Browser security extensions aren’t automatically safer — they might even make things worse. Mozilla pulls Avast’s Online Security and SafePrice extensions for Firefox, plus their AVG-branded equivalents, after AdBlock Plus creator Wladimir Palant found they were collecting much more data than necessary. This included a detailed web history that went well beyond site addresses and search history, including when and how long you visit...
A nascent web API called getInstalledRelatedApps for app detection offers a glimpse of why online privacy remains such an uncertain proposition. In development since 2015, Google has been experimenting with the API since the release of Chrome 59 in 2017. As its name suggests, it is designed to let web apps and sites determine whether a corresponding native app is installed on a user’s...
It’s almost December, but Google’s 2019 product bloodbath isn’t done yet! The latest product to receive a death sentence this year is Google Cloud Print, an excellent printer-to-cloud bridge service that launched in beta in 2010. According to a new Google support page and emails sent out to GSuite Admins, Cloud Print will die December 31, 2020, at which point it will no longer be...
In July, we announced that the Windows 10 November 2019 Update would be a scoped release for select performance improvements, enterprise features and quality enhancements. Today, we are announcing that the Windows 10 November 2019 Update is now available for users on the most recent versions of Windows 10 who seek the new update via Windows Update. My post today covers details on how...
Microsoft is now getting Windows 10’s November 2019 Update, codenamed 19H2, ready for release. Also known as Windows 10 version 1909, this will be the smallest, quickest Windows 10 Update yet. It’s practically just a service pack. We’ve updated this article with the latest features up to Windows Insider build 18363.418, which Microsoft said was likely the final build on October 10, 2019. A...
Today, I’m excited to share more detail on the ability to reset a Windows 10 PC by downloading a new image from the cloud instead of using the existing Windows files stored on the machine. We’ve heard your feedback about some of the unsuccessful attempts to use Reset this PC and we’ve been working on new features to make this process more reliable and...
A recent Chrome update has been causing issues for some. For the past few days, video editors have been panicking as a data corruption issue struck their Macs (typically 2013 Mac Pros), preventing them from rebooting their systems properly. But what was the cause? Their Avid Media Composer editing suite? MacOS itself? No — it turns out their browser was likely to blame. Google...
Like a cat, the Test Pilot program has had many lives. It originally started as an Add-on before we relaunched it three years ago. Then in January, we announced that we were evolving our culture of experimentation, and as a result we closed the Test Pilot program to give us time to further explore what was next. We learned a lot from the Test...
Researchers found a clicker Trojan bundled with over 33 apps distributed through the Google Play Store and downloaded by Android users over 100 million times. The malware was designed as a malicious module added to seemingly harmless applications such as audio players, barcode scanners, dictionaries, and a host of other various types of ordinary software most people would install on their Android devices. These...
Microsoft and best antivirus aren’t usually written in the same sentence, but they’re going to have to be following the latest antivirus test results. As Softpedia reports, the independent IT security institute AV-TEST spent May and June continuously evaluating 20 home user security products using their default settings to see which offered the best protection. Only four of those products achieved a top score,...
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