Articles about Internet

Interacting with BetaNews -- and countless other websites -- means making use of the Disqus commenting system. Today the firm has been acquired by "marketing technology company" Zeta Global.

Disqus says that "we still are and will remain the same Disqus that you know and use," but there will be concerns from users that the company is being taken over by one with a vested interested in marketing and, therefore, user data.

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War always sparks innovation, and over the years conflict has led to improvements in technology and the acceleration of development in things like radar and the jet engine.

So, is the war against cyber crime driving technologies that will improve the internet? Security education site Cyber Security Degrees thinks so and has produced an infographic to prove it.

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With the massive rise in popularity -- and value -- of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, it's little wonder that people are seeking out ever more imaginative and sneaky ways to mine coins without having to invest in dedicated hardware.

Websites that mine for cryptocurrency in the background, making use of visitors' CPU time, are nothing new -- the Pirate Bay has been caught red-handed, for instance, using a Monero miner in the form of the Coinhive JavaScript Miner. But now researchers have discovered that some websites are using a drive-by mining technique that allows them to continue cryptomining even after the site is closed.

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For many people -- particularly in certain parts of the world -- mobile data is an expensive commodity. If you're someone who likes to keep an eye on exactly what's using up all of your allowance -- and take control of it -- Google's new Android app, Datally, can help.

Datally has been designed to not only reveal which apps are using up data, but to provide a way to rein it in. Formerly known as Triangle whilst in beta, the app lets you block background data usage on a per-app basis, and makes it much easier to access data-related settings.

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Microsoft has just given mobile users a more compelling reason to use Edge as their web browser -- and heaven knows one was needed. The latest update to the mobile browser brings a genuinely useful feature: password syncing.

The announcement that Edge was coming to Android and iOS came somewhat out of the blue, and now it seems that Microsoft is intent on making it a real contender for the mobile browsing crown. Password syncing is the headline addition to the browser, but it's not the only thing that's new.

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Facebook has long offered a range of support options to help those considering suicide. Today the social network launches an automated AI-powered tool that aims to spot suicidal posts before they are reported.

Relying on the reports of people who spot worrying posts is just one of the ways Facebook has tried to provide a safety net for people who are struggling, and by adding artificial intelligence to the mix, the company will be hoping to speed up detection and offer help more quickly when it matters most.

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The advertising of broadband services has long been fraught with complaints and controversy, but a new rule change should help to bring this to an end.

Following an investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), ISPs will no longer be able to advertise high "up to" speeds. Instead they will have to advertise the average speed achieved by at least 50 percent of customers at peak times. Previously, the rules permitted the advertising of headline speeds enjoyed by just 10 percent of people, and the ASA found that many broadband customers were disappointed with their connection speed.

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The idea that what you do online is not a secret is something that we have all -- just about -- come to terms with. That said, most people still expect a modicum of privacy, and they certainly don’t expect literally every keystroke they type to be logged by the websites they visit.

But, say researchers at Princeton University, this is exactly what is happening. Hundreds of the most popular websites are using "session replay scripts" that record every single thing a visitor does. They are designed to monitor how visitors interact with a site to help gather information that could improve page design, and the incredibly extensive data that is collected is sent off to a third party for analysis.

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Internet, TV and phone have become, perhaps sadly, some of the most important services in our lives. The problem for many of us is getting the service we want as it's limited in most areas -- in fact, many people only have one choice thanks to monopolies by area.

If you live in a location which has Verizon then you have access to one of the faster connections in the United States and now you can get a better deal on the service, although it's for a limited time only.

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Poor page load speeds could be losing retailers business over the Black Friday period according to a new report.

The study by eCommerce agency Visualsoft looked at the UK's top 240 online retailers -- including major supermarkets -- and finds that 54 percent have poor page load speeds, taking over nine seconds.

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Adblock Plus is using the disappearance of the popular Android app UC Browser from Google Play to promote its own mobile web browser.

An open letter to people looking for the currently-unavailable UC Browser calls on mobile web users to give Adblock Browser a try. The privacy-focused browser includes, obviously, an adblocker and, as Adblock Plus cheekily points out, "we haven't been kicked out of the store."

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After awarding the coveted blue tick of verification to a white supremacist, Twitter recently announced that it would be pausing its verification program. Making good on this promise, Twitter says that it is not only no longer accepting public requests for accounts to be verified, it is also introducing new guidelines, and removing the verification tick from accounts that do not make the grade.

This means that white nationalist Richard Spencer, far-righter Laura Loomer, English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson and others no longer have a blue tick next to their names. While Twitter is promoting this clamp down as part of its war on hate speech, some are complaining that the company is trying to silence right-wing voices.

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Head of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, has admitted that the company's verification system is "broken" after a blue tick was awarded to white supremacist Jason Kessler. There was a backlash this week after Kessler -- who helped to arrange the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville earlier in the year -- had his Twitter account verified.

Responding to the negative reaction this prompted, Twitter announced that its verification program has been paused. The company also said that the verification tick had been largely misinterpreted by people.

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Signing up for any service means facing the username battle. There are two obstacles: is your username still available, and does it meet the necessary requirements. With Twitter, getting an @YourName handle is tricky because there are simply so many users (and bots), but there has long been a highly restrictive limit on the length of names -- just 15 characters.

Twitter has long offered something of a compromise in allowing display names that are slightly longer -- but only up to 20 characters. Now, the company has announced that there are more than twice as many characters to play with. Display names can now be up to 50 characters in length -- usernames, unfortunately, remain unchanged.

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After a few weeks of testing with a limited number of users, Twitter is rolling out 280-character tweets to (nearly) everyone -- but says that very few of the testers reached this limit.

With the 140-character limit, says Twitter, just 9 percent of tweets hit the upper limit; with 280 characters to play with, this drops to 1 percent. The increase has divided opinion on Twitter, but the company's decision to replace the simple character countdown -- to warn how much more you could type -- with a bizarre circular icon has been given a rather negative reception.

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