Privacy

Today's civilization revolves around software and data to the point that some even say that today's products are people. Specifically, the data associated with people are the products. Security and privacy have become huge and controversial topics in the tech world and have even been used as advertising points used by some companies. In that light, Google has been working hard to remove the stigma of being one of the biggest violators of privacy and has implemented changes to secure the safety of its users. Its upcoming changes to Google Play promises to make it easier for Android users to see and understand what all these safety features mean for them.

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Everyone talks about steps to take in protecting your security and privacy on the Web, but, to be honest, not all security measures are easy to understand or use. Some come with a plethora of options that overwhelm people, while others impact performance and the overall experience in exchange for better security. Chrome 92 was just released on all platforms to address those issues by making it easier to access relevant security and privacy settings and by mitigating the performance impact of certain security features.

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Despite advancements in detecting and filtering out nuisance email addresses, spam can still be a major problem. Even worse is when a dodgy service reveals your email address to the wider internet, potentially paving the way for everything from phishing scams to doxing. Here to help with that problem is DuckDuckGo and its latest beta offering.

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PayPal-owned Venmo, the app used to quickly and easily send funds to friends and family, has rolled out a major redesign that, in part, improves the platform's privacy. The change follows criticism about certain aspects of the platform that reached a peak back in May when a report detailed the discovery of President Biden's Venmo account.

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Most people tend to use Google to search for anything they need information on, ranging from the mundane to the personal. Few people give a thought to how Google, by default, tracks those searches, one way or another, something that could induce fear and uncertainty in some users when they realize that fact. Fortunately, Google has become more responsible in handling that kind of data and giving users more control over their online lives. Now it is introducing new features in Google Search that will keep search histories safe from prying eyes, including Google's.

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Google just released the third beta of Android 12, taking the next version of the platform one step closer to general availability. While that announcement focused primarily on smartphones and tablets, those aren't the only incarnations of Android getting a big version bump. Android TV will soon also be based on Android 12, and the latest beta version brings the platform up-to-date on the latest trends in TV hardware as well as user privacy.

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The most basic kind of protection against tracking that web browsers offer is Private Browsing mode, a.k.a. Incognito Mode that often blocks third parties and even the browser itself from tracking your movement through the Internet. This basic privacy measure isn't perfect, and it also causes some functionality to break. Unfortunately, one of those is being able to sign in to sites and services using a Facebook account, a problem that Firefox 90's new SmartBlock 2.0 is finally fixing.

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If you're getting unwanted replies to an already-published tweet, you now have the opportunity to restrict who can join the conversation. Though Twitter has offered the option to limit who is allowed to reply to tweets for around a year, a new update to the feature allows users to apply the same restrictions to tweets after they've been published.

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There are innumerable online services and apps these days that it is almost impossible to keep track of all the usernames and passwords for them. Thankfully, some of those services allow you to sign up and log into their network using a Google account or, sometimes, a Facebook account. Two years ago, Apple launched its own take on that convenience with "Sign in with Apple," and Twitter might be adopting the technology to help make it easier for both old and new users to jump on board with their iPhones and iPad.

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Tencent has announced that it is now using facial recognition to enforce China's gaming curfew for minors, one that forces them to play games only during allotted hours during the day and to turn off their games by 10 PM. The law, which has proven controversial within China and beyond, doesn't apply to adults.

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Twitter has been very transparent about some of the concepts it is considering behind closed doors, the latest batch of which revolve around the issue of privacy. Though none of these concepts are features (yet), they do reveal the kind of perspective Twitter is taking when it approaches this topic, including the best ways it can accommodate the varying needs of its users.

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Audacity owners Muse Group have denied that the popular open-source audio app is secretly turning into spyware, blaming an unclear privacy policy update rather than nefarious intent for the confusion. Long a popular tool for musicians and podcasters, Audacity made headlines earlier this week after changes to its privacy policy suggested the owners planned to sell user data.

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