Posts Tagged
privacy
When I come across a site that asks me to login with my Facebook or an app that needs access to my Google details on my Android phone, I just grant the permission and move on. It’s become so common for web properties to ask for these hook-ups to my personal accounts that I and many others like me have stopped even noticing which ones have access any more.
Now, it goes without saying that this isn’t safe, nor is it advisable. Think about it this way: if a bunch of people had the keys to your private locker, wouldn’t you want to know who they were, why they had the keys, and stop them if you feel like?
But most web apps don’t offer an easy way for you to see these permissions and edit their access. These pages are usually tucked away deep in the recesses of your settings. But MyPermissions.org provides a one-stop easy access for all your app allowances, and gives heightened control to Chrome users with the MyPermissions Cleaner. Let’s check it out. (more…)
Earlier this month we covered several apps for sending files online and even asked you which were your favorites – and over half of you said you use Dropbox. While that’s great for sending across files, it’s not the best choice for collaboration, especially if you need a place to discuss the files you’re sharing and what you’re doing with them.
Glassboard wants to be that place – a meeting room where you can share files securely and talk about what you’re working on, without having your privacy invaded. The app allows you to invite friends, colleagues and clients to view and share photos and files in a private environment and is simple to use. Is this the collaboration tool you’ve been looking for? Let’s find out.
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As Facebook Timeline slowly rolls out to the scores of people on the world’s largest social network, there seems to be a lot of resistance. It is the same song and dance as always: Facebook makes a change, people complain en mass about that change, and then they get used to it and no longer care. I’d be surprised if Facebook’s constant evolution has cost them even 1% of their 900 million active users.
However, things do seem a bit different this time around. Our very own Oliver de Looze recently published a nice oped piece titled, Facebook Timeline- Friend or Foe?, where he voices his concerns about the new layout, primarily Privacy. After reviewing the new Facebook Timeline back in October, and then using it since then, I’ve got a different perspective on it.
It cannot be denied that Facebook is now a large part of most people’s lives. For many of us, its use involves catching up with friends, organising events and sharing our experiences of the world around us. With over 900 million members, there is no doubt that Facebook is the de facto social network on the planet, the time of Myspace has definitely passed and more and more people are now migrating to Facebook from other social networks that were perhaps more popular in local areas (Bebo in the UK, for example).
For a product with so many users, Facebook seems to be incredibly quick to change its designs and layout. Is this actually a good thing for users, and can they possible keep changing without facing a sharp user backlash?
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The legal jargon required to make a sound privacy policy is overwhelming to say the least. That being said, it is absolutely necessary to make a privacy policy for your site or you might face huge fines as a result. If you want to avoid the cost of hiring a legal professional or the pain of pushing through the legal terminology yourself, it is important to find a viable alternative. One of the ones to consider is iubenda, an online privacy policy generator.
Not only does iubenda create a privacy policy for use on your site, the application offers both a “user-friendly” version and a version full of all the legal words. The privacy policies are constantly updated by the legal team at iubenda, take only a few minutes to set up and come with both a free and pro version. Read on to learn a bit more about how it works and what I really think of it.
In the real world, we carry identification cards, drivers licenses, passports, and more to make sure people know who we say we are. No matter where you live, you’ve likely got one official ID that covers almost anything you’d need verified. Even just your name and date of birth is often enough.
For all the talk of needing a universal online ID, though, truth is your email address is really your online ID. Here’s some ways to keep your email safe, and still share your email with others.
Change is good. It helps keep things fresh and keeps boredom away. But too much of anything is good for nothing and that holds good for changes too. So, the folks at Facebook have been quietly busy and rolled out few notable updates to the World’s largest social network. At times I think if there is a wager between Google and Facebook to see who rolls out more updates in a calender year!
I don’t use a lot of features of Facebook, just like thousands of others. But from changing the way the feed looks like to sharing and privacy, everyone will feel the changes for sure this time. Predictably, there are loud voices complaining about yet another change, but at the end of the day, these new additons make Facebook more fun to use.
It seems that we now live in a world which is completely obsessed with Facebook. Everywhere we go and everything we do seems to have something to do with the social networking site, and it has spawned hundreds of new creations, from feature-length films (The Social Network) and new English words (‘I’ll Facebook you tonight, yeh?’) to even a baby’s name (yes, it’s true).
Why is this? In less than 10 years, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, was transformed from a nerdy, fencing-obsessed psychology and computer science student to the world’s youngest billionaire, with a net wealth of somewhere around $14 billion (however this figure is debatable). And all for creating something that you and I could have thought up of in 5 minutes, a way to keep in touch with what your friends are doing online. The phrase ‘easy money’ springs to mind here. Why did Facebook, of all the ways to communicate online, win the social networking game before we even knew what a social network was?
We’re used to privacy and security scandals in this day and age. Sony, of course, recently leaked millions of users’ data (including credit card details) from their PlayStation Network just after Apple and Google were accused of tracking their users’ location. In recent years, we’ve come to expect that our data might get leaked at sometime in our online career. The latest revelation, however, comes from Chrome – and it’s accompanying web application store.
The Chrome Web Store was silently purged of two applications recently, both flash-based Super Mario games that were reported to have access to your browsing history, bookmarks and other website data. (more…)
Back in the day, we all used AltaVista or Yahoo! to find everything we needed on the Internet. It was slow and often didn’t find what we were looking for, but hey, it was all we had. Then Google came along, and blew us away at how much faster and better search could really be. We switched, and never looked back.
So isn’t Google good enough? Do we really need another search engine, let alone one named after a game? Let’s take a closer look at today’s search market and what DuckDuckGo has to offer that might make you want to switch. (more…)
