Premium)

This plugin is a great WordPress plugin that can make on-page optimization easier than ever. It will take care of almost every single on-page factors of your posts and can help your site rank higher in the search results.

SEO Smart Links (Premium)

SEO Smart Links is a great plugin which can fully automate the internal linking process of your WordPress blog. It also has the capability to convert specific keywords as internal and affiliate links.

SEO Ultimate

This is an all-in-one SEO plugin, that gives you a user-friendly approach of on-page optimization for your WordPress blog. It is available for free and has tools for almost every optimization required.

Smart SEO (Premium)

This is a very simple SEO plugin that can make your blog SEO friendly with the SEO Scores it geneates for every single page. It has a very simple and effective admin panel that can seamlessly integrate into your existing WordPress admin panel.

SEO Friendly Images

This SEO Friendly Images plugin is a very helpful plugin that adds alt and title attributes to all your images automatically and makes your post W3C/xHTML valid as well.

WordPress SEO By Yoast

This is one of the most complete WordPress SEO plugins available so far. You can perform almost any SEO functionality for your blog with the help of this invaluable plugin by Yoast. Not to be attempted by new users though.

Anti Spam And Security Plugins

Akismet

Akismet is possibly the best way to protect your website from web spam. Akismet filters comments and trackback spam, so that you can focus more on managing other important things. It runs on autopilot and provides 24-hour protection.

AntiSpam Bee

AntiSpam Bee is a spam protection plugin that is made up of sophisticated techniques to handle digital rubbish and protect your website from every potential threat.

Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin

Growmap Anti Spambot plugin serves as an alternative for Akismet; it adds a client-side generated checkbox to the comment forms. Users are asked to confirm that they are not a spammer by just ticking the check box.

Login LockDown

This plugin serves as a security plugin and records the IP Addresses and timestamps of every login attempt. If there is a number of failed login attempts within a short period of time, then the login functionality is disabled for all requests from that range.

SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam

This plugin prevents spam from automated bots by adding a CAPTCHA in comment, registration, login and lost password forms.

WP-ReCaptcha

reCAPTCHA is most probably the most popular and widely accepted CAPTCHA systems by all users. This plugin integrates reCAPTCHA anti-spam methods in WordPress as comment, registration and email protection.

Comments Plugins

CommentLuv (Free/Premium)

Comment Luv helps you to increase comments and traffic to your blog and also gives the opportunity to your blog of going viral in Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. It also reduces spam, shows stats of links being clicked, allows commentors to use their name in comments, and many more.

Disqus

Disqus is a powerful commenting system that helps you to build an active community of users by effective tools and features like Realtime Comment System, Social Integration, The Community Box, etc.

Facebook Comments For WordPress

This plugin allows visitors to leave comments on various posts on your blog using their own Facebook account. It integrates into your blog and any reader logged into Facebook will be able to comment into any post of your blog.

IntenseDebate

IntenseDebate is a commenting system that has features such as innovative discussion tools that can make conversations more fun and increase reader engagement.

Livefyre

Livefyre is one of the best comment platforms that aims to replace old and outdated comments systems with innovative and interactive real-time conversations. LiveFyre is the easiest way to build an active community and increase user engagement.

OpenID

OpenID is an open standard that allows users to authenticate themselves on websites without creating new passwords. It enables users to register or comment on WordPress blogs.

Subscribe To Comments

This plugin allows commentors to subscribe for email notifications to subsequent comments on a particular post.

WP Ajax Edit Comments

This plugin enables users to edit their own comments within a certain period of time. Users can also move, mark as spam, blacklist, moderate or delete a particular comment.

Social Bookmarking Plugins

AddThis

AddThis allows your user to share your content at 330 of the most popular bookmarking and social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and many more.

Share Buttons By Lockerz 

Share Buttons make sharing articles in your site easy and simple, by providing a drop-down menu with more than 100 social networking and bookmarking sites to choose from and share to.

ShareThis

The ShareThis plugin allows the sharing of content from your site through email and 50 different social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, and many more. This plugin also has Facebook’s Like button and Google’s +1 button for easy sharing of articles.

Sociable

Sociable adds a bar of icons of different social networking and bookmarking sites that you can choose for your articles. If they see what they like, your readers can easily share the contents to many bookmarking sites. You can choose to display the sites you want for sharing from the control panel.

WordPress Social Bar (Premium)

WordPress Social Bar adds a floating sharing bar to your articles in your site. The bar which is always visible allows easy sharing of the article by your readers to various social sites with just one click. It is also fully customizable according to your needs.

Stats Tracking Plugins

Clicky (Free/Premium)

Clicky is a real-time web analytics for tracking your website’s visitors. It has great features like Real Time Analytics, Visitor Segmentation, Twitter Analytics, Mobile Version, Video Analytics and many more.

Extended Google Analytics For WordPress (Premium)

This plugin adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytics tracking for your WordPress blog. It has other features like event tracking for downloads, tracking of outbound links and linking Adsense to analytics.

StatPress

Statpress is a real-time tracking plugin that integrates into with the WordPress platform enabling you to track the data of your visitors. It also collects informations of spiders, search keywords, feeds, browsers, OS etc.

WordPress.Com Stats

It is a simple, clear and concise plugin that track stats for your WordPress blog with no additional load on your server.

Backup And Database Management

BackupBuddy (Premium)

BackupBuddy is a complete solution, which can backup, restore and migrate WordPress sites with ease. It can backup your entire WordPress as well as install, restore it with a single click, or migrate from one domain or server to another in a few clicks.

VaultPress (Premium)

VaultPress by Automattic is considered to be one of the best WordPress Backup and Security plugins for "Every post, picture, and page. Every comment, revision, and setting. Everything." in the market. It is perfectly suitable for personal, professional, small and medium business sites.

WP-DB Manager

This plugin allows you to repair, backup and restore your databases. It also supports automatic scheduling of backups and optimization.

WP-Optimize

WP-Optimize is a simple yet effective WordPress cleanup plugin, which can clean your databases and optimize it without phpMyAdmin. It can optimize databases by removing post revisions, spam and unapproved comments.

Forms Plugins

AJAX Contact Forms (Premium)

AJAX Contact Form plugin is a simple jQuery based AJAX powered form management plugin that seamlessly integrates into your WordPress platform. It also has a direct Twitter Messaging feature built in it.

Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 plugin is a simple and flexible plugin that you can use to manage multiple forms, customize and mail its contents. It can also be punched with Akismet of CAPTCHA for spam filtering and so on.

DynamicWP Contact Form

It is yet another contact form plugin powered by AJAX, with sliding effects and floating buttons. This plugin is under open source GPL License, and is completely free to use without any restrictions.

Gravity Forms (Premium)

Gravity Forms is one of the best contact form plugins that can enable you to quickly design and edit forms right from your WordPress admin panel. It has various features like conditional logic, entry management, notifications, styles and layout, and many more that can give your forms a unique feel.

Quform (Premium)

Quform is an easy way of building forms in a few clicks using the drag and drop form builder. This plugin ensures that you have the best form design and functionality without having to touch a single line of code.

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