A Cambridge University researcher whose blog was being hacked apparently managed to find his attacker's password just by searching in Google. Using a dictionary attack in English and Russian, the researcher simply entered his attacker's MD5 hash (used by Wordpress to store passwords) into Google, which revealed the word "Anthony", the attacker's password. This is just another example of how important it is for you to have strong passwords and to make sure you protect them at all times. Check out Elena's good tip on how to create and remember strong passwords. She also wrote up on how to unveil hidden passwords in web pages, a trick similar to that which the Cambridge University researcher pulled.

We've also found a few other applications that allow you to reveal or crack passwords. Ophcrack uses rainbow tables to crack passwords, Password Revealer can show passwords typed in edit boxes, and both Asterisk Key and Asterisk Logger can unmask the password that hides under asterisks. Remember though, try to keep your use of these programs "legal", ie don't start trying to break into banking sites or people's emails. If what your looking for is to recover a lost password, check out our list of top password recovery tools.

No, I'm not talking about the Three Tenors, I'm talking about the browser which seems to have been around for ages but has never really made a big splash in a market dominated by Internet Explorer and Firefox. However, if you're someone who has never really given it a chance, then you should take a second look. Opera is one of those browsers that people either love or don't really care for much but there are a few downloads on Softonic to help get you started.

First of course is the Opera browser itself. Opera began life in Norway as far back as 1994 and was in fact the first browser to introduce tabbed browsing. In fact, I remember a friend showing me this feature around 5 years ago and I dismissed him as "fancy pants". Nowadays, I couldn't live without it and it's standard in both Firefox and IE. Other things that Opera has pioneered include mouse gesturing - basically navigating web pages using only the mouse - and integration with torrents and IM clients. The big drawbacks of Opera, especially in it's early days, were that it took some time getting used to because it was such a radical departure from conventional browsers and also, it was rather slow.

Those days are long gone now though and today it comes with widgets enabling you to check everything from the weather to performing currency conversions plus many more that are being developed constantly by it's devoted users. It also allows you to zoom in and out of web pages more effectively than the leading browsers in my opinion although it still remains only the 5th most popular browser in the world, behind IE, Firefox, Safari and Netscape. However, in the mobile market, it's had far more success and is one of the most popular browsers for those on the move.

Talking of which, if you are on the move but don't want to use Opera on a mobile device, then just put it on a USB stick with Opera USB. This ultra stripped down version of Opera managed to maintain all the functionality - integrated IM client, e-mail client and security features - without losing the functionality. If you're worried about taking your passwords on the road or if you've simply forgotten them whilst you're out and about, then you can also try using Opera Password Recovery which attempts to recover any password you've used in Opera whilst browsing sites. It even works if you've flushed the cache although many sites have grown wise to it and you'll find it won't be able to retrieve every time.

So if you've grown a bit bored of your current browser, consider spending a night with the Opera and you may find it music to your fingertips.