Internet

The US government has seized control of domain names for more than 30 Iranian news sites it accuses of spreading misinformation. The sites themselves are still online but are now much harder to reach. The sites were mostly used by the Iranian ... Islamic Radio and Television Union, which the US Department of Justice says is working on behalf of a Iranian military group the US had formally designated a foreign terrorist organization. It said the sites were posing as news organizations but had actually "targeted the United States with disinformation campaigns and malign influence operations." ( ... (view more)

Social media users are more likely to share posts that criticize political opponents by name than those which praise people and ideas they support according to newly-published research. The pattern was consistent across different sites and people ... with different views. Researchers at the University of Cambridge were exploring what makes some posts on Facebook and Twitter more likely to be shared. Previous research had suggested the main driver was the tone of the language, with negative emotions such as anger, or a "sense of moral indignation" the most likely to lead to a post being widely ... (view more)

Several high-profile websites went offline for around an hour this week thanks to problems with a content delivery network (CDN). The disruption to sites like the New York Times, Amazon and Reddit was a reminder of weak points in the way the ... Internet works today. The problem also affected CNN, the United Kingdom's government sites, online video site Hulu and gaming streaming site Twitch. Not only were the sites unavailable but visitors saw a range of error messages that often weren't much help explaining the problem. (Source: theguardian.com ) The outage is widely believed to be related to ... (view more)

Microsoft is offering cash back to customers who shop online using the Edge browser. The program promotes both the browser and the Bing search website. It's no secret that Edge and Bing are far less popular than their Google equivalents. Indeed, ... Microsoft even adopted an "if you can't beat them" attitude by launching a new version of Edge that uses the same open-source Chromium code that powers Google Chrome. Now Microsoft is beefing up its Bing Rebates program to make it easier to use in Microsoft Edge. The program already lets customers get cashback of up to 10 percent when they purchase ... (view more)

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has urged the public to use its Internet speed testing app. As with Netflix's tool, it's not just for the benefit of users. The FCC Speed Test App, which works for both WiFi and mobile data connections, ... has the usual simple "one-tap" functionality of such tools. By default is measures upload and download speeds plus latency. That's a measure of how quickly data transmission starts, which can be important for services such as online gaming. (Source: theverge.com ) Speed Maps Boosted Users can also switch on settings to measure jitter and packet loss ... (view more)

The Chrome browser is getting a couple of new features that some may find useful. Sharing links and finding previous pages could both get easier. The first feature is already available in Chrome 90, the latest version of the browser for the general ... public. It works on computers, though won't appear on the iOS and Android apps till later. The feature simply lets users create a link that points to a specific location on a page, rather than just containing the URL. The idea is to make is easier to share a link to something specific in a lengthy page. This isn't the same as internal text links ( ... (view more)

Google has added a "Reading List" feature to Chrome that works a little like a second set of bookmarks. The feature may not be for everyone, and with a little effort it can be removed with some tweaking under the hood. The Reading List feature has ... been in the work for some time, originally developed under the name "Read Later", but is now available to all users since the latest Chrome update, version 89. (Source: metro.co.uk ) The idea is to let user differentiate between pages they want to bookmark permanently (such as regularly visited websites) and articles they want to read later on, even ... (view more)

Google will have to go to court to answer claims it misled users by tracking their online activity in a supposed private browsing mode. A judge agreed a lawsuit seeking $5 billion can go ahead with class action status. That status doesn't change ... Google's chances of winning or losing, but could mean much bigger consequences if it does lose. It means anyone meeting set criteria could effectively be treated as a plaintiff, eligible for any financial awards, without having to launch their own case. The case appears largely to come down to whether Google's wording is clear enough, rather than it ... (view more)

The Indian government plans to outlaw cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The measure is expected to become law, though it's unclear if it will be enforceable in practice. Politicians in the country have long been hostile to cryptocurrencies, which ... use blockchain technology. That's where all transactions are recorded on a digital "ledger" which exists as multiple copies across the Internet, removing any central control. India's government previously banned "real world" financial institutions from providing any services to cryptocurrency operators, for example in exchanging the virtual ... (view more)

Israel and Canada have the world's most affordable broadband according to a newly-published study. The rankings take into account earnings rather than just the raw broadband price. The study, published by Surfshark, also found that the parts of the ... world with the most comparatively expensive broadband also had the worst service. (Source: surfshark.com ) The overall rankings take into account the prices for the cheapest fixed-line broadband package in a country plus the cost of 1GB of mobile broadband data. The researchers then compared these sums to average earnings in the country. Note that ... (view more)