Those who pay for Facebook and Instagram subscriptions would enjoy an ad-free experience in the apps, reported the New York Times (NYT) on Friday, citing sources familiar with the company’s plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity. This would give users an alternative to opt out of the company’s ad-based services that analyze their data to target ads, the people said. In July, the social media behemoth lost its EU court fight over a 2019 German antitrust order that prohibited it from cashing in on a vast trove of users’ data without consent....

When Microsoft introduced Windows 10 in 2015, it also replaced its ageing web browser, Internet Explorer with the classic version of Microsoft Edge. In an attempt to enforce the default Microsoft Edge browser on its users, the Redmond giant decided to invent the microsoft-edge:// protocol to open links only in Edge. To counteract this behavioural change by Microsoft, Daniel Aleksandersen created a small helper app called “EdgeDeflector” in 2017 that parses the microsoft-edge:// links and redirects them to regular https:// links that it tells Windows to open in your default web browser....

Browser wars : Google Chrome leads the pack while Mozilla’s Firefox now overtakes Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Edge Unbeknownst to us there is lot of churning happening in the browser market. Yesteryear king, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and the new baby, Edge are slowly and steadily losing ground in the desktop browser space. According to a new study for the month April, 2016 by web analytics company StatCounter, this is the first time Mozilla Firefox has more usage share than the two other browsers combined....

Microsoft Flight Simulator, the longest-running game franchise at Microsoft, on Sunday revealed an expanded version during the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase to celebrate its 40th Anniversary with the community in November 2022. The upcoming version called the 40th Anniversary Edition is described as “a comprehensive celebration of the franchise with both a tribute to our past as well as an introduction to new and highly anticipated aircraft types.” The update will be a completely free offering for those who already own Microsoft Flight Simulator or play it via Xbox Game Pass....

Microsoft has unexpectedly announced that it is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) on March 5, 2025. The announcement, which was quietly updated in the developer documentation and spotted by Windows Central , mentions that the WSA feature will soon be removed from Windows 11 and no longer be supported after March 5, 2025. “We are grateful for the support of our developer community and remain committed to listening to feedback as we evolve experiences....

Microsoft Corp. has resolved a software bug that caused the company to lose some security logs for several weeks in September. In a statement to TechCrunch , the Redmond giant confirmed that it has mitigated the bug issue by rolling back a service change and is notifying all its impacted customers. “We have mitigated the issue by rolling back a service change. We have communicated to all impacted customers and will provide support as needed,” said John Sheehan, a Microsoft corporate Vice President, in a statement to TechCrunch ....

On April 9, 2024, Microsoft released its second Patch Tuesday update for Windows 11 23H2 and 22H2 via KB5036893, and the monthly security update for April 2024 on Windows Server 20H2, and Windows 10 for the latest supported versions, 20H2, 21H2, and 22H2 via KB5036892. However, the company has confirmed and posted on the Windows health dashboard that the Windows 11 KB5036893 and Windows 10 KB5036892 updates are causing VPN (Virtual Private Network) connection failures....

Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world’s largest mobile phone trade show, has been cancelled due to concerns surrounding the growing Wuhan coronavirus epidemic. MWC 2020 was scheduled to take place between February 24 th and 27 th in Barcelona, Spain. The GSM Association (GSMA), the organizers of MWC, on Wednesday said the coronavirus outbreak has made it “impossible for the GSMA to hold the event”. The following statement was released by the CEO of the GSMA, John Hoffman:...

Netflix, the global video streaming giant, on Wednesday, launched a new ‘Fast Laughs’ feature that will stream short funny clips from movies, sitcoms, comedy routines, and TV shows. In a move to take on the popular video app TikTok, Fast Laughs offers “a full-screen feed of funny clips from our big comedy catalog including films, series and stand-up from comedians like Kevin Hart and Ali Wong,” Patrick Flemming, Netflix Director of Product Innovation wrote in a blog post ....

Slovakian cybersecurity company ESET has uncovered a new dangerous ransomware strain dubbed “HybridPetya” that can bypass UEFI Secure Boot, one of Windows’ most critical protections against malicious software. The finding has sparked concerns that ransomware developers are moving to target systems at the deepest possible level: the boot process itself. The malware takes its inspiration from the infamous Petya and NotPetya attacks that wreaked havoc in 2016 and 2017, causing billions of dollars in damages, crippling banks, shipping companies, and government agencies around the world....

Nintendo, the popular Japanese multinational video game company, has filed a lawsuit against the creators of the popular Switch emulator , Yuzu, for “facilitating piracy at a colossal scale.” The 41-page lawsuit was first discovered by Stephen Totilo, Game File reporter, who partially shared it on his X account (formerly Twitter). The lawsuit was filed by Nintendo on February 26th ( available online ) against Tropic Haze LLC, creators of Yuzu, at the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island....

Last month, Nintendo, who is well-known for its infamous fight against game piracy, had filed two lawsuits in the U.S. courts to stop several distributors and retailers from selling an upcoming line of internal Switch modchips linked to hacking collective ‘Team-Xecuter’. Moving further in this direction, Nintendo has now sent a cease-and-desist letter to a Connecticut based U.S. company ‘Logistics Consulting LLC’ that offered to install SX devices into customers’ Switch consoles, according to Ars Technica ....

NSO Group Technologies Ltd. continued to develop spyware that used multiple zero-day WhatsApp exploits even after the instant messaging firm sued the Israeli surveillance firm over violation of federal and state anti-hacking laws, revealed a court filing filed by the messaging app and its parent company Meta that was published on Thursday. Court filings reveal that NSO continued using WhatsApp servers to install Pegasus spyware on phones by calling the targeted device, even after the messaging platform detected and blocked the exploit in May 2019....

Nvidia has upped the ante by releasing its new line of GPUs. It has come as a part of their launch of the new GPU architecture codenamed Rubin. It was announced at the Computex 2024, as Rubin became the successor to the Blackwell series. The new series is named after Vera Florence Cooper Robin, the pioneer astronomer who proved the presence of dark matter. Credit – Screen grab from Computex...

Google Maps, a web mapping service popularly used for route planning for traveling, is lately being used by people to catch the last glimpse of their deceased family member or friend, a trend that has gone viral on social media. The trend started after a Twitter user Leslie Yajaira, from North Carolina, USA ( @yajairalyb ) shared a photograph of her deceased grandfather sitting outside his farm in Durango, Mexico, which was captured through Google Maps Street View cameras....

Qualcomm is reportedly working on the second generation of the Snapdragon 7c processor for entry-level Chromebooks and ARM-based Windows 10 laptops, reports WinFuture . According to the report, the Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 chip is internally codenamed as ‘SC7295’. In terms of performance, the Snapdragon SC7295 is apparently similar to SM7350 (the upcoming Snapdragon 775 – a processor designed for flagship Android phones) likely to be launched on an upcoming Xiaomi device....

Reddit, the popular online social networking website, finally debuted as a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Thursday with the ticker symbol “RDDT.” The San Francisco-based company’s initial public offering (IPO), which was priced between $31 and $34 per share, instantly went up to $47 a share when it began trading on the NYSE (via CNBC ). It then peaked at $57.80 per share early Thursday afternoon, up by 70% above its IPO price, before closing up 48% at $50....

Western Digital, global storage technology and a leader in data infrastructure, on Wednesday, announced the company’s first flash drive that allows users to share content across their compatible devices, including iPhone devices and Mac computers. Called the “SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive Luxe”, the device comes with dual Lightning and USB Type-C connectors and an all-metal casing that provides a hassle-free way for users to access and move files between iPhone, iPad Pro, Mac, and other USB Type-C devices, including Android phones....

Apple’s Siri poses privacy and security risks for iPhone users, leaks personal information Apple’s Siri digital assistants has been hailed as one of the best digital assistants around. It is fast, it is quirky and it has a great sense of humour but it is as much risky according to Trend Micro. Researchers at Trend Micro state that it poses a serious privacy risk for iPhone owners by leaking personal information....

In an unusual twist, security researchers managed to turn the tables on cybercriminals behind StealC, a widely used information-stealing malware, by exploiting a flaw in the criminals’ own control panel. Researchers at CyberArk discovered a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in StealC’s web-based control panel, a tool used by malware operators to manage campaigns and view stolen data. The flaw allowed researchers to spy on active malware operators, steal session cookies, and remotely hijack active panel sessions....