Hasta La Gadget!

You know the drill: accept the cookie, delete the cookie, empty the cookie bin, and so on. Mostly, it’s an exercise used when attempting to get your mum’s PC to run a wee bit faster, but if you think about it, the cookie is one of the most archaic pieces of the world wide web that’s still in use today. Naturally, Google is swooping in in a bid to change the status quo, according to a new report from USA Today.

Essentially, the search giant is building an “anonymous identifier for advertising, or AdID, that would replace third-party cookies as the way advertisers track people’s internet browsing activity for marketing purposes.” Perhaps astoundingly, it sounds as if the project could benefit both consumers (by shielding true identities) and advertisers at the same time. Of course, pundits are concerned about the global leader in online advertising controlling the technology that tracks movements on the web, but to us, it sounds as if end users will get far more power over who sees what when compared to today’s cookies.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Via: Slashgear

Source: USA Today

While the non-final build of Opera’s new browser for PC and Mac was simply called “Next,” today it’s chosen the more formal title of Opera 15 for its official release. There aren’t any features of note that we hadn’t seen in the desktop preview of the WebKit-based software (or should we call it Blink-based?), but to jog your memory, it sports a fresh design, a Discover feature for catching up on the latest news and a tweaked Speed Dial menu for quick access to your favorite corners of the internet. Also, the web-clipping Stash feature, predictive address-cum-search bar, new download manager and “Off-Road mode” for extra compression on lousy connections are all included in the final version. We ran a quick SunSpider benchmark on the Mac build of Opera 15, in which it scored 167ms, compared with 171ms in Chrome. If you’re not already allied to one of the many competing browsers and feel like giving Opera 15 a try, head to the source below for the download links.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Internet, Software

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Via: SlashGear

Source: Opera (1) (download), (2)

Whether we like it or not, advertisements are a vital part of our Web browsing experience. It’s what enables us to read, watch or listen to most online content for free, like the website you’re on right now. But sometimes these ads can be intrusive or slow down your browsing experience. Hence the popularity of ad-blocking software like Adblock Plus. Now someone’s come up with a hardware equivalent of such software.

Invented by Chad Russell, the AdTrap is an open-source device that has a wider reach than any ad-blocking program. The AdTrap blocks online ads for all devices – from a desktop computer to a smartphone – in the same network. You simply plug the AdTrap in between your modem and your router, then reset your modem. Any and all ads should be gone when you’re back online.

Fortunately the AdTrap also has a whitelisting feature so you can instruct it to display ads on certain websites – *hint hint* –  or let certain ads through. You can actually do much more than that if you have the know how, because the AdTrap is designed to be hackable.

As of this writing a pledge of at least $99 (USD) on its Kickstarter fundraiser qualifies you for an AdTrap. If this device is successful, I’m guessing Russell and company are going to come out with a router (or a modem-router combo) with AdTrap built-in.

It’s true that surfing the web through public connections isn’t that safe. I still remember a crazy computer virus I got in Thailand that migrated from my compact flash card onto my home system. Cloak aims to improve network security by sending traffic through a VPN that encrypts all of your Internet traffic.

Cloak is easy to set up and currently only works for iOS devices and OSX computers. Android and Windows versions are coming along though. This app is to be used in unsecured networks, like at the airport, coffee shops, and while you’re traveling. It looks like something that’s worth using if you use public connections a lot.

Cloakis free for the first 2 hours per month or 1 GB, but after that you’ll need to sign up for a premium account, which cost between $8 and $15 per month depending on your data needs.

[via The Next Web]