How to Hijack a Browser

Update: When you open it in notepad, it will try to save it as a text file. While it's asking you how to save it, click the drop down and select "All files *.*" and save it as filename "HOSTS". You can also save it as HOSTS on your desktop and drag it into the "etc" folder. Hope this clears up some of the confusion.

Household Prankster! Today we'll show you how to make any website your friend types in on his computer go to a completely different page. Turn Myspace into Facebook, Facebook into AOL.com, whatever you like. For this demo we'll show you how to convert WorldofWarcraft.com into a special message your friend must sit through every single time he wants to visit the site. Pretty sneaky!

Note: You can easily remove the website redirect by adding a # in front of each line of text that you add to the hosts file, or you can remove the added lines altogether.

Happy hacking!

Video

Watch web video while getting work done with Double Vision

Have a boring data entry job that's going to take a few hours (or a lifetime) and looking for a way to make it more interesting? Double Vision lets you watch online videos while conducting other business with your computer.

Here's how it works: You launch Double Vision and a standalone web browser based on Internet Explorer opens. Find a video you want to watch and then click the "Double Vision" button. Most of the browser's navigation toolbars will disappear and all you'll see is the video, a transparency slider and two buttons. Slide the transparency bar all the way to the right and the video becomes opaque, slide it all the way to the left and you won't see it at all. When it's somehwere in the middle you'll be able to see the spreadsheet or other documents you've been working on under the video.

You can click the X button to return to browser's normal mode, or hit the other button if you want to drag and drop the video window to another location. All other clicks in the browser window will go unregistered. In other words, you won't just be able to see whatever's lying under the video, you'll be able to input data, edit documents or watch two movies at once if that's your cup of tea.

Double Vision is optimized to work with a handful of online video sites including Hulu, YouTube, and Netflix. That means when you load a video using the browser from one of these sites, the video will expand to the size of the browser so you aren't stuck looking at a video surrounded by text.

You can also hit Ctrl + Esc to hide the video quickly, which could come in handy if you're using Double Vision at work and you forgot to tell the boss about your ingenious new discovery.