Articles about Google

Almost a year after it was first announced, Google is finally rolling out its offline Find My Device service for Android devices.

All but identical to Apple's Find My network, Google's offering not only makes it possible to track the location of Android handsets, but also includes support for third-party AirTag-style trackers. While the rollout appears to have started, for now it is only a beta; a full launch is imminent, however.

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It has been known for some time that Chrome's Incognito Mode is nowhere near as private as many people still believe it to be. Despite assumptions made -- largely due to strong suggestions -- Google was able to collect private browsing data and has faced lawsuits as a result.

As part of a class action settlement, the company has agreed to delete "billions of data points" despite having previously said that this was not possible. The change of heart means that Google should be able to avoid a damages payout in the billions of dollars.

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Despite them being widely publicized, Google and Yahoo's new email rules still risk catching out many businesses.

New research from EasyDMARC finds that, despite the email providers warning customers that failure to implement the DMARC security standard could lead to diminishing email deliverability, only 37 percent of IT decision-makers have rolled out the security measure.

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The European Commission announced today that it has opened non-compliance investigations against Apple, Alphabet, and Meta. The three companies make up one half of six gatekeeper companies under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

So-called gatekeepers have a strong position in a market, which may give them an unfair advantage over competing platforms and services. Platforms such as Windows, Google Android, and iOS are gatekeepers, but so are YouTube, Google Search, Google Ads, Chrome, or Safari. The full list of gatekeepers is available here.

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Microsoft -- yes, Microsoft -- is set to address an issue that has plagued the look of text in Chrome running on Windows 10 and Windows 11. While this is not a problem that affects everyone, there are large numbers of people who have long-complained about strange-looking fonts in Google's web browser.

The font troubles stem from a font rending incompatibility which Microsoft is finally getting around to fixing. The ClearType Tuner of Windows is ignored by Chrome, but Microsoft's tweaks mean that the browser rendering will be noticeably improved.

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Google Chrome users may once again enforce dark mode support for web content in the web browser. The feature has been in the making for a long time. Sofia talked about it more than five years ago here on BetaNews.

While Google did add support for a dark Chrome interface in the past, it never rolled out the option to display darker versions of webpages.

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This time last year, Google announced a series of new features for Google Maps which it said would be rolling out in the months that followed. While most saw the light of day, others started to feel like vaporware -- notably, the intriguing "glanceable directions".

A full 12 months on, the glanceable directions feature is finally being made available to iOS and Android users. It shows directions on the lock screen of a handset, so there's no need to constantly unlock the device for updates.

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Google and Reddit have "expanded and deepened" their existing partnership in a deal that will give the search giant near-unfettered access to content posted on the site. As well as helping users to find Reddit content via the search engine, the move also means that Redditor's posts will be used to train Google's AI models.

Reddit says that in giving Google access to it Data API, it will be "easier to discover and access the communities and conversations people are looking for". It is being pushed by both companies as a way of promoting the "open internet", but it is something that is proving conversial.

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If you use any of Google’s multitude of services, you will almost certainly have noticed notifications in recent weeks about a new look that is "coming soon". This may well have piqued your interested, and now Google has revealed what all the fuss is about.

A new sign in page (and sign up page) is now rolling out to not only Google Workspace, but also personal Google accounts -- so you will see it when signing into your Gmail account, for instance. What you can expect is, as per usual, a cleaner, "more modern" look.

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Last year, the Chromium Project -- a Google-backed open source browser project -- released its roadmap for building a safer, faster, and more stable Internet, containing recommendations to reduce the lifespan of Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates from 398 days to 90. This was a starting gun to the industry. As the operator of Chrome, Google has the power to enforce shorter validity periods by making them a requirement -- which will likely become the de facto standard across all browsers soon after.  

When these changes come into force, every business that uses TLS certificates -- i.e. every business that connects services with the internet -- will be impacted. TLS certificates are machine identities, they enable systems to talk to each other securely over the internet. If they are not reissued or replaced before they expire, the service they are connecting stops working. This results in hugely costly outages, disruption, and increased security risks -- and it’s something that everyone has experienced with their browser through a 'can’t connect to untrusted site- error.  

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Microsoft has fixed a puzzling issue in the latest version of its Edge web browser. Some users reported that Microsoft Edge was importing open tabs from Google Chrome automatically on their devices about two weeks ago.

While Microsoft Edge does have a preference to do so, the users claimed that the preference was set to off on their devices.

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With the end of support for Windows 10 approaching, and the launch of Windows 11 24H2 not being an option for many people because of hardware compatibility changes, Google is seizing the opportunity to push its own ChromeOS Flex.

ChromeOS Flex is Google's tweaked version of the ChromeOS operating system that can be installed on x86 hardware. The company is pitching its software at businesses and organizations promising that it has "been built with security as a first principle, not an afterthought". The self-promotion is to be found on the Chrome Enterprise blog, but there is nothing to stop home users from replacing Windows or macOS with ChromeOS Flex.

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Google's chat-based AI tool Bard, launched last year, has been rebranded as Gemini. Google says that this is the most capable of its AI tools to date. So what does the change from poet to star sign deliver?

The Gemini Pro 1.0 model is available in over 40 languages and more than 230 countries and territories. Thee are also two new additions -- Gemini Advanced and a mobile app-- to make it easier to collaborate with Google AI.

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Playing Android games on your PC is easy enough. You have the option of using third-party emulators such as Bluestacks or NoxPlayer, or you can take advantage of the built-in Windows Subsystem for Android, available on Windows 11.

However, if you wish to flip the script and play Windows games on your Android device, the process is somewhat more complex, but not impossible. To do this, you’ll need Winlator, which has just been updated to version 5, improving compatibility and performance, and resolving various issues.

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Back in October 2023, Google and Yahoo jointly announced new email sender requirements for inbound mail to their domains that they would be putting in place early in 2024, requirements that, for now, are focused on bulk senders. 

This announcement and its subsequent updates have rightly gotten the full attention of the email industry. However, there was one other item buried in Google’s announcement that we don’t think people are talking about enough. One of the bullet items in Gmail’s guidelines reads as follows:

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