Plex recently caused controversy by changing its privacy policy so users could not opt out of data collection -- although the company backed down after assessing the level of concern it raised. Now Mozilla looks set to raise the hackles of privacy advocates as well.

Mozilla engineers working on the Firefox web browser are concerned that the current opt-in system of data collection does not allow for the collection of unbiased data about which websites users visit and so on. As such a test period of telemetry which is opt-out is planned.

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The star of today is undoubtedly Galaxy Note8, but Samsung's new smartphone is not the only thing to get excited about. For those enrolled in Microsoft's Insiders program, there is a new Windows 10 build to install.

Microsoft just pushed out Preview Build 16273. This is just one day after releasing a new Windows Server Insider build. While the server build had literally zero new features, the new Windows 10 build does have some; there is a new font and emoji notifications. Unfortunately, the Insiders Program is getting quite confusing. Dona Sarkar tries to explain it all, but you might be left with smoke coming out of your ears. What was once a fun way to test early builds of Windows is beginning to get very convoluted.

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Earlier today, I took a journey to New York City to attend Samsung's Unpacked 2017 press event. I expected to see the Galaxy Note8 unveiled, and unsurprisingly it was. Sadly, the press event was sort of ruined as the company released all of the device details online just as the presentation began. Oh well. Such is life.

Let's be honest though, due to leaks, there weren't many surprises to be had anyway. Still, I expected to be impressed by the new phone, and I am happy to say that I was not disappointed. I got the opportunity to have some hands-on time with the Galaxy Note8 and I can say that Samsung has seemingly done everything right. In other words, Samsung has not pulled a single boner. Did it blow me away? No, but it still seems to be a solid evolutionary device.

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Online criminals are keeping the faith with spam email campaigns, with more and more nuisance messages being sent today than ever before.

Figures from IBM have shown that spam email remains a key tool for hackers, with the volume of such messages increasing 400 per cent in the past year.

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Fujitsu is preparing to sell off its mobile phone operations as the company faces increasing competition from its larger rivals in the mobile phone space.

Last February, the Japanese manufacturer decided to spin off both its mobile phone and PC businesses into separate companies in an effort to differentiate its offerings.

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I should have known better. Once burned is supposed to be twice as wary. Right? Disgruntled by pricing and other policies, in autumn 2015, I took my family from Verizon Wireless to T-Mobile, which cut our monthly bill by more than one-third. But in May of this year we made the trek back in part because data speed is so much faster from my apartment than it is with Magenta. Better Red than dead, eh? Wrong. Oh, dumbass me. Un-carrier's aggressive pricing, and Verizon's first-ever quarterly loss of post-paid subscribers, compelled the nation's largest carrier to respond—by, starting in February, to offer comparable unlimited plan that for my family of five lines would cost just $20 more a month while delivering superior, speedy service. But what Red gave, it now takes away. I regret the decision.

Today's unlimited cellular service plan changes suck some of the most important value from all that extra bandwidth. What good is having something you can't use? Henceforth, Verizon will offer two consumer options—one (Go Unlimited) that throttles streaming video to 480p on smartphones and costlier option Beyond Unlimited that reduces quality to 720p. Go is essentially priced the same as the older unlimited plan, and it takes away even more: Tethering (e.g. Mobile Hotspot) is capped at 600kbps. There's no 4G LTE for you, baby!

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DDoS attacks are seeing a major rise as hackers seek more diverse threats, according to new research.

The latest State of the Internet/Security Report from Akamai reveals that the number of DDoS attacks increased by 28 percent in the second quarter of 2017, following three consecutive quarters of activity decline, as attacks from the PBot malware hit a new high.

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The Galaxy Note8 is the most important smartphone that Samsung launches this year. Its predecessor nearly killed the high-end series, which is why Samsung cannot afford to make any mistakes with its latest flagship: the Galaxy Note8 has to be great. No pressure there, right?

The good news is that the Galaxy Note8 does not disappoint: it has all the right features that you expect from a high-end smartphone and a clear edge over the Galaxy S8, which is unquestionably the best smartphone Samsung sells today.

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Details of the deals that a business has with other organizations are usually locked up in contracts or other documents such that valuable information is either not readily available or easily overlooked.

California-based Pramata is launching a suite of analytic applications that can identify critical information in existing contracts and combine it with data from business systems such as CRM and billing to benefit commercial relationships.

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Chromebooks are gaining traction because they are simple, easy to use and offer great value. For consumers, they can be fantastic options. For enterprises, however, Chrome OS needs to go the extra mile in order to become more attractive.

Google is well aware of the longer list of needs that enterprises have, as compared to consumers, which is why it has introduced a new plan, called Chrome Enterprise, that adds a whole host of new features designed specifically with business customers in mind.

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One of the keys to monetizing apps is to have an effective and easy to use payments solution built in. Payment solutions company Qualpay is aiming to make this process easier by offering a portal to make the selection of systems easier.

Qualpay for Developers allows developers looking for easy-to-implement payment APIs to use the portal to evaluate and deploy multiple payment solutions or work with Qualpay to tailor the platform for specific environments.

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There have been various controversies with Windows 10, from issues with privacy and telemetry, to ads and forced upgrades. Following a court case, Microsoft has vowed to never force upgrade files onto users again.

Windows users in Germany were particularly unimpressed when Microsoft forcibly downloaded many gigabytes of files to upgrade from Windows 7 and 8 to Windows 10. Having held out for 18 months, and losing its case twice, Microsoft has finally agreed to stop its nefarious tactics.

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After the disastrous launch of the Galaxy Note7, Samsung is surely hoping that the Galaxy Note 8 will be rather more successful and rather less fire-prone. The handset is due to be revealed later on today, and you can watch the event live so you get the news as soon as it breaks.

As is usual for any major phone launch, there have been the normal round of leaks and rumors surrounding the Galaxy Note 8 (or Galaxy Note8, if Samsung retains the previous naming scheme), and we're expecting to see a Bixby-loving 6.3-inch phone with dual camera and optical zoom.

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Some online events unite people -- such as the recent solar eclipse which was streamed online by millions of people unable to see the spectacle in person. Another uniting event occurs when a major website goes down... like Facebook.

If you've tried to visit the social network today, you may well have found that the site doesn't load. "Is Facebook down?" you may ask, and you're not alone.

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VPNs (Virtual Private Network) work by routing all of your web traffic to a VPN server through a secure, encrypted tunnel. Their usage has grown substantially in recent years as web users seek not only to circumvent geoblocking, censorship and ISP blocks, but also simply to enjoy a degree of anonymity online.

There are number of free and paid VPNs to choose from. While free might seem like the way to go, the truth is these tend to have restrictions, such as a limited amount of free traffic each month, fewer servers to choose from, and throttled speeds. They’re fine for occasional use, but if you plan to employ VPN protection on a more regular basis, particularly for downloading files via BitTorrent or streaming on Kodi, then a paid solution, like IPVanish, makes a lot more sense.

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