On this podcast, we talk about: Google Chrome’s new ad-blocking tools. The annoyance of using bitcoin as digital cash for buying goods and services. Now playing: Watch this: Google is cracking down on annoying online ads (The 3:59,… 4:30 The 3:59 gives you bite-size news and analysis about the top stories of the day, brought …
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Sure, sure… Chrome now blocks web ads. Pigs also fly, and pizza is now a health food. But it’s true: As of today, Chrome does block ads — some of them, anyway. Here’s what you need to know about the browser’s new groove. Not all ads, just ‘bad’ ads Google’s goal is to improve the user experience by stripping away …
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What was once unthinkable — that Chrome would block online ads, Google’s lifeblood — becomes reality on Thursday. That’s when Chrome takes a significant step in the direction that hundreds of millions of us already have gone by installing ad blockers. Chrome stops far short of those browser extensions, which typically ban all ads, but the move carries plenty of …
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On Wednesday, researchers revealed serious flaws in modern processors that could affect practically every Intel computer released in the last two decades — and the AMD and Arm chips in your laptops, tablets and phones, too. And on May 21, researchers found a fourth variant. Read more here. The good news: Intel, AMD and Arm believe they can fix — …
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Do you consider yourself a Chrome ninja? If not, these tips can help you navigate the web with deadly efficiency. Pin tabs I spend much of my day using Gmail and Google Drive, and with Chrome’s tab-pinning feature, I can keep those tabs parked to the left of all of my many open tabs. It’s a great way to keep …
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Last year Apple managed to shrink photo file sizes dramatically so you could cram twice as many photos onto your iPhone. But hold on, because that might not be the only game in town. Google, Mozilla and others in a group called the Alliance for Open Media are working on a rival photo technology. In testing so far, the images …
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Browser maker Brave is handing out about $1 million worth of cryptocurrency-backed tokens it hopes will help build a better online advertising system. Brave developed a technology called the Basic Attention Token (BAT) designed to pay publishers, YouTube contributors and others who today rely on advertising revenue or subscription payments. For now, you can set up Brave to send BATs …
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In their unyielding efforts to catch eyeballs, websites often resort to aggressive tactics to engage you, the fickle, easily-distracted web reader. Many sites insist on starting a video without asking in the hopes you’ll become transfixed by the moving images and sounds and stay on the page longer. Others ask pretty please can we send you notifications? And others display …
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For months, powerful companies including Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook have been working to shrink online video sizes. But their work just got more important, because Apple has now joined the partnership too. The Alliance for Open Media is working on technology called AV1 that compresses video before it’s stored or sent over the network. That technology is crucial to …
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In June, Google announced that its Chrome browser would block ads on websites that are not compliant with the Better Ads standards. We now know when this functionality will go live: Feb. 15, 2018. It won’t block all ads, just ones that are deemed aggressive by the Coalition for Better Ads, whose members include Google, Facebook, Procter & Gamble, the …
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