John Lister

A third-party tool can help users get round some of Microsoft's restrictions on upgrading to Windows 11. It won't remove Microsoft nagging, however. Although Windows 11 is a free upgrade for Windows 10 users, three main restrictions mean some people ... may not be able to get it. The first is a series of hardware minimum specifications, with even some relatively recent computer processors judged inadequate by Microsoft. The second is the need for a Trusted Protection Module (TPM), a hardware device aimed at boosting security. Many computers either don't have a TPM or have it disabled by default, ... (view more)

Consumer groups claim Google acts unfairly in getting permission to use personal data. They say the sign-up process makes it far more time-consuming to exercise the right to limit data use. The complaints come from consumer groups in six European ... countries who have complained to national data regulators while warning they may also launch a civil court case. The European setting is key as data laws there say companies that rely on consent to make data handling lawful must make sure the decision to give consent is based on having a meaningful choice. Businesses aren't supposed to make both ... (view more)

Google has added an offline mode for Gmail. It lets users read, reply and even search through Gmail messages without being online. The mode will be familiar to users of a certain age, though it's mainly aimed at people in places where Internet ... connections are unreliable such as in some remote areas or developing nations. Though the offline mode might seem like wizardry, it's an extremely simple setup with some clear limitations. It uses some of the user's hard drive to store copies of messages that are normally only kept on Google's servers. The mode only works for users running the Chrome ... (view more)

Google says its messaging service Hangouts will close by November. Users who want to download past conversations may need to act sooner than that. Google Hangouts launched in 2013 and was designed to be a simple form of instant messaging that worked ... regardless of what operating system or platform the users were on. That simplicity was somewhat undermined by Google's chopping and changing as it developed various services. (Source: arstechnica.com ) Google originally had two messaging tools: Messenger as part of the ill-fated and Google+ Messenger social network, and Talk. It then merged ... (view more)

Facebook and Instagram's "Oversight Board" received more than a million complaints about content moderation in its first year. But it investigated fewer than 100 and made public rulings in just 20 cases. The board is made up of independent members ... who have industry expertise but aren't connected to Meta, the company which owns both Facebook and Instagram. It has the power to rule on content moderation decisions, with the sites having to follow its judgment. It can also make recommendations for policy changes. Of the 1.1 million appeals from users, most involved content moderation for bullying ... (view more)

Phones and tablets sold in Europe from 2024 may need to use USB-C charging ports in a blow to Apple. The rules could affect handsets around the world depending on how manufacturers respond. The rules would come through a European Union directive, ... which means all 27 EU countries would need to pass the measures into their national laws. Although the draft directive has been published, they won't take force until the European Parliament has voted to adopt them. The logic is that the rules would let users have a single charger for all small portable devices, including any new ones they buy. That' ... (view more)

Password manager LastPass will let users prove their identity with a biometric login rather than a master password. It could overcome one of the off-putting points for some users. Like most password managers, LastPass lets users store passwords for ... other websites in a secure vault that's encrypted in a way that means even LastPass itself can't access the information. It's protected with a master password that gives the service its name, the logic being it's the last password a user will ever need to remember. That does mean the master password needs a bit of a Goldilocks quality. It needs to ... (view more)

Three cyber security experts say proposals to scan user devices for illegal material will do more harm than good. They've condemned European proposals to deal with illegal collection of child abuse images. The argument is about "client-side ... scanning" which means looking for images or other material on a user's device, rather than waiting until the images are uploaded to the Internet. It's a controversial practice that Apple has previously explored. It appears to have dropped plans to scan iPhones to look for specific images that matched a database in which children were abused. Although Apple ... (view more)

The Supreme Court has blocked a Texas law that would have stopped social media companies from banning users based on political views. A 5-4 majority of judges said the law violated the First Amendment. In this case, the right to free speech in ... question is not that of individual users, but that of the social media companies. They had argued that they have the right to decide what content does and doesn't appear on their platforms. The verdict doesn't throw the law out. Instead, it means it cannot take effect until ongoing lawsuits about its measures have been resolved. Because it was an ... (view more)

Russia's government has reportedly spent $10 million bypassing its own bans on foreign websites. The country has blocked citizens from accessing more than 1,500 since invading Ukraine. The figures come from Top10VPN, a site that compares the ... features of virtual private networks. These are tools that let users access sites in a way sometimes compared to routing Internet traffic through a tunnel so that nobody can see who has connected to which site. VPNs can get round official blocks on accessing specific sites, particularly when they are policed by Internet providers following local laws. ... (view more)