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Concerned by the Privacy or Results of Google Search? Try These Other Search Engines
Google is big. Google Search generated $225 billion in revenue in 2022, thanks in part to being the default search engine on all Apple devices. To retain that position—and continue to reap the ad revenue that it generates—Google pays Apple about $18 billion every year. Along with Apple, Google pays billions to phone manufacturers like Samsung, LG, and Motorola; major wireless carriers such as A... Read more -
Improve Privacy by Removing Metadata from Office Documents and PDFs
When we share data with others, we do so intentionally—a law firm sending a client legal documents, for instance. But those documents shouldn’t include ancillary information that might reveal other, more sensitive details. Because all digital files contain metadata—additional information about the file or its contents—it’s worth knowing what you could share inadvertently and learning how... Read more -
A Practical Guide to Identifying Phishing Emails
Phishing is becoming an ever more common way for people to get in trouble when using the Internet. A phishing attack is some communication, usually an email, that tries to lure you into revealing login credentials, financial information, or other confidential details. A Read more -
LastPass Security Breach: Here’s What to Do
Password management company LastPass has announced that it suffered a security breach in which attackers stole both encrypted customer account data (which is bad) and customer vaults containing encrypted usernames and passwords (which is much, much worse). On the positive side, the... Read more -
If Your Holiday Gift Was a Tech Device, It’s Time to Change the Password!
Whatever consumer electronics product you can name, there’s probably a “smart” version that you configure via an app or Internet-connected interface once you’ve connected it to your Wi-Fi network. For ease of setup and to keep costs down, many such devices come pre-configured with not just a default username and password, but the same default username and password as all other units. Tha... Read more -
Protect Your Hidden and Recently Deleted Albums in Photos
Photos has long provided a hidden album you could use to hold images you wanted to keep a little more private. Until this year, however, it was security through obscurity: anyone who knew to reveal the album in Settings > Photos on an iPhone or iPad or by choosing View > Show Hidden Album on the Mac coul... Read more -
Apple Works to Improve Safety in the Wake of AirTag Stalking Reports
Over the past few months, there has been a spate of media reports about how people may have been tracked without their knowledge using AirTags, Apple’s elegant location trackers. Like many mainstream media forays into the tech world, the reports are often short on detail and sometimes unclear on the reality of how the AirTags work. Nor is it clear that there have been many successful cases of A... Read more -
AirTag Basics and How to Protect Yourself from Stalking
Apple’s new AirTag tracking device is an amazing bit of technology—it’s an elegant disc about the size of a stack of four US quarters that communicates its location with other Apple devices using Bluetooth and Ultra Wideband. Pair an AirTag with your iPhone and put it in your laptop bag, and from then on, you can use the... Read more -
What Is This “App Tracking Transparency” Apple Added to iOS 14.5?
You’ve likely seen mention of the dispute between Apple and Facebook. It revolves around App Tracking Transparency (ATT), a technology Apple released in iOS 14.5. The goal of ATT is to give iPhone and iPad users more control over the extent to which app makers can track their data and activities across apps and websites owned by other companies. Before App Tracking Transparency, nothing prev... Read more