ForgottenFlux

Netflix has managed to annoy a good number of its users with an announcement about an upcoming update to its Windows 11 (and Windows 10) app: support for adverts and live events will be added, but the ability to download content is being taken away....

Microsoft is trying to restore Bing as the default search engine on users' browsers by spinning it as a "repair" through a utility app called PC Manager....

A feature Google demoed at its I/O confab yesterday, using its generative AI technology to scan voice calls in real time for conversational patterns associated with financial scams, has sent a collective shiver down the spines of privacy and security experts who are warning the feature represents the thin end of the wedge. They...

Arizona's Attorney General, Kris Mayes, filed two lawsuits against Amazon on Wednesday for allegedly engaging in deceptive business practices and maintaining monopoly status. The first lawsuit accuses the company of using dark patterns to keep users from canceling their Amazon Prime subscriptions, violating Arizona's Consumer...

The Federal Trade Commission's Office of Technology has issued a warning to automakers that sell connected cars. Companies that offer such products "do not have the free license to monetize people’s information beyond purposes needed to provide their requested product or service," it wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. Just...

Telemetry was added to create an aggregate count of searches by category to broadly inform search feature development. These categories are based on 20 high-level content types, such as "sports,” "business," and "travel". This data will not be associated with specific users and will be collected using OHTTP to remove IP...

The study (PDF), published this month by University of Chicago and University of Michigan researchers and reported by The Washington Post on Sunday, says:...

Microsoft's announcement: "We are introducing a new Game Pass recommendation card on the Settings homepage. The Game Pass recommendation card on Settings Homepage will be shown to you if you actively play games on your PC. As a reminder – the Settings homepage will be shown only on the Home and Pro editions of Windows 11 and...

The new open ecosystem of extensions on Firefox for Android launched in December with just over 400 extensions. Less than five months later we’ve surpassed 1,000 Firefox for Android extensions. That’s an impressive achievement by this developer community! It’s exciting to see so many developers embrace the opportunity to...

EA has tried this before, with predictable results. In 2020, EA Sports UFC 4 included full-screen ads for the Amazon Prime series The Boys that would appear during 'Replay' moments. These were absent from the game when it launched, with EA introducing the ads about a month later, thereby preventing them from being highlighted in...

After reversing its position on remote work, Dell is reportedly implementing new tracking techniques on May 13 to ensure its workers are following the company's return-to-office (RTO) policy, The Register reported today, citing anonymous sources....

Even if you have encrypted your traffic with a VPN (or the Tor Network), advanced traffic analysis is a growing threat against your privacy. Therefore, we now introduce DAITA....

Even if you have encrypted your traffic with a VPN (or the Tor Network), advanced traffic analysis is a growing threat against your privacy. Therefore, we now introduce DAITA....

In February, HouseFresh managing editor Gisele Navarro called out publishers like BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone as some of the culprits that publish content about air purifiers despite a lack of expertise — but Google rewards these sites with high rankings all the same. The result is a search results page filled with SEO-first...

Below is a look at the most exasperating news from streaming services from this week. The scale of this article demonstrates how fast and frequently disappointing streaming news arises. Coincidentally, as we wrote this article, another price hike was announced....

Bitwarden Authenticator is a standalone app that is available for everyone, even non-Bitwarden customers....

“[Razer] falsely claimed, in the midst of a global pandemic, that their face mask was the equivalent of an N95 certified respirator,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement....

The carriers sold "real-time location information to data aggregators, allowing this highly sensitive data to wind up in the hands of bail-bond companies, bounty hunters, and other shady actors," FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement....

YouTube first spoke about pause ads last year when it started trialing them in select regions. At the time, the company said that when you pause a video, it will shrink, and an ad will appear next to it....

Earlier this year, Microsoft added a new key to Windows keyboards for the first time since 1994. Before the news dropped, your mind might’ve raced with the possibilities and potential usefulness of a new addition. However, the button ended up being a Copilot launcher button that doesn’t even work in an innovative way....

The Federal Communications Commission voted 3–2 to impose net neutrality rules today, restoring the common-carrier regulatory framework enforced during the Obama era and then abandoned while Trump was president....

Microsoft is starting to enable ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11 for all users. After testing these briefly with Windows Insiders earlier this month, Microsoft has started to distribute update KB5036980 to Windows 11 users this week, which includes “recommendations” for apps from the Microsoft Store in the Start menu....

Hundreds have joined a UK class action lawsuit against LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr, seeking damages over a historical case of the company allegedly forwarding users' HIV status as well as other sensitive data to third-party advertisers....

Political campaigns tap into the same intrusive adtech tracking systems used to deliver online behavioral ads. We saw a glimpse into how this worked after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and the system has only grown since then....

The Dutch government said Friday that it may be forced to stop using Facebook after a warning from the Netherlands’ privacy regulator about the Meta owned social media platform’s privacy risks....

Apple said it complied with orders from the Chinese government to remove the Meta-owned WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China. Apple also removed Telegram and Signal from China....

The EU's Data Protection Board (EDPB) has told large online platforms they should not offer users a binary choice between paying for a service and consenting to their personal data being used to provide targeted advertising....

The EU's Data Protection Board (EDPB) has told large online platforms they should not offer users a binary choice between paying for a service and consenting to their personal data being used to provide targeted advertising....

Internet-scraping outfit Spy.pet claims to have harvested more than four billion public messages made by nearly 620 million users on more than 14,000 Discord chat servers – and is selling access to this trove....

Google warns users of these apps that their experience may deteriorate soon. They may "experience buffering issues" or see errors such as "the following content is not available on this app" when trying to watch videos....

The software maker will use the Recommended section of the Start menu, which usually shows file recommendations, to suggest apps from the Microsoft Store.

Academics at the University of Pennsylvania analyzed a nationally representative sample of 100 non-federal acute care hospitals – essentially traditional hospitals with emergency departments – and their findings were that 96 percent of their websites transmitted user data to third parties....

Academics at the University of Pennsylvania analyzed a nationally representative sample of 100 non-federal acute care hospitals – essentially traditional hospitals with emergency departments – and their findings were that 96 percent of their websites transmitted user data to third parties....

The purpose of this post is not to endorse the use of Reddit ( https://shields.tosdr.org/en_194.svg), but rather to inform users of a privacy-friendly approach in case they need to utilize the platform....

Screenshots:...

HeliBoard keyboard is an improved fork of the now-unmaintained OpenBoard keyboard. It does not require internet permission, allowing it to be used 100% offline....

If the linked article has a paywall, you can access this archived version instead: https://archive.ph/aeQhP...

A patent application from the company spotted by Lowpass describes a system for displaying ads over any device connected over HDMI, a list that could include cable boxes, game consoles, DVD or Blu-ray players, PCs, or even other video streaming devices. Roku filed for the patent in August 2023 and it was published in November...

Schleswig-Holstein, Germany's most northern state, is starting its switch from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice, and is planning to move from Windows to Linux on the 30,000 PCs it uses for local government functions....

More Information: GrapheneOS Mastodon account

In-app browsers are like standalone web browsers without the interface – they rely on the native app for the interface. They can be embedded in native platform apps to load and render web content within the app, instead of outside the app in the designated default browser....

Meta tried to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors, including Snapchat and later Amazon and YouTube, by analyzing the network traffic of how its users were interacting with Meta’s competitors. Given these apps’ use of encryption, Facebook needed to develop special technology to get around it....

If the linked article has a paywall, you can access this archived version instead: https://archive.ph/zyhax...