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What is USPS Informed Delivery?
The US Post Office's Informed Delivery service can help you track what mail is coming your way
Even though much of the world is digital, we still get mail and packages. For some, it's exciting to get mail as you may get a card or money you weren't expecting. If you live in the US, the United States Postal Service (USPS) offers a service that shows you what mail and packages are expected now and in the coming days. This service is called Informed Delivery and can be accessed through any computer or Android smartphone.
Online shopping is a staple for many people in the modern age. There are plenty of purchases to be made, from simple household items to the newest phones like the Samsung Galaxy S23 or Google Pixel 7. With so many online orders, it can be difficult to keep track of every package. Not to mention the holiday season!
Best package tracking apps on Android in 2024
Look after your purchases with these handy package tracking apps
Online storefronts like Amazon are often the primary means of purchasing goods. While the best shopping apps can be generally reliable, it can still be nerve-racking to leave your possessions in the hands of strangers. Luckily, the Play Store provides plenty of awesome Android apps specifically designed for monitoring your goods in transit, keeping you informed of your package's location, all while centralizing your delivery information in a single place, even on the best Android phones. While the best budgeting apps are helpful for keeping your wallet secure, AP has rounded up the most useful package-tracking apps to help you stay on top of delivery times.
Latest Bluetooth vulnerability could leave your location exposed
Security researchers accurately identified phones based on their Bluetooth signals
Bluetooth has long been an everyday facet of our lives. It permeates all our devices from wireless mice and keyboards to our smart watches and speakers. Most of us don't worry about the security of Bluetooth, trusting its encryption to thwart potential attacks. But now researchers at the University of California San Diego have found a way to track a phone based on its Bluetooth signal.
Google says it's hanging on to cookies for a while longer
FLoC is now scheduled to replace tracking cookies by late 2023. Maybe.
It turns out that reinventing one of the cornerstones of the modern web is, um, hard. Google initially promised that it would stop using cookies to track users for advertising purposes in Chrome by early 2022 as part of the Privacy Sandbox initiative. So yeah, that's not happening: Google is now updating its target to "late 2023."
Google FLoC toggle is now appearing in early versions of Chrome — here's how to find it
The FLoC system is now being tested on users in the US and other countries
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Google's Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) is a part of its Privacy Sandbox, a new suite of tools aiming to replace and improve upon the conventional third-party cookie tracking that enables modern advertising on the web. The company has been working on it for more than a year, and this week it's set to start using the system on a small portion of Chrome users in the United States and other countries.
Nobody wants anything to do with Google's new tracking mechanism FLoC
Almost all browsers and privacy advocates slam the third-party cookie replacement
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Google is about to shake up the status quo on tracking with its newly proposed browser-based Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) tracking mechanism, which it introduced as a replacement for the outgoing third-party cookies the advertisement industry still heavily relies on. But many privacy advocates like the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and search engine DuckDuckGo think FLoC could turn out to be even worse and more invasive than third-party cookies, and most browser makers were fast to join in on that stance. Almost all of them have vowed or at least hinted that they won't support FLoC in their products, including those based on Google's open-source Chromium rendering engine also used in Chrome.
Google doubles down on its commitment to get rid of targeted tracking in Chrome
The company pinkie swears it won't use alternate methods of targeting users once third-party cookies are gone
Google's Privacy Sandbox is a program that aims to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome entirely over the next year, making the web a more secure and private place without completely destroying the way that targeted advertising works. And, you know, wrecking the business model for most of the web's free content, including the words you're reading now.
Google is considering Apple-like anti-tracking features for Android
A report says this is still in early internal talks
According to a report from Bloomberg, Google is exploring its own alternative to Apple's anti-tracking features to be introduced in an iOS 14 update. The company is in early internal talks on how it could limit data collection and cross-app tracking on its operating system, trying to balance its interests as an advertising company and users asking for more privacy.
Unfortunately, coronavirus is still alive and well, which means that tracking apps are still needed. An issue with apps developed using Google's Android Exposure Notifications System that was affecting tracking apps in several countries has thankfully been fixed, so COVID-19 tracking now works on Android devices again.
United States military has been purchasing user location data from apps with millions of downloads
Muslim Pro, Screen Stream Mirroring, and Global Storms are some of the affected apps
The lack of strong data protection across most of the world, combined with the need for free smartphone apps and services to create some amount of revenue, has often led to private user data being shared with third parties. This time around, several high-profile Android apps have been sending location data to data brokers, which in turn are selling them to defense contractors working for the US military.
Get fit with your phone: 15 great apps to help you work out from home (Update: More apps)
You can still keep fit and healthy while staying at home, without the need for any equipment
Ever since we've been asked to work from home, I've received a bunch of messages from my friends and coworkers asking me about home workout apps to stay fit. Instead of privately sharing my recommendations with them, I preferred to make them more widely available here. I've chosen ten apps from the Play Store that are highly-rated and can help most people continue to exercise while confined, including cardio, body weight, and high intensity training.
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- According to the latest information published this week on the Chromium blog, Google expects to meet the needs of web users (readers, advertisers, and content creators), as well as phase out third-party cookie support in just two years. In the interim, Google plans to limit unsecure cross-site tracking starting in February, followed by new anti-fingerprinting measures that will launch later this year.
There's a very delicate balance when it comes to targeted advertising and violating user privacy — some folks even think it isn't possible to have both at all — but Google would like to establish a new set of standards for browsers that can allow the former without too much concern about the latter. The company is calling this initiative "Privacy Sandbox," and the company hopes it might help prevent privacy-violating workarounds like so-called "fingerprinting."
If you ask my friends what I'm really into, they'll definitely mention fitness. As surprisingly as it sounds, this wasn't the case about ten years ago, until I decided I wanted to lose weight and start training more seriously. I've been able to achieve my goals and understand what I was doing thanks to a bunch of apps, and I wanted to share a some of them with you to help you get in shape or track your objectives in a way that matches your lifestyle.
Most browsers currently differentiate themselves from Chrome with a greater focus on user privacy, ranging from simple cookie blockers to blocking any resources that could remotely be used to identify you. If a report from The Wall Street Journal is to be believed, Chrome might implement its own tracking blocker — albeit one that wouldn't affect most of Google's own scripts and cookies.
It's been a tough year for Google in Europe, and it doesn't look to be getting any better. The Mountain View company was slapped with a record $5 billion antitrust fine by the EU Commission this summer, and now it could be in hot water once again due to its location and online activity tracking practices.
According to a report yesterday by Bloomberg, some Android apps may be using silent push notifications to track if and when you uninstall them, which is alleged to be a violation of both Apple and Google's policies. Ostensibly this is being done to target such users with advertisements designed to win the back, although the tracking providers claim this functionality is designed to gauge response to app updates and changes.
Mozilla has always been a strong advocate for internet privacy. More recently, Mozilla has been working on Firefox Focus, a simplified browser that blocks all trackers/cookies and erases browsing data after you close the app. Now the company wants to take privacy a step further, by blocking all tracking scripts by default on the main Firefox browser.
Securus Technologies is a Texas-based company, specializing in providing and monitoring calls to prison inmates. Securus came into the spotlight earlier this month, when a former Missouri sheriff was found using the company's service to repeatedly track people without a warrant. The New York Times reports that between 2014 and 2017, former sheriff Cory Hutcheson used the service at least 11 times, allegedly tracking a judge and members of the State Highway Patrol.
Unbeknownst to most users (myself included until recently), Android apps on current and previous versions of the OS get unrestricted access to your network activity. There's no permission for you to accidentally say okay to, it's just allowed for all. This means that any app can detect when another app is connecting to an external server, and while the content is not visible, even just the source of the connection could be used for a nefarious purpose.