YouTube

Google is undeniably the best search engine for results -- concerns about privacy be damned. Alternatives such as Bing and DuckDuckGo aren't terrible, but the optimal experience still comes from Google -- for now.

Today, Google announces a cool new search feature for its Android operating system. When using either the Chrome web browser or the official Google app, you will now sometimes see video previews in results. In other words, rather than needing to click a video to load it entirely, you can instead see a brief snippet, allowing you to see if the video should meet your needs.

There are many discussions nowadays as to who is the best YouTuber. Many people stand by PewDiePie, but Jake Paul and his Team 10 squad are quickly becoming a force to recon with. Heck, even Jake's brother, Logan Paul, is delivering some amazing content lately. OK, before you get too mad, please know that I am being facetious. The Paul brothers are probably the worst thing on YouTube these days, but I'll confess that the drama surrounding them keeps me on the edge of my seat. Seeing Killa' Keemstar report on the latest foolishness by Jake and Logan on Drama Alert is pure gold.

If you want to share the latest videos by Jake, Logan, or any other YouTuber, Google has a new solution that you may appreciate. Rather than just send a link, you can share and discuss the video from within the YouTube app itself. Very cool.

The arrival of offline mode to YouTube Music may not seem like news, but the reality is that the "mixtape" option that was available was very limited. Now YouTube has made it possible to download playlists, songs and albums for offline listening.

As before, you need to be a YouTube Red member to take advantage of the feature, and the update means that users now have far more control over their offline listening rather than relying on YouTube to select tracks based on listening history.

YouTube's head of music, Lyor Cohen, has confirmed that Google Play Music and YouTube Red are going to merge. Speaking in New York at the New Music Seminar conference, Cohen said that a new streaming service would be created.

Rumors of the merger have been circulating for some time, and the move will see Google consolidating its services into something rather more manageable -- both for the company and for users.

There are four key areas where digital businesses can make a significant profit, and Google's parent company Alphabet appears to be gaining in all four of them according to its latest earnings report.

In a recent call to reveal its results, Alphabet said revenue rose 21 percent to $26 billion, in the second quarter of 2017. Net income was $3.5 billion.

Verizon Wireless customers complained this week that the company was throttling Netflix traffic. With talk of net neutrality ringing in their ears, people were upset to find that download speeds were capped at 10Mbps.

When Netflix denied implementing a cap, the finger of suspicion pointed at Verizon. Now the company has owned up to testing a new "video optimization" system, but it's not clear how this resulted in the cap-like effects experienced by many users.

Google, Facebook and other big tech companies have all committed to trying to eradicate extremism from their respective networks in recent months. YouTube has just announced its latest strategy, with a technique which sounds rather like a type of contraception.

The Redirect Method uses a very simple technique of displaying safe, carefully curated content when certain keywords are used as search terms. More than this, when searches for extremist content are conducted, YouTube will actually show videos that "debunk violent extremist recruiting narratives."

Back in March, Google was hit by criticism after it was discovered that its Restricted Mode filtered out many videos with LGBTQ content. A month later the company announced that it had fixed the problem that led to videos being "incorrectly filtered" and now, to coincide with Pride month, Google has revealed policy updates to Restricted Mode.

Google says that it has worked with LGBTQ creators and YouTube employees and will now explicitly allow content that was previously blocked, to be seen in Restricted Mode -- hoping to quieten any shouts of "censorship." The new policies mean that content such as "kissing at weddings, personal accounts of difficult events, and speaking out against discrimination" should no longer be caught in the net.

Terrorism is a scourge on society. When people live in fear, they cannot truly be free. While some governments are constantly working to fight terror, it cannot be done alone. To truly keep people safe, the private sector must participate in anti-terrorism efforts too -- especially when fighting propaganda and recruitment.

A good example of this is Google with YouTube. The company's video-streaming site is ubiquitous for a reason -- it is easy to use and non-restrictive when it comes to content. In other words, Google has supported free speech on its platform, but with that said, it also takes down videos that violate the terms of its service. Unfortunately, disgusting content -- including terror-related videos -- have slipped through the cracks. While expecting perfection is unrealistic, Google still wants to do better. In fact, the search-giant is presenting a four-part plan to better fight terrorism on YouTube. In addition, the company is working with other tech giants, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft to bolster its efforts.

It has been a few weeks since advertisers started to pull out of YouTube after concern about the placement of ads. Since then, the company has been scrambling to earn back trust and it says it has "held thousands of productive conversations with advertisers, and implemented additional controls to restore advertiser confidence."

Now YouTube has set out what it classifies as hate speech, and says that any content that falls into this category will not be eligible for monetization. It's a move that's designed to calm the fears of advertisers, but there is concern that the rules being put in place are now too strict and could affect the incomes of large numbers of YouTubers.

If you have automatic updates enabled on your Android phone, your index fingers and your brain may have hit a moment of panic and confusion as you realized everything was rejiggered from top to bottom, literally.

Par for the course with Google, you will now have to get used to a new interface, different placement of on-screen buttons, and more confusing navigation streams to get to the menu you want. That is, until you get used to it all, at which point you'll appreciate that they were all actual improvements after all.

On May 23, Microsoft did something very curious -- it announced a new product in Shanghai. No, there is nothing wrong with having a press event in China, but the time difference meant Americans would have to wake up very early to watch it, right?

No. Actually, even more odd, Microsoft chose not to live stream the event. While there was a Chinese-dubbed stream found on the web, English-speakers were left to read live-blogging instead. This is unfortunate, as Panos Panay is quite the masterful presenter -- his unveiling of products can be downright magical. Thankfully, today, the Windows-maker makes the new Surface Pro announcement video available on YouTube -- no Chinese dub.

YouTube offers businesses the ability to connect meaningfully with their audience and build an engaged base of customers and prospects. The video sharing website has never been more popular. Today, over three billion hours of videos are watched per month, with an additional 300 hours of videos being added each minute. Yet, out of all the videos uploaded to YouTube, only a very small percentage generate more than a few hundred views; and only an elite few of those ultimately end up going viral. However, when done right, uploading videos can be big business. And not just for traditional organizations.

The number of channels earning six figures each year on YouTube is increasing by 50 percent year on year. According to a 2014 Variety survey, the stars of YouTube’s most popular channels, such as Swede Felix Kjellberg’s PewDiePie and Germán Aranis’ HolaSoyGerman, are now more influential and popular than mainstream celebrities among teenagers, so they need to be taken seriously by marketers.

Three weeks ago, we explained how you could enable YouTube’s hidden Dark Mode. The process then only worked in Chrome and required a little tinkering.

Google has now made it possible for anyone to easily switch to the dark side, and that’s not all. There’s now a whole new Material Design look for the site which Google says will make YouTube "easier and more fun to use."

While YouTube can be a great platform for viewing quality family-friendly content, there are a lot of offensive videos on there too. No, I am not just talking about PewDiePie, although some of his content is arguably questionable. Actually, I am talking about videos from other creators that show blatant racism, sexism, and actual pornography -- it is shocking to see some of the content that gets through.

Luckily, Google developed the YouTube Kids app for mobile devices, which tries to block offensive content. This app helps parents to be more confident that their children will only see family-friendly videos. Today, the search giant brings the app to LG, Samsung, and Sony smart TVs.