February 28 Tech news roundup: Discord halts age verification after backlash, YouTube Premium Lite gets some useful features, Amazon releases new Fire TV interface

Discord pauses age verification amid backlash from users

Discord has officially confirmed that it has delayed the rollout of age verification globally after backlash from users. The messaging platform had planned to introduce the system in March, but the reaction from the community was negative. Stanislav Vishnevskiy, the co-founder and CTO of Discord, admitted in an article published on the company’s blog, that Discord knew that the age verification system was controversial, and people would react strongly to it.

He also mentioned that several users had walked away believing that the process required face scans, and ID photos to use Discord, and were concerned about their privacy. Vishnevskiy says that 90% of Discord users will not need to verify their age to use the platform. Discord has an internal safety system that is used to determine the age of many adult users automatically. If a user falls in the other 10%, Discord will offer them options that are designed to share their age with the company, but not the user’s identity. Users may opt not to verify their age, which will still let them continue using the platform, access their friends list, DMs, voice chat, etc. But unverified users won’t be able to access some age-restricted content or modify certain default safety settings that are used to protect younger users.

The memories of the recent security breach in October 2025 are fresh on the mind of users, who pointed out that Discord’s provider had exposed thousands of government ID photos. Discord plans to resume its age verification rollout in the second half of the year, after adding more verification options.

YouTube Premium Lite adds background play and downloads

YouTube has announced two new features for the Premium Lite subscription. Users with an active subscription can now play videos in the background or download them for offline access. While those are welcome changes, the experience between the Premium and Lite tiers are quite different.

Unlike YouTube Premium which costs $14 per month, the Premium Lite subscription only costs $8 per month, but it is still not completely devoid of advertisements. It will display ads on music videos, shorts, and also when you search for something, or browse the platform. Background play and downloads are not supported for Shorts or music videos, or videos from music partners. Background play and downloads are rolling out to all markets where YouTube Premium Lite is available.

NATO approves iPhone and iPad for handling classified data

Apple has revealed that NATO has approved the iPhone and iPad to handle classified data. The devices can be used up to the NATO restricted level, without any special software or settings. This means that a brand new phone out of the box can be used at the mentioned security level to handle restricted data without any tinkering required by an admin. Apple noted that its security protections such as encryption, biometric authentication with Face ID, Memory Integrity Enforcement, are now recognized as meeting stringent government and international security requirements for restricted data.

The Cupertino company says that Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), had conducted an extensive evaluation to check if the devices meet the standards, after which the iPhone and iPad were cleared to handle classified information from the Government. Expanding on this, the BSI has given the nod for Apple devices running on iOS 26, iPadOS 26 in all NATO nations.

Amazon Fire TV’s new user interface is here

Amazon has begun rolling out a new UI for Fire TV. The company says that the update makes the OS faster than ever before,  with gains of 20 to 30% in speed, thanks to a new underlying code. The interface has been designed to help users find what they want quickly. Browsing a specific type of media, such as movies, will list titles from all apps. The menu button now lets you switch to Games, Art & Photos, Ambient Experience.

Amazon’s new UI for Fire TV comes with improved layouts, rounded corners, redesigned color gradients, updated typography, and more optimized spacing. Users can pin up to 20 apps on the home screen, as opposed to just 6 previously.  The Fire TV mobile app has also been revamped, users can now browse for content, manage their watchlist, and use it to play titles on their TV.

The new Fire TV interface is currently rolling out to the Fire TV Stick 4K Plus, Fire TV Stick 4K Max (2nd Gen), and Fire TV Omni Mini-LED Series in the U.S. Amazon says it will expand the new design to more countries and more devices this Spring.

Mozilla Firefox 148.0 released with AI Kill Switch

Mozilla has released the Firefox 148.0 update for Windows, macOS and Linux. One of the main changes that the update brings is the AI Controls page. Users can access it from the Settings > AI Controls, or by visiting about:preferences#ai in a new tab. At the very top of this section, is the AI Kill Switch that Mozilla had announced recently. It is a one-click toggle that disables all AI features in the browser. Alternatively, users can customize their experience by disabling the features that they do not want to use, and keep the ones that they like. The list is fairly small at the moment, it includes automatic translation of web pages, image alt text in Firefox PDF Viewer, tab group suggestions, key points in link preview, and the ability to choose a chatbot for the sidebar.

Mozilla no longer requires users to opt into telemetry to receive remote improvements. Users can now opt out of sharing their data and still access the feature. Firefox can now translate text into and from Traditional Chinese, and into Vietnamese. Windows 10 users who have enabled the “Clear history when Firefox closes” option can access Firefox Backup. The browser has improved support for accessing mathematical formulas embedded in PDFs via screen readers.

On a side note, Mozilla has ended support for Firefox for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1, and macOS 10.12 to 10.14. Users can continue to use Firefox 115.33.0 ESR on the legacy operating systems, but it will no longer receive security updates.