However busy you might be, it’s all-too-easy to waste time checking Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and many other distracting domains.

Browser add-ons can help you block these sites, but they’re often too restrictive. Limiting access is good, but if they go too far you’ll just uninstall them in a day or two and carry on as before.

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Google offers a choice of Chrome versions, depending on how close to the cutting edge you want to be. You can choose to run either the stable release, or gain access to additional features by opting to join the beta channel. There’s also Canary, a "bleeding edge" build of Chrome that installs, runs and updates separately from the main browser.

This has previously only been available for Windows or Mac, but it’s now available on Android too.

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Google is one of the biggest champions of open source, releasing very useful projects such as Cartographer and Noto. Heck, the company is so proud of its open source efforts, that it graded itself with a public report card.

Today, the search giant releases yet another open source tool. Called "Nomulus", it is designed to be a top-level domain (TLD) registry platform. This is not a young or incomplete project, however, as Google began developing it way back in 2011. Now that Nomulus is in the wild and free to use, it will be interesting to see how it is leveraged.

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Mobile games are increasing in popularity, boosted by augmented reality apps like Pokémon GO. But if individuals are using their devices for BYOD too then these games could present a major security risk.

According to a new study from licensing specialist Flexera Software which tested 60 of the most popular iOS games, 73 percent support location services and tracking. 68 percent support social networking, 58 have calendar access and 54 percent support SMS.

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You can save big on plane tickets. The trick, as you know, is to buy them at the right time. And since it may not be easy to foresee, Google Flights has received an update to let you know when is the best time to take out your credit card.

With the holiday season just around the corner, Google says that 69 percent of the US leisure travelers worry about finding the cheapest flights or making the right decision when buying their tickets, so Travel will now inform users when it expects prices to change.

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Network security operations are evolving and becoming more difficult to implement according to a new survey by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), sponsored by network visibility specialist Gigamon.

The complexity of network security operations is as difficult, or more difficult, as it was two years ago according to 85 percent of surveyed respondents. This is primarily due to increased traffic, more connected devices on the network and diversity of network and security technologies used to address emerging and known security threats.

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British banks are afraid that if they disclose the full picture of the cyberattacks they're under, they might suffer public backlash resulting in reputational damage and loss of customers. That's why they never fully report when they're under cyberattack. And the attacks are getting more frequent.

This is all according to Reuters, which cites Israeli-based cyber security firm Illusive Networks, Barclays, and others.

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The use of containers delivers many benefits including lower costs and greater agility. But the results of a new survey show that a lack of adequate tools to handle storage is holding back deployment.

The survey by data storage company Portworx finds that 55 percent of IT professionals would deploy stateful containers within one year if storage challenges could be resolved.

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It seems as no one wants to buy NSA’s exploit tools. Or maybe ShadowBrokers, the group selling the tools, overpriced the deal.

The group, allegedly formed by Russian, state-sponsored hackers, decided to pull the auction on the tools. Instead, it turned it into a crowdfunded sale, aiming for 10,000 bitcoin, or slightly over $6 million.

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There's an expectation that public Wi-Fi will be available pretty much everywhere we go these days. We access it almost without thinking about it, yet public networks rarely encrypt data leaving users vulnerable.

A new survey of more than 2,000 business users by networking company Xirrus finds that while 91 percent of respondents don't believe public Wi-Fi is secure, but 89 percent use it anyway.

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Facebook is keen for people to keep talking. Recently the company has been pushing its Messenger app as a way for people to stay connected in a variety of ways, but it has also noticed a problem -- people don’t always have something to talk about.

But Facebook (of course!) has a solution. To help those who struggle with small talk, an experiment is underway whereby Facebook Messenger will suggest possible topics for conversation. These are, obviously, not just random suggestions, but topics based on the activities of the participants -- opening up the usual privacy concerns that tend to be associated with Facebook.

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Amazon likes to chuck a few freebies (well... not free exactly...) at Prime subscribers, and today there is a new addition to the pile -- Family Vault. The new feature allows subscribers in the US to share their free photo storage space with up to five other people.

This makes it possible for a family to store all of their photos in one place. In addition to the unlimited shared photo storage, each person invited to the Family Vault is given an extra 5GB of storage which can be used to house other files.

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According to new research, a private cloud can be much cheaper than using a public cloud service, though only when it's running on a large scale.

The analyst firm 451 Research has released a new report exploring the costs of private, public and hybrid cloud services, revealing that when a private cloud is large enough, it can actually be cheaper than public cloud services. There are, however, upsides and downsides to both approaches.

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When Apple released its cylindrical Mac Pro, I was in awe. Not only was it beautiful, but it wasn't form over function. Actually, a cylinder is a wise design choice, as it can aid in cooling when done correctly. Surprisingly, Windows PC manufacturers took a while to start really embracing the design.

Recently, for instance, HP announced the Wave -- a tube-like PC with integrated 360 degree Bang and Olufsen speaker. Now, Samsung is following HP with the ArtPC Pulse. It too features a 360 degree speaker in its design, but by the arguably superior Harman/Kardon. Where Samsung's offering greatly differs, however, is gaming. It has a respectable AMD RX460 GPU. As you can imagine, the drop-dead gorgeous ArtPC Pulse will not come cheap.

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Linux distributions and silly names go together like peanut butter and jelly. For whatever reason, the maintainers of these operating systems seem to enjoy having fun with what they call them -- some argue it is childish. Even Google -- a billion dollar company -- uses sugary dessert names for the Linux-based Android operating system.

One of the most well-known Linux distributions to use funny names is Ubuntu. It famously uses the convention of an adjective and a lesser-known animal, each starting with the same letter. The letter is chosen sequentially by alphabet. For example, Ubuntu 16.10 uses the letter "Y" -- "Yakkety Yak". The next version of the operating system will use the letter "Z". While many folks hoped for "Zebra", that would be too obvious. Instead, Canonical has chosen "Zesty Zapus". Don't know what a zapus is? Neither did I. It is apparently a type of jumping mouse. The selection was not made at random, however, as the company has an explanation for the decision.

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