Internet & Websites News - Page 51

Facebook is planning to begin forcing all users to download its new Messenger app if they want to continue chatting with friends. The forced migration will reportedly start in the next few days. European users of Facebook who wanted to chat had to download Messenger back in April.

Facebook is telling people that Messenger is about 20% faster for chatting than chat was using the main iOS and Android Facebook apps. After positive results in user engagement with the European test, Facebook is set to make everyone use the new app.

Users will get a few notices before chat eventually stops working on the main app and they have to use the new app. Facebook is notifying users directly about the change and once made, the messages tab will be replaced with a Messenger shortcut.

Now that some of the more popular torrenting software is available on portable devices, it was only a matter of time before the likes of The Pirate Bay optimized their websites for mobile.

Head on over to The Mobile Bay and you'll notice that the site looks nice and clean on mobile devices, scaled down and with a bit more room to breathe. The Pirate Bay told TorrentFreak that its website rendered poorly (or "like crap") on mobile, and so a refresh was inevitable. Mobile users are automatically redirected to the domain, although users will have the option of using the desktop layout if they like. The idea is that each section of the world's most notorious torrent indexer will get its own dedicated page - so users looking for TV episodes would be able to find season packs easily as well as see episode overviews.

Of course, in countries where such websites are blocked anyway mobile users will need to find their own proxies to access The Mobile Bay. As smart devices become ever more pervasive, it's no surprise to see The Pirate Bay paying attention to its consumer UX needs, in much the same way legal services have had to catch up too.

Most social media users feel jealous and inadequate, according to a report from British disability charity Scope.

The organisation surveyed 1,500 social media users and found that of these, over half of Facebook and Twitter users were left feeling like their life came up short compared to posts from peers. And although young people are the top demographic, many of those between 18 and 34 have considered quitting social media entirely, but stay online because it makes keeping in touch with friends easier. Roughly half of 18-34 year olds found that being an active user led to feelings of ugliness, being unattractive, or loneliness.

A chief event coordinator at Scope, Debbie Bines, suggested trying life without the internet for a little bit as part of the charity's Digital Detox weekend, which suggests frequent users take a 48 hour break from social networks. "Social media at its best is a great way to stay in touch with friends, as well as being the world's leading source of amusing cat pictures," Bines said. "But when things get out of balance and we start comparing ourselves to others, or feeling irritated, jealous or even ugly, it's got to be time to take a break."

Fans of social networking in the US really like to spend their time on Facebook. New statistics showing the usage of the site have turned up and show that the average American spends 40 minutes each day using the site. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also said that the 40 minutes spent on the social network each day by most Americans accounts for one in five minutes spent on mobile in the US.

Overall, in the US, Zuckerberg says that people spend nine hours a day interacting with digital media on TV, on the phone, and via a PC. Facebook currently has 204 million monthly users in the US and Canada.

Facebook is also hosting Pages for 30 million businesses and has 1.5 million advertisers. There are also reportedly hundreds of apps that use the Facebook deep-linking standard called App Links.

Britain is wholeheartedly rejecting its government approved 'porn filters' as customers signing up to internet providers for the first time opt out in droves, according to an official regulator.

Ofcom, the independent body that monitors the activities of telecoms providers, notes that under one in seven homes are actually making use of the content filters, introduced by the British Prime Minister David Cameron (pictured) and earning him the nickname Kim Jong Cameron. Top operators BT and Sky introduced the measures in late 2013. The announcement was deeply unpopular and led to calls of censorship, although the agreement between government and internet providers is technically voluntary. At the time it was represented as a measure designed to protect children.

Of the top companies running the scheme, TalkTalk has the most users making most of it at 36 percent. However, a paltry four percent of Virgin Media customers are switching off the porn, followed by five percent of BT customers and eight percent of Sky customers. "Ofcom's report clearly highlighted where Virgin Media has fallen short in meeting our original commitments," Tom Mockridge, ISP Virgin Media's chief exec said, according to Digital Spy. "We take our responsibility to help families stay safe online very seriously and have taken immediate action to improve how we meet our commitments to government."

In this fast-paced world, we simply can't keep up with everything that is going on, and that's without considering Facebook. But for people who breath the social network in everyday (guilty!), then the social network has something in store for you with its new Save function.

The new Save feature will allow you to use a bookmark-like system that lets you save content such as movies, places, TV, music or links so that you can view them at a later date. This is perfect in the example scenario of sitting on the bus or train, or even a doctors office, going through content, you can 'save' it, and view it later when you're not about to jump off the bus, or go into your appointment.

Facebook has said that the saved items will only be seen by you, unless you choose to share them with friends. The saved items can be viewed at anytime, anywhere, by simply tapping the "More" tab on your mobile, or clicking the left side of Facebook when you're using it in a web browser. If you haven't viewed your saved items after a short period of time, Facebook will remind you that you have saved these items by displaying them in your News Feed. This new function should roll out to everyone on iOS, Android and the web over the coming days.

In a strangely self-referential post, Britain's public broadcasting network, the BBC, has outlined the technical issues that have been plaguing, well, the BBC.

Although issues continued throughout the weekend, BBC News has now published a post that speaks about the problems. Its iPlayer service - the flagship streaming website that allows Brits to watch TV live, on demand, or listen to the radio for free provided they pay a licence fee - was struggling for unspecified reasons. Some users were unable to access the service at all, while the BBC website was forced to display a basic version. It led to speculation from some online users the network was victim of a Denial of Service attack. The iPlayer is critically acclaimed for its service and pioneering of official on-demand streaming.

The corporation put out tweets saying it hoped the service would be back up and running soon, as well as issuing an official apology. UK internet providers also noticed something was wrong. "The final fixes for the problems were expected to be applied on 21 July when the vast majority of people should be able reach the web-based video services as normal," the BBC News website says. "The BBC said it would issue a statement when it knew more about the cause of the glitches."

It doesn't look like Google will be bringing its super-fast web service, Fiber, to the United Kingdom just yet - or have plans for anywhere outside the US.

Although a report in Britain's Telegraph talked of the possibility of Fiber heading to the UK in partnership with local provider CityFibre, a spokesperson told Engadget that it's probably best not to read too much into it. "We have informal conversations with other telecom companies all the time," the spokesperson said. "But we've never had any serious planning discussions about bringing Google Fiber to Britain." It's not exactly surprising that Google was keen to quash the rumor - it is stepping on enough toes in the United States with its immensely anticipated rollout of Fiber. That said, it's also a limited rollout, available only in a handful of cities thus far.

Google Fiber promises as much as 1 gigabit per second download and upload speeds, which is a veritable triumph over many of even the most comprehensive and speedy packages available from other providers in the United States and further afield. So it's not something to be ruled out from happening completely, but there will likely be a lot of groundwork to do closer to home before Google gets more ambitious abroad.

No matter what it tries the content industry can't seem to stem the popularity of public enemy number one, The Pirate Bay, and now new figures show the torrent indexer's traffic has doubled since the first wave of blocks came into place.

Despite many wings of the content industry claiming each countrywide block on The Pirate Bay a victory, actually its traffic is doing better than ever. The first really high profile blockades began in Denmark, the UK and Holland, but the website's visitor numbers have doubled since then. Actual visitor numbers were not revealed but TorrentFreak puts them in hundreds of millions per month.

Nearly 10 percent of all visitors to The Pirate Bay access the website through proxies or proxy services, meaning that even in countries where it's officially banned, users are finding ways to access it anyway. The most visitors were from the United States, where many of the more vocal voices from the content lobby reside.

Want to use Netflix on social but scared your friends will see just how much you've watched those embarrassing guilty pleasures? Fear not - the TV and movie streaming service could be planning its very own incognito mode.

Right now the company is in the process of testing the option in all of its market over the next few months, but it's not available to every or even most users. But if it is set to be integrated in Netflix, it'll appear as part of the multiple user profile feature. Not only would the option keep your guilty pleasures safe, but it would also scrub these from contributing towards user recommendations.

It's not guaranteed that the feature will become widespread - with new corporate comms and tech director Cliff Edwards saying this depends on the reactions from users. "We may not ever offer it generally," he said, according to GigaOm. "At Netflix we continuously test new things. In this case, we are testing a feature in which a user watching a movie or TV show can choose to view in "Privacy Mode." Choosing that option means the program will not appear in your viewing activity log, nor will it be used to determine recommendations about what you should watch in the future."