Internet

Facebook is taking new steps to prevent misleading political ads following the Cambridge Analytica scandal , which had millions of Facebook profiles harvested and used without consent for political advertising purposes. It says it's tightening the ... rules on buyers, which must now not only prove their identity, but also the organization they are associated with. Since 2018, anyone paying for an advertisement on Facebook relating to elections, politics or social issues has had to prove their identity to Facebook. They also have to include a disclaimer in the ad marked "Paid for by...", which is ... (view more)

Facebook is to show users what data it collects about their activity on other sites. It won't stop tracking, but will make the data anonymous if users ask. The changes will come in a new settings option called "Off-Facebook Activity." This will list ... all websites and apps that share data about user activity with Facebook. This most commonly happens through two methods. One is that the user has opted to log in to the third-party site through Facebook. In other words, as long as they haven't logged out of their Facebook account, they don't need to create or input user names and passwords for the ... (view more)

Chrome and Firefox will stop indicating when websites have received an "extra level of verification" to prove they are in fact genuine. The move is largely due to the fact that most users aren't aware of the Extended Validation SSL (EV SSL) system. ... The Extended Validation SSL (secure socket layer) security certificates go beyond the standard SSL certification scheme, which browsers use to show that data being sent to and from a website is in fact encrypted and secure. This means that communication is encrypted, and that no one can eavesdrop or steal data mid-stream. In other words, ... (view more)

Mozilla has designed a site that will open 100 tabs at once, quite likely crashing a web browser. It's meant as a creative way to show how web tracking works. The stunt is based around cookies: small text files put onto a computer via the browser to ... customize an online session to a website. Third-party tracking cookies are then generated, which keep a record of the sites a user visits. This information is then used by ad servers to deliver targeted ads based on website history. "Track THIS" works by opening 100 tabs selected to represent a particular type of web user. The idea is that there ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Sue P. writes: " Dear Dennis, I stumbled upon your website and read your article about GoDaddy email not syncing with Outlook. I have been dealing with a similar issue - GoDaddy emails are slow to send, and GoDaddy emails are slow ... to deliver. In fact, just about everything with GoDaddy is slow - yet, I'm paying over $300 a year to host my site at GoDaddy. They initially got me to sign up on $5.99 a month promise, but with all the extras I've agreed to, the costs add up quickly! Surely their must be a better choice. I was wondering can you give me a rough idea as to how do I ... (view more)

Google is cracking down on Chrome browser extensions that risk user privacy. The new policies err on the side of caution and follow a Washington Post investigation that claimed millions of users had data stolen by rogue browser extensions. A browser ... extension, also called an "add-on" in some browsers, is a third-party tool that users can incorporate into their web browser. It's designed to add extended functions to the browser, which then make using the browser and web much easier. Examples of extensions include: a password manager, which can remember user passwords and ... (view more)

A premium email service has been slammed for letting users track other people's locations simply by sending a message. It's not a new issue, but has raised legal and ethical questions. The email service is called Superhuman and costs $30 a month. ... That covers a host of features, such as being able to "unsend" a message before its read, plus an "artificial intelligence" tool to decide and highlight which incoming messages are most important. While reviewers are split between whether it's a fantastic service for power users or just a jumped-up Gmail, one designer has laid into Superhuman for a ... (view more)

One of the most important services on the Internet went down for around an hour this week, causing widespread problems on other sites. The glitch is a reminder of how fragile some aspects of the Internet are. Cloudflare is a website that offers ... several free and paid services designed to make websites more efficient. Two of its main services are traffic filtering and web caching. The former involves web traffic between a user and a website going through Cloudflare. During this process, the client machine is checked for signs of malicious activity. This can involve attempted hacking, but also ... (view more)

Facebook is launching an app that tracks what apps users use on their devices. In return, compensation will be provided. Facebook says only users over 18 years of age can take part in the 'research'. The app is named "Study" and is openly billed as ... being a "market research tool" for Facebook. It's designed for Facebook to learn more about its users, which the company says will help improve its services. Study will collect and transmit details of what apps are on the user's phones, how much time they spend using those apps, and - in some cases - what specific featured they ... (view more)

Mozilla has confirmed a premium (paid) version of the Firefox browser is on the way. It says it won't charge for any features that are currently free. The details are still quite hazy and Mozilla is still considering exactly what will be in the paid ... version of the "enhanced" browser. It plans to launch it in October, 2019 and will most likely be an on-going subscription service rather than a one-off payment. (Source: techradar.com ) One feature that looks very likely to be included is a Virtual Private Network or VPN . This uses a combination of s ecure s ocket l ayer encryption ( ... (view more)