Internet & Websites

Every day, inboxes around the world are flooded with unsolicited emails that range from pushy marketing to malicious scams, and according to cybersecurity experts, spam costs businesses and individuals billions annually, not to mention the wasted time, productivity, and increased risks of fraud.

In order to prevent this annoyance from occurring, or worse, fraud from happening to you, users should know how to stop these spam emails from hitting their inboxes. Notably, since the COVID-19 pandemic, spam emails have skyrocketed in frequency, and while many email services already filter many types of spam emails into a spam folder, there are still hundreds, and even thousands in some cases, that manage to slip through into the main inbox.

Before we get into how to stop these spam emails from happening, we should outline the different types of spam emails so you can easily identify them.

One of the key features for YouTube Premium subscribers is now available for free users it seems, in a rather surprising move.

This isn't something Google has announced, either, but rather the fact that everyone can now download YouTube videos for viewing offline later emerged via a Reddit post (highlighted by Android Police).

As you can see in the post above from the YouTube subreddit (from the 'Dude_Who_Does_Things') it's possible for everyone to download videos, but the catch is the resolution is restricted so you won't get a very good quality clip.

For those who lived through the dial-up internet days, you'll no doubt have the sound a modem makes when it does its 'dialling' imprinted on your brain forever. You'll also remember that the slow 28.8K and 56K speeds we lived with meant that you had to download images and that it took several minutes to listen to a single song in compressed MP3 format.

In the United States, America Online or AOL was synonymous with dial-up internet throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. The company gained notoriety by sending out CD-ROMs to anyone with a mailbox, offering free trials to its service alongside an email address that ends with aol.com. With millions of AOL customers going online, the company also helped usher in the age of instant messaging with AOL Instant Messenger and chat rooms - your 1998 version of Discord.

Even though the term 'AOL' conjures up memories of the age of Netscape Navigator and the Excite search engine, you might be surprised to learn that AOL's dial-up internet service is still a thing that exists. But not for long, as the company has announced that after 34 years of various beep and static sounds, it's set to discontinue its 'Dial-up Internet' service on September 30.

There are many ways to track a human, but researchers in Italy have devised a new method that involves creating a biometric marker for people based on how their body distorts WiFi signals.

The researchers are calling this new method of tracking "WhoFi," and detailed how it works in a paper that has yet to be published. The paper titled "WhoFi: Deep Person Re-Identification via WiFi Channel Signal Encoding" explains that re-identification is the primary goal of the new technology, which doesn't necessarily mean a person's identity, such as their name, but just that they are the same individual seen in one location and then in another.

The idea is that WhoFi could be used in video surveillance to maintain constant tracking of a subject without having to use any obvious identifiers such as items of clothing, features, etc.

What if you wanted to download your entire Steam Library, or perhaps the entire Steam Store? How long would it take you on your home internet connection? Weeks? Possibly years? Maybe even a decade? Japan could do it in a matter of seconds with their new insane internet speed that has broken the world record.

Researchers at Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) broke the world record for the fastest internet speed by transmitting data a staggering 1.02 petabits per second, which, for those who don't know and understandably so, a petabit is, that's 1,020,000 gigabits per second. You could imagine this speed as seeing your download at 127,500,000 Megabytes per second (MB/s), or 127,500 GB/s. Yes, that is correct. 127,500 gigabytes per second download speed.

How was this speed achieved? NICT used standard-sized fiber optic cables that are typically used in many homes around the world, but the difference was that they were equipped with four cores and over 50 different wavelengths of light to transmit data. To add even more impressive statistics to this achievement, researchers were able to maintain this speed over 51.7 kilometers (32.12 miles), making these kind of speeds feasible for real-world infrastructure.

Elon Musk has just announced an all-new XChat is launching within X, which will be rolling out with encryption, vanishing messages, audio and video calls, and more.

XChat is built on Rust with (Bitcoin-style) encryption, with the Tesla and SpaceX boss saying that XChat has a "whole new architecture". Not only do we have encryption and vanishing messages, but XChat will let users send any file of kind, while audio and video calls can be made without a phone number on all platforms.

The new XChat system when compared to competing platforms like Signal and Telegram, differ in both features and security. Telegram has support for large groups and bots, but only its built-in Secret Chats are encrypted, with concerns surrounding metadata collection. Signal has end-to-end encryption by default, with minimal data collection that has people worried about privacy handles, but it's not feature-laden.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a warning regarding the safety of some of the most-used routers in the United States, with the agency warning how thirteen of them are now vulnerable to cyberattacks.

The FBI has taken to its bulletin to publish an update from the cybersecurity team that is warning against the use of routers that have reached their end-of-life period, meaning they are no longer safe to use and now pose a significant vulnerability to both businesses and home users.

For those who don't know, routers are the center point of any network, as they are the device that takes the internet from the outside of the business or home and distributes it to the devices on the network. A compromised router means the entire network is compromised, possibly leading to data theft, device hijacking, identity theft, etc. The FBI warned on May 7 that thirteen routers are vulnerable to a cybercriminal proxy service attack, which is targeting thirteen end-of-life routers with TheMoon malware botnet.

Amazon is (or indeed was) considering showing the supposed effect of Trump's tariffs on a limited number of budget products that the retailer sells, and the White House has been quick to condemn this potential move.

The controversy was sparked earlier today when a report emerged from the Punchbowl News, which was highlighted on X by its founder, Jake Sherman. It claimed that Amazon is going to display how much of the price of any given item is down to the effect of the tariffs.

However, as CNBC later reported, this is only the case for some of the budget products sold by the retail giant (Amazon Haul merchandise), and it was a move that was only being considered at any rate.

For those who remember the Wild Wild West days of the internet, Napster was a peer-to-peer file-sharing program that launched in 1999. It quickly took off as a means to share MP3 music files and quickly grew in popularity thanks to the arrival of high-speed broadband internet at the time. Most users had dial-up connections and had to wait several minutes or an hour to get a few songs.

It didn't take long until the Recording Industry Association of America took note, and bands like Metallica made headlines as they moved to sue Napster for facilitating the sharing of copyrighted material. After bankruptcy, Napster became a music streaming service similar to Spotify in 2016 - even though the name 'Napster' has faded into the background.

This week, Napster was acquired by Infinite Reality, the creator of "immersive 3D interfaces," for a cool $207 million. According to CNBC, the company and its name will be used to create virtual 3D spaces for music fans and artists - aka metaverse stuff.

X has been up and down for the last few hours and I've been wondering why... but wonder no more: Elon Musk has said that there is a "massive cyberattack" against X and Grok right now.

Elon posted: "There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X. We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved". X user Hassan Sajwani replied to Elon's post saying "they want to silence you and this platform" to which Elon replied with a simple: "Yes".

The news of the massive cyberattack comes after weeks of outrage against Elon and more specifically Tesla, with lunatics (calling a spade a spade) have been targeting Tesla vehicles across the US and the world, attacking them and at times, out outright destroying them. Not just vehicles like the Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck, but Tesla dealerships have been damaged in this blind outrage, too.

Those paying for YouTube in the US now have a new option to fork out less money to watch with no adverts (mostly) on the platform, a 'Premium Lite' plan.

This ad-free subscription (with a slight catch that we'll come back to) has been a pilot scheme in the US (and elsewhere, including Australia), but is now becoming an official offering from YouTube priced at $7.99 per month.

This is just in the US right now, but Australia will be in line for the same treatment in the "coming weeks" (as well as Germany and Thailand, which are also set to have their pilots converted to a full rollout).

Those of you thinking about buying a new car might be a bit shocked to know that you can grab the latest model simply by heading to Amazon - if you're after a Hyundai, that is.

Amazon Autos is the retail giant's play to get into the car sales game, and it's available right now to customers across 48 cities in the US.

People can head to Amazon and browse through Hyundai's range, then order a new car from a participating local dealer, including arranging finance if necessary, and scheduling a pick-up time at said dealership.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI is reportedly considering developing a web browser that would compete directly against Google and its popular Chrome browser, combining its AI chatbot and "separately discussed or struck deals to power search features".

In a new report from The Information picked up by Reuters, we're learning that OpenAI has spoken about the search product with website and app developers including Conde Nest, Redfin, Eventbrite, and Priceline according to people who have seen the prototypes or designs of the products.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is going in a different direction with the company, establishing itself firmly into the search engine market to defy Google's dominance with the likes of SearchGPT. We all know that Google is the undisputed leader of the search industry, as it's in our everyday speaking terms that we say "I'll Google it" without a second thought, so OpenAI would have an uphill battle (that is worth fighting for).

The US election has seen winners away from the political landscape, and Bluesky has been one of them, with the social media firm seemingly benefiting from an exodus of users from X.

Yesterday, Bluesky declared that it had gained a million new recruits (on X, as you can see above).

As TechCrunch reports, the social media outlet reached approximately 14.6 million users as of November 12, having witnessed a surge of folks joining over the weekend. (Bluesky membership was around 9 million just a couple of months back in September 2024).

We've likely all been in the situation where we've subscribed to a service, and then had difficulty canceling that subscription - it's a frustrating place to be, but one which might be a thing of the past thanks to new regulations in the US.

The FTC has just announced a finalized 'click-to-cancel' rule which requires that businesses which get consumers to sign up to a subscription should ensure that it's very easy to subsequently cancel that service.

As mentioned at the outset, we've likely all been there where we come to cancel a service and find ourselves scratching our heads as to how this is achieved. Often, the method of canceling can be hidden deep within the service's dashboard, behind multiple nested menus perhaps.

Google is planning on removing one of the most popular ad blockers available on Chrome, as the company informs users who now attempt to download it that it "may soon no longer be supported."

That ad blocker is uBlock Origin, and according to reports Google has been informing ad blockers such as uBlock that it will be severing support for them after it rolled out the Chrome Manifest V3 extension update. uBlock appears to be included in that as BleepingComputer reports Google's Chrome Web Store is now warning users uBlock may soon be removed "because it doesn't follow best practises for Chrome extensions." Additionally, Google's support bulletin cited user privacy and security as one of the reasons why uBlock is being removed.

BleepingComputer reports that uBlock Origin is not invasive or insecure and that Google's mention of privacy and security has to do with its deprecation of the Manifest V2 extension in favor of Manifest V3. Google's introduction of Manifest V3 ruffled the feathers of extension developers as V3 presented technical challenges, particularly with those such as ad blockers that require greater control over web browsers.

The exponential growth fueled by the demand for even more sophisticated artificial intelligence-powered models has resulted in supporting technologies getting an upgrade as well.

One of those sectors is networking, as these AI models need consistent, low-latency communication capabilities, fast data transfer speeds, and programmable features. AMD has unveiled a new solution to this growing problem, and it's called the Pensando Pollara 400. This fully programmable Ethernet-ready network interface card (NIC) is capable of pushing 400 Gbps and is specifically designed for AI cluster networking, which predominantly comes in the form of large-scale large language models (LLMs).

Unfortunately, the expansive, power-hungry nature of AI systems is outpacing the developments of Ethernet, meaning manufacturers are now turning to AI-tailored networking solutions such as the Pensando Pollara 400. According to AMD, its new NIC is designed around GPU-to-GPU communication and is tailored for data transfer within AI networks. Moreover, AMD believes its Pensando Pollara 400 will be capable of providing buyers with up to sixfold performance boost for AI workloads.

Streaming services have become an essential part of how we consume entertainment. Whether it's catching the latest episode of your favorite TV show, binging on an entire season in a weekend, or listening to music on demand, subscriptions power much of our everyday digital activities. From Netflix and Hulu to Spotify and Apple Music, these services offer unparalleled convenience and endless options.

It's not just entertainment either - news outlets, fitness apps, software, and even grocery deliveries have entered the subscription model. At first, it seemed like an exciting way to get everything you wanted, whenever you wanted it. But for many people, what began as a handful of convenient services has snowballed into a mountain of subscriptions. With the average person juggling multiple streaming platforms, productivity tools, and other recurring payments, it's no wonder people are starting to feel the weight of this overload.

If you've ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of subscription services you're paying for - or maybe even forgot you were subscribed to some - you're not alone. This phenomenon, known as subscription fatigue, is increasingly common as people manage more and more digital services.

The latest study from the CTIA - The Wireless Association, a non-profit trade organization that represents the wireless communications industry, found wireless data usage across the United States increased the most it ever has in a single year in 2023.

The association published its 2024 Annual Wireless Industry Survey, which states Americans consumed an astonishing 100 trillion megabytes of wireless data throughout 2023, which is 100 billion gigabytes for those who don't want to manually do the conversion. The CTIA states in its survey that last year was the single largest increase it has seen in wireless data usage over a year, with Americans consuming 36% more data compared to the year prior, and nearly double the data in 2021.

The CTIA also found there was a sharp increase in the number of devices that are 5G compatible, which the association attributes to the skyrocketing rise in wireless data usage. According to the survey, nearly 40% of all wireless devices had a 5G connection in 2023, an increase of 34% compared to 2022. In total, there are 558 million wireless connections in the US, which means for every single American, there are 1.6 wireless connections. How? Wireless connections can count for devices such as smartphones, watches, tablets, etc

Google Search is about to get a fantastic improvement through a new partnership between Google and The Internet Archive, a non-profit research library that preserves large portions of the Internet for future accessibility.

The new partnership announced via an Internet Archive Blog explains that Google Search will now list archived versions of web pages with a simple link to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. A user can access this feature by performing a normal Google Search, navigating to a link and the three dots located next to the link, and selecting the "More About This Page" option. After selecting this option, a user will be presented with a Wayback Machine link that showcases previous versions of a webpage.

The new feature will be available starting today, and it will, at its most fundamental, add historical context to webpages, enabling more thorough research to be conducted on topics and, ultimately, Google Search results to be more valuable. The Internet Archive celebrated the new integration, writing the new partnership "underscores the importance of web archiving."