Several hundred bug fixes and enhancements, along with a few new features related to media, were collectively made available earlier this week in the form of WordPress 4.8.
The new version doesn’t include any fixes specifically related to security, so there’s no great urgency to upgrade your web sites. Since this is a major release, most sites will not automatically update themselves.
With thirty security fixes in Chrome 59.0.3071.86, I would expect Google to emphasize the need for users to update as soon as possible. Instead, the release announcement says “This will roll out over the coming days/weeks.” Presumably Google feels that the fixed security issues are too obscure to represent any imminent threat.
To be fair, personal experience has shown that Chrome is great at detecting updates, often very soon after they become available. Visiting the About page is usually enough to trigger an update. Click the three-vertical-dots menu button, then choose Help > About.
If you have several hours to kill, you might want to check out the change log for Chrome 59.0.3071.86, which by my count contains 10,911 entries.
Google is giving web advertisers until the end of the year to comply with the standards set by the Coalition for Better Ads, after which a new ad-blocker in Chrome will start blocking non-compliant ads.
This raises some interesting questions.
Google is the biggest provider of advertising services on the web. Will Google block ads from its own platform if they don’t meet the new standards? That scenario, while interesting to ponder, is unlikely to occur, since Google’s ad creation tools will presumably prevent it.
If Google’s ads are unlikely to be blocked, won’t this be viewed as anti-competitive behaviour by other advertisers? Google will point to the independent standards set up by the CBA, but will that be enough? Less-reputable advertising providers — those allowing the sorts of ads Google wants to block — stand to lose significant revenue. These days it doesn’t take much to trigger a lawsuit, and Google is a favourite target for litigation, because it has enormously deep pockets.
From the user perspective, Chrome’s new ad blocker will be purely beneficial. Opera already has a built-in ad blocker, and it’s likely that the other major browser makers are working on similar features. But there are weird times ahead for Google.
If you’re on the Windows Insider program — the one that gets you early looks at where Windows 10 is heading — you may have noticed some unusual updates in the last day or so.
First, a new development version of Windows 10 was rolled out to some unlucky users. This version was not intended for users, even those on the Insider Preview program. Microsoft caught the error and stopped the update, but if your computer was affected, you may notice some new “issues that impact usability of your PC.” You can roll back to the previous release, or live with any new issues until the next release.
Second, a development version of the mobile variant of Windows 10 was pushed out, again unintentionally. If your mobile device received this unfortunate update, it’s probably no longer usable. Microsoft recommends using their Windows Device Recovery Tool to fix the problem.
Microsoft wants us all to trust them to install updates whenever they want, but mistakes like these are not helping.
I’ve tried other search services, but I always end up back at Google, because the search results are consistently better. Google does collect information about its users, and uses that information to target advertising. Google also looks at the content of GMail messages for the same reason. If that bothers you, there are ways to prevent it, or you can stop using Google’s products and services.
That said, in all my years of using Google’s services, I’ve never encountered anything that made me want to stop using them. Google does occasionally annoy me by dropping services like Reader, and Google’s advertising is ridiculously overpriced, but on balance the company provides far more benefit than any potential harm.
For example, Google spends enormous amounts of time and resources on making the web safer for everyone. Much of that effort goes unheralded, but occasionally we catch glimpses in the form of blog posts, like this one, describing recent improvements to GMail security. Compare that with Yahoo’s recent track record, which clearly shows that user security and privacy are not a priority at that company.
There’s another small update for Opera. Version 45.0.2552.888 addresses a few minor issues in the installer and user interface. Details are in the change log. None of the changes impact security.
A new version of Opera fixes a sidebar crashing issue and tweaks a few display settings. There are no security changes in this version. See the announcement and change log for details.
Hot on the heels of Joomla 3.7.1, here’s 3.7.2. This version fixes a few bugs that were introduced in Joomla 3.7.1 and includes a few other minor tweaks. None of the changes are security-related.
An Opera release somehow got past my “infallible” system for not missing anything important. Back to the drawing board I guess.
The Opera users among you probably noticed the browser having trouble disengaging itself from the Windows taskbar lately. Opera 45.0.2552.812, released on May 15, finally fixes this annoying issue. A handful of other minor bugs are addressed in the new version. None of the fixes are related to security.
Released on May 19, Firefox 53.0.3 fixes a couple of obscure bugs, neither related to security.
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