Apple’s iOS is a real walled garden. With the exception of those brave enough to “jailbreak” their phones, Apple controls which apps get into its App Store, and which don’t. Related stories ZDNet: Amazon’s app store puts millions of Android devices at risk On Android, it’s not so simple. Google similarly vets its own Play …
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Now playing: Watch this: Why the WannaCry cyberattack is so bad, and so avoidable 2:18 The battle against the WannaCry ransomware continues. (In many spaces it’s referred to as WannaCrypt. There appears to be no substantive difference between the two.) The attack, which started on Friday, locked people out of their computers and encrypts their files, demanding they pay up …
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Nope, there’s certainly no CIA spying going on here. Absolutely not. In fact, don’t even bother asking your Google Home smart speaker about the CIA. But if you do, the stolid little device is going to get defensive. A YouTube clip from someone named Michael Hraba shows the voice assistant‘s jargon-filled answer to “Do you know what the CIA is?” …
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Chances are, your Android phone would be easy pickings for hackers. That’s according to research released Thursday by cybersecurity company Skycure, which found that 71 percent of Android phones on the five major US carriers haven’t been patched with the latest security updates. The report highlights the risks posed by not updating smartphones, and the challenges Google faces in delivering …
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Google wants you to know it’s got your back, Android users. The company on Tuesday released its third annual Android Security Year in Review (PDF), a look back at Google’s progress in keeping bad apps away from more than 1.4 billion users of its mobile operating software. “In 2016, we improved our abilities to stop dangerous apps, built new security …
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Nothing makes me happier than resurrecting an old, slow, useless Windows PC by installing Linux on it. The result is a system that will almost always run faster, with almost zero chance of malware infections, and that affords all the computing basics. (Many of the latest computing advances, too.) Before you begin, read my tips on choosing a Linux distro, …
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Sometimes I can’t figure Microsoft out. There I am, working peacefully in Windows 10 ($144 at Amazon), when all of a sudden there’s a pop-up notification ripping my browser of choice (Google Chrome). See, apparently Chrome is worse for battery life than Microsoft’s Edge browser. And Firefox doesn’t block malware as well. Oh, and if I switch to Edge, I …
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Common scenario: You buy a new laptop, thinking you’ll sell, donate or hand down the old one… but it never happens. Maybe you don’t want to deal with the hassles of Craigslist or Ebay, not to mention wiping all your data, reinstalling Windows and so on. Whatever the case, now it’s just taking up space. But it doesn’t have to: …
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Donald Trump won the popular vote. The Clinton Foundation bought $137 million worth of illegal arms and ammunition. An FBI agent associated with Hillary Clinton’s email leaks was found dead in a murder-suicide. The Pope endorsed Trump. If you saw any of these stories on the internet over the past few weeks, let’s be crystal clear: They’re not true. But …
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You really can’t believe everything you read on the internet. Google on Monday acknowledged its algorithms screwed up and that it placed a fake news story about Donald Trump winning the popular vote in last week’s election prominently in the search engine’s widely-read news section. “The goal of Search is to provide the most relevant and useful results for our …
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