BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) for consumers is shutting down for good on May 31st. When Indonesia-based media conglomerate Emtek took over its development in 2016, it redesigned the app with modern features in hopes that it can better compete with more popular chat applications these days. Unfortunately, its efforts failed to drum up enough interest in the new BBM.
Part of Emtek's statement reads:
"We poured our hearts into making this a reality, and we are proud of what we have built to date.
The technology industry however, is very fluid, and in spite of our substantial efforts, users have moved on to other platforms, while new users proved difficult to sign on."
According to CrackBerry, one of the reasons why Emtek's BBM failed was because it became a bit too bloated with games, channels and ads -- extra features the enterprise version doesn't have. Now, to make up for the consumer version's shutdown, BlackBerry is making its enterprise-grade encrypted Messenger (BBMe) available for personal use.
BBMe is now available for Android devices, including the BlackBerry KEY2 Red Edition, through the Google Play Store. It will also land on Apple's App Store "soon." The application is free for the first year and will set users back $2.49 for a six-month subscription afterward -- it remains to be seen whether people will find it good enough to pay for when they have a plethora of messaging apps to choose from.
YouTube has become a ubiquitous part of our online world, one where privacy is an issue. Your video-watching habits may be open for the world to see, along with your likes, dislikes, and more. If you create and upload videos, you could accidentally give away private information like your address or phone number.
Here’s how to protect your privacy as much as possible when using the popular video site. Instructions are here for using YouTube on the web and via a mobile app; I used the mobile app on an iPhone, but the Android version should work about the same.
Hide your video preferences
Start off by controlling two of your most important privacy settings: your watching habits and likes.
On the web
Go to your YouTube homepage. Click on your avatar icon and select “Settings” then “Privacy.”
The screen shows whether your liked videos, your subscriptions, and your saved playlists can be seen by the world or only by you.
Check the box next to each category you’d like to keep private, then click “Save.”
On your mobile device
On the YouTube app, tap on your avatar icon in the top right corner of the window.
Select “My channel.”
Tap on the gear icon to the right of your name.
Under the subhead “Privacy,” you’ll be able to toggle on and off the ability to keep your liked videos, subscriptions, or saved playlists private.
Turn off or customize ad personalization
Google keeps track of the YouTube videos you watch, and it uses that information to deliver personalized ads. But if you don’t want your ad preferences tracked, you can turn it off. If you don’t mind personalized ads but still want some control over your privacy, you can delete some of the information Google has about your interests (for example, your taste in music).
On the web
Select “Settings” > “Privacy” and then click the Google Ads Settings link in the “Ads based on my interest” section of the page.
To turn off personalization, move the slider in the “Ad personalization” section to “Off.” (Note that this also turns it off for other Google services, such as search.)
If you want to tweak your ad settings instead, scroll down to the “How your ads are personalized” section of the page. Enjoy how much Google thinks it knows about you, then click one or more interests that are either wrong or that you simply don’t want Google to know about.
On the screen that appears, click “Turn off.”
You won’t be able to turn off the info about your age and gender, however. Click either and a screen appears with an “Update” option that lets you change the gender (to either male, female, or “rather not say”) or age. However, you can’t delete them.
Using the mobile YouTube app
In the YouTube app, tap “Library” (on the bottom of the screen) then “History.” Then tap the three-button menu and choose “History controls.”
Tap “Manage all activity,” and from the screen that appears, tap the three-button menu to the right of the Search field, and select “Other Google activity.”
Scroll down to the “Google Ads Settings” section and tap “Manage Ads Settings.” You’ll come to a page that lets you turn off or edit ad personalization as described previously.
Delete your watch and search history
When you’re signed into your Google account, YouTube keeps track of the videos you’ve viewed and your search history. You can delete any individual video, search, or all of them.
On the web
Go to your YouTube homepage and click “History” on the left-hand menu. You’ll see a list of all of the YouTube videos you’ve watched.
Hover your mouse over any video you want to delete from your history, and click the X that appears to delete it.
To delete every single video, click “Clear All Watch History” from the right side of the page.
To stop YouTube from remembering your videos, click “Pause Watch History” on the right side of the page.
To do the same for your search history, select “Search history” on the right side of the page. Click the X next to any search to delete it, and click “Clear All Search History” to delete all searches. Click “Pause Search History” to pause searches.
Using the mobile YouTube app
Using the YouTube app, tap the Library icon on the lower right of the screen, then tap “History.” You’ll see a list of all the videos you’ve watched when signed into Google.
Tap the three-button menu next to any video you want to delete, then tap “Remove from Watch history” to delete it.
Tap the three-button menu on the upper-right of the screen and tap “History Controls.” Tap “Clear watch history” to remove all videos from your history, and “Clear search history” to remove all searches.
To stop YouTube from remembering your videos, move the slider next to “Pause watch history” to on, and to stop YouTube from remembering your searches, move the slider next to “Pause search history” to on.
Control the privacy of your own videos
If you post videos to YouTube, there’s a lot to worry about: notably, privacy-invading content in your videos. Make sure you don’t inadvertently include any information or pictures you don’t want made public, such as the number on your house or your car’s license plate. Pay close attention to backgrounds because that’s where personal images might slip through.
After taking care of that, do the following if you want only certain people, and not the public at large, to see your videos.
On the web
Go to your Creator Studio uploads page. Note that the Creator Studio (where YouTube videos are uploaded) has been updated recently; these instructions are for the most recent version.
Look for the column called “Visibility” and hover your mouse in that column for the video whose privacy you want to control.
Click on the drop-down arrow and choose either “Private” or “Unlisted.” A private video can’t be seen by anyone unless you share the URL with them. It won’t show up in searches, be posted on your channel, or appear in your feed, and it can’t be shared by others, show up in a channel section, or be commented on. An unlisted video won’t show up in searches, be posted to your channel, or show up in a subscriber feed, but it can be shared and commented on by others, and it will show up in a channel section.
To share a private or unlisted video, hover your mouse to the right of its description, click the three-button menu to the left of the Visibility column, then select “Get shareable link.” That copies the link to your clipboard; you can now use it to send the link through email, messaging, or however you like.
When uploading videos in the future, if you don’t want them to be public, choose either “Private” or “Unlisted” from the dialog box that appears when you upload.
Using the mobile YouTube app
Tap on your avatar icon in the upper right corner of the home screen and select “My channel.”
You’ll come to a page that has your uploads, playlists, liked videos, saved playlists, and subscriptions. Each of your uploads will have, to the right of the name, three vertical dots. Tap on that.
On the pop-up menu, tap on “Edit.”
This is where you can edit the title, description, tags, location, and privacy of your video. Tap on “Privacy.” You can then select “Public,” “Unlisted,” or “Private.”
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Most of us have way more usernames and passwords than we can remember. Thankfully, our browsers can store these for us, but using single sign-on is even more convenient, as it avoids creating credentials for each and every site we visit. The most popular one around is Google's solution, which lets you use your Gmail username and password to connect to any website that supports it. However, as the solution is widely used, some malicious sites embed login pages which can capture the user's credentials and even their 2FA token. To protect users from such attacks, Google is now blocking sign-in attempts from embedded pages.
This phishing attack is known as MITM (Man in the middle), where the actual login page is embedded inside another one that acts as a relay. What this means it the first one can not only capture your username and password, but get access to your authentication token even if you used two-factor authentication to log in. From there on, the attacker will be able to copy your cookies and impersonate you.
Unlike more traditional malicious sites, this method doesn't try to replicate the authentication page, but instead uses the actual one and acts as a proxy to capture the exchanged data packets, which makes it much harder to spot. The safest way to know if you're on the actual sign-in page is by looking at URL you're on, and not the green lock icon, which merely indicates whether the site uses an SSL connection. Because embedded pages do not display the web address, Google is now preventing users from logging into its service from embedded pages.
While this makes the process more secure for Gmail users, bear in mind the phishing process can be used with any site, so you should always check the address before entering your credentials. For example, a site could impersonate Outlook's login page using a similar-looking URL like 0utlook.com (the first character being a zero instead of an O), so it's essential to pay close attention to the address bar when signing in, even if you're using 2FA.
Embedded browsers within apps can be useful if you want to use an existing account from another service -- say, your Gmail log-in -- to access their features. However, they're also really easy to weaponize for man-in-the-middle types of phishing attacks. Since Google can't differentiate between a legitimate log-in and a phishing attempt through a browser from within an application, it's blocking sign-ins from all embedded browser frameworks starting in June.
Bad actors can exploit embedded browsers, such as Chromium Embedded Framework, by intercepting communications between the user and providers like Google. The method gives them a way to steal log-in credentials, sometimes even multi-factor authentication details, in real time. Google has been implementing more security measures around log-ins in recent months in an effort to protect users' details. In late 2018, for instance, it launched a risk-assessment feature that requires JavaScript to be able to sign into your account.
In the near future, you'll find yourself getting switched to Chrome, Safari, Firefox or other mobile browsers when you have to sign in to access an application. The tech giant is advising developers to switch to browser-based OAuth authentication, which shows the URL of the page you're on and could, in turn, help you avoid phishing attacks.
This photo of an egg published on the social network Instagram via the account 'world_record_egg' became, over ten days, the most liked photo in the world with more than 33 million 'likes', which makes it the the most 'liked' image in the history of the social network.
Chesnot via Getty Images
Everyone has their own opinion about what specifically is wrong with social media, but the currency of likes is a commonly-cited issue. The latest grab bag of Instagram test features dug up by Jane Manchun Wong includes a version that doesn't let the audience see how many likes a post gets. The person who posted it still does, but as the app describes it, "We want your followers to focus on what you share, not how many likes your posts get. During this test, only the person who share a post will see the total number of likes it gets."
Maybe that would help spread out the love on social media instead of people simply liking what others like, or maybe it wouldn't have much of an impact at all. Instagram confirmed to TechCrunch that it's an internal test the public can't see -- yet. It also didn't hide follower counts, which more commonly measure one's popularity, nor did it appear to impact the way posts are ranked by Instagram's inescapable algorithmic feed. Still, at least we'd never have to hear about the 'most-liked post ever' ever again (even it was ultimately for a good cause).
Instagram is testing hiding like count from audiences,
as stated in the app: "We want your followers to focus on what you share, not how many likes your posts get" pic.twitter.com/MN7woHowVN
Will Smith, his wife Jada Smith, and his son Jaden Smith today visited Apple Park to discuss the environment and Jaden's Just Water company, according to a tweet Apple CEO Tim Cook shared on Twitter this evening.
Just Water is a water company that sells ethically sourced spring water in paper-based bottles with sugarcane caps, all of which is more environmentally friendly than a standard plastic bottle. In addition to plain spring water, Just Water also offers infused flavors like lemon, tangerine, and apple cinnamon.
Everyone deserves access to quality water. Thanks for the leading the charge, @officialjaden, and for sharing your passion for the environment with us today at Apple Park. Your enthusiasm is contagious! 🌎 pic.twitter.com/2juv8zxMWT
The Smiths were at Apple Park ahead of Earth Day, which takes place on Monday, April 22. Apple today also released its annual environmental report and launched its Material Recovery Lab in Austin, Texas.
In celebration of Earth Day, Apple plans to host environment-themed Today at Apple sessions at its Apple retail stores. The company will also feature original stories and app collections in the App Store and will host an Earth Day Apple Watch challenge.
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