The End Of The Vine…

Well that’s that then, it’s official, Twitter is Vinally ending its popular video looping app, Vine.

It was the Vinest of time, it was the worst of times…

Vine, which Twitter,  the social media company bought for a guesstimated $30 million in 2012 that plays 6 second loops in an endless loop, and that only officially launched in January 2013, is soon to be no more.

According to some sources, the ending of Vine has been on the cards for some time, but last Thursday, Twitter said as well as ending Vine as a going concern, it was also going to cut around 9% of its global workforce (around about 350 people) in an effort to reduce costs.

While not unexpected, the internet still seemed collectively saddened by the news. Twitter has for a while now been focusing more on Periscope and its live video streaming, and Vine has at times begun to becomes a somewhat anachronistic throwback despite only being a little under 4 years old. It is telling as well that none of the original co-founders are left at Twitter either, having all left since the original acquisition.

That said, Vine still has a sizeable active base. At the last count, the 6 second video loop still had around 200 million active users, despite signs that the numbers were starting to contract.

The hash-tag #RIPVine began trending on-line in the hours after the announcement, and still seemed to be going strong earlier today when I last checked.

But  it’s not like Vine has disappeared just yet.

Users still have time to download Vines and save for them for the sake of nostalgia or to post them somewhere else, and the Vine website is apparently not going anywhere any time soon, so people will still be able to view old Vines whenever they feel like it. It’s just Vine itself won’t be accepting any new ones.

As for alternatives, there’s always other apps, such as the aforementioned Periscope, and others such as Instagram, or Snapchat.

But in the meantime, find a quiet spot and for 6 seconds, reflect on the fact that Vine is now out of time.

Control Your Security & Privacy With Secure Browser

Despite all the hype and attention that surrounds the “Big Three” of internet browsers, there are far more options than the standard internet user may realize. Each of the lesser-known options has its best features and its selling points, but there may be no bigger factor in this current digital climate than privacy and security.

Secure Browser was built with complete privacy in mind, intent on making sure no one tracks the user’s history or can access it later. That’s why closing out the browser automatically deletes the browsing and search histories, the cookies, and more. It might be annoying to those who want to “autocomplete” their search terms based on what they have viewed in the past, but for those who recognize the potential for harm–especially those looking for a secure browser to protect proprietary information related to their work–this is a huge plus.

But that only prevents outsiders who’ve gained access to your computer or device from seeing what you’ve been up to. What about real-time protection? Secure Browser gives you the option to activate its tracking protection feature. Even the sites you visit won’t know you’ve been there.

One of the major security pitfalls is in the way users communicate online, which is why Secure Browser has addressed encryption. According to the company, Secure Browser lets you “encrypt your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure. Automatically switch thousands of sites from insecure ‘http’ to secure ‘https,’ protecting yourself at all times online. We have enabled HTTPS Everywhere produced by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in an easy to manage service.”

This browser also offers a “safe” mode for browsing, powered by Google, that alerts you to malicious code or harmful sites in real time. Google has made headlines lately for its web alerts that will inform users about the threat as they browse, and Secure Browser’s alert system is powered in the same way.

But all of this security and privacy is useless if the speed isn’t there. It’s all well and good to lock yourself in a tower, after all, but pointless in the end if you can’t climb down. Secure Browser has addressed the page load speed issue by targeting lag times at the source: advertising. The company estimates that as much of 60% of the time it takes for a page to load is related to ads, and its ad-blocking feature means you not only get pestered by annoying ads, you don’t get bogged down in them either. Of course, browser speed starts at the source, and Secure Browser was built on the Chromium rendering engine to ensure that your websites load efficiently and quickly.

   

Mobile Overtakes Desktop Web Browsing For First Time

According to data released by StatCounter for October, mobile devices were used more often for web browsing than traditional desktop machines.

The figures show that combined mobile and tablet devices accounted for 51.3 percent of worldwide web use compared to 48.7 percent via desktop.

OK, so there’s only a 2.6% difference overall, but the moment is a very significant one for the world-wide web overall, and it’s a trend that’s unlikely to find itself reversing any time soon.

It should also serve as a wake-up call to any business that hasn’t yet decided to focus on mobile first approaches to doing business in the cloud in the 21^st Century. Not only is mobile use going to become  increasingly more important as the amount of traffic it generates continues to grow, but Google itself now favours mobile-friendly websites for its mobile search results.

That said, StatCounter’s data also found some interesting demographical (wow, I honestly didn’t think ‘demographical’ would be an actual word!)  differences between different global regions. The ‘maturity’ of western based internet markets such as in the UK, the US, and Ireland still see a majority of web traffic being accessed from full blooded desktop machines. In the UK for example, desktop browsing accounted for 55.6% and 58% in the US. (Although the gap is decreasing)

It will come as no surprise that the emergent markets in the world such as India sees mobile web traffic account for 75% of all use as more users seek to use the internet in a cost effective manner.

Google originally identified, helped pioneer, and promote the original trend towards mobile browsing several years ago, and its ranking algorithms have shifted in recent times to favour mobile devices. since accelerated the shift with changes to its search favouring mobile.

Advanced Systemcare 10 Finally Out Of Beta

While everyone bemoans the slower-than-molasses lag time of an older computer and internet service providers boast about their industry-beating high-speed internet packages, too many tech users overlook one of the most common and easiest culprits in slow hardware: a clogged computer.

Advanced Systemcare is a one-click utility that rids your hard drive of the garbage you don’t need, freeing up disk space and generally keeping things running more smoothly. Now that version 10 is out of its previous public beta round and is ready for download, here are some of the updated features and old mainstays that you can rely on:

• Advance system optimization
• Privacy protection
• FaceID
• ‘Speed Up’ features
• Surfing Protection & Ads Removal
• Backup and restore
• Privacy Sweep

Some of the more interesting–and admittedly, cautious–features that have been incorporated in this version are involved in user security. In order to offer top-notch protection, the user does have to turn over access to a few key things, like the camera. FaceID is great for blocking unauthorized users from accessing your content, for example, but only if you’ve pre-loaded your own authorized image of your face and if you’ve given access to your camera to the application. At the same time, though, the enhanced browsing and ad blocking in the new version is aimed at keeping prying eyes out of your web-based business.

One of the things that initially made Advanced Systemcare’s previous versions popular with tech users is still in place, and that’s its ability to monitor RAM, CPU, and disk space in real time. Once this feature is enabled, users can see what tasks are chewing up space and processing speeds and either end them or work with them. A simple click provides a key look at where the holdup might be. Coupled with the ability to fully clean out any unnecessary programs, such as those that come packaged or bundled with drivers or updates, Advanced Systemcare works to ensure your hardware is up to speed.

Facebook Ad Blocker Blocking Sees Ad Revenue Jump 18%

Facebook has seen its desktop ad revenue grow by 18% compared to this time last year, and has said that bypassing ad blockers is the root reason for the increase in profits.

“On ad blocking, in terms of the impact I would just point out that this quarter we had 18 percent year-over-year desktop revenue growth. If you look at recent quarters, it was about half of that growth rate on a year-over-year basis. So, that increment, that acceleration in desktop revenue growth is largely due to our efforts on reducing the impact of ad blocking. So, that’s what led to the acceleration of desktop revenue growth.” said Facebook CFO, David Wehner.

Facebook currently makes around 85% of its revenue via mobile devices, but its use on desktop still managed to pull in an impressive billion dollars plus in the last quarter.

As we here at FileHippo reported back in August, Facebook went to some lengths to stop users with ad-blocking software from not displaying ads, making it tougher for ad-blocking software  such as AdBlock, to distinguish between ordinary posts, status updates and ads. The move showed just how seriously Facebook was and is  taking the rise of ad-blocking software, and also just  how fiercely it will fight s to protect its income streams.

Facebook of course doesn’t exactly struggle when it comes to making money from advertising. Between itself  and Google, the two companies control  an astonishing 64% of online digital advertising.

AdBlock Plus succeeded in initially circumventing the ban by Facebook, but Mark Zuckerberg’s social media titan quickly put paid to that bypassing, and has since managed to keep the ads flowing freely through people’s pages.

The position of Facebook is that advertising is how the company makes money, and that the ads themselves are unobtrusive and it is how they can offer the service for free. Critics, on the other hand argue that Facebook ads are still a distraction, and that ad blockers help people from being tracked on-line and alleviate privacy concerns.