Y-Browser took language classes, FileHide fails at hiding files

Y-Browser

Symbian file manager Y-Browser doesn't hide the system folders of your phone, so if you've set your phone free you can open those folders and modify their contents. And you can add plugins to Y-Browser to make it display text files, handle ZIP files, and more.

The latest update to Y-Browser makes it speak azerbaijani, catalan, and farsi, and its italian and slovenian language skills are improved. Of course Y-Browser also works in english. It currently supports 37 languages.

Y-Browser comes in two versions: signed and unsigned. Both versions are free, but you'll have to run the unsigned version through the Symbian Signed bureaucracy before you can install it on your phone, or sign it with your own certificate, or hack your phone to set it free from the claws of Symbian Signed. The signed version is bundled with adtronic, an intrusive piece of adware that pollutes your phone with advertisements (even when Y-Browser is not running!), so better get the unsigned version. Signing the program or hacking your phone takes a bit of extra work, but allowing adtronic to infect your phone is much, much, much worse.

• Y-Browser

ActiveFile and X-plore do wat Y-Browser does, and more. And you don't need to install plugins to make 'em do it.


FileHide

Most file managers for Symbian have an option to hide files, but you usually have to dig quite deep into the user interface to do so.

FileHide hides your files, and it does nothing else. This could make hiding files a lot easier than having to dig down several layers of menus and other distractions in multi-purpose programs. With FileHide you just have to select the file and hit "Go" to hide or unhide it. You can set a password too, so that other people cannot hide or unhide your files with FileHide when they catch hold of your phone.

Well, in theory that's how FileHide works. In real life things are different, which makes FileHide useless on most modern Symbian phones/

FileHide doesn't encrypt your files, it only hides them from Symbian's built-in file manager. Programs like X-plore and ActiveFile can see and unhide files hidden by FileHide, even if you've set a password in FileHide.

And because FileHide is a mobile Java program instead of a native Symbian application, your phone will pop up numerous security warnings. The many security warnings that you need to click away when using FileHide negate the advantage of the uncluttered interface. The total number of key presses required to hide or unhide a file with FileHide is larger than for real Symbian file managers, which totally defeats the purpose of FileHide.

• FileHide from zimbleTech
• FileHide at GetJar

Smser updated: threaded SMS and password protection

Smser shows your messages in threads similar to Nokia Conversation. In addition it can protect your SMSs with a password, similar to Active SMS Lock.

Smser only reads SMSs from your inbox and sent folder, it ignores messages in custom folders.

The latest edition can export your messages to text files, but it won't import them back. And the user interface can be tweaked little more.

When you uninstall Smser from your phone, it leaves files behind in c:\system\apps\smser, so delete that folder if you want to keep your phone memory clean.

• Smser 1.2 on Ziddu

Protect your messages with Active SMS Lock

Do you want your wife to read the messages from your girlfriend? If you got things to hide, then protect your SMS messages with a PIN code with Active SMS Lock by Alie Tan. You can protect individual messages or entire SMS folders. Of course having a bunch of locked SMSs in your message folders is highly suspicious, but that's no problem: Active SMS Lock can hide your secret messages too.

• Active SMS Lock (expired)

UPDATE: The Active SMS Lock download page is no longer available on the developers site. It's built into another program now (ThreadSMS Pro) which is not freeware.

Here are some places where you can still get the free Active SMS Lock program:
• Active SMS Lock 1.10 for Symbian 9.1 (S60 3rd ed. without feature pack) (direct download link)
• Active SMS Lock 1.10 for Symbian 9.2 (S60 3rd ed. feature pack 1) (direct download link)
• Active SMS Lock 1.10 for Symbian 9.3 (S60 #rd ed. feature pack 2) (direct download link)
• Active SMS Lock 1.10 on Softpedia
• Active SMS Lock 1.10 for Symbian 9.3 (S60 #rd ed. feature pack 2) on Mobile Castle (free signup/login required)

Keep your secrets with Secret Codes, don't keep your secrets with FileLock

Secret Codes

A mobile phone can be a great place to store pin codes, passwords, credit card details, etc., but only if they are for your eyes only. If someone steals your phone, you don't want the thief to see all your secret data.

Enter the latest version of Secret Codes. This lightweight mobile Java program makes encrypted databases in which you can store multiple entries. For example, you can make a database for your pin codes, another one for your email passwords, etcetera.

The user interface of Secret Codes could use a bit of polishing. For example, the "C" key could clear databases instead of doing nothing. But this and other issues are minor, because the encryption used by Secret Codes is solid and that's what matters most in an encryption program.

You can back up your databases to computers running Windows and Linux, and restore them to your phone when needed. Don't forget your password, because the encryption used by Secret Codes is strong enough to lock yourself out, and there's no backdoor if you forget the key.

• Secret Codes


FileLock

FileLock has been around for a while. This mobile Java program lets you lock any file on your phone. You can lock entire folders too. However, I found this program to be totally useless, because it doesn't encrypt your files. FileLock only changes the extension of your "locked" files so the default viewer won't launch, but renaming the files to restore the original extension or opening them from within the right viewer opens them anyway.

• FileLock


Another oldie is ActiveLock by Alie Tan. This program protects applications by requiring a pin code to launch them. You can use ActiveLock to make sure nobody can open the messaging application, your email program, or your notes. Keep in mind that ActiveLock only locks access to programs. It doesn't encrypt files, so if someone copies your data to a computer or to another phone they can read your secrets anyway.

• ActiveLock

Chat and SMS: instant messaging with Slick and onesoup, copy and restore SMSs with Oxygen, undo the Curse of Silence with Nokia SMS Cleaner

Slick, multi-network instant messenger (free while beta testing lasts)

The latest version of multi-network instant messenger Slick now works with Nokia's touchscreen phone 5800 XpressMusic "Tube," and the ICQ and AIM bug (sends empty messages) is fixed.

Slick connects to GoogleTalk and other Jabber networks, and to MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, and AIM. It supports file transfer, but not voice chat.

The beta test versions are free. Slick is supposed to go commercial one day, but the free beta test has been going on for so long that it's hard to believe it will ever turn into payware. And if Slick ever asks for money, there are plenty of other instant messengers that won't cost you a penny.

• Slick


onesoup

Most Symbian mobile phones have an instant messaging program built in. But hardly anybody is using it because the program doesn't know which messaging server to use until you tell it where to connect to. If your phone operator doesn't have a messaging server, or if they want you to pay extra to use it, you can still use the built-in messaging program of your Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, or Siemens, or BenQ phone with onesoup.

Onesoup is not a program. It's a website and a messaging server that lets you use the built-in instant messaging program of your phone. So now you can do something with that strange program on your Nokia with the yellow icon that's called IM.

If you use onesoup, your options are limited by the limitations of your built-in messaging program. You can send pictures, but not other files. And no voice messaging either. For those things you can use programs like Nimbuzz or fring, which let you send anything you want and do VoIP (including Skype) as well.

• onesoup

UPDATE: Connecting through onesoup is a hit-or-miss affair which fails very often.


Copy and restore SMSs with Oxygen and the tutorials from eViLrAcEr

You can backup and restore SMS messages with PC Suite or make a full backup of your phone memory with the built-in backup option of your phone, but if you restore the backup it will overwrite everything, including the messages that you received after you made the backup.

And it's hard to transfer your SMS folders to another phone without killing the messages that are already there.

But eViLrAcEr found a solution. He explains how you can copy your messages to another phone with the free trial version of Oxygen. Even better, he describes how you can restore backups in a non-destructive way: restoring a backup won't delete the messages that are already on your phone.

• Copy SMS messages to another phone
• Restore messages from a backup in a non-destructive way


Nokia SMS Cleaner

The Curse of Silence is an SMS exploit that hits many Symbian S60 Nokia phones. If you receive a malformed SMS, your message box is effectively blocked and you'll no longer be able to receive incoming SMSs and MMSs.

If you've hacked your phone to set Symbian free, you can simply remove the offending SMS from the Symbian system folder. Those who're not in control of their own phones can use the FortiCleanUp Tool. And now there's another way of getting rid of the Curse of Silence, because Nokia made its own cleaner, a month after Fortinet did their job for them. Better late than never...

• Nokia SMS Cleaner

FortiCleanUp Tool stops the Curse of Silence SMS attack

The Curse of Silence is an SMS exploit that hits many Symbian S60 Nokia phones. If you receive a malformed SMS, your message box is effectively blocked and you'll no longer be able to receive incoming SMSs and MMSs.

If you've hacked your phone to set Symbian free you can remove the offending SMS from the Symbian system folder, but for unhacked phones the recommended solution was to reset your phone and lose all your data. Of course you can make a backup before doing a hard reset, but if you back up your SMSs then the Curse of Silence SMS gets restored along with the rest of your data.

But there's no need for a hard reset. Fortinet made a Curse of Silence cleanup tool which you can use for free. It defends your phone against the attack, and it removes the Curse of Silence SMS if you're already bitten by it.

So if your phone is cursed by silence, or if you want to be prepared just in case you get attacked later, go get the cleanup tool.

• Fortinet FortiCleanUp Tool

Edit and sign .sis files with SISContents

SISContents lets you unpack and edit .sis installers. You can check their signatures and certificates, installer scripts (what gets installed where), extract images and other contents, and change the name, vendor information, capabilities of executables, and much more.

And the latest version of SISContents can sign .sis files too.

• SISContents

Need a certificate to sign .sis files? Look here.


This post was stolen without referring to the source by the copycats of SymbianCentral.

Recover lost memory card password

Forgot your memory card password? If you set your phone free you can read your memory card password from a file on your internal phone memory.

Your memory card password is stored in C:\sys\data\mmcstore (this folder only exists if you've set a memory card password).

Switch "caps" off (Symbian hack required), use a file manager like X-plore or ActiveFile to copy the file to another location, and open it in a text editor like LightNotepad.

Your password appears at the end of a line that starts with some cryptic code. Suppose your password was NOKIASUX, then it will appear in LightNotepad as XXXXXXXxxx]NOKIASUX.

If your password has numbers or other strange characters, there may be question marks in between them. Just ignore those question marks. If you open the file in Notepad on a computer with Windows, there will be spaces in between the characters of your password.

Lock access to your phone apps with ActiveLock

The web browser of your Symbian phone stores cookies with login details, credit card numbers, and other personal info that you wouldn't want to fall into the wrong hands.

And do you have one of those multi network instant messaging programs on your phone that makes life easy by remembering your login names and passwords? An email program? Is there anything in your calendar or the Symbian Notes application that you don't want to share with everyone? What about your Skype and other VoIP login info stored by fring or Nimbuzz? All the messages from your girlfriend that your wife shouldn't read?

Enter ActiveLock by Alie Tan, who also gave us the Jack of all trades file manager ActiveFile.

ActiveLock lets you set PIN code for any program you like, so that only you can use them. Your girlfriend, teenage son, mother, parole officer, or that asshole of a thief who's gonna steal your phone tomorrow... with ActiveLock on your phone nobody will be able to launch all those applications with sensitive data if they don't know your PIN.

ActiveLock works on just about every Symbian 60 Nokia out there. It's still new and experimental and in beta testing and unsigned, but with your own developer certificate, a trip to Open Signed Online, or the hack that allows you to ignore Symbian Signed completely you can install ActiveFile on your phone and keep the unwanted out of your data.

• ActiveLock on alietan.com