Articles about Google

How much does Google know about you?

What Google knows

We all know that Google collects data and uses it to sell adverts. But just how well does Google know you?

VPN service comparison site TheBestVPN has created a full guide to how the corporation tracks you and what it does with the information.

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I declare independence from Apple (and mean it this time)

Six years ago today I penned my personal Declaration of Independence from Apple, nearly a month after pledging to boycott the company's products and services—and I did, only to quietly stop six months later. They say history repeats, eh? On this July 4th, I forsake the fruit-logo company once more. From Apple I return to Google, choosing one digital lifestyle over the other—and not for the first time, as some commenters will be quick to argue.

Past to present: By summer 2012, I viewed various patent assaults by Apple against Samsung and others as competition by litigation, not innovation. Weighing on my decision in 2018 is a newer—and more aggressive—attack against Qualcomm, which headquarters are in San Diego (my city of residence). While a Qualcomm customer, Apple also is a fierce chip competitor that seeks to bolster margins by paying less for patents—and by invalidating or diminishing them, destabilize competition from the Android Army.

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Google responds to Gmail privacy concerns: 'we're not reading your emails'

Gmail icon with notification

Another day, another privacy concern. Following a Wall Street Journal story about the access third party apps have to Gmail data, we wrote about how to stop it. While the WSJ did not really make any major new revelations, it did manage to reignite the conversation about privacy, and Google has responded to storm that has built up around it.

The company has used a blog post to respond to the concerns raised by the Wall Street Journal, insisting that it carefully vets any third party that has access to sensitive data. The task has been left to Suzanne Frey -- director of security, trust and privacy at Google Cloud -- to limit the damage caused by the article.

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How to stop your private Gmail messages being read by third parties

Gmail on smartphone

When Gmail first launched back in 2004, people were concerned about it because Google was scanning incoming messages in order to be able to present users with relevant, personalized adverts based on the email content.

The feature was finally dropped a year ago, in a move welcomed by privacy advocates, but it turns out employees of third-party app developers may well have been reading your private messages.

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Open source champion Google now a Linux Foundation Platinum Member

Google is a huge proponent of open source. The company is constantly releasing projects on GitHub -- a huge win for the open source community. Not to mention, Google leverages one of the most important open source projects for its operating systems -- the Linux kernel. Both Android and Chrome OS, for instance, are Linux-based.

Today, Google becomes a Platinum Member of the Linux Foundation. This is big news, as not only will Google benefit from the platinum perks, but arguably more importantly, the Linux community will experience a huge financial win. You see, the annual cost for being a platinum member is $500,000!

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Google Cloud Platform is gaining Cloud Filestore to offer a file system interface to users

Google Cloud logo

Google has announced a new storage option for developers using Google Cloud Platform. The new Cloud Filestore is due to launch in beta next month, and it provides a managed NAS in the cloud.

Google describes Cloud Filestore as a "managed file storage for applications that require a file system interface and a shared file system", and the aim is to offer higher performance to users that need it than the existing options do.

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Google rebrands its advertising line-up -- bye bye to AdWords and DoubleClick, hello to Google Ads

Google has acknowledged that its array of ad products has caused "a lot of confusion", and after listening to feedback has decided to roll out a rebrand. On the face of it, this is just a name change that sees AdWords and DoubleClick laid to rest, but there are also new tools being introduced.

Let's get the name changes out of the way first. AdWords has been rebranded to Google Ads; DoubleClick Digital Marketing and Google Analytics 360 now come under the Google Marketing Platform umbrella; and DoubleClick Ad Exchange and DoubleClick for Publishers are now called Google Ad Manager. But there's more.

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Google Home learns Spanish

Do you know what the official language of the United States is? The answer may surprise you. If you said "English," you'd be quite wrong. Actually, it's a trick question -- there is no official language of the USA. That's why it's particularly ignorant to get mad at immigrants for not speaking English. Hell, getting mad at people for speaking their native language would be abhorrent even if English was the official language.

With all of that said, a lot of technology -- such as voice assistants -- are designed for English speakers. Today, Google bucks that trend by announcing its Home assistant is leaning a new language -- Spanish.

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Google adds DRM to Android APKs to verify the authenticity of apps from Google Play

Google Play in pocket

DRM is something that's usually associated with streaming music and video, but there's no reason that it can't be put to other uses. Proving this, Google has started using a form of DRM to improve app security by verifying that APKs originate from the Play Store. It's a system that works much like signed drivers in Windows.

The aim is simple: to improve the security of Android users by ensuring that they are using genuine apps that have not been tampered with in any way. Google is not referring to the new system as DRM, saying instead that it is adding a "small amount of security metadata on top of APKs to verify that the APK was distributed by Google Play".

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Google Account revamped -- increased transparency and new security and privacy options

Google Account on mobile

Google has unveiled a new look for users' accounts, making information clearer, improving transparency and adding new options.

To make it easy to find information, Google has added a search function and there's also a cleaner look to aid navigation. Building on the previous update to Security Checkup, your Google account now also highlights settings you can change to improve your security.

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Google launches Podcasts app for Android

Google Podcasts

Google has never really shown much interest in podcasts -- despite their age and popularity -- but today this changes. The company has launched a new Android app called simply Google Podcasts complete with ubiquitous AI for personalized suggestions.

Available in 47 languages, the app currently provides access to a collection of around two million podcasts, but this number is likely to grow very quickly. Google boasts of integration with Google Assistant and Google Home, the main benefit of which is being able to start a podcast on one device and continue on another.

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Google updates Android Messages so you can send texts from the web

Messages for web

Google is rolling out a series of changes to Android Messages, one of which makes it possible to send text messages from the comfort of your computer. Called "Messages for web" the feature enables users to use a desktop web browser to send SMSes rather than their phone.

While this is almost certainly the biggest and most exciting changes for Messages, Google is also pushing a number of other new features to the app, including Smart Replies, GIF search and link previews.

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Google enters 'strategic partnership' with China's JD.com

JD.com and Google

Google is deepening it drive into China, and now the search giant has announced a $550 million "strategic partnership" with Chinese ecommerce goliath JD.com.

This is far from being Google's first venture in China, but the major investment shows the company's eagerness to take advantage of the market. It will enable Google to better take on the likes of Amazon in Asia, and it will also help JD.com to expand its operations to other parts of the world.

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Google releases VR180 Creator for Linux and Mac only -- sucks for you, Windows users!

When you are a Linux desktop user, it can be very frustrating when popular programs are not available for your platform. The same can be said for macOS, but to a lesser extent -- at least it has access to things like Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop. Like it or not, Windows often gets premium programs as an exclusive. It's not hard to see why -- on the desktop, Microsoft's operating system reigns supreme from a marketshare perspective. Developers will simply follow the money, and who can blame them?

The world is changing, however, and Microsoft's stranglehold on the software community is loosening. Consumers don't really need Windows anymore. Sure, 10 or 20 years ago it would be almost unthinkable for a typical home user to run an alternative operating system, but these days it’s totally doable. Highlighting this, today, Google releases a really cool program called "VR180 Creator." Interestingly, it is not available for Windows -- the search giant made it a Mac and Linux exclusive. Oh my.

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Google's latest diversity report shows little has changed at the company

Broken Google logo

Google has published the latest edition of its diversity report in which the company highlights the makeup of its workforce in the name of transparency.

Despite Google's seemingly endless claims that it wants to do more to improve diversity, the report shows that little has changed over the last year. Women still account for less than a third of the workforce, and the company has a high attrition rate for black employees.

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