Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson

MySpace -- that forerunner of the social networking phenomenon -- appears to have had a bit of an accident. In the process of migrating servers, it seems that the site has managed to lose 12 years' worth of uploaded music and other data.

The slip up means that photos, videos and music uploaded between 2003 and 2015 have been lost forever. This is not a case of data being temporary unavailable; MySpace has lost it, and -- almost unbelievably -- has no backup.

It is now just a couple of weeks until Google+ closes down forever. While few will mourn its passing, there is still a lot of content on Google's social site that is worth preserving. Maybe.

Google+ users have the option of downloading their own data for posterity, but the Archive Team, in conjunction with the Internet Archive, has grander plans: it is looking to archive as much of the site as possible before it is deleted forever.

Towards the end of last month, security researchers revealed details of a critical bug in that stalwart of the compression world, WinRAR. The bug is many years old and although it relates to the rarely-used ACE format and has since been patched, it has been discovered hackers are actively exploiting it since it was made public.

The 19-year-old bug in the file UNACEV2.DLL (CVE-2018-20250) allows for an attacker to execute malicious files hidden in compressed archives. Over 100 exploits have been found that take advantage of people who are yet to update to a secure version of the software... and that number is growing. McAfee reports attackers using Ariana Grande's album "Thank U, Next" as a lure to encourage victims to extract dangerous archives, but other security researchers report the use of images.

The battle between Apple and Spotify continues, with the streaming music company labelling the iPhone-maker a "monopolist".

The spat started when Spotify filed a complaint against Apple, saying that the company is stifling competition and limiting user choice with rules it puts in place. Apple responded, poo-pooing the claims, and now Spotify has responded in turn not only accusing Apple of having a monopoly, but also saying that the company's response to the complaint was "entirely in line" with what it expected.

Microsoft has doubled the number of people that can take part in Skype group video calls. For beta testers involved in the Skype Insider Preview, the upper limit increases from 25 to 50.

While this may not be something that the average home user will be particularly interested in, it's something that will be welcomed by business users as it means they will be able to hold larger remote meetings for free.

Update to Chrome 73 and you might be in for a ­bit of a shock. With absolutely no fanfare whatsoever, Google has added DuckDuckGo to the list of search engines available in its web browser.

In fact, the company has updated the default list of search engines it offers in over 60 markets, but it is the addition of privacy-focused DuckDuckGo that comes as the most welcome surprise.

Anyone who is still using Windows 7 doesn't have much longer until the operating system is no longer supported by Microsoft. Come January 14, 2020 only those enterprise customers who are willing to pay for Extended Security Updates will receive any kind of support.

Microsoft has already done a lot to encourage Windows 7 diehards to make the move to Windows 10, and now it is stepping things up a gear. Throughout 2019, the company will show pop-up notifications in Windows 7 about making the switch to the latest version of Windows.

Updates to Windows are supposed to fix problems and improve security, but sometimes they do the opposite. Many Windows 10 users will have experienced startup problems after installing an update to the operating system, and this is something that Microsoft is looking to address.

Rather than leaving it down to users to seek out the problematic update and uninstall it, Windows 10 could start to automatically uninstall updates that have caused issues. If this happens to you, you'll be greeted by the message: "We removed some recently installed updates to recover your device from a startup failure."

While Windows 10 enjoys a significant and growing userbase, there are still many Windows 7 users out there. This includes a large number of enterprise users, and for these customers security is of paramount importance.

Last month we learned about the pricing for Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESU) which will be available when support for the aging operating system ends in 2020. Now we know that ESU will go on sale from the beginning of next month.

NVIDIA has announced that it plans to buy Israeli chipmaker Mellanox. Fending off competition from Microsoft and Intel, NVIDIA's bid of $6.9 billion was enough to secure the deal which is expected to be finalized by the end of the year.

As part of the agreement, NVIDIA will purchase all Mellanox shares for $125 each in cash. It sees the company expanding further into high-performance computing and supercomputers, and boosts its datacenter business.

For many workplaces -- including BetaNews -- Slack is the way workers stay in touch with each other. Jumping onto the black bandwagon, the chat and messaging tool is embracing the dark side and giving users the option to ramp up the darkness.

To enjoy a darker look to Slack, you need to be part of the beta program, and there is nothing from stopping you from signing up right now and reaping the ocular -- or just aesthetic -- benefits of the new dark mode. Dark mode is available on both iOS and Android.

When Flickr announced changes to its free accounts, many users were upset to find that they were going to be limited to 1,000 photos unless they were willing to pay for Pro account. On top of this, Flickr said it would be deleting any images that took users over the limit.

But now the company has announced something of a loosening of the rules. Flickr says that all public Creative Commons works on the site are now protected from deletion. There are also new "in memoriam" accounts for deceased members.

A House of Lords committee has called for the creation of a new Digital Authority to help co-ordinate existing regulators, as well as recommending new powers. The "super regulator" would have oversight over the current range of digital regulators, and would help to tackle problems of online harm which the UK government feels technology firms have not done enough about.

There is a strong feeling from the government that self-regulation by technology companies has failed, and a report entitled Regulating in a Digital World sets out a series of principles that would underpin a new approach.

Google is warning users of Windows 7 that they are at risk from a privilege escalation zero-day bug -- and the advice is to upgrade to Windows 10 as there is no patch currently available for the actively exploited vulnerability.

The problem stems from two vulnerabilities being exploited in combination -- one in Chrome, and one in Windows. Having pushed out a patch to its Chrome web browser, Google is warning that Windows 7 users are still exposed until such a time as Microsoft develops a patch.

Most of the Skype-related news of late has been about Microsoft killing off Skype Classic and moving people to Skype 8 -- but now there's news about the web version of the communication tool. While there are a number of new features to explore -- including hi-def video calling, new notifications and call recording -- Microsoft has taken the decision to reduce the number of supported platforms.

The latest version of Skype for Web only works in Windows 10 and macOS 10.12 or newer, and only in the Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers. Firefox and Opera users are left out in the cold, and anyone running Chrome OS or Linux will be disappointed to learn that their operating systems are no longer supported.