Chrome extensions are great for customizing the web browser, but Google is cracking down to try to keep them from seizing more control than you want to give them. On Monday, the company announced a host of actions to keep extensions in hand: Google will let you restrict extensions that seek to modify web pages …

If you want to step back from Chrome, the Vivaldi alternative browser just grew up a notch with the addition of cross-computer sync and other improvements in version 2.0. Vivaldi, with about 1 million people using it each month, doesn’t have anything like the visibility or clout of Google’s Chrome, Mozilla’s Firefox or Apple’s Safari. But if you’re looking for …

Want to sell your vegetables through Walmart’s formidably large network of stores? Better get on the blockchain. Blockchain, a technology for creating a single ledger of transactions shared among the many parties involved, is potentially a big deal. That’s certainly how Walmart sees it, requiring all suppliers of leafy green vegetables for Walmart’s 5,358 stores to track their food with …

This might sound a bit meta, but Microsoft is applying new digital brains to cut down on the difficulties of using artificial intelligence technology. Artificial intelligence, which these days typically refers to technology called neural networks or machine learning modeled loosely on human brains, is moving from the exotic to the mainstream in the computing world. But that doesn’t make …

Browsers keep track of the addresses of websites you’ve visited, something that’s very handy when you want to retrace your steps online. But a new browser extension takes the idea to the next level. The History Search extension indexes every website you visit and lets you search your history afterward. A free version keeps track of your 3,000 most recently …

Mozilla released on Tuesday Firefox Reality 1.0, the first version of its web browser geared for three virtual-reality headsets, the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Google Daydream. The new browser uses voice control to sidestep the difficulty of typing while wearing a device that replaces your view of the real world, including your keyboard, with immersive computer-generated scenery. At best, …

You’ve long been able to buy portable batteries that’ll keep your phone running even through a heavy day of thumb-typing. Soon you should be able to get one of those even for your beefy 15-inch MacBook Pro, too. Hyper, a Sanho product line specializing in accessories that fill gaps in an Apple-centric digital life, on Monday announced the new HyperJuice …

To get an idea of how small the electronic elements are on the Apple A12 Bionic chip at the heart of the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR, first squint really hard at a human hair. It’s thin, obviously. But it’s still thick enough that you could fit about 10,000 of an A12’s electronic components across its width. That miniaturization …

Microsoft has apparently reversed course on a Windows 10 test feature that sought to warn people from installing Chrome, Firefox and other browsers that challenged Microsoft’s own Edge. A new “fast-ring” test version of Windows, Insider Preview Build 17760, no longer interrupts the installation of rival browsers, a CNET test shows. Earlier this week, an earlier test version of Windows …

Writing got a lot easier when spellcheckers and grammar checkers arrived on the scene. Now Facebook is using artificial intelligence to give programmers a similar boost with a tool called SapFix that’ll debug their software. “SapFix can automatically generate fixes for specific bugs, and then propose them to engineers for approval and deployment to production,” Facebook engineers Yue Jia, Ke …