Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts tagged as “Internet”

Facebook Gives ‘Social Fixer’ Ultimatum

By Christine Hall on October 7, 2013 |

Browsers, Business, Internet, News and

Facebook Gives ‘Social Fixer’ UltimatumSocial Fixer graphic

Things aren’t going well for Matt Kruse, the developer of the über-popular Social Fixer browser extension which gives users control over how their Facebook pages and news feeds appear to them. It works within the browser and doesn’t affect the experience of anyone on Facebook other than the user. With it, status updates can be tabbed, items can be filtered, and it allows hiding or blocking sponsored stories and other advertising that runs through the news feed.

The last we heard, about three weeks ago, Zuckerberg’s people had taken down Social Fixer‘s popular Facebook page, a place for users to testify for the app and seek help and for Mr. Kruse to make announcements about updates and so forth. FB was claiming it removed the page due to reports of spamming, but was offering no way for him to plead his case.

Continue readingFacebook Gives ‘Social Fixer’ Ultimatum
Google Disses Flash, DRM Comes to HTML & More…Ex-Microsoft privacy chief Casper Bowden

Google Disses Flash, DRM Comes to HTML & More…

By FOSS Force on October 4, 2013 |

Browsers, Business, Copyright, Hardware, Internet, Media, Mobile and News

FOSS Week in Review

Google wants to do away with Flash?

The day after our own Christine Hall expressed the opinion that Adobe’s Flash “isn’t going to go away anytime soon,” mainly because the Google ad business is hooked on it, we find that the Mountain View company might very well be trying to push Flash out the door. On Tuesday, CNET reported that Google has released a free beta of Google Web Designer, a tool for building animated HTML 5 ads.

Continue readingGoogle Disses Flash, DRM Comes to HTML & More…

Why Not ‘Click to Play’ Flash?

By Christine Hall on September 30, 2013 |

Browsers, Business, Internet and Media

Last week we learned that in the near future, browser plugins won’t automatically work out of the box in Chrome and Firefox. Instead of running automatically whenever a website calls for a plugin function, they’ll be “click to play,” meaning the user will have to give permission for the plugin to run with each instance. According to Google and Mozilla, this new rule will apply to each and every browser plugin in existence on the entire planet, save one. Flash will still run automatically, requiring no prompt from the user. With Flash, it’ll be business as usual.

This has the look and smell of a business play all the way through, although that might not be immediately evident when reading what ad giant Google and open source Mozilla have to say. At first glance, their reasoning makes sense. Flash is just too darn ubiquitous. It’s everywhere; buried in everything. Including Flash in “click to play” would put too much of a burden on the user.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingWhy Not ‘Click to Play’ Flash?
Torvald’s Diplomacy, Elop’s Riches & More…Microsoft's STEPHEN ELOP

Torvald’s Diplomacy, Elop’s Riches & More…

By FOSS Force on September 27, 2013 |

Business, Humor, Mobile, News, Politics and Security

FOSS Week in Review

Redmond Ups the Ante on Its Buyback Program

No sooner had we told you last Friday of Microsoft’s offer to buy certain “gently used” iPads for up to $200 in credit vouchers, good at your friendly neighborhood Microsoft store, than they went and upped the ante. What they’ve done is something of a reverse interpretation of a line from the old Proctor and Bergman comedy album from the early 70’s, TV or Not TV. To paraphrase, “What was once two hundred is now three hundred fifty.”

Yup. You heard us right. On Friday your old iPad was worth two hundred smackers to the Microsoft folk–which had to be taken in store credit. By Sunday morning, it was three fifty as cash loaded on a Visa card. Talk about inflation. Not only that, Redmond’s buyback offer now extends beyond a limited range of iPads to include many more devices. Now they’ll take Android devices, both phones and tablets, from Samsung, Lenovo and others, as well as iPhones and iPads. We understand they’re even offering to buyback BlackBerrys.

Continue readingTorvald’s Diplomacy, Elop’s Riches & More…
The Death of the Browser Plugin is a Good ThingFirefox logo

The Death of the Browser Plugin is a Good Thing

By Christine Hall on September 25, 2013 |

Browsers, Internet and Web Apps

Oddly, the death of the browser plugin started with Microsoft. Now, the other two major players in the browser game seem to be in the process of saying goodbye as well, although it’ll be a long goodbye evidently.

Everybody’s reporting on this. Earlier this week we heard that Google is in the process of doing away with the NPAPI architecture, a Netscape relic. They’re not throwing it out the window just yet; they’re just making it a damn nuisance to use. Brad Chacos at PCWorld put it this way:

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingThe Death of the Browser Plugin is a Good Thing
When a WordPress Update Goes AwryWordPress logo

When a WordPress Update Goes Awry

By Christine Hall on September 25, 2013 |

Business, Tutorial and Web Apps

I guess this is something of a cautionary tale.

The weekend before last we decided that it was time to update the WordPress installations on two of our five sites. Both sites had been using version 3.4.2 which was now a year old. Days earlier, WordPress had released 3.6.1, urging all users to update due to some serious security issues. Although it wasn’t clear that this affected the version we were using, we decided to go ahead and update. It was time.

WordPress logoThat Friday night, in the wee hours of Saturday morning actually, I upgraded If This Be Treason, our less trafficked site. I began by checking all of the plugins to make sure they were good-to-go with WordPress’ latest and greatest and then updated all that had newer versions available. Except for one, all of the plugins used by that site indicated they worked with at least 3.6.0, which was good enough I figured, since 3.6.1 was only days old and was primarily a bugfix and security release, otherwise no different than the earlier point version.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingWhen a WordPress Update Goes Awry
Redmond’s Used iPads, Spy Wars Escalate & More…

Redmond’s Used iPads, Spy Wars Escalate & More…

By FOSS Force on September 20, 2013 |

Business, Hardware, Internet, News, Politics, and Software

FOSS Week in Review

Court rules on Facebook privacy

If an employee makes a post on Facebook using a privacy setting that excludes the boss from seeing it, that post is off limits to the employer. Unless, that is, the poster has a turncoat friend who willingly supplies the post to the employer with no prodding to do so. That’s evidently the gist of a ruling handed down in August, as reported by PCWorld on Sunday.

The case involved Deborah Ehling, who was suspended by Monmouth-Ocean Hospital Service Corp. (MONOC) after she posted on Facebook in June of 2009 a response to news that a white supremacist had opened fire and killed a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

Continue readingRedmond’s Used iPads, Spy Wars Escalate & More…
Facebook Permanately Deletes Social Fixer’s PageSocial Fixer's Matt Kruse

Facebook Permanately Deletes Social Fixer’s Page

By Christine Hall on September 12, 2013 |

Browsers, Internet, News and

More bad news for Matt Kruse, the developer of the popular Social Fixer plugin that gives users some control on how their Facebook displays on their computer, as well as giving them some special features.

I told you on September 3rd that the plugin’s Facebook page had been removed without warning. At that time, Mr. Kruse was in the process of “appealing” Facebook’s decision–if that’s the proper word. While the social site did offer-up a button to click to request that Facebook reconsider their opinion, that was it. No text box to plead one’s case was offered.

As of yesterday, the page has been completely removed for violating “community standards.”

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingFacebook Permanately Deletes Social Fixer’s Page
And the Best FOSS or Linux Blog Is…FOSS Force Best Blog--2013 Award

And the Best FOSS or Linux Blog Is…

By FOSS Force on August 26, 2013 |

Internet, Media and Polls

In this competition there’s a winner but no losers.

Although only one site gets to call themselves the “FOSS Force Best FOSS or Linux Blog–2013” winner, in reality everybody in the competition has won.

Today we are announcing the winner from a field of ten great blogs, all of which have already won our elimination round. Before that there were 19 truly great blogs in our competition, nine of which had been chosen by visitors to our site, the other ten being hand-picked by us here at FOSS Force as a way of getting things going. They are all winners just by dint of being in the running.

Continue readingAnd the Best FOSS or Linux Blog Is…
Latest Articles