FileHippo News

The latest software and tech news

Google Hit With Record $2.7bn EU Fine Over Shopping Search Results
Company found to have promoted its own shopping comparison service at the top of search results. Alphabet subsidiary, Google, has been fined a record $2.7bn (£2.1bn; 2.42bn euro) by European Union regulators after they ruled the company had abused its power by promoting its own shopping comparison service at the top... Read more
Google Launches ‘Funding Choices’ Ad Blocker Option
Search giant says move is part of its efforts to ‘maintain a sustainable web for everyone’. Google’s ‘Funding Choices’, which launches in multiple markets and countries in the coming weeks, will let users decide: turn off your ad blocker or make a small payment to the site. If you’ve... Read more
Firefox 53 Finally Released: Drops Support For Windows Vista And XP
Upside is that latest browser release should boost performance and reduce crashes. Sadly, yet probably inevitably, support for Windows XP and Vista is no more. That’s right it’s gone, and it won’t be coming back. The Firefox browser was one of the last browsers to still support the older... Read more
Google Adds ‘Fact Check’ Flag To Search Results
New independently-verified ‘Fact Check’ tool added to news and search results. In response to the rise of ‘fake news’, Google has begun displaying fact-checking labels in search results highlighting news and information that has been independently quantified and vetted by third party fact checking organisations. ‘With thousands of new articles published... Read more
Privacy Search Engines And VPN Use On The Rise
Users are taking a stand against increased snooping by authorities.  Thanks to some shady political dealings over the course of the past week, concerned tech users across the US have a renewed focus on privacy. First the US Senate voted along party lines to overturn Obama-era privacy protections, then... Read more
Edge And Safari Use On The Decline
Dip in popularity of pre-installed Microsoft and Apple browsers. There’s a mindset shift taking place in the tech world, and it appears to be one that rebels against “forced” software and web browser choices. New reports have indicated that both the Microsoft Edge browser that came pre-installed with Windows 10... Read more
Firefox 52 Bans Plugins And Is First Browser To Use WebAssembly
Firefox 52 bans plugins except for Flash, warns users about logins on unencrypted websites, and claims to run processor intensive apps at nearly the same speed as native code. Mozilla have quietly released their latest browser, Firefox 52 into the wilds of the internet this week. In doing so... Read more
Google And Microsoft To Relegate Piracy Search Results In The UK
Two of the world’s leading search engines, Google and Bing have pledged to make it harder for internet users to find pirated content. Both Google and Microsoft have entered the voluntary agreement with the British government that will see their respective search engines make piracy websites harder to find... Read more
Word From Our Editor: How Spotify, Netflix and Amazon Know What You Love
Playlists and recommendations are the gateway to great discoveries, but just how do they work? We take a look at the science behind the magic. It’s fair to say we take a lot of pretty amazing technology for granted these days. Self-parking cars? Boring. 100mbps WiFi? Too slow man.... Read more
Word From Our Editor: Scams To Watch Out For On Amazon, WhatsApp And PayPal
Online fraud is on the rise and we’re all at risk… You’re too smart to be caught out by a scam, right? We probably all think it could never happen to us, but the fact is online fraud is on the rise – affecting millions of people around the... Read more
Popular Porn Sites Blocked In Philippines
Web users in the Philippines interested in a little virtual ‘me-time’ have found that some of the world’s most popular pornography websites have been blocked by ISPs. According to the BBC, customers of Sun Cellular, and Smart can no longer access online porn on either mobile devices or their... Read more
New Phishing Attack Steals Info Using Browser Autofill
Popular browsers such as Chrome, Safari, Opera and extensions such as LastPass, can be tricked into leaking private information using hidden text boxes, a Finnish developer has revealed. Autofill is great for those who spend a lot of time typing the same pieces of key personal data into websites,... Read more
New Norton Product Coming Soon: WiFi Privacy
The New Year is well and truly underway and we’re excited to reveal that Norton have announced the launch of a brand new product for 2017: WiFi Privacy. Due later this month, Norton WiFi Privacy offers you online privacy and anonymity via a VPN (virtual private network). This says... Read more
Google’s Top Searches Of 2016
Google, and what we as a species looked for from the World Wide Web in 2016… You may be surprised, but then again you probably won’t! Every year the Google search engine processes trillion of search requests using its custom-built algorithms. And last Wednesday the Californian based Mountain View company... Read more
Out With The Old: Harvesting Government Web Docs
There’s a major undertaking afoot, one that has brought together numerous agencies and volunteers in a race against the proverbial clock. Entire teams of librarians are working tirelessly to harvest information from government websites and store it in archives before it can be deleted following the inauguration of the... Read more
Turkey Blocks Tor Network
Turkey has begun blocking direct access to the Tor anonymous browsing network as part of a continuous wide ranging assault on people within the country who attempt to bypass the government’s draconian internet censorship. The watchdog group Turkey Blocks has confirmed that Turkey is blocking the Tor anonymity network’s direct access mode for most... Read more
New Windows Update Interrupts Users Internet
As the days have rolled by, news has emerged that a recent Windows software update has been causing internet connectivity problems for Windows devices across the world. While the news seems to so far have been most widely reported in the U.K., and Europe, the problem seems to having... Read more
Google Engages With Cuba In Internet Deal
Google has signed an agreement with the Cuban government giving the small communist-governed island faster internet access. As part of the new deal, Google will install its own servers in Cuba to vastly improve connection speeds to both Google services such as Gmail and YouTube, but also the internet... Read more