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It can be difficult to find a quality Linux distribution that meets your needs. This is partly because there are just too many operating systems from which to choose. My suggestion is to first find a desktop environment that you prefer, and then narrow down your distro search to one that focuses on that DE. For instance, if you like KDE, both Kubuntu and Netrunner are solid choices.

With all of that said, there is another KDE-focused Linux distro that I highly recommend. Called "KaOS," it is a rolling release, meaning you can always be confident that your computer is running modern packages. Today, KaOS gets its first updated ISO for 2018, and you should definitely use it to upgrade your install media. Why? Because version 2018.01 has fixes for Spectre and Meltdown thanks to Linux kernel 4.14.14 with both AMD and Intel ucode.

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Last week it emerged that OnePlus was conducting an investigation after a number of customers complained about fraudulent credit card charges. Now the company has given an update on the matter, saying that its website was attacked and a malicious script stealing credit card details was injected, affecting up to 40,000 people.

The company has issued an apology for the incident and says that it has contacted those it feels may have been directly affected. In a statement, OnePlus explains that over a two-month period, customers who entered their credit card details at oneplus.net may be at risk.

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Amazon has just given people another reason to pay for their Prime subscriptions on an annual rather than a monthly basis. The company has increased the cost of a monthly subscription by $2 per month.

This is the first rise in Amazon Prime subscription pricing for a few years now, and the fact that the annual fee remains unchanged is a clear indication that Amazon is eager to lock customers into year-long packages.

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Facebook has said time and time again that it will do more to fight the problem of fake news on the social network, and the company's latest idea is to simply ask users which news sources they know and trust.

In a post on his own Facebook page, Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook will start to "ask people whether they're familiar with a news source and, if so, whether they trust that source." Seemingly blind to the idea that this could be open to abuse and manipulation, he says that this will shift the balance of the news that is displayed on the site.

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Twitter has revealed that a total of 677,775 Americans followed accounts or liked tweets associated with Russian propaganda groups during the 2016 US election. The company does not reveal how many people saw the tweets posted by these accounts.

That Russia tried to use Twitter -- and other social networks -- to influence the outcome of the US election is hardly news, but there has been an ongoing investigation trying to determine the scale of the operation. In its latest announcement, Twitter also says that it closed 50,258 accounts with links to Russia.

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Just a couple of weeks ago a French watchdog announced that it was investigating Apple about the "planned obsolescence" of iPhones. Now Italy is also looking into both Apple and Samsung after complaints that the companies are purposefully slowing down older phone models.

Apple has already admitted and defended the fact that it slows down older iPhones, saying that it is done to ensure the best performance from aging batteries -- later saying that an upcoming update will make the slowdown optional. In Italy, both Apple and Samsung stand accused of reducing handset performance to "induce consumers to buy new versions."

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On December 14, 2017 the United States Federal Communications voted to end Net Neutrality. In other words, they are reversing a 2015 FCC vote to classify Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as "common carriers" rather than "information providers" according to Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 and Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

As common carriers, ISPs must provide equal access to all consumers and all businesses on all devices. They cannot throttle traffic, or block certain web sites, or charge more for consumers to access specific URLs such as www.amazon.com, www.netflix.com, or www.washingtonpost.com.

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React -- Tools & Resources is a collection of in-depth guides to some of the tools and resources most used with React, such as Jest and React Router, a look at Preact, and much more.

It usually retails for $29, but BetaNews readers can get it entirely free for a limited time.

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Gaining threat intelligence from the dark web can be a difficult task for security providers due to its unstructured nature.

Similarly, when data breaches occur, companies often face the problem of knowing exactly which data has been exposed on underground marketplaces.

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When people make the switch from Windows to Linux, they often experiment with Wine. If you aren’t familiar, it is a compatibility layer that can sometimes get Windows software to run on Linux and BSD. I say "sometimes" because it isn’t a flawless experience. In fact, it can be quite frustrating to use. I suggest using native Linux software as an alternative, but understandably, that isn’t always possible.

If you depend on Wine, or want to start trying it out, I am happy to say that version 3.0 is finally available. It is quite the significant update too, as it features over 6,000 changes!

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Since you can get Office on both Windows PCs and Macs, you may be lead to believe that the user experience is similar between the two suites. After all, they share the same name and major programs, like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. But, when you look past the similarities, you will find that there are quite a few differences between the two.

Microsoft has been working on closing the gap, with the latest update for Office for Mac 2016 adding quite some powerful features. Among the highlights are real-time collaborative editing and the option to save your work directly to the cloud.

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With the 24th Winter Olympics due to start in Pyeongchang, South Korea in a few weeks, athletes are not the only ones preparing for the event.

A report from security analytics platform Cybereason shows that hackers and cyber criminals are gearing up too, the scale and cost of the event making it a prime target.

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A week ago, Microsoft released a new Preview Build of Windows 10 -- 17074. It was chock-full of new features and fixes, making it a wise upgrade for anyone in the Insiders program.

Sadly, it was discovered that Build 17074 had a huge bug -- it made some AMD systems unbootable. Yikes! Apparently, this was related to fixes for Spectre and Meltdown. True, this is pre-release software, so bugs should be expected, but losing the ability to boot can really ruin a user's day. Today, that bug is fixed, as Microsoft pushes out Build 17074.1002. It also fixes an issue where some computers would hang.

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After you've used a messaging app, it's hard to go back to SMS. You can't share files, get read receipts, group chats or share emoji. It's archaic, but the good news is that there is an alternative.

It's called Rich Communication Services and it offers many of the features that we have come to love on messaging apps. Google is one of the biggest adopters, offering support for RCS in its Android Messages app. And, today, it announces that Huawei, one of the largest Android vendors, will integrate it in its Android smartphones.

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At the end of last year, the Linux desktop scored a huge win when Spotify became available as a Snap. If you aren't familiar with Snaps, please know that they are essentially software packages designed to run as a container on any Linux distro. Not only does it make installing software packages easier for users, but it makes things simpler for developers too. Ultimately, Snaps have the potential to solve the big fragmentation problem in the Linux desktop community.

Today, yet another wildly popular program gets the Snap treatment, and quite frankly, it is arguably more significant than Spotify. What is it? Slack! Yes, Canonical announces that the ubiquitous communication app can be installed as a Snap. True, Slack was already available on the Linux desktop, but this makes installing it and keeping it updated much easier.

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