20 April 2021 | How Does it Work?, Networking, Video |
When it comes to privacy on the internet, the new word on the street is ‘FLoC’.
Led by Google, a group of businesses and advertisers is pushing a new standard that would have your browser identifying your particular group of interests by a unique ID number.
This number will be sent to all sites you visit. VOILA! No more 3rd party cookies, and supposedly more privacy!
Of course, there’s the marketing mumbo jumbo and then there’s the reality of the situation.
So: What is FLoC? How does it work? And most importantly: Will it improve your privacy??
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3 September 2019 | Do-It-Yourself, Networking, Video |
So you’ve read all the studies about our Wireless Wonderland, and you’d like to go wired.
But where to even start?
It turns out that wiring up your house or apartment with ethernet cables and switches is WAAAAY easier than most people think.
It’s literally a plug-n-play kind of thing.
There are a few things to keep in mind though before purchasing gigabit ethernet switches and Cat 7 ethernet cable…
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2 April 2019 | Computers, Gizmos, How Does it Work?, Networking, Video |
These days, WiFi is everywhere. Even your washing machine probably has it. 😉
I typically don’t recommend using WiFi due to the huge amount of evidence indicating that it’s probably not the best thing for your health.
But there’s another reason to go back to cables…
WiFi is quite often WAAAY slower than most people think. In fact, it’s very rare that you will get anywhere near the maximum speeds advertised when you buy a WiFi access point or router.
What to do, what to do?
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26 March 2019 | Computers, Networking |
In May 2018, I posted this article: Speed up your browsing with CloudFlare’s public DNS
In that post, I recommended CloudFlare’s DNS, 1.1.1.1. At the time, it was quite fast, and worked perfectly.
Fast forward to today, and I’m afraid that’s no longer the case.
If you switched to CloudFlare’s DNS and you’ve noticed that things like paying via PayPal have become almost useless, read on!
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19 March 2019 | How Does it Work?, Networking, Video |
Ah, the internet… It’s big. Really, really BIG.
We don’t often think about these things, but just how much storage space is needed for the internet to go?
What kind of power is needed to make Google googley?
How on earth does YouTube store and process all that crazy video data?
Join Cletus and me for a look at some fun facts and statistics about YouTube, Google, and the internet as a whole!
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5 March 2019 | Computers, How Does it Work?, Networking, Video |
We hear a lot of about “THEY”. Big data violates our privacy, new potentially dangerous tech like 5G is pushed by “them”, and so on.
But just who is this “they“, anyway?
It turns out, the answer is: It’s complicated!
The best place to look is the big data/spying nonsense. The real history of the internet gives a pretty good idea of just how it all works.
When you lump greedy CEOs together with power-hungry (and often paranoid) politicians, and then toss in some Tech Evangelists for good measure, you get exactly what we have today…
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9 October 2018 | Computers, How Does it Work?, Networking, Video |
Way back in 1995, I was a freshman at university. I had this new thing called “The Internet” at my fingertips.
It was cool, but I wanted to know how it worked. I asked someone, and they wouldn’t answer the question – mostly because they couldn’t answer!
Today, everyone knows and uses the internet, but people keep asking me questions about the basic concepts that make it go.
So, I figured it was about time to give a basic intro to how the internet actually works, including a simplified discussion of networks, IP addresses, ports, protocols, DNS, bandwidth, latency, and more!
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18 September 2018 | Computers, How Does it Work?, Networking |
I recently finished reading the book Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet.
Now, I’ve known for awhile that the world of high-tech – and especially the internet – doesn’t quite work the way everyone thinks it does.
We worship tech billionaires as if they’re the Second Coming, praising them for their ingenuity and standing in awe of their sheer genius.
The reality, on the other hand, is a bit more mundane.
Pretty much all the big players in the internet/tech world got where they are with a little help. And by “a little help”, I mean A LOT…
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15 May 2018 | Computers, Networking |
Back on April 1st of this year, CloudFlare announced a new public DNS resolver service.
But in this case, it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke at all: the new 1.1.1.1 DNS service is very real and very fast!
Well, that’s nice, but what the heck does DNS do?
And how is it gonna make your web browsing speedier?
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27 November 2017 | Computers |
Firefox 57 – also known as Firefox Quantum – was released recently, bringing all the glorious new performance improvements to the world.
Well, that’s nice, especially if you pronounce “Firefox Quantum” in a Mr. Moviefone voice… BUT…
The new version of Firefox also includes a “better” tab bar, which is supposed to be better than the old one.
There’s a problem: by default, it kind of sucks.
There are also a few other (annoying) changes.
Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to fix most of these problems…
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When it comes to privacy on the internet, the new word on the street is ‘FLoC’.
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