I've been using it for about a month as a Chrome extension, which at least at the time was still in beta. It hasn't caused any problems on either the Linux or Windows boxes. It appears to be working as intended on both systems. The sliders discussed in the article only appear if you are viewing a page that has identified or candidate cookie tracking characteristics. Some it blocks itself. Others, you have to use a slider on to set whether it will be blocked or wait until the program acquires enough data about that site to make a decision to block. The program does not use a blacklist of sites, although it comes with a white list built in of sites that honor the do not track browser setting. But once a tracking cookie is blocked, it's blocked for all sites you visit. So this isn't instant complete tracking cookie security. It's designed to improve your experience with the number of sites whose tracking cookies follow your tracks around the Web. But this is not a mature program. Its effectiveness will improve with each update.
YouTube has decided it's had enough of Adobe's perenially-p0wned Flash and will therefore now default to delivering video with the HTML5 <video> tag.
A post by the video vault's engineering and development team says the move is now possible, and sensible, because the industry has invented useful things like adaptive bitrates, encryption, new codecs and WebRTC that make the <video> usable work in the real world.
Those additions mean HTML5 is at least as functional – or more so – than Flash, and if YouTube detects you are running Chrome, IE 11, Safari 8 and beta versions of Firefox, it'll now deliver video using <video> and flush Flash.
YouTube's also decided to can what it calls the “'old style' of Flash
YouTube seems not to care a jot that its actions are inimical to Adobe, saying it's just doing what all the cool kids – Netflix, Apple, Microsoft and its competitor Vimeo – have already done.
Which is not to say that Flash is dead: those who don't run the browsers above will still get YouTube delivered by whatever technology works bes tin their environment. And that will often – perhaps too often* – be Flash. ®
Bootnote * Until they get p0wned, that is: Flash is so horridly buggy that Apple has just updated its plugin-blockers to foil versions of the product prior to 16.0.0.296 and 13.0.0.264.
Facebook's thousands of employees are reportedly unable to use the company's internal iOS apps after it was caught running a data-gathering research app that violated Apple's developer policies. Apple said on Wednesday that it had revoked Facebook's certificates giving it access to a special enterprise program that companies can use to distribute internal apps and tools outside the public App Store. The move has caused internal Facebook apps to stop working, creating a chaotic situation that the company has deemed a critical problem, The Verge reported. Facebook employees reportedly can't open company apps for transportation and the lunch menu, along with beta versions of Facebook apps like Messenger and Instagram.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD. on 01 Jun 14[Privacy Badger blocks spying ads and invisible trackers.]
Paul Merrell on 02 Jun 14I've been using it for about a month as a Chrome extension, which at least at the time was still in beta. It hasn't caused any problems on either the Linux or Windows boxes. It appears to be working as intended on both systems. The sliders discussed in the article only appear if you are viewing a page that has identified or candidate cookie tracking characteristics. Some it blocks itself. Others, you have to use a slider on to set whether it will be blocked or wait until the program acquires enough data about that site to make a decision to block. The program does not use a blacklist of sites, although it comes with a white list built in of sites that honor the do not track browser setting. But once a tracking cookie is blocked, it's blocked for all sites you visit. So this isn't instant complete tracking cookie security. It's designed to improve your experience with the number of sites whose tracking cookies follow your tracks around the Web. But this is not a mature program. Its effectiveness will improve with each update.