A transatlantic study has found that around a third of web domains that used to belong to now-defunct banks are now being used by other people. Thankfully only a handful are being used for outright malicious purposes, but the researchers say steps must be taken to minimize such abuse. Tyler Moore of Southern Methodist University […]
Mozilla wants to know why Dell is charging around $30 to install Firefox on new computers, contradicting its status as free software. It’s not clear how widespread the charge is. The Next Web captured the screenshot pictured above with a £16.25 (approx US$30) charge for one model on Dell’s UK site, though at the time […]
In 2011 Comcast agreed to offer a $9.95 broadband service to low-income families as one of the government conditions for being allowed to buy out NBC Universal. It’s now said it will extend that program, due to expire this fall, indefinitely. Under the program, qualifying families can get a 5 megabits per second connection for […]
Nearly half of all edits to Wikipedia are made by automated computers rather than humans according to a new study. But the bot edits are mainly on the newer language-based versions and are largely constructive. The topic is covered in a paper titled “Bots vs Wikipedians, Anons vs Logged-Ins” by post-doctoral student and Google employee […]
If you’re on Facebook, you’re about to lose your facebook.com e-mail address. And if you didn’t know you had one, well, that’s the main reason it’s going. Since November 2010, Facebook users have had an e-mail address made up of their profile name and @facebook.com. That in itself was confusing as the profile name is […]
Netflix has reportedly agreed to pay Comcast a fee to improve speed and reliability of its streaming. It could set a major precedent in the net neutrality debate. As we reported last week, Netflix confirmed that customers suffered a measurable slowdown in speeds over the past month, which appeared to be largely because of a […]
Netflix says its service during peak hours is getting noticeably slower. It’s putting the blame on cable ISPs, but it seems more a case of what those companies aren’t doing than what they are. The precise details of the slowdown seem to vary depending on which account you read, but the biggest problem seems to […]
Facebook has expanded its options for listing your gender from two (male or female) to 58. The company says that “There’s going to be a lot of people for whom this is going to mean nothing, but for the few it does impact, it means the world.” Requiring people to list a gender was actually […]
A soon-to-be 11-year-old will be getting a surprise on his birthday: a positive message from more than a million people. The Michigan boy, named only as Colin, will have his birthday on March 9. He told his mother Jennifer that he doesn’t want a birthday party as he has no friends and is teased at […]
Mozilla has announced it will carry what is effectively display advertising on its new tabs page. It appears to be a minor step towards financial independence. The change will affect the new tab page which displays thumbnail images linking to nine websites. In normal use, these are personalized to the user, taking into account how […]