This year, the Opera browser added an option to block online ads. The newer Brave browser goes farther, blocking them by default. But Google would rather fix the problems with ads than strip them off websites. “We feel like there are a lot of challenges in advertising. There are a lot of wrong ways,” Darin …

The web has taken a beating in the smartphone era. But it’s about to start beating back. Explosive growth of the web, starting in the 1990s, connected the world’s population. In the last decade, though, we all started tapping app icons instead of web hyperlinks to chat with friends, share photos and buy products online. Now Google’s Chrome team and …

Adobe Systems’ photo-editing software for Android just took a big step toward matching the abilities of its heavier-hitting sibling that runs on personal computers: the ability to edit just about any photo taken in a raw format. Most folks are fine with JPEG-format photos, but higher-end cameras and now some high-end phones, too, can take raw photos that preserve the …

If you want to save a few bucks on a not-exactly-new iPhone, Apple has a new option for you: refurbished models. The company has long sold refurbished Macs, but iPhones now are on Apple’s refurbished products site, too, a change MacRumors spotted. They aren’t just given a swipe with a damp cloth, either. Apple gives each refurbished iPhone a new …

Google has begun using artificial intelligence to categorize Android apps on its Google Play store, the company said Tuesday. Using technology called a neural network, which is based loosely on the way human brains work, Google processes app names and descriptions to try to figure out which ones to show in search results. It’s not hard to show the Snapchat …

Apple’s MacBook Pro, the company’s newest model for power users, is generating vastly more revenue than the company’s ultralight laptop that debuted a year and a half ago, an e-commerce tracking firm says. The MacBook Pro revenue in its first five days has reached 78 percent of last year’s MacBook, Slice Intelligence said Tuesday. In addition, the new Mac has …

A group of former Nokia employees thinks it has a better way for you to edit photos: Loupedeck, a hardware console with sliders, knobs and switches dedicated to Adobe Systems‘ Lightroom software. Lightroom has a wide range of on-screen controls for photo-editing tasks like adjusting exposure, cropping, fiddling with color and applying a star rating. Your photo takes up most …

Now playing: Watch this: iPhone 7 Plus vs Pixel XL: Which one shoots better video? 3:04 The Google Pixel XL excels at mobile phone photography, edging out Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus in CNET’s estimation. With video, though, it’s a different story. My colleague Vanessa Hand Orellana and I spent hours chasing pigeons, children, dogs and sunsets to put the two …

Minecraft, Microsoft’s megahit game, will come to Apple TV by the end of the year. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook announced the move Thursday at a press event to launch new Macs. He argued that apps are the future of TV, and the Apple TV systems will deliver that future. Minecraft puts players in a blocky virtual world where they …

Apple’s new Touch Bar adapts to show custom controls for any app, and Adobe Photoshop will take advantage of the technology by the end of the year. The new MacBook Pro‘s Touch Bar can be used for things like controlling paintbrush size or color, Bradee Evans, Adobe’s experience design manager, said during Apple’s press event to announce its new laptops. …