As someone who flips through hundreds of blogs a day, I (and the rest of team Lifehacker) definitely feel your pain. There are a lot of different ways to tackle this, and ultimately it’ll depend on what suits you best, but here are some tips we’ve learned over the past few years (and hopefully our readers will share all their tips in the discussion below, too).

Use RSS Feeds, and Cut Out the Cruft

RSS Feeds are still the most efficient way to get through a large number of blogs. Fancy news readers like Pulse or Flipboard are nice, but a straightforward app like Google Reader is going to be much faster—instead of casually browsing, you’re speeding through all your feeds, picking out the stuff that looks interesting to you. We’ll get to the details on that in a moment.

First, gather up your favorite sites and add them to Google Reader if you haven’t already. If you have any blogs you don’t read a lot, just skip them. If you read a blog that posts too much, see if they have a more limited feed that, say, only contains the stuff you’re actually interested in—like our tag-based feeds. Then, once they’re in Google Reader, organize them for optimal efficiency—tag the blogs you absolutely have to read every day, followed by the blogs that don’t necessarily require your constant attention, and so on.

Read the Short Stuff Now, Save the Long Stuff for Later

When you’re sitting at your computer with nothing to do and want to start going through your blogs, you can breeze through Google Reader with just a few strokes of the “j” key. After awhile, you’ll get pretty good at scanning headlines and knowing what you want to read. I generally will read the shorter posts right then and there, then move on. When I come across longer articles that look interesting, I’ll send them to my read-it-later app of choice, Readability (though you can use Instapaper or Pocket too). This IFTTT recipe will make it especially easy to do so: it will send any article you “star” straight to your reading app of choice. So, as you flip through with “j,” you can just tap the “s” key for any longform article that looks interesting and it’ll show up on your read later list.

You can then read those longer articles at your leisure, whether you’re on your computer or not. I have Readability on my phone, my iPad, and even on my Nook, so no matter where I am, I can read some of my stored articles when I have some free moments (waiting for the train, waiting in line at the DMV, or whatever). Most of them have offline access, which means you’ll have them even without wi-fi. Heck, you can even have Pocket read articles to you out loudwhile you’re driving on your commute.

Accept That You’ll Never Get Through Everything

The last thing I learned was that sometimes, you just aren’t going to get Google reader to read “0 unread.” It’s okay to declare RSS bankruptcy and just mark all as read—you’ve got more important things to do than get through every single blog post on the internet anyway. In fact, you can actually hide unread counts in Google Reader by clicking the arrow next to “All Items.” This will help put your mind at ease, and keep that large number from staring you in the face and making you feel like you’re “behind” on something.

Similarly, prune your “read later” list if it gets too unwieldy. If you’ve had an article sitting in your read later list for a month, just delete it—you probably weren’t as interested in it as you thought. Or save it for your next long plane ride. Or just learn to read faster.

The main reason services require you to sign in with a social network account is a security measure called OAuth. We’ve talked about OAuth before, and it’s pretty simple: it’s a means to log in to a third-party site (like the Gawker discussion system) using your Facebook, Google, or Twitter information. This makes it so web sites don’t have to worry about keeping your password and username secure.

Basically, when you log in to a site with OAuth, you’re granting them access to your account—like you’re showing them the secret back gate to get in—but you can close that gate at any time. They don’t get the keys to the house, they just know where the door is. This means if the third-party site is compromised, your Facebook, Twitter, or Google account aren’t (although the services you grant access to can continue to post, read, or whatever else on your behalf if you don’t cut that off).

In a lot of cases, the OAuth authentication is all an app wants or needs. However, in other cases, you’re also granting apps and webapps access to your data. Calendar apps, address books, music services, and anything that uses your social network to provide news commonly do this. When you sign up for a service, you’re taken to your Facebook, Google, or Twitter page and shown what that service has access to, if it can post to your account, and who can see those posts. On their own, these aren’t dangerous (unless you’re worried about services collecting your data), but they do have the potential to get annoying.

Thankfully, it’s incredibly easy to see what those apps have access to, and revoke their privileges.

Why You Might Not Want to Use Your Social Networks with Apps

In a lot of cases, social integration—whether it’s in the form of accessing data or as a security measure—is a good thing, but that doesn’t mean apps don’t end up doing annoying things on your social network accounts. As a good rule of thumb, if you don’t want anything automatically showing up on Facebook or Twitter, don’t let apps post for you. In the case of Facebook, you can at least change the “Posts on your behalf” setting to Only Me” so if the app does post something, nobody will actually see it. If you want to revoke those permissions completely, it’s pretty easy to do manually, or with a service like the previously mentionedMyPermissions.

Review Your Facebook App Permissions

A lot of apps want access to your Facebook account so they can integrate social features. For example, a number of calendars want access so they can add in birthdays and events. In most cases, these apps only have access to your events, but not every service out there plays nice with your account. Reviewing your permissions is very easy:

1. Visit Facebook, click the gear icon in the top right, and select “Account Settings.”
2. Click the “Apps” tab on the left side (or just head straight to it if you’re already signed in).
3. Select “Edit” to change the permissions of any app, or click the “X” to revoke access to your Facebook account.

It’s a good idea to clean up your Facebook permissions regularly, so make a habit of checking out this tab every once and a while.

Review Your Google App Permissions

Google also has its own set of app permissions, although it’s likely not as cluttered as your Facebook account:

1. Head to the Authorized Access to your Google Account page
2. Click “Revoke Access” to any apps, sites, and services you no longer use.

That’s it. Unfortunately Google doesn’t let you fine tune control over what data apps have access to, so it’s an all or nothing approach.

Review Your Twitter App Permissions

Twitter is much like Google in that you don’t get to fine tune the access that apps have, but it is incredibly easy to revoke their permissions:

1. Visit Twitter, click the profile menu in the upper-right corner of the screen, and select “Settings.”
2. Click “Apps” on the sidebar on the left (or head straight there if you’re logged in).
3. Review the list, what type of access they have, and click “Revoke Access” if you no longer want them.

The main cause of concern you should have with any app that has access to your social network account is that they can access your personal data, or post something without you realizing it. If you don’t like giving that data away freely, you’re best off searching for services that allow an email login instead of linking to your social network account. Reviewing the privacy policy of any app you link is also important, and if nothing else, check the permissions to make sure it can’t post something without you knowing it.

Local user groups and computer clubs used to be the primary way for like-minded tweakers and system builders to gather, discuss, trade parts, and share knowledge. Many of those clubs are long gone, but some still exist online, and still retain their local roots. Head over to Craigslist or Facebook and search for local computer clubs or user groups in your area. While you’re searching, you may be able to find a local buy/sell/trade group that’s worth looking into as well. Photo by Tobias Wolter.

Ideally, once you find a user group of computer club, you may be able to offer up your old components directly to an audience that may be able to make use of them, who have old systems to repair or upgrade, or who may just want the components in their own parts collection. Similarly, many computer clubs still have shows and sales where you can take out a table if you’re a member (sometimes at a small fee) and sell whatever you have available. Those shows have become much less popular in recent years, but if you have a lot of old computer parts you need to offload, it’s an option worth looking into.

Sell to an Electronics Recycler or Reprocessor

Another solid option is to find a computer recycler or component reprocessing company that’s willing to buy your old gear. How much you’ll actually get back varies depending on the type of electronics you’re trying to offload, but most of these recyclers and reprocessing companies are really interested in the valuable or rare-earth metals in your PC components. For that reason, you should take care to make sure the company you choose is not only willing to give you a decent price for your gear, but promises to do the recycling in-house and in an environmentally-friendly manner, without just contributing to the global e-waste problem or outsourcing to a company that does. Do your homework here: open the yellow pages and look around, or hit Google for local companies near you—not just big websites that promise to pay you more and send you boxes to ship your gear in.

Check With Your Local Hackerspace

Hackerspaces are another place where people often need or make use of old electronics.We’ve shown you how to find and get involved with nearby hackerspaces, but even if you’re not a member the space may be interested in your old electronics. In some cases, they’re betting that their members are less interested in the actual devices you may have and more in their components, but in other cases your old equipment may be useful and compatible with machinery, diagnostic equipment, or older gear that hackerspaces may have on-hand. Photo byMitch Altman.

Many spaces have old equipment for which there are no upgrades available, or machinery that requires old software—running on old hardware—in order to function, so older equipment is worth keeping around. Call up your local hackerspace and see if they’re willing to buy (or even take donations, which we’ll get to later.)

Check with Local Schools, Libraries, or even Local Governments

Schools, libraries, and local governments are all usually willing to accept donations, but not necessarily sales. You may have to jump through some legal or registration hoops in order to sell old equipment to a school or library, even if you have a garage full of stuff, so be ready for that if that’s the avenue you want to take. Many schools, government offices, and other organizations have old equipment or are using old software they can’t afford to replace, but may be willing to shell out a few bucks for old PCs they can keep for parts to repair critical systems.

That said, this probably isn’t your best option. Like we mentioned, many schools and libraries have “approved vendor” lists that restrict where they can spend money, and if your old parts are that old, even schools and libraries won’t want them because they’re older than anything their students or patrons may benefit from using. Donations are a better option here, because you’ll get a tidy tax deduction for the market value of the item you’re donating, which can add up to real money at tax time.

Craigslist/eBay or Donate It: Not What You Wanted, but Good Options Nonetheless

They’re not the options that you probably wanted to hear from the get-go, but eBayand Craigslist both have the most eyeballs of any of these options, even if most of those eyes aren’t looking for your gear specifically. Still, many people looking for old computer parts head to eBay first, so it’s a good bet to try and sell your item there. Like we mentioned in our complete guide to selling your old crap, an eye-catching photo, a well crafted listing, and some savvy timing can net you big bucks.

If you have enough old components to build an actual PC, you can make much more money selling it as a completed system on Craigslist than you would parting it out on eBay. If you can, consider putting your old components together into a full computer and selling it that way. Not everyone wants or needs high end components for their family PC or even for gaming, and you can make a tidy sum on a pre-built system with older components if it’s ready to use.

Finally, there’s always the option of donating your old gear to a school, library, or charity. You won’t make any money this way, but you will get a tax deduction for your donation, and depending on how much you have to get rid of, it’s easier and less hassle than trying to find somewhere to pay you a few bucks for your old IDE drives, SCSI adapters, or parallel port peripherals.

We hope that’s given you a couple of options to look into, Cleaning Out the Closet! With luck you’ll be able to score a few bucks for your old gear, and if not, you may be happier you took the donation option when it comes time to do your taxes. Write us back and let us know how it all turned out!

Unfortunately, we don’t all work at companies like Google and Apple where employees are encouraged to work on personal projects for 20% of the workweek. Even though working on learning a new skill is a better use of your office hours than, say, watching cat videos on YouTube, both could get you fired if you’re not careful.

It’s a good idea to review your employee handbook and employment agreement for any legalese that might limit what you can do at work. For example, there may be sections that talk about use of your work computer but others that provide for limited personal activities during downtime (e.g., lunch breaks). Or these might not say anything at all. Either way, it’s good to know what your contract states, so you can act within those confines. The last thing you want to do is get yourself fired. Photo byEdinburgh City of Print

You might be surprised to learn that your managers are okay with you exploring personal projects and developing your skills on company time. In response to my question on Google+, several people say that as long as they get their job done, their bosses are fine with time for other things. Some jobs (like being a Lifehacker editor) are even well-suited for personal exploration. Eden Mack, a computer programmer/analyst, writes:

Part of my job directives are to stay current and innovate. That requires constant research and experimentation. Obviously my “hard” tasks come before these “soft” ones, but I can usually find a few hours a week for some personal project that expands my skill set. And I don’t feel like I’m sneaking or being unfair to my employer.

If going behind your company’s back to work on personal projects or learn something new feels risky to you, you could also try getting your manager to give you time during your workday, depending on how open you think they might be to it. Just frame your request in a way that it seems beneficial to your job or your company: E.g., “I know the company has been thinking about expanding into new territories. I was thinking of learning Spanish, which might help with my customer support duties. I’ll pay for the online classes myself, but can I take them during my downtime?” If the skill you want to learn or project you’re working on has the potential to increase your value as an employee, position it that way.

Integrate Learning/Side Projects into Your Workday

Even if your employer frowns upon you doing anything outside of your job description during work hours, there are ways for you to integrate learning or outside projects into your workday, without having to be sneaky.

Use your breaks: One of the most obvious—but still life-changing—time management tips is to make better use of your commuting, lunches, and other breaks. You could reclaim your commute time by dictating ideas into your phone and getting a service to transcribe it for you or listen to podcasts, audio books, or foreign language tapes. The same goes with lunch. That half hour or hour is a great time to view a lesson from one of the many free online classes available. Photo by Claudecf

Start earlier: Another solution is to get to work early and use that time for your personal education needs. Your co-workers and manager might even be impressed that you’re so dedicated.

Kill two birds with one stone by pursuing work projects that fit your personal interests: You could also try folding your personal interests into work. For example, if you want to learn web development, you could volunteer at work to help out on the company website. Or, as a few people suggested on Google+, if you’re doing research for a work project, you could widen the net to cover topics you’re interested in personally, perhaps folding them back into your work project.

Use technology to make you constantly learn: Some apps and services can help out here too. If you want to learn a new language, Language Immersion for Chromewill turn select words on web pages into your target language, so while you’re surfing for work, you’re also learning. You could also sign up for email lessons like Hack Design for learning design or similar courses (Google“lessons via email” or something like “Spanish lessons via email” to find something you’re interested in). Finally, lots of people wear headphones at work; why not put on a pair and listen to some audio books? Open Culture offers hundreds of free ebooks, audio books, and textbooks.

Be Clandestine at Work

Of course, many people have successfully pulled off using their work time for personal projects without their employers knowing. (Heck, one guy outsourced his entire job to China so he could surf Reddit.)

The Paid to Exist blog details a few clever strategies that helped one person launch her own business during the leftover time at work. Here are a few of those tips:

• Always having something work-related open on your desktop
• Master the art of looking busy
• Do any writing for your side business or project within your job’s document (e.g., start writing in the middle of a document for your day job)
• Keep one work-related browser window and one smaller-size window for your side project. Center the side project window in front of you so people behind you can’t see it.

Some people might consider this borderline unethical, but if you feel like you’re doing a legitimately good job at work and this isn’t interfering with that, you might feel otherwise. Make sure you first find out if you’re being monitored at work and are comfortable with the risks, though.

Learn to Coil Your Headphone Cables So They Don’t Break

I used to go through earbuds pretty frequently too. Every few months, one of the ears would stop working or start crackling and work sporadically. I figured out pretty quickly that I had been routinely damaging the audio cable or the connection to the driver inside the headphones, so even if the outside looked fine, it wasn’t working properly. Once I learned how to coil my headphone cables properly, that all stopped pretty quickly.

We have more than a few methods to coil your headphone cables without losing your mind (along with video so you can see how it’s done) and without damaging your cables in the process. Part of it depends on you, though. Remember: the tighter you coil them, the more chance they have of breaking, so don’t go overboard. My issue was that I caught myself wrapping them too tightly around my phone or my media player, and then letting the earbuds or headphones dangle, putting undue stress on the connection between the driver and the cable. Sound familiar? Don’t worry, it’s easy to fix, and once you stop coiling them that way, you’ll instantly get more life from your headphones.

Reinforce Your Headphones with Sugru or Heat-Shrink Tubing

If the problem you run into with your headphones or earbuds is that the cables keep fraying all the way through, you may be able to shore up your cables with a littleSugru or some heat shrink tubing. Both accomplish similar goals: adding a little protective material around some of the most flexible parts of your headphones where there’s more likely to be stress and bending. Even if your problem is cracking plastic around the earcups of your on or over-ear headphones, a little Sugru (or a squirt ofPlasti-Dip) will fix you right up.

We’ve shown you how to repair earbuds with Sugru before, and it works like a charm. While you’re at it, a little Sugru can also help you customize the fit on your earbuds so they’re more comfortable to wear. If you prefer heat-shrink tubing, we have a guide for that, too.

Get Headphones with Removable Cables, or Hack Your Own

If you’re the DIY type, you can hack a good pair of headphones so they have audio cables you can unplug when the headphones aren’t in use. Alternatively, the solution for you might be to buy headphones where the audio cable can be easily disconnected and coiled up away from the headphones themselves. If your problem is that you frequently damage the headphones themselves, this may not help, but the ability to swap out audio cables whenever one stops working is a nice bonus, and not too difficult to find.

Store Your Headphones Properly

This should go without saying, but if you’re still tossing your headphones at the bottom of your bag or coiling up your earbuds and shoving them in a side pocket, you can do better. Get a headphone case for your earbuds or your full-size headphones (they’re available in all shapes and sizes at Amazon) and keep them in there. A good case will protect your investment, even if you have cheap headphones, and will also make sure you don’t lose them—assuming you make it a habit of putting your headphones in their case when you’re finished using them.

Similarly, you can kill two birds with one stone with a simple binder clip. Not only can you use the binder clip to attach your headphones to your shirt, bag, or pocket, but you can also use it to properly wrap your cables for easy storage.

Stop Buying Disposable Headphones

Now, “cheap” is not the same as “disposable” here, but there is a certain “you get what you pay for” element with headphones. If you’re buying throwaway headphones, you’re not going to get build quality that’s designed or expected to last for a long time. You can take good care of your headphones and they’ll last longer, but that will only prolong the life of your headphones for so long. We have some great headphone suggestions and in-ear recommendations, most of which are budget-friendly, offer great sound, and have sturdy, long-lasting build quality as long as you take good care of them. Even the $8Monoprice 8320s are built well enough that they’ll stand the test of time, and the enthusiast crowd at Head-Fi have some great ways to extend their life with DIY mods. You don’t have to spend a ton of money to get long-lasting headphones, but you do need to make sure build quality is one of the things you look for when you shop around.

If your laptop or smartphone was stolen, you can use a service like Gmail or Dropbox to find the IP address of your thief. When you log into those services from any computer, it logs the IP address used, and displays your last used IP in your account. In Gmail, it’s in the bottom right-hand corner under “Details,” and in Dropbox, it’s in Settings > Security under the details of each individual computer. If the thief used your computer, the last logged IP address may be theirs instead of yours. Again, though, if they’re smart, they didn’t use your computer and this trick won’t work.

Of course, knowing their IP only gets you so far. You’d still have to file a police report, send a subpoena to that IP addresse’s internet provider, and find out where they’re located, which could take a long time (one reader told us it took him a month to go through the process). We’ve had readers email us with success stories using this method, but they are few and far between. Whatever you do, don’t try to track the thief down yourself and get your gear back. That could lead to all sorts of trouble.

Track Your Android Phone with Plan B

If you have an Android phone running 2.3 or lower, previously mentioned Plan B is a pretty cool option. You can install it remotely from the Google Play web interface, after which it will start tracking your phone. However, if your thief has turned off the device, turned off internet connectivity, or wiped your phone, you’re completely out of luck, and have no way of tracking it.

Sadly, there is no equivalent for the iPhone, since you can’t remotely install apps on iOS.

Whatever You Do, There Are No Guarantees

In the end, there’s a good chance you’ll never see your stuff again, even if you did install tracking software beforehand (though there are quite a few success stories out there). If the above tricks don’t work, you can file a police report and give them your serial number, but there’s not much you can do beyond that.

We can’t stress this enough: the best way to avoid this situation is to take precautions ahead of time: install software like Prey, LoJack for Laptops, or Find My iPhone. Keep your gear with you at all times. Make sure your doors are locked. The best way to keep your laptop in your hands is to prevent it from falling into others’ in the first place. After someone steals it, you’re riding on luck.

You’re probably familiar with 802.11a/b/g/n, all of which are protocols for the 802.11 wireless networking standard. You can safely bet that any device with Wi-Fi connectivity, from your laptop to your smartphone, supports at least wireless B or G, and if it came out within the past few years, it should support wireless N. 802.11n(or the latest draft of it, 802.11n-2009) is the fastest of the ones that are currently widely available. 802.11ac is a new Wi-Fi protocol and is intended to be the natural successor to 802.11n. You may have heard it called “5G Wi-Fi” or “Gigabit Wi-Fi.” Chart via Tom’s Hardware.

The best thing about 802.11ac is that, theoretically at least, it boasts throughput and data transfer speeds up to three times faster than 802.11n. Industry experts behind the standard note that it should be particularly good for streaming media (especially HD video), gaming, and speedy data transfer. 802.11ac also extends the range of Wi-Fi networks a bit, which should make it easier to cover your entire home with a single, powerful router.

All of this sounds great, but it’s important to remember that the spec for 802.11ac is not finished yet. The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) has labeled it a draft, and there will likely be improvements to it in the future, which means firmware updates, better, more efficient routers and wireless cards, and (hopefully) more affordable components in the future. For more information on 802.11ac, check out this article at TechRadar, which goes into more detail about some of the promising technologies that 802.11ac routers will—if they make it to market—offer.

Is 802.11ac Available Now?

Technically, 802.11ac is already available. We say “technically” because there are routers available that support 802.11ac (and most of them are also backwards compatible with 802.11n) on the market, but most of them are very expensive for what you get. Also, there are very few 802.11ac wireless adapters and cards by contrast. That means that while you can snag an 802.11ac router, you may have some trouble finding an adapter and the appropriate drivers to make your computer work with it right now. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it’s similar to how 802.11n got its start. Routers started popping up, but there were no supporting devices yet, so it was a slow beginning. Image via CNET.

That’s not to say the hardware isn’t out there if you look hard enough. Tom’s Hardware has agreat rundown of 802.11ac routers, and Ars Technica previewed the next generation of 802.11ac routers at CES this year. CNET also has a list of the best routers available. Most of the companies making 802.11ac routers are also making adapters, so you can pop one into your USB port and make use of the extra speed the router has to offer.

Still, to say “802.11ac is available now” is a bit of a stretch. You’re not going to go to the library or out to a coffee shop and find an 802.11ac hotspot, and those supporting routers probably aren’t on store shelves at your local big box store just yet. Even worse, most of them are around $200 or more.

Should I Invest in 802.11ac?

We don’t think you should run out to buy 802.11ac just yet. Don’t get us wrong, if you run out and buy an 802.11ac router today, buy a bunch of adapters as well, and make all of your wireless devices ready for it, you can get some great performance on your home network (except on your smartphone or tablet, since there are none that support the new standard). That’s where the benefits stop, though. No matter how fast your home network is it’s possible you’ll be constrained by the slowest device on it, and you’ll always be constrained by your connection to the internet (and even then, your connection to whatever service, web site, or application you’re using.) Image via TechRadar.

802.11ac can definitely make file copies, streaming HD video, backups, and other on-network tasks faster. But the price tag (which will be quite large considering you’d have to get a new wireless card for each of your PCs) just doesn’t make sense for most consumers just yet. This is exactly how 802.11n rolled out as well—some people ran out and set up their whole home networks with it, and while they definitely enjoyed the speed, it wasn’t until PC, smartphone, and tablet manufacturers started building their products with 802.11n adapters inside that the standard really caught on.

The same will happen with 802.11ac. There’s already a rumor that Apple is hiring test engineers for 802.11ac, and that Macs coming out this year will feature it. As soon as we start seeing laptops shipping with it, expect the floodgates to open and prices to come down. That’s when you’ll know it’s time to do your research, find a great router, and buy in.

Java is a programming language that developers use to create applications on your computer. Chances are you’ve downloaded a program that required the Java runtime, and so you probably have it installed it on your system. Java also has a web plug-in that allows you to run these apps in your browser.

Java is not, however, the same as JavaScript. In fact, they don’t have a ton of similarities besides their names. JavaScript is generally used within HTML documents (like web pages) rather than as standalone “apps” that run inside them. This can be a bit confusing since Java also runs in your browser, but they are quite different. A large number of web sites use JavaScript; very few require Java.

With that in mind, we’re only going to discuss Java here. That’s the really insecure one that’s driving everyone crazy. For a better explainer on JavaScript, check out this guide from our friends at the How-To Geek. For the answer to your question, read on.

Is Java Insecure?

Java has two parts: the runtime that runs on your computer (and lets you run Java apps), and the browser plug-in that comes along with it. When people talk about Java being insecure, they’re talking about the browser plug-in. Java apps themselves aren’t inherently insecure, it’s the browser plug-in that causes problems.

In fact, Kaspersky Lab says that the Java browser plug-in was responsible for 50 percent of all cyber attacks last year, and security experts are constantly advising that you disable it in your browser. It opens up a number of holes that can allow criminals to steal passwords, credit card numbers, and other personal information. And, as you’ve noticed from reading news on the web, new security holes are popping up all the time.

Should I Disable it?

Chances are, you don’t even need the Java browser plug-in. To disable Java in your browser, head to your browser’s plug-in page. In Chrome, you can do this by typingchrome://plugins into the address bar, and in Firefox, you can do so by going to Tools > Add-Ons > Plugins. Then, just find Java and click Disable. That’s all it takes!

The browser plug-in is the security problem in question, but the Java runtime has its own annoyances—like constantly nagging you for updates, taking up space in your system tray, and (when you first install it) because it likes to install things like toolbars on your system. For these reasons, we generally recommend uninstalling the Java runtime too, just for the convenience. If you find that an app asks for Java after the fact, you can always reinstall, as long as you keep that browser plugin disabled. To uninstall Java, open up the Start menu, search for uninstall a program, press Enter, and choose Java from the uninstall list. You’ll probably be happy you did.

First let’s talk about Outlook, since it’s the most common office email program, and then we’ll discuss Gmail (Google Apps).

Updated to add: As a number of commenters have pointed out, your company owns your work email. To avoid any legal ramifications, check with your IT department or supervisor about doing this. (Also, if you batch download all of your emails at once, it could raise some eyebrows, as About’s Human Resources site points out). It’s also worth noting that, of course, these methods all work for personal email as well, so these tricks are useful no matter what you’re trying to back up.

Outlook Options

Drag Emails from Outlook to a Folder

The easiest way to save multiple emails from Outlook is to select the ones you want to save and drag them to a folder in Windows Explorer (or Finder, if you’re on a Mac). This saves the emails as individual .msg files with the subject as the filename, complete with any attachments. The downside: While you can later open these in Outlook, you won’t be able to with another email client, since the .msg format is proprietary to Outlook. (If do you want to use a different program to read these, you’ll need to look into MSG converter or viewer software.) If you’re using Office 2011 on a Mac, however, dragging files will save them as .eml files, which can be opened in other email clients.

Export Everything to an Outlook PST File

For a full backup of everything, including subfolders, use Outlook’s export function. In Outlook 2010, this is under File > Options > Advanced. When you save your folders as a .pst file, it backs up your mail, calendar, contacts, tasks, and notes. This .pst file can be opened on another computer—again only by Outlook.

Use the “Save as” Command in Outlook

To save individual emails in Outlook, the File > Save as command will let you save messages is more universal formats, such as text, RTF, and HTML. Unfortunately, you’ll need to save any attachments individually as well, and this is only ideal for saving a few messages at a time.

Use a Script or Third-Party Tool to Save Outlook Emails in Other Formats

Thankfully, others have tackled this problem of getting emails in batches out of Outlook. I used to use this VBS script to export selected folders from Outlook as individual .msgs. Unfortunately, I can’t credit the original source of the script, but I had modified it to save the emails with the sender’s name along with the date and subject for the filename. This script looks similar, but apparently you can change the format from MSG to something else.

There are also third-party utilities to accomplish the same with more advanced features, but they’re not all free.

Gmail Options

If your company uses Gmail (Google Apps), there are several solutions that might work for you.

Use a Desktop Email Client

You might be able to use an email client like Outlook or Thunderbird to either download your email via POP or just access it via IMAP. Then you can save the emails from the program. With Thunderbird, you can just highlight all the emails, right-click on them, and choose “Save as” to save them all as .eml files.

Use a Gmail Backup Service or Program

In addition to the Thunderbird option, we’ve previously highlighted several ways to backup Gmail, including using the serviceBackupify and backing up Gmail with the command-line tool Fetchmail.

More recently, I’ve found cross-platform Gmvault to be
a robust tool for backing up Gmail; it lets you restore emails to another Gmail account.

Other Options

A couple of other options for both Gmail and Outlook (as well as other programs) include printing your emails to PDFs (most PDF tools enable printing to PDF from any program) and forwarding them to your personal email address, but there are downsides to these approaches too.

When you select multiple emails to print to PDF, you’ll have to click on the OK button for each one. The PDFs also won’t contain any file attachments, obviously, so you’ll have to save those separately. Still, this might be a good solution for only a few key emails. Bonus tip: If you’re using Gmail, the Gmail Print All for Chrome extension lets you print multiple emails in one shot.

Forwarding emails to your personal address is another idea. You can set up filters in both Gmail and Outlook to do this. However, you’ll only be forwarding emails you receive after you set up forwarding, so to save older emails, you’ll still need to use one of the solutions above.

Chrome extensions use permissions to tell you exactly what data they’re accessing on web sites you visit. Extensions have 10 different permissions ranging from “your physical location” to “all data on your computer and the websites you visit.” They’re divided into three alert levels: High (access to everything online and on your computer), Medium (access to most data on web sites), and Low (access to very specific things like bookmarks, history, or location).

For example, an extension like Pocket needs access to “Your data on all websites,” and “your tabs and browsing activity.” This sounds like a lot, but since Pocket is a read-it-later service it needs those permissions just to operate. Without them, it couldn’t save the URL link from the site you’re on.

So, why do some extensions need broader access than others? Jabes notes that part of the issue is just the wording Chrome uses:

Chrome’s warnings when you install an extension are overly conservative in their text. For example, one of the extensions I use, ChromeReload, is a very simple tool that asks for “Your data on all websites” and “Your tabs and browsing activity.” All it needs is to attach a marker on each tab that keeps track of when it was last reloaded, but Chrome doesn’t provide a “polite” prompt for this.

Simply put, Chrome doesn’t offer any granularity with permissions requests—it’s an all-or-nothing approach for extension makers, and sometimes the broader permission requests are just easier to program for.

The sad truth here is that it’s pretty difficult to really track down why an extension needs the permissions it does. Sometimes it’s obvious—with an RSS Reader like Feedly, the extension can’t work without accessing “your data on all websites” because that’s the fundamental permission it’s built on. Every time you visit a site, a bit of JavaScript code runs, and Feedly does its business. In order for that to work properly, it needs to run on every web site. But other times, it isn’t so easy to tell.

When You Should Be Careful About What Extensions You Install
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Chrome’s permissions warning are vague enough to cause alarm when you install pretty much any extension out there, so it’s good to pay attention to what you’re doing. For the most part, common sense rules here: if an extension is asking for unreasonable permissions that don’t make any sense, you probably don’t want to install it.

That said, pretty much any extension that asks for All data on your computer and the websites you visit is probably worth a very close look. These extensions aren’t inherently bad. Any extension, like the screenshot tool Lightshot, that accesses your hard drive needs this permission. But it’s worthwhile to pay closer attention to any extension that asks for data on your computer.

Thankfully, an extension that’s capable of really scraping your data is going to set off alarms. Flores notes:

Chrome will prompt you for “access to your data on all websites” which sounds really scary, but is technically BS—the sheer scale of most of the APIs required for the big boys (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) would result in a large, more unwieldy plugin that would set off alarm bells. No one would likely be able to cram enough code into a single plugin to manage to get “all” your information and still have a functioning plugin in only JavaScript.

While an extension might not gun for all your data, it’s certainly possible to grab specific information, like a password, so before you download anything it’s worth looking through an extension’s reviews to see what other people are saying. Chances are someone will notice an overreaching extension pretty quickly.

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It’s not a perfect system, but for the most part, even extensions that request access to all your data on web sites are safe to use. It’s unfortunate that Chrome doesn’t allow for more specific permissions, but with a little common sense you shouldn’t run into trouble.

If you want to be extra careful, only install extensions from verified authors. You’ll see a little check mark on the extension’s Chrome Web Store page that verifies it’s official. Not every “good” extension has this verification though. For example, LastPass doesn’t have a verification, even though it’s a trustworthy extension. It’s not hard to get verified, but it at leasts helps you separate the official extensions from the unofficial ones.

If you have a little technical knowledge, you can also dig into an extension’s code to see what it’s doing, or install an extension like Extension Gallery to inspect the code easily. You can get a closer look at what code causes Chrome permission warnings on the developer site as well.