Back in the olden days, before Apple switched its MacBook Pro laptops to USB-C MacBook chargers and phased out its quick-release MagSafe connectors, you might have appreciated how you could wrap your charging cable around the charger’s two flip-out wings for tidy transport. Apple dropped that feature, but Fuse Reels’ newest Kickstarter project, called the …

Lots more Chromebook owners now can quickly get online even when there’s no Wi-Fi. A feature called instant tethering previously let people with Google’s own Chromebooks and phones quickly get online using their phone’s mobile network. Once it’s set up, it’s just a matter of by tapping a notification to connect. Now instant tethering is spreading beyond Google’s own devices. …

Mozilla has joined the list of organizations displeased with Facebook’s new restrictions on outsiders analyzing political ads, lodging a complaint with European regulators that the move blocks its plan to help people understand who’s trying to influence them during coming elections. “Transparency cannot just be on the terms with which the world’s largest, most powerful tech companies are most comfortable,” …

Mozilla should concede defeat to Chrome and adopt Google’s browser technology, a Microsoft executive suggested Friday, provoking rebuttals over the weekend that Firefox’s independence is now more important than ever. Chrome is built atop Google’s Chromium open-source software project, which lets anyone else use the code for their own projects, modify it and offer their changes back. With Chrome’s dominance …

Mozilla has released a new version of Firefox that lets you strike a better balance between maintaining privacy and breaking websites. Firefox 65 updates its controls for how the web browser manages content like tracker software and cookies — small text files a website can store on your computer that are handy for things like remembering what’s in your e-commerce …

Startup Brave has begun showing ads in its web browser with privacy-focused new technology. Later this year, other software makers could start doing the same. The company plans to release a software developer kit as soon as the second half of 2019 that will let other programmers tap into its privacy-protecting ads, Chief Executive Brendan Eich told CNET in an …

Facing complaints from photographers, Apple has changed its #ShotOniPhone photo contest to pay the 10 winners. Apple announced the iPhone photo contest this week, offering winners a chance to see their photos on billboards, in Apple stores and in other marketing efforts as Apple publicized the phones and the photos. Plenty of people have submitted entries on Twitter and Instagram, …

A Google plan to improve the Chrome web browser has triggered an explosion of concern that it’ll also cripple extensions designed to block ads, improve privacy and protect against security problems. Google’s proposed approach would torpedo ad blocker uBlock Origin, tracker blocker Ghostery, privacy and password manager Privowny, JavaScript software blocker NoScript and a malware blocker from F-Secure, according to …

If you want the world to see your iPhone photo magnified to the size of a billboard, Apple has expanded its #ShotOniPhone publicity campaign to a contest anyone can enter. To enter, you can upload photos on Twitter, Instagram or Weibo with the #ShotOniPhone tag Apple has been using to highlight the photography potential of its phones for years. You …

Sony has invested in What3words, a startup with digital addressing technology helpful to drivers, tourists, friends meeting at festivals and anyone else trying to make their way around the surface of the planet. What3words’ technology, available through its app and website, divides Earth into 57 trillion 10- by 10-foot squares, each with a unique three-word label. That can be useful …