TL;DR: Block ads on nine devices for life with an AdGuard Family Plan, only $15.97 (reg. $169.99) with code FAMPLAN. Ads are the internet equivalent of mosquitoes at a summer picnic. They’re annoying, follow you everywhere, and they literally suck. Pop-ups that try to get under your cursor, banners that block half your screen, and those unskippable video ads that plague YouTube… It sounds like you need a good ad blocker. AdGuard works on Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS devices, and you only have to pay once to block ads on nine of them for life. It works best on browsers, and verified reviewers confirm that it blocks ads on YouTube, which seems worth the price alone. But AdGuard doesn’t just block ads. It also protects you from trackers, activity analyzers, malware, and even shady phishing websites (these are the culprits behind ads that know what you were just shopping for). It also has parental controls, so you can keep your children safe from the wild west of the internet. Use code FAMPLAN by June 1 at 11:59 p.m. PT to get an AdGuard Lifetime Family Plan on sale for $15.97 (reg. $169.99 AdGuard Family Plan: Lifetime SubscriptionSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

Fibre cables connecting users to the internet are not worth anything, says provider after latest vandalism causes outage. Read...

The outage map on the Chorus website shows 24 identified internet outages, with indicative affected areas around those points. Read...

A VPN is a powerful tool to browse securely and protect your information. But the service will really only be safe when it is decentralized, and no data can be traced back to you. This is what makes NymVPN unique in the market. Where many other VPNs ask you to provide email address and pay by credit card, NymVPN does just the opposite, making you completely anonymous.  Behind NymVPN is Chelsea Manning, the whistleblower from WikiLeaks. This says a lot about their level of ambition. This is not a VPN that compromises. It is a service based on the privacy technology of the future, where no one – even Nym – knows who you are.  From $4.54/month (+5 months free!) How it works  Many traditional VPNs save logs centrally. This means that your activity can be linked to you if they are hacked, or if someone forces them to disclose information. NymVPN instead uses a mixnet, a decentralized network that mixes your traffic with others in a way that makes it impossible to track what any individual has done.  This technology is especially useful in times of increased surveillance and censorship, as it makes it harder for hackers, government agencies and companies to monitor or restrict your internet use.  Nym You also do not need to register with an email address. Instead, you get an anonymous access code that becomes your unique key to the service.  Unlike other VPNs, NymVPN is the first to make your payment information completely detached from your NymVPN account, so your online activity cannot be traced back to you.  When you pay for NymVPN, it happens completely anonymously. You use a credit card or cryptocurrency that is converted to an anonymized VPN access ticket. Thanks to these so-called zero-knowledge credentials, your online activity is never linked to your payment information, and therefore is never linked to your identity. In this way, your privacy is fully preserved.  From $4.54/month (+5 months free!) VPN for everyone  NymVPN offers the same convenience as other leading VPN services. A global network of fast servers makes it easy to stream movies and shows, play online and surf without interruption.  While other VPNs can collect data about you, even if they promise not to save it, NymVPN lacks the technical ability to collect anything at all. You can watch your favorite series without buffering, protect your IP and avoid geo-blocks, and at the same time be sure that no one logs your activity in the background. It gives you full freedom online without having to reveal a single bit of personal data.  Despite the advanced technology, NymVPN is designed for ease of use. You don’t have to juggle complex settings or technical details to get started. The installation is fast and smooth. The entire experience is optimized to allow you as a user to surf, stream and work online without having to worry about what you leave behind.  NymVPN is developed by an international team of cybersecurity, cryptographics and privacy experts. Among the key figures are Chelsea Manning, known for his work in exposing irregularities and defending the right to transparency and anonymity online. Other prominent names behind the service include Ben Laurie, a pioneer in secure web development, and Professor Bart Preneel from KU Leuven, a leading researcher in cryptographics and information security. Read...

Over 900 homes in Auckland`s North Shore had lost their internet connection, after a widespread network outage late on Thursday night. Read...

Digital technologies have given Australians greater access to wellbeing tools. Read...

About a week ago, I decided I would never buy another Ethernet cable, ever. If you’re like me, you have a box or drawer with dozens of cables. And while some cables have specific connections, like USB-C, my wired network (such as it is) is just a random collection of colored Ethernet cables with tiny little markings telling me what they can or can’t do. How much data can that cable transfer? I had no idea. And that’s bad. I had never really thought about which Ethernet cables were being run between my cable modem, router, Xbox, and desktop PC. But I had performed speed tests more than once, and worried that my network was running slower than usual. And I also knew the problem: my network would run only as fast as its slowest segment. If my Ethernet cables were transferring less data than my router or gateway, I was potentially wasting money. I didn’t need to spend time researching the fastest mesh router or the best Internet gateway. If my cables were ancient, my entire network would be bogged down by my slowest cable. If my ISP quietly increased the speed of my broadband connection, I might not see any benefit. And I had already found an old Cat5 cable hooked up to my Xbox, a standard which had been basically extinct for about two decades. Ew! A Cat5 cable may be good enough for your current router, but it might not be for long.Mark Hachman / Foundry About a week before my colleague Dominic Bayley published a helpful explainer on the differences between Ethernet cables, I researched the problem myself. Ethernet comes in different categories, all the way from the ancient Category 3 to the latest Category 8. So Category 8 is the latest and greatest? OK, fine. How much does a Category 8 cable cost? Basically nothing, as it turns out. I discovered I could buy a five-pack of color-coded, nylon-braided Category 8 Ethernet cables for $26.99 on Amazon. Broadband services are always getting faster. Cable modems are, too. But even the fastest cable modems and broadband plans offer just a few gigabits per second, while this Cat8 cable offers a whopping 40Gbits/s of speed. Owning color-coded, braided Ethernet cables for about the price of a nice lunch made me happy.Mark Hachman / Foundry For me, it was a no-brainer. I bought the cables from Amazon, quickly swapped out my existing cables for the new color-coded options, and resolved never to think about what Ethernet cable I owned ever again. Get a five-pack of color-coded, nylon-braided Cat8 Ethernet cables for $26.99Buy Now at Amazon Read...

As a PC gamer, you may have already seen some panic around the web regarding Steam—headlines saying 89 million Steam accounts hacked. But you shouldn’t panic. The reports stem from a post on the dark web, where an alleged hacker offered up supposed records from millions of Steam accounts, including one-time codes used for two-factor authentication (2FA). Sounds bad, right? Except when Twilio, the third-party service that powers the 2FA text message codes for Steam, was asked for comment, the company told BleepingComputer it had not found any evidence of a breach or leak. In the meanwhile, however, multiple outlets have published the original claim—as well as a follow-up from X/Twitter user Mellow_Online1, who says they were told by Valve no relationship exists between Steam and “Trillio.” (A possible typo, as Mellow_Online1 refers to Twilio in a follow-up post on X.) So what’s the deal? As BleepingComputer points out, this data could suggest a leak in the delivery system for text messages—one of three major reasons why security experts don’t recommend receiving 2FA codes through SMS. (The other two? Someone could steal your phone number to receive codes, or they could redirect the codes to their own device without you knowing.) This is not a Valve problem, though. It’s unfortunately a known weakness in how text messaging works. Using a mobile app for two-factor authentication codes is much more secure than via SMS/text message.Alaina Yee / Foundry But while this situation is likely nothing to worry about, your account is probably still at risk for other reasons. Chances are, your password is weaker than you think. (Just have a look at how fast modern GPUs can crack passwords.) And you’re probably not using two-factor authentication yet. Our favorite Password Manager Dashlane Read our review Best Prices Today: $4.99 at Dashlane Bump up your password to something strong, random, and unique. Turn on Steam Guard now, too. The better method for getting codes will be through the Steam Mobile App on your phone. Already using a good password and Steam Guard? For peace of mind, you can still change your password (which should be simple and fast if you use a password manager). Also switch to the Steam Mobile App as your 2FA method if you haven’t already. You may not be able to trust the claims made in dark web forum posts, sure. But strengthening your security is a process you can put weight behind—and you get full control over it, too. Read...

Yesterday was Patch Tuesday, and Microsoft provided security updates that addressed 77 new vulnerabilities, with five security vulnerabilities in Windows already being exploited in the wild, and several others in Windows and Office being labeled as “critical.” Microsoft offers sparse details on the vulnerabilities in the Security Update Guide, but Dustin Childs goes into more detail in Trend Micro’s ZDI blog with an eye for admins who manage corporate networks. The next Patch Tuesday is expected to happen on June 10th, 2025. Security vulnerabilities in Windows A large number of the vulnerabilities—44 this time—are spread across the various Windows versions (10, 11, and Server) for which Microsoft still offers security updates. Although Windows 7 and 8.1 are no longer mentioned in the security reports, they could still be vulnerable. If your system requirements allow it, you should upgrade to Windows 11 24H2 before October to continue receiving security updates. Zero-day Windows vulnerabilities According to Microsoft, there are already attacks on a total of five security vulnerabilities in Windows, with the CVE-2025-30397 remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability standing out. If Edge is your default browser, all it takes is a click on a crafted link to force Edge to switch to Internet Explorer mode (a legacy feature that remains in all Windows versions because the MSHTML platform is still used by some older apps). The other zero-day vulnerabilities include EoP (Elevation of Privilege) issues, which attackers can use to give their code higher authorizations, even system rights. Typically, such vulnerabilities are used in combination with an RCE vulnerability. This allows infiltrated code to be executed with full system rights, which ransomware groups love to do. These vulnerabilities affect the Windows Common Log File System Driver (CVE-2025-32701, CVE-2025-32706), the Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock (CVE-2025-32709) and the Desktop Window Manager core library (CVE-2025-30400). Critical Windows vulnerabilities Microsoft has identified two closely related vulnerabilities in the Remote Desktop Client as critical (CVE-2025-29966, CVE-2025-29967). If a user connects to a malicious RDP server, code can be injected and executed. Also, the RCE vulnerability CVE-2025-29833 in the Virtual Machine Bus requires the authorizations of a logged-in user to be exploited. Security vulnerabilities in Office Microsoft has fixed 18 vulnerabilities in its Office product family, including 17 RCE vulnerabilities. Two use-after-free vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-30377 and CVE-2025-30386) are classified as critical. For these two RCE vulnerabilities, the preview window is an attack vector, meaning it can allow a successful attack when a prepared file is displayed in the preview. The user doesn’t even have to click on it or open it. Microsoft categorizes the other vulnerabilities as high risk. Nine of these RCE vulnerabilities are in Excel, three affect SharePoint, plus one each in PowerPoint and Outlook. With these vulnerabilities, a successful attack requires a user to open a specially prepared file. Malicious code can then be executed with user rights. Security vulnerabilities in cloud services On May 8th, Microsoft fixed six security vulnerabilities in Azure, Dataverse, and Power Apps that were classified as critical. These include CVE-2025-29813 (an EoP vulnerability in Azure) and two other Azure vulnerabilities. Microsoft customers don’t need to take any action. Read...

In addition to gobbling up most of the internet, ChatGPT now wants access to your OneDrive and SharePoint files, too. It makes sense. One of the earliest uses of AI was to summarize documents and folders of documents, and there’s only so many times you can ask it whether Spider-Man would beat Wonder Woman in a fair fight. It would be more productive for AI to collate and make sense of your own personal information, assuming you want to grant access to it. According to OpenAI, ChatGPT can now connect to your OneDrive or SharePoint document libraries, assuming you’re a paid ChatGPT Plus, Pro, or Team user who lives outside the EEA, Switzerland, and the UK (via Windows Central). You’ll obviously have to connect ChatGPT and give it permission to start poring over your cloud documents. Specifically, you’ll need to enable ChatGPT’s “Deep Research” function, which normally scours the web for information. Now, it appears you can specify which folders in Microsoft’s cloud services to make accessible to ChatGPT on a once-and-done basis. Click the “down arrow” to select either OneDrive or SharePoint, then log in to the Microsoft services. You can also go to ChatGPT Settings, then Connected Apps, Connectors, and click Connect next to Microsoft OneDrive (work/school). From a privacy perspective, you’re sharing the request with both OpenAI and Microsoft. “ChatGPT generates search queries from your prompts to locate relevant information within your connected Microsoft document libraries and sends these queries to Microsoft,” said OpenAI. Theoretically, this should work similarly to Microsoft Copilot for OneDrive, which launched a year ago. However, Microsoft still says the service is only available to users with a work or school account, and will be added to Microsoft 365 subscribers (Personal or Family) in the coming months. Microsoft also says that Copilot for OneDrive can only work with five files at a time. OpenAI doesn’t specify any limitations at all for ChatGPT. Things move fast in the AI world and it’s certainly possible that competition will spur Microsoft on. But for now, ChatGPT’s cloud integration looks like a more powerful option. Read...