We have known for a little while that Microsoft is planning to release a Chromium-based version of its Edge browser, and a new leak gives us our first glimpse at it. With Chromium at its core, it is perhaps no surprise that this version of Edge bears more than a passing resemblance to Google Chrome.

The leak also confirms much of what we thought we already knew about the upcoming browser -- support for Chrome extensions, a dark mode, synchronization of favorites, and more

The Zippyshare file hosting service is currently blocked for users in the UK. Anyone visiting the site will be presented with a '403: Forbidden' message when they try to access the site.

Users on a number of ISP forums are asking whether this is due to some blocking action on the part of service providers, but it appears that for some reason the site is blocking itself from UK IP addresses.

When Flickr announced changes to its free accounts, many users were upset to find that they were going to be limited to 1,000 photos unless they were willing to pay for Pro account. On top of this, Flickr said it would be deleting any images that took users over the limit.

But now the company has announced something of a loosening of the rules. Flickr says that all public Creative Commons works on the site are now protected from deletion. There are also new "in memoriam" accounts for deceased members.

A House of Lords committee has called for the creation of a new Digital Authority to help co-ordinate existing regulators, as well as recommending new powers. The "super regulator" would have oversight over the current range of digital regulators, and would help to tackle problems of online harm which the UK government feels technology firms have not done enough about.

There is a strong feeling from the government that self-regulation by technology companies has failed, and a report entitled Regulating in a Digital World sets out a series of principles that would underpin a new approach.

Most of the Skype-related news of late has been about Microsoft killing off Skype Classic and moving people to Skype 8 -- but now there's news about the web version of the communication tool. While there are a number of new features to explore -- including hi-def video calling, new notifications and call recording -- Microsoft has taken the decision to reduce the number of supported platforms.

The latest version of Skype for Web only works in Windows 10 and macOS 10.12 or newer, and only in the Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers. Firefox and Opera users are left out in the cold, and anyone running Chrome OS or Linux will be disappointed to learn that their operating systems are no longer supported.

Given the number of high profile security breaches that make the headlines, you'd expect people to be wary about online security.

But a new study by Malwarebytes Labs shows a mismatch between people's confidence in their own privacy and security practices and their actual behavior.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the FIDO Alliance have today announced that the Web Authentication (WebAuthn) specification is now an official web standard.

W3C's WebAuthn recommendation, a core component of the FIDO Alliance's FIDO2 set of specifications, is a browser/platform standard for simpler and stronger authentication.

Amid mounting fears about child predators and pedophile rings operating online, YouTube has announced that it is disabling comments on videos that feature minors.

For now, the efforts are focused on videos that feature young children, but in the coming months it will expand to include older minors that YouTube says "could be at risk of attracting predatory behavior". The site is also stepping up its use of algorithms to not only identify videos that contain children, but also to monitor and moderate comments.

Google recently launched the new top-level domain, .dev. When the TLD was introduced, pricing was a little out of the reach of most people -- there are few who would be willing to part with $11,000.

Now, however, pricing has dropped dramatically. The crazy pricing was only part of the Early Access registration period, but now the domain is available from a range of registrars for a far more reasonable $12-$15.

Once you sign up for Amazon Prime, it's hard to imagine how you ever lived without it. Well... that might be a slight exaggeration, but it's easy to fall in love with the service. Now Amazon is giving would-be subscribers another reason to sign up, and an added bonus for those who already have.

Amazon Day is a US-only service -- for now, at least -- that gives subscribers the option of consolidating all of their deliveries for the week on a day of their choice.

It's the bane of any internet user. You stumble across a link to a fascinating-sounding article and click it only to discover that the site hosting the post is paywalled. Gah!

The Medium platform is one that can include paywalled content, and there's good news for Twitter users. If you access a Medium article via a tweet, it does not matter if it is a paid-for article or not -- you will be able to access it for free.

One of Google's current crop of messaging tools, Duo, is spreading its wings and breaking out of the confines of being a mobile app.

Google Duo is now available to use online in a desktop web browser -- providing, that is, that you're using Chrome, Firefox or Safari (Microsoft Edge and Opera users are left out in the cold). The web-based version of the messaging tool can be used to make and receive voice and video calls.

Facebook is no stranger to privacy-related controversy, and to try to counter some of this the social network announced in the middle of last year that it planned to give users a "clear history" feature.

Although first talked about in May, no progress has been visible on this front, but Facebook's CFO, David Wehner, has now said that the feature will be launching later this year. This is good news for users, but bad news for advertisers. Facebook says that the feature will make it harder to target ads.

Sites based on the CMS Drupal are at risk from a remote code execution flaw which has been classed as "highly critical". Site owners are being urged to install updates to ensure they are protected.

The security flaw -- CVE-2019-6340 or SA-CORE-2019-003 -- affects Drupal 8.5.x and 8.6.x but there are certain conditions that must be met in order for a site to be vulnerable.

Following criticism of how its strike system was implemented, YouTube has announced an update to its Community Guidelines that helps to make things clearer.

In the past it was often the case that strikes were handed inconsistently, and it was not always clear what misdemeanour had occurred. The updated system comes into force in the next few days, and it is slightly more lenient on first-time offenders.