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Firefox users have expressed surprise, disgust and anger at the appearance of banner ads on new tabs in the browser. An advertisement appeared recently inviting users to make a booking via Booking.com.

The ad appears at the bottom of the new tab page, and makes use of Firefox's Snippet feature. Mozilla has explained that the "snippet was an experiment", insisting no user data has been shared with third parties. If you're concerned, however -- or just don't want to see even more ads -- you can disable them.

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A security researcher has released proof-of-concept code for a zero-day exploit in Windows 10. The bug was revealed by SandboxEscaper, a researcher who has exposed Windows vulnerabilities in the past.

The latest bug makes it possible to overwrite files with arbitrary data, and while there are numerous criteria that must be met in order for the vulnerability to be exploited, it is still potentially serious. SandboxEscaper warned Microsoft about the problem on Christmas day, before publishing the PoC a couple of days later.

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Tomorrow is New Year's Eve in America (and other countries that use the Gregorian calendar), meaning many people will be out partying with friends and family. Me? I like to stay in and watch Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve on TV while eating some tasty snacks and drinking Perrier. True, the television broadcast is not as good since Mr. Clark died, and Ryan Seacrest is insufferable, but I am a creature of habit, I suppose.

In China and other parts of the world, the Lunar New Year is followed instead, with the holiday often happening in January or February. The Chinese assign an animal to represent the year, and on February 5 2019, it will officially start "The Year of the Pig." Microsoft has created a new Windows 10 theme to commemorate the upcoming occasion. In other words, the company is using a pig theme to try and put lipstick on the "oinker" that is its terrible operating system.

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Starting in January, the European Commission is going to fund bug bounty programs for a number of open source projects that are used by members of the EU. The initiative is part of the third edition of the Free and Open Source Software Audit (FOSSA) project, which aims to ensure the integrity and reliability of the internet and other infrastructure.

In all, the Commission will fund 15 bug bounty programs, with rewards ranging from €17,000 ($19,400) to €90,000 ($103,000).

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A number of major US newspapers -- including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal and New York Times -- have been hit by a cyberattack that is said to originate from another country.

Malware was first detected on Thursday by Tribune Publishing, the owner of some of the affected titles, but unsuccessful attempts at quarantining meant that there was disruption well into Saturday. The Department of Homeland Security is currently investigating the incident which is not thought to have exposed any personal customer details.

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The biggest mistake often made in building an IoT network for the first time is in underestimating the complexity of IoT network design, operation and management -- and believing that legacy network technologies and engagement models will support the requirements of large-scale IoT deployments.

Building an IoT network is not as easy as it sounds and the process of building your own tends to break down when confronted with massive scale. What may seem to be an easy task of deploying gateways and managing device provisioning and connectivity quickly becomes challenging with respect to scaled site and network operations. Some may also find challenges with sourcing and qualifying end devices for their applications, device configuration and management, implementing encryption and security services, and ultimately generating contextualized data for their use cases. Taking the following four steps to develop your IoT network buildout is essential.

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If you were expecting the full and final release of Kodi 18 to arrive before the end of 2018, you’re going to be disappointed as it's now scheduled for very early 2019.

However, the Kodi Foundation has rolled out the fourth and final release candidate today which should tide you over nicely until then.

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Spam may be something that's most commonly associated with email, but it's also something that blights text messaging. Google is trying to do something about the problem with a spam protection feature for Messages on Android.

This is a feature we learned about earlier in the year, and it is now starting to roll out to handsets. In order for the feature to work, "some" information about the messages you receive needs to be sent to Google -- something that it sure to raise a few eyebrows (and hackles) among the privacy-centric.

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When I first opened the box containing the Grado Labs GW100 headphones, one word came to mind: "Cheap". The cans didn't look or feel like the classy Grado RS1i and RS1e, which I once owned, or the GS1000e that are still beloved and possessed. But after connecting to Google Pixel 2 XL (and later the 3 XL), via Bluetooth, I exclaimed: "Priceless". The first offering in the company's "Wireless Series" rises to an audiophile class unmatched by most competing cans; I prefer the GW100 to the GS1000e, which cost four times more to buy. Four words best describe the experience listening to music of any genre: Natural. Immersive. Balanced. Authentic.

The GW100 are unique among wireless headphones by design: They are open-back like Grado's wired models, but they are unlike all other major manufacturers' wireless cans, which typically cover the ears and/or impose oppressively confining noise cancellation. I understand that commuters on noisy trains or travelers on rumbling airplanes might want NC, but the feature creates a cone of silence that is very unnatural. By comparison, the GW100's open-air design allows music to expand, while—I must concede—letting in background noise going on about you.

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The popularity of software betas and the Windows Insider program show that people are keen to get their hands on things earlier. There is a certain delight in tinkering with experimental tools, utilities and apps, and if this is the sort of thing that excites you, you'll be pleased to hear that Mozilla has brought Mozilla Labs back from the dead with a new site.

Not seen for a number of years, Mozilla Labs used to be home to experimental Firefox projects. Now, the relaunched version is home to more, including Project Things, Spoke, Hubs and more -- Firefox is no longer the sole focus.

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As 2018 comes to a close, I find myself doing much reflecting. Linux consumes much of my thinking, and sadly, this was not the year that it overtakes Windows on the desktop. You know what, though? Windows 10 was an absolute disaster this year, while the Linux-based Chrome OS has slowly become more and more mature. Other desktop Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, Mint and Fedora, continue to get better, and Android remains the undisputed king of mobile. As we all know, Linux powers many servers around the globe too. So yeah, maybe it isn't the year of the Linux desktop, but the open source kernel still had a superb 2018 -- I raise my glass to it.

One of the most refreshing aspects of Linux in 2018 was the popularity of Snaps. Canonical revealed that the containerized packages have been a smashing success. Today, the Ubuntu-maker highlights what it feels are the top 10 Snaps of 2018. No, it is not based on popularity or voting, but seemingly, just Canonical's opinion.

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Instagram users around the world were briefly thrown into a mixture of confusion, delight and anger today when timelines switched to a new horizontal scrolling mode.

Greeted by a message that Instragram was "Introducing a New Way to Move Through Posts", users found that they could now tap to scroll through their feed horizontally. This is something that Instagram is known to have been testing for a little while now, but it seems that today's rollout was entirely accidental -- albeit one that gave a tantalizing glimpse into the future. The company has now reverted feeds to the familiar verticals scrolling mode, blaming the temporary change on a bug.

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The blackhat hackers are evolving as quickly as technology is. To protect their sensitive information, companies can put documents in a public cloud. Why the public cloud? While it might seem that public cloud solutions are less reliable than traditional IT platforms, the reality is that they’re actually more secure. With the cloud, a company’s security team is able to monitor network audit logs more closely to detect any abnormalities. Furthermore, audit data can be easily centralized without having to navigate through inconvenient firewall interfaces and other closed proprietary systems. These components are essential for improving security procedures.

The public cloud also allows for more thorough security analyses after an audit. Cloud data analysis systems allow the audit data to be inspected in a more efficient, cost-effective way. These systems take in large quantities of information and are available whenever they’re needed. Real-time monitoring and automated alerts also allow for an immediate response in the event of a security breach. This can dramatically reduce the impact of security incidents and help pinpoint areas that need to be addressed. 

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As 2018 draws to a close, it's a time not only for looking back over what the past year has offered, but also for looking forward to the new year and what's on the horizon. There's certainly a lot to look forward to in terms of hardware in 2019, but there's also a great deal on the software front.

The developer of the popular image editing tool Paint.NET, Rick Brewster, has shared his vision of what the coming year holds for his software. The 2019 roadmap for Paint.NET is an exciting one, promising migration to .NET Core, support for brushes and pressure sensitivity, and an expanded plugin system.

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OnePlus is well known for many things, including building up massive hype around its (generally) powerful and (relatively) cheap handsets. But one of the reasons many people choose the company is that it has always been quick at rolling out Android updates to newer handsets -- and it has a great track record for supporting its phones for much longer than its rivals do with their handsets.

The company may well be concerned about shifting its latest models, but owners of previous generations have not been forgotten when it comes to Android Pie. The latest version of Android is already available for the OnePlus 6 and 6T, and now the update is rolling out to the OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T in the form of OxygenOS 9.0.0.

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