Mastodon (X/Twitter alternative) has over 400k more users than they expected. Get onboard!
Google gets worse.
#Chrome now directly tracks users, generates a "topic" list it shares with advertisers.
As if feeding #Google everything you do through Chrome isn't bad enough they are doubling down on selling your data.
If you must use Chrome get Chromium: https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel/
"Modern cars are a privacy nightmare."
From Mozilla: "We reviewed 25 car brands in our research and we handed out 25 “dings” for how those companies collect and use data and personal information."
• 84% share or sell your data
• 92% give drivers little to no control over their personal data
• Nissan can collect “sexual activity” & Kia says they collect info about your “sex life”. Others collect genetic characteristics.
The internet runs PHP. And we develop using it with Symfony, WordPress, Joomla! & Drupal. Didn't realize that Joomla! outpaces Drupal. Yikes.
And we still get asked why we "waste our time" hosting our own email servers and don't just "farm it out to Microsoft and Google". Because we value privacy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/07/12/microsoft-hack-china/
They're not even hiding it anymore: Google Says It'll Scrape Everything You Post Online for AI
https://gizmodo.com/google-says-itll-scrape-everything-you-post-online-for-1850601486
In light of Google offloading their Google Domains business, David Heinemeier Hansson states the obvious: You Can't Trust Google
Remember, to Google you are only as valuable as your personal data is to marketers.
As he states:
"Google will eventually kill every single service you care about, if they can't find a way to directly monetize it with ads at a scale of billions."
Worth the read.
Oh look! Another reason to not use Google. Hit pause: get a Kars for Kids Kommercial! No thanks.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/18/23728150/youtube-tv-unskippable-ads-premium-pause-commercial
Inside Google's Plan to Kill the Cookie
To replace the cookie in Chrome and Android, Google has an offering for the world called “Privacy Sandbox." Here's an exclusive peek into how it will work.
https://gizmodo.com/google-chrome-cookie-privacy-sandbox-1850303764
From the article: "consumer advocates say Privacy Sandbox just lets Google and others spy on you in a different way."
And that is exactly what it is. Instead of a universal open standard Google is forcing everyone to do it their way. A resounding NO to this awful idea.
We love it when a client makes good news! Go #outandequal!
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article273376315.html
In an SEC filing, domain registrar #GoDaddy reveals its network suffered a multi-year security compromise allowing hackers to steal its source code, as well as customer and employee login credentials, The attackers also installed malware that redirected customer websites to malicious sites. https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001609711/e4736ddb-b4c7-485b-a8fc-1827691692c9.pdf
"A lack of transparency" - First LastPass, now Slack and CircleCI. The hacks go on (and will likely worsen)
Don't expect victims to be forthcoming. Their alerts conceal more than they reveal.
The downside of closed source.
#DigitalOcean gets a lot of things right. And at WMD we can attest to that. We were considering fully switching over to Vultr because they offer AlmaLinux (and also Windows) VPSes. In several calls with DO we mentioned our preference for AlmaLinux over Rocky (though they are essentially the same). They listened!
The Digital Ocean Quest Towards New Lands – Digital Ocean SEO Analysis
@benjedwards penned a great article on the frontier days of BBSes at ArsTechnica.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/12/my-secret-life-as-an-11-year-old-bbs-sysop/
keith@WMD still runs 2 Commodore BBSes from his house at tfcbbs.com (tfcbbs.com port 6400 for the Supra 128 board, port 6464 for the Color 64 board, if it is up (it is temperamental))
See how wmd.dev stacks up under The Blacklight:
We have quietly launched our new site!
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/01/stadia-died-because-no-one-trusts-google/
"It really is that simple: No one trusts Google. It has exhibited such poor understanding of what people want, need and will pay for that at this point, people are wary of investing in even its more popular products."
WMD Password Generator creates passwords 8 to 100 characters with your choice of UPPERCASE, lowercase, numbers and characters. Bookmark it!
Your Router Is Collecting Data. Here's What to Know, and How to Protect Your Privacy
Wi-Fi router companies say they don't track the websites you visit, but all of them collect and share some user data.
Privacy-focused web development and hosting.