Articles about Internet

If you haven’t been marooned on a desert island for the past couple of years, you’ll be aware of the Colin Kaepernick saga. As a refresher, the quarterback was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers. He started for them as a rookie and had a good season, though he dropped off slightly in the following seasons. When his contract expired it was not renewed.

You can have your own views of why he is no longer in the NFL. It could be his play, though he’s more than qualified to, at least, get a second string job on many teams. However, most think it was his protests that did him in. When he chose to stay on the bench during the National Anthem it caused an outcry. People claimed he hated the country, hated the military and all sorts of more bizarre things. The fact was, he was protesting violence and, after talking to a military officer, he learned to get up from the bench and take a knee.

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Startpage.com is a privacy-focused alternative to the likes of Google (although the search results are provided by Google -- minus all the ads and stripped of tracking), and the search engine has just relaunched with a new look and new features. The visual changes will be apparent to anyone who has used the site before, but for anyone who is concerned about their online privacy, it is new options such as Anonymous View that will be of greater interest.

This new feature makes it possible to visit websites completely privately, essentially using Startpage.com as a proxy. Importantly, this extra level of privacy and protection does not come at the expense of speed, meaning you can browse the web anonymously without compromise.

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If a website suffers a security breach you may well decide that you want to give it a wide berth. The problem is that it is impossible for individuals to keep track of all of the breaches that take place, and Mozilla wants to help out.

After teaming up with Have I Been Pwned recently, Mozilla created Firefox Monitor to help inform people about breaches, and this is now expanding to more languages. On top of this, the organization has also now launched Firefox Monitor Notifications that will issue a warning if you visit a site that has been breached.

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Ads in your inbox. Sounds like something you'd expect from the likes of Google or Yahoo, but Microsoft appears to be about to get in on the act as well.

And we're not talking about online ads in your Outlook.com account -- we're talking about ads in the Mail app that's included with Windows 10. A new report says that Microsoft is currently testing ads with Windows Insiders, so it could be just a matter of time before they spread wider.

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Google Chrome Labs has released a new online image conversion app by the name of Squoosh. The open source tool is essentially a simple browser-based image editor, and the focus is very much on speed.

Showcased at the Chrome Dev Summit, Squoosh is not limited to working only in Chrome -- other browsers are also supported. While the conversion options are useful to many people, Squoosh is really an opportunity for Google to show off new web technologies.

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Cloudflare has just made it a whole lot easier to hide your mobile browsing from your ISP -- and access content that might otherwise be unavailable. The company has launched a 1.1.1.1 app for smartphone users, making it incredibly easy to switch between DNS services with a couple of taps; what amounts to a free VPN tool.

Earlier in the year, Cloudflare launched its 1.1.1.1 DNS service to bring privacy and speed, but it was a little off-putting to users unfamiliar with tinkering with such settings. With the launch of 1.1.1.1 for iOS and Android, the process is much, much simpler -- and the app and the service itself are free.

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Verizon has announced that it is to split into three as it looks to ensure "first-to-market leadership in the 5G era". Starting January 1, 2019, the telecom company will divide into Consumer, Business and Verizon Media Group/Oath.

The company says that it expects its new structure to be reflected in financial reporting for Q2 2019.

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Security researchers claim to have unearthed a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Edge. The remote code execution is due to be revealed with a proof-of concept.

Microsoft has not yet been informed about the details of the security issue, but exploit developers had been looking for a way to break Edge out of its sandbox -- and it would appear that this objective has now been achieved.

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Flickr has announced a number of changes to both its free and pro accounts, including ditching the need to have a Yahoo account.

The biggest change for Flickr users with free accounts is a drop to the amount of free storage it offers -- it is now possible to display 1,000 photos and videos of any size, but the free terabyte of storage is now a thing of the past. Anyone paying for a Pro account has much more to get excited about, including ad-free browsing and 5K support.

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Businesses need to protect themselves against harmful websites, but recognizing which are dangerous and which are not can be a tricky task.

Cyber defense company Comodo is launching a new version of its cloud-delivered, DNS-based Security-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution that allows enterprises, medium-sized and small businesses, MSPs and channel partners to protect users’ digital presence.

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It's the butt of many jokes, but your search history -- as well as your browsing history -- can be hugely revealing about you. While it is possible to quickly clear the record of searches that your browser stores, it is not so easy to delete the records stored by Google. At least that used to be true.

Google has just announced a new option that enables you to view and delete your Google search history, making it possible to take control of some of the data stored on the company's servers. Contrary to what you might expect, the option is not being hidden away, but will instead be accessible from a Google search. What's more, the company says that similar options will be coming to Google Maps and other Google services next year.

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Insecure and outdated web applications are a core source of high-profile data breaches among FT 500 global companies according to new research from web security company High-Tech Bridge.

The study reveals that abandoned, shadow and legacy web applications more or less nullify corporate cybersecurity spending and undermine compliance.

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Mozilla has announced a partnership with ProtonVPN as it explores new ways to keep people safe online.

Starting today, a select group of Firefox users in the US will see an ad for ProtonVPN encouraging them to take out a monthly subscription with the service. It's an experiment that is part of Mozilla's attempt to explore new revenue streams to help keep Firefox funded.

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The Chrome web browser was starting to get some bad press after problems with extensions and then concerns over automatic sign-ins. Google listened to the complaints and promised to do something about it -- the result is Chrome 70.

But Chrome 70 is about more than just security and privacy changes. Google has also used this released to introduce a handful of new features. One of the best is picture-in-picture mode (PiP) which lets you keep watching a video in an overlay while you continue to browse other sites. Here's how to use it.

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As part of a coordinated movement between four of the biggest names in tech, the old TLS 1.0 and 1.1 security protocols are to be killed off in Safari, Edge, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome in 2020.

Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla and Google have come together to purge the internet of these old and buggy protocols, noting that most people have now moved to TLS 1.2, if not TLS 1.3. Although 94 percent of sites already support version 1.2, a tampering off period over the next 18 months will give everyone a chance to catch up.

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