WebProNews

Category: DevWebPro

DevWebPro

  • Google Analytics Is Illegal in Austria, Violates the GDPR

    Google Analytics Is Illegal in Austria, Violates the GDPR

    In what may be the first of many such rulings, Austria has ruled that Google Analytics violates the GDPR and is therefore illegal.

    Google Analytics is the premier tool available to website operators to gauge their traffic, and better understand how they’re engaging with visitors. Unfortunately for Google, Google Analytics seems to run afoul of the GDPR, the EU’s privacy legislation.

    The issue is the result of a 2020 EU ruling that using US cloud providers violates the GDPR. Because US cloud providers are legally compelled to help US intelligence agencies, they were deemed inherently incapable of being GDPR-compliant. As a result, data on EU citizens could no longer be sent to US companies as freely as it once was. Google Analytics runs afoul of this law because it transmits user IP addresses and other identifiable information to the US.

    Unfortunately for users’ privacy, many companies — both in the US and EU — are choosing to ignore the law and continue with business as usual. The European Center for Digital Rights (noyb) has filed 101 cases against such companies, and the Austrian Data Protection Authority (“Datenschutzbehörde” or “DSB”) has ruled on one of them, concluding that Google Analytics is illegal.

    EU authorities have been cooperating on such cases, acting as a task force, making it likely that Austria’s ruling is just the first of many that will soon be handed down.

    “We expect similar decisions to now drop gradually in most EU member states,” said Max Schrems, honorary chair of noyb.eu. “We have filed 101 complaints in almost all Member States and the authorities coordinated the response. A similar decision was also issued by the European Data Protection Supervisor last week.

    “This is a very detailed and sound decision,” Schrems continued. “The bottom line is: Companies can’t use US cloud services in Europe anymore. It has now been 1.5 years since the Court of Justice confirmed this a second time, so it is more than time that the law is also enforced.”

    Schrems also highlighted the need for the US to adopt its own data protection laws, something prominent US executives have also advocated for, lest platforms and services be splintered.

    “In the long run we either need proper protections in the US, or we will end up with separate products for the US and the EU,” Schrems noted. “I would personally prefer better protections in the US, but this is up to the US legislator – not to anyone in Europe.”

  • Mozilla to Pass $500 Million in 2021 As Other Services Take Off

    Mozilla to Pass $500 Million in 2021 As Other Services Take Off

    Mozilla is closing in on a major milestone, set to pass $500 million in 2021 revenue as the company’s other services gain ground.

    Mozilla has always been in a unique and precarious position. The organization is responsible for one of the most important pieces of software, in its Firefox web browser. Although Chrome has long-since come to dominate the browser market, Firefox consistently wins praise for its focus on user privacy, unlike Chrome. In fact, Mozilla has established itself as a stalwart defender of user privacy, and is on the forefront of such efforts.

    Despite its importance, and what the company stands for, Mozilla’s primary financial support has come from search deals with Google, to the tune of nearly 90% of the company’s revenue. Relying on its greatest competitor, one whose values are almost diametrically opposed to Mozilla’s, is a dangerous position to depend on.

    According to TechCrunch, the status quo is finally starting to change. While Mozilla reported $466 million in search revenue in 2020, and $465 million in 2019, the organization is set to pass $500 million in 2021.

    Most significantly, however, an increasing share of Mozilla’s revenue is coming from its other services, such as Mozilla VPN, Pocket and Firefox Relay Premium. In fact, revenue from these other services is expected to grow 150% in 2020, accounting for 14% of Mozilla’s total revenue. According to TechCrunch, Mozilla’s VPN service alone saw a 450% revenue growth from 2020 to 2021.

    While 14% is still a relatively small portion of Mozilla’s total revenue, it’s an excellent start toward finally breaking free of dependence on Google.

  • EFF: Google Chrome’s ‘Manifest V3 is Deceitful and Threatening’

    EFF: Google Chrome’s ‘Manifest V3 is Deceitful and Threatening’

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is calling out Google’s Manifest V3 (MV3) browser extension plans, calling them “deceitful and threatening.”

    MV3 represents a significant change to how Chrome browser extensions are implemented. In an effort to increase compatibility, Mozilla has already announced that Firefox will adopt MV3 too.

    According to the EFF, however, MV3 represents a major threat to privacy and security, thanks to the limits it places on how extensions work.

    Manifest V3, or Mv3 for short, is outright harmful to privacy efforts. It will restrict the capabilities of web extensions—especially those that are designed to monitor, modify, and compute alongside the conversation your browser has with the websites you visit. Under the new specifications, extensions like these– like some privacy-protective tracker blockers– will have greatly reduced capabilities. Google’s efforts to limit that access is concerning, especially considering that Google has trackers installed on 75% of the top one million websites.

    The EFF aren’t the only ones warning about MV3.

    “A web browser is supposed to act on behalf of the user and respect the user’s interests,” says Jonathan Mayer, Princeton University. “Unfortunately, Chrome now has a track record as a Google agent, not a user agent. It is the only major web browser that lacks meaningful privacy protections by default, shoves users toward linking activity with a Google Account, and implements invasive new advertising capabilities. Google’s latest changes will break Chrome privacy extensions, despite academic research demonstrating that no change is necessary. These user-hostile decisions are all directly attributable to Google’s surveillance business model and enabled by its dominance of the desktop browser market.”

    “Nearly all browser extensions as you know them today will be affected in some way: the more lucky ones will ‘only’ experience problems, some will get crippled, and some will literally cease to exist,” writes AdGuard’s Andrey Meshkov.

    It’s unlikely Google will back down from its MV3 plans, given how much it relies on the very kinds of trackers many privacy extensions are designed to combat. Hopefully, however, Mozilla will rethink its adoption of MV3, given the company’s commitment to privacy and security.

  • Slack Has Already Transformed Salesforce

    Slack Has Already Transformed Salesforce

    “Slack has already transformed the way we work at Salesforce,” says Salesforce Co-CEO Bret Taylor. “Since we have deployed Slack internally, we sent 46% fewer e-mails. And in the last 30 days alone, our employees have sent nearly 60 million Slack messages and conducted 500,000 Slack Huddles. We run Salesforce on Slack.”

    Not only has Salesforce transformed the way they work with Slack but so are the customers of Salesforce. The company sees Slack as a core platform for powering digital transformation.

    “Customer 360 and Slack are powering this transformation for companies in every industry in every region of the world,” said Taylor in yesterday’s earnings call. “Slack outperformed our expectations in the first full quarter as a part of the Salesforce family. The number of customers on Slack who spent over $100,000 was up 44% year-over-year. The adoption of Slack Connect was up an astonishing 176% year-over-year. Slack is not just a product, Slack is a network, and it’s just incredible to see that growth.”

    The company seemed pleasantly surprised about how transformative Slack is to the operations of large enterprises. As Slack brought on millions of new users during the pandemic they focused on innovation that has made Slack much more than a simple communications platform.

    “Slack also continues to innovate at an unbelievable pace,” notes Taylor. “Slack Huddles, which is Slack’s new real-time audio capability, is already used weekly by over 1/3 of Slack users. And Slack Clips, the new asynchronous video capability, are being played nearly 1 million times a week. And this month at Slack Frontiers, which I hope all of you have watched; and if you haven’t, you can watch it online. Stewart and the team are now the next generation of Slack’s platform, and it’s going to truly transform the way companies think about workflows and automation.”

    Customer 360 and Slack are powering this transformation for companies in every industry in every region of the world, according to Taylor.

    Slack outperformed our expectations in the first full quarter as a part of the Salesforce family. The number of customers on Slack who spent over $100,000 was up 44% year-over-year. Adoption of Slack Connect was up an astonishing 176% year-over-year. Slack is not just a product, Slack is a network, and it’s just incredible to see that growth.

    Slack also continues to innovate at an unbelievable pace. Slack Huddles, which is Slack’s new real-time audio capability, is already used weekly by over 1/3 of Slack users. And Slack Clips, the new asynchronous video capability, are being played nearly 1 million times a week. And this month at Slack Frontiers, which I hope all of you have watched; and if you haven’t, you can watch it online. Stewart and the team are now the next generation of Slack’s platform, and it’s going to truly transform the way companies think about workflows and automation.

    “That is definitely what I saw firsthand,” said Co-CEO Mark Benioff. “I was like, how could it be that an airline is basically front-ending their entire system with Slack? That’s a shock to me.”

    “Slack is the system of engagement for every workflow, every application, every person on your enterprise,” added Taylor. “It’s really an amazing platform vision. And absolutely watch Slack Frontiers. If you haven’t seen it, I think it will blow your mind.”

    “Every CEO and every Board I talk to is focused on how they can succeed in this era of flexible work,” says Taylor. “According to Slack’s research, 93% of workers are looking for flexibility when they work, and 76% are looking for flexibility where they work. Companies need to connect their employees, their partners, their customers from anywhere because we all know we’re not going to be in the office 5 days a week.”

    “Our offices aren’t going away,” he said. “It’s just that your digital headquarters is going to be more important because it’s truly the infrastructure that connects all of it, and especially in this new normal. And Slack and Customer 360 together are really powering this transformation.”

    Slack Has Already Transformed Salesforce, Says Salesforce Co-CEO Bret Taylor
  • Google Triples Linux Bug Bounties for the Next Three Months

    Google Triples Linux Bug Bounties for the Next Three Months

    Google has announced it is tripling its usual bug bounties for the Linux kernel for at least the next three months.

    Bug bounties are an important part of many companies’ efforts to improve and secure their products. Researchers and white hat hackers are paid bounties for bugs they find, in exchange for giving the companies time to fix them before the bug is disclosed.

    Although Google doesn’t own Linux, the operating system (OS) forms the backbone of much of the internet and cloud services, and serves as the basis for Google’s Android OS. As a result, Google has a vested interest in the core of Linux, the kernel, being as secure and bug-free as possible.

    The company made the announcement in a blog post on Monday:

    Starting today and for the next 3 months (until January 31 2022), we will pay 31,337 USD to security researchers that exploit privilege escalation in our lab environment with a patched vulnerability, and 50,337 USD to those that use a previously unpatched vulnerability, or a new exploit technique.

  • Microsoft Backtracks, Makes .Net 6 Hot Reload Will Be Multi-Platform

    Microsoft Backtracks, Makes .Net 6 Hot Reload Will Be Multi-Platform

    Microsoft has backtracked on a controversial decision that upset its own employees and the open source community.

    Microsoft .Net 6’s Hot Reload is a feature designed to allow developers to make changes to a running application. As The Vergepoints out, Microsoft decided to restrict the new feature to Visual Studio 2022, which is only available on Windows.

    The backlash was swift and severe, from both inside and outside the company. As a result, Microsoft has backtracked, and will no longer limit the new feature to Windows.

    “First and foremost, we want to apologize,” writes Microsoft’s Scott Hunter in a blog post. “We made a mistake in executing on our decision and took longer than expected to respond back to the community. We have approved the pull request to re-enable this code path and it will be in the GA build of the .NET 6 SDK.”

    Hunter reiterated the company’s commitment to the open source community.

    “Our desire is to create an open and vibrant ecosystem for .NET. As is true with many companies, we are learning to balance the needs of OSS community and being a corporate sponsor for .NET. Sometimes we don’t get it right. When we don’t, the best we can do is learn from our mistakes and be better moving forward.”

  • Router Configuration Change Responsible for Facebook Outage

    Router Configuration Change Responsible for Facebook Outage

    Facebook has disclosed the cause of its outage Monday, one of the worst in its history, and misconfigured routers were to blame.

    Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp services went down late Monday morning, and remained down most of the day. The company has revealed the problem in a blog post.

    Our engineering teams have learned that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication. This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt.

    The company said it is working to learn from its mistake.

    People and businesses around the world rely on us everyday to stay connected. We understand the impact outages like these have on people’s lives, and our responsibility to keep people informed about disruptions to our services. We apologize to all those affected, and we’re working to understand more about what happened today so we can continue to make our infrastructure more resilient.

  • Demise of Adobe Flash Has Led to Loss of Important 9/11 Coverage

    Demise of Adobe Flash Has Led to Loss of Important 9/11 Coverage

    Important news coverage of 9/11 has been lost as a result of Adobe Flash being discontinued.

    Adobe Flash reigned supreme for years, the preferred way of presenting videos on the internet. Ultimately, a seemingly endless array of security issues, combined with resource-intensive performance, led Apple to stop including the Flash Player with new Macs. Other companies soon followed suit, spelling the demise of the product and the format it spawned.

    A further nail in the coffin was the rise of standards compliant alternatives, such as HTML5, that addressed many of Flash’s shortcomings.

    Unfortunately, much of the video coverage of 9/11 was uploaded to the internet using Flash, meaning it is no longer accessible, according to CNN Business. 

    “This is really about the problem of what I call the boneyard of the internet. Everything that’s not a piece of text or a flat picture is basically destined to rot and die when new methods of delivering the content replace it,” Dan Pacheco, professor of practice and chair of journalism innovation at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, told CNN Business. “I just feel like the internet is rotting at an even faster pace, ironically, because of innovation. It shouldn’t.”

    While the death of Flash was a welcome improvement to the Internet, it illustrates the challenges and importance of finding a way to archive important content when older technologies and formats fade away.

  • Another Week, Another Round of Serious Google Chrome Security Flaws

    Another Week, Another Round of Serious Google Chrome Security Flaws

    In what is becoming a regular occurrence, Google has issued another Chrome update to fix a number of issues, including seven serious security flaws.

    Google Chrome is the most popular desktop browser by a wide margin. Unfortunately, it also seems to have its fair share of security issues, with Google issuing a patch every couple to few weeks to fix critical ones.

    Google has now issued another fix, addressing seven serious security issues. Even the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is recommending users and admins update immediately.

    This version addresses vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit to take control of an affected system.

    CISA encourages users and administrators to review the Chrome Release Note and apply the necessary updates.

    A recent report showed Firefox has dropped 50 million users in the last couple of years, and is now hovering around 200 million. Google’s ongoing issues show why it’s important to not only have a variety of browsers on the market, but also ones that use different rendering engines.

    Safari uses Webkit, Firefox uses Gecko and Chrome is based on the Chromium codebase, which uses Blink. Many others, such as Brave, Opera, Vivaldi and Microsoft Edge are also based on Chromium, meaning they all use the same engine.

    As a result, with the popularity of Apple’s Safari on mobile, and Chrome-based browsers on the desktop, Firefox’s future as a private, secure third option is more important than ever.

  • Microsoft Is Going Back to the ‘90s, Using Windows to Push Its Web Browser

    Microsoft Is Going Back to the ‘90s, Using Windows to Push Its Web Browser

    Microsoft is under fire for (once again) abusing its Windows platform to push its own web browser, reminiscent of its actions in the mid-90s.

    Microsoft’s history in the mid-90s was dominated by its browser war with Netscape. The company ultimately bundled Internet Explorer so tightly with Windows, that it was simply too difficult and inconvenient for most users to continue relying on Netscape.

    It seems Microsoft may be reverting back to that behavior and, in the process, is drawing sharp criticism from third-party browser makers, including Mozilla, Brave, Opera and Vivaldi. As The Verge points out, Windows 11 asks the user, when they install a third-party browser and try to open a link for the first time, which browser they want set as their default. However, unless the user selects “always use this app,” the default will remain unchanged. There’s also no fast and easy way to go back and do so if the user doesn’t get it right during that initial dialog.

    To make matters even worse, rather than providing a simple method to change the web browser in settings, Microsoft now forces users to select the browser they want to use for each and every one of the various filetypes that often comprise a website. That means the user has to set the default web browser for HTTP, HTTPS, HTM, HTML, XHT, XHTML, PDF, SHTML, SVG, WEBP and FTP.

    While users obviously may want to use a dedicated FTP or PDF client, every other one of those files should all be lumped together, handled by a single default browser.

    Even if a user goes through the tedious process of changing the default browser for each and every one of the necessary file types, it still won’t stop Windows from defaulting to Edge. A number of browser-based widgets will still open Edge regardless of the default setting.

    Inexplicably, Microsoft says this is what users want.

    “With Windows 11, we are implementing customer feedback to customize and control defaults at a more granular level, eliminating app categories and elevating all apps to the forefront of the defaults experience,” a Microsoft spokesperson told The Verge. “As evidenced by this change, we’re constantly listening and learning, and welcome customer feedback that helps shape Windows. Windows 11 will continue to evolve over time; if we learn from user experience that there are ways to make improvements, we will do so.”

    What Microsoft no doubt meant to say is: “We searched long and hard to find the most technologically masochistic users we could find, ones that love having their own technology fight against them, and based our decisions on their feedback.”

    There were a lot of great things about the ‘90s, but Microsoft’s behavior wasn’t one of them. The company should abandon this nonsense immediately.

  • Microsoft Drops Latest Windows 11 Build for Dev and Beta Insiders

    Microsoft Drops Latest Windows 11 Build for Dev and Beta Insiders

    Windows 11 is set to be one of the most anticipated software releases of the next few months. Penciled in for a 2021 launch, development is well underway, and Windows Insiders have been trialing the latest features since the new addition was announced.

    Some were taken by surprise at the announcement of a new iteration of Windows. Microsoft claimed back in 2015 that Windows 10 would be the last revision of the operating system. At the time, the plan was to release regular updates that would keep the software secure, functional, and up to date as computing evolved.

    Plans clearly changed, and incremental updates were clearly insufficient to keep Windows at the forefront of residential and commercial computer use. There’s also the significant importance of Windows to the company’s bottom line. More than 16% of Microsoft’s revenue comes from Windows, and free updates would never go down well with the finance department.

    Considering that Microsoft is also heavily involved with gaming through its Xbox consoles and corporate social networking following the acquisition of LinkedIn, the fact that Windows exceeds both revenues combined meant that a new version of the flagship operating system was all but inevitable.

    New Windows releases rarely pass without controversy. Outside of specific releases like Windows Vista, most complaints stem from familiarity. More so than any other piece of software, people see and interact with their operating systems every day. When something isn’t where they’re used to, the obvious reaction is one of complaint.

    Finances aside, the decision to create Windows 11 cannot have been an easy one. With an employee on record saying that a new release would never happen, a follow-up to Windows 10 would represent a U-turn at best.

    Fortunately, Microsoft appears intent on making Windows 11 fresh and feature-packed. Much more than an incremental release, this seems to be a genuine effort to upgrade what is now a six-year-old operating system into something genuinely new.

    The Highlights

    From what we’ve seen so far, the computing giant is focused on remote working and cross-platform support. During the pandemic, Microsoft Teams went from an unused inclusion in Office packages to a critical meeting tool for teams of all sizes. The meeting and collaboration tool won’t just receive a facelift with the launch of Windows 11. It will become an integral part of the operating system, with direct and easy access from the taskbar itself.

    The failed efforts at creating Windows Phones – Microsoft sold off its Nokia subsidiary shortly after Windows 10’s release – has pushed Microsoft supporters towards Android. Just as most new Xbox releases can be played on Windows PCs as things stand today, Windows 11 is set to boast full support for Android apps.

    The eternal battles between Windows and macOS continue, with some observers claiming that the new look of Windows 11 brings it more closely in line with Apple’s operating system. However, given that the company is renowned for clean design and superior functionality, that could prove a wise decision.

    How Much Will Windows 11 Cost?

    Long-time Windows users will remember the days of activating products online and desperately scrambling around for product keys when using a new PC. Today, most Microsoft users will already have a Windows 10 key attached to their Microsoft accounts. So switching to different hardware is as simple as logging into that account, at which point Windows is fully active and ready to use.

    Microsoft famously encouraged as many people as possible to make a move to Windows 10. As a result, the upgrade to the tenth iteration was completely free outside of particularly old versions or those that had never used Windows before.

    The good news is that Windows 11 looks set to follow a similar pattern. As a result, Windows 10 owners will be entitled to a free upgrade to the next iteration.

    So what does that mean to Microsoft’s Windows revenue?

    The new upgrade appears to follow a freemium model. The ever-divisive Microsoft Store will take pride of place in the latest release. It’s well known that Apple makes more from the App Store than it does from the hardware that relies on it. Microsoft seemingly wants to do something similar.

    The overhauled Microsoft Store won’t be exclusive to Windows 11 – those that opt against upgrading will find the same experience on Windows 10. Nevertheless, the new version is designed for incredible speed, a more comprehensive selection of apps, and improved usability.

    This won’t be the first time Microsoft has sought to position itself as a one-stop-shop for all the software anyone could ever need. However, with close Xbox integration, a suite of essential products such as Office, and a slew of acquisitions, the new store stands a better chance of success than anything that has come before.

    The free upgrade means that consumer appetite is set to be exceptionally high. Windows 10, with a similar upgrade path, captured 75 million users within four weeks of launch.

    There’s no reason why Windows 11 cannot become the de facto standard for consumer PCs. However, businesses are a different story, as they often are, with internal testing and reliance on older infrastructure often delaying significant software upgrades.

    Most consumers will hope for another Windows 10 success story with its successor rather than a Windows Me abomination – widely regarded as the worst Windows release of all time. Reception among Insiders has been positive so far, and so there are plenty of reasons to be excited about what Microsoft has in store later this year.

  • Mozilla Testing Three-Digit Firefox User Agent

    Mozilla Testing Three-Digit Firefox User Agent

    Mozilla is preparing for the inevitable version 100 of its Firefox browser, testing to make sure a triple-digit user agent won’t break the browser.

    Web browsers send websites a string of text including the version number, rendering engine and more. Until now, there’s never been a web browser that has reached version 100, but Firefox is closing in at version 91.

    Mozilla is testing to make sure the unprecedented version won’t cause any issues. In a bug post, the organization is trying an experiment to see if a triple-digit user agent breaks any sites.

    We would like to run an experiment to test whether a UA string with a three-digit Firefox version number will break many sites. This new temporary general.useragent.experiment.firefoxVersion pref can override the UA string’s Firefox version.

    If many sites are broken, we might need to freeze the UA string’s Firefox version at some two-digit number like “Firefox/99.0”:

  • Google Launches Search Console Insights

    Google Launches Search Console Insights

    Google has officially launched Search Console Insights for all users.

    Search Console Insights is designed to help webmasters, writers and content creators gain better insights into how their content is resonating with users. The new feature can also show where viewers/readers are coming from, including what people were searching for before landing on content.

    Google made the announcement on its blog.

    This experience joins data from both Search Console and Google Analytics with a goal of making it easy to understand your content’s performance. Whether you are a web content creator, blogger, or a website owner, and independent of your technical expertise, it can provide you with an overview and helpful insights on how your content is performing. This new experience will gradually be rolled out to all Search Console users in the upcoming days.

    The new feature doesn’t require an Analytics account although, obviously, it will provide more insights with one.

  • Firefox 90 Ends FTP Support

    Firefox 90 Ends FTP Support

    Mozilla has ended support for FTP in Firefox 90, citing security concerns with the aging protocol.

    FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is one of the oldest protocols, dating back to the early days of the internet. Unfortunately, unlike newer protocols, basic FTP has no encryption and transmits data in plain text, including usernames and passwords. Mozilla highlights the danger this poses to users.

    The biggest security risk is that FTP transfers data in cleartext, allowing attackers to steal, spoof and even modify the data transmitted. To date, many malware distribution campaigns launch their attacks by compromising FTP servers and downloading malware on an end user’s device using the FTP protocol.

    As a result of FTP’s security risks, Mozilla has decided to end support for it.

    Removing FTP brings us closer to a fully-secure web which is on a path to becoming HTTPS only and any modern automated upgrading mechanisms such as HSTS or also Firefox’s HTTPS-Only Mode, which automatically upgrade any connection to become secure and encrypted do not apply to FTP.

    The FTP protocol itself has been disabled by default since version 88 and now the time has come to end an era and discontinue the support for this outdated and insecure protocol — Firefox 90 will no longer support the FTP protocol.

    Mozilla is to be commended for its ongoing push to protect user privacy and security, even if that means dropping venerable protocols like FTP.

  • Major Websites Flooded With Hardcore Porn

    Major Websites Flooded With Hardcore Porn

    Major websites, including The Washington Post, New York Magazine and the Huffington Posthave been flooded with hardcore porn.

    Readers of many major websites and news sources received an eyeful, starting Thursday, when hardcore porn started showing up, embedded in otherwise family-friendly sites. The issue appears to be the result of the Vidme domain — a brief competitor to YouTube that went out of business in 2017 — being bought by 5 Star Porn HD.

    The most likely explanation is that, since the porn company bought Vidme’s expired domain, any embedded links to Vidme now forward to 5 Star’s website. The sites in question may have had outdated links embedded in their code.

    Interestingly Gizmodo says it’s also possible the whole thing could have been a marketing stunt. 5 Star may have paid to have Vidme links embedded, and then forwarded them to its main site — unbeknownst to the mainstream victims — in an effort to boost its own popularity.

    Either way, the whole fiasco illustrates the benefits of having a good adblocker installed in your browser of choice.

  • Microsoft Killing Auto-Play Web Videos In Edge Update

    Microsoft Killing Auto-Play Web Videos In Edge Update

    Microsoft is putting auto-play web videos in its crosshairs, turning off the feature by default in an upcoming Edge update.

    One of the most frustrating aspects of browsing the web is videos that start auto-playing as soon as you land on the site. Especially if you have music or other programming playing in the background, the videos can be unwelcome intrusions.

    An upcoming update to Microsoft Edge will tackle the problem, turning off video auto-play by default. First spotted by TechRadar, the feature is listed in Microsoft’s 365 roadmap.

    To help you maintain your focus online, we have changed the default for auto playing media to Limit from Allow, beginning with Microsoft Edge version 92.

    The feature will be rolling out in July.

  • Google Has Completed Its July 2021 Core Update

    Google Has Completed Its July 2021 Core Update

    Google has finished rolling out its July 2021 core update, following a June 2021 core update last month.

    Google usually rolls out core updates to its search algorithm every six months. Some of the updates weren’t quite ready for the June rollout, however, necessitating a follow-up rollout in July.

    The rollout began July 1 and is now complete.

    Google has not given much information on what to expect, only that some sites may see their rankings go up or down, or not change at all. According to Search Engine Land, however, some webmasters were seeing significant changes on July 2 and July 9. There’s a possibility some webmasters are seeing an impact today, but it’s probably still too early to be sure.

    Webmasters whose sites have been impacted should check out Google’s page on how core updates work and mitigation efforts that can be taken.

  • Shopify Announces 0% Revenue Sharing on First $1 Million in Sales

    Shopify Announces 0% Revenue Sharing on First $1 Million in Sales

    Shopify is dropping its revenue cut for developers that earn less than $1 million annually, in a move that rivals other tech platforms.

    Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms, powering some $120 billion in Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) in 2020. Until now, the company took a 20% revenue commission, but the company is waiving that for smaller developers.

    Developers who build for the Shopify App Store will now pay 0% revenue share for the first $1M they earn annually on the platform starting on August 1. That’s down from 20%. The $1M benchmark resets annually.

    The same 0% revenue share model will also be available to Theme Store developers. 

    The announcement follows similar moves by Google, Apple and Amazon as app ecosystems are increasingly under scrutiny by regulators. Whatever the motivation, the move will certainly help small developers.

  • DreamHost Leaked 814 Million Customer Records

    DreamHost Leaked 814 Million Customer Records

    Web hosting service DreamHost has leaked a staggering 814 million customer records, including WordPress admin information.

    DreamHost is one of the biggest and most popular web hosting services, with some 1.5 million sites. Security researcher Jeremiah Fowler, in connection with Website Planet, found an unprotected database containing records for the time period between 3/24/2018 to 4/16/2021.

    According to Fowler, the database contains sensitive information, including admin information for WordPress sites.

    The exposed records revealed usernames, display names, and emails for WordPress accounts. The monitoring and file logs exposed many internal records that should not have been publicly accessible. They were structured as roles, ID, display name, email, and other account related information.

    There’s still much unknown about the leak, including how long the data was available, who else may have accessed it and whether DreamHost has notified customers. DreamHost did, however, acknowledge the leak and has passed it to their legal team.

  • Google’s June 2021 Core Update Rollout is Complete

    Google’s June 2021 Core Update Rollout is Complete

    Google’s June 2021 Core Update has rolled out, as of June 12, bringing the latest changes to Google’s search algorithm.

    Google rolls out updates to its search algorithms on a regular basis, although they usually happen roughly six months apart. This update, however, wasn’t quite complete at the time Google wanted to roll it out in June, so the company split it into a June 2021 and July 2021 Core Update.

    The company announced it would start rolling out the June portion, beginning June 2. At the time, the company said some sites could go up or down in the rankings, or stay the same, but nothing would be set in stone until both parts had rolled out.

    As of June 12, however, the first half of the update has been rolled out, so webmasters may start seeing some initial changes.

  • Supreme Court Gives LinkedIn Another Chance to Shield Data

    Supreme Court Gives LinkedIn Another Chance to Shield Data

    The U.S. Supreme is giving LinkedIn another chance to prevent its user data from being harvested, in a case with far-reaching implications.

    A company called hiQ Labs Inc was harvesting data from LinkedIn’s site, including the personal data from users’ professional profiles. LinkedIn demanded hiQ stop scraping its data in 2017 but hiQ sued, accusing LinkedIn of anticompetitive behavior.

    A lower court had ruled that LinkedIn could not stop hiQ from scraping the data, despite LinkedIn arguing that hiQ was scraping far more than any human could. In addition, LinkedIn accused hiQ of selling some of the data.

    The Supreme Court has given LinkedIn another chance, sending the case back the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to Reuters. At the heart of the issue is whether the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act applies to cases such as these, preventing companies from scraping data from competitors.

    The Supreme Court wants the lower court to reexamine its decision in light of its recent decision involving the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, limiting the scope of crimes that can be prosecuted under the law.

    However the courts rule, the case has profound implications for the future of the internet, as it will help determine who controls publicly available information, and whether third-party companies can profit from it without permission.