The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here:
For up to 10 minutes after sending a Facebook Message, the sender can tap on it and they’ll find the delete button has been replaced by “Remove for you” and “Remove for everyone” options. If you select the latter, recipients will see an alert saying that you removed a message, and they can still flag the message.
The feature could come in handy in those moments when you realize, right after hitting send, that you’ve made an embarrassing typo or said something dumb. It won’t, however, let people change ancient history.
Toyota has officially launched Kinto, a company first revealed late last year that will manage a car subscription program and other mobility services in Japan, including the sale and purchase of used vehicles as well as automotive repair and inspection.
“The French tax administration recently concluded a multi-year audit on the company’s French accounts, and those details will be published in our public accounts,” the company told Reuters. French authorities can’t confirm the transaction due to tax secrecy.
The startup was founded by veterans of Apple and Google, as well as Uber Advanced Technologies Group’s self-driving truck program. Its mission — expand and deploy — sounds a lot like other autonomous vehicle startups, but that’s where the parallels end.
Facebook has introduced new security features and announced plans to increase its team of Burmese language content translators to 100 people. While it doesn’t intend to open an office in Myanmar, it has ramped up its efforts to expel bad actors.
According to co-founder Nayeem Islam, Blue Hexagon has created a real-time, cybersecurity platform that he says can detect known and unknown threats at first encounter, then block them in “sub seconds” so the malware doesn’t have time to spread.
Reddit is raising $150 million to $300 million to keep the front page of the Internet running, multiple sources tell TechCrunch. The forthcoming Series D round is said to be led by Chinese tech giant Tencent at a $2.7 billion pre-money valuation. Depending on how much follow-on cash Reddit drums up from Silicon Valley investors and beyond, its post-money valuation could reach an epic $3 billion.
As more people seek esoteric community and off-kilter entertainment online, Reddit continues to grow its link sharing forums. 330 million monthly active users now frequent its 150,000 Subreddits. That warrants the boost to its valuation, which previously reached $1.8 billion when raised $200 million in July 2017. As of then, Reddit’s majority stake was still held by publisher Conde Nast that bought in back in 2006 just a year after the site launched. Reddit had raised $250 million previously, so the new round will push it to $400 million to $550 million in total funding.
It should have been clear that Reddit was on the prowl after a month of pitching its growth to the press and beating its own drum. In December Reddit announced it had reached 1.4 billion video views per month, up a staggering 40 percent from just two months earlier after first launching a native video player in August 2017. And it made a big deal out of starting to sell cost per click ads in addition to promoted posts, cost per impression, and video ads. A 22 percent increase in engagement and 30 percent rise in total view in 2018 pushed it past $100 million in revenue for the year, CNBC reported.
But supporting and moderating all that content isn’t cheap. The company had 350 employees just under a year ago, and is headquartered in pricey San Francisco — though in one if it’s cheaper but troubled neighborhood. Though the exact details of the Series D could fluctuate before it’s formally announced, until Reddit’s newer ad products rev up, it’s still relying on venture capital.
Tencent’s money will give Reddit time to hit its stride. It’s said to be kicking in the first $150 million of the round. The Chinese conglomerate owns all-in-on messaging app WeChat and is the biggest gaming company in the world thanks to ownership of League Of Legends and stakes in Clash Of Clans-maker Supercell and Fortnite developer Epic. But China’s crackdown on gaming addiction has been rough for Tencent’s valuation and Chinese competitor Bytedance’s news reader app Toutiao has grown enormous. Both of those facts make investing in American news board Reddit a savvy diversification, even if Reddit isn’t accessible in China.
Reddit could seek to fill out its round with up to $150 million in additional cash from previous investors like Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, or YC’s president Sam Altman. They could see potential in one of the web’s most unique and internet-native content communities. Reddit is where the real world is hashed out and laughed about by a tech savvy audience that often produces memes that cross over into mainstream culture. And with all those amateur curators toiling away for Internet points, casual users are flocking in for an edgier look at what will be the center of attention tomorrow.
Reddit has recently avoid much of the backlash hitting fellow social site Facebook, despite having to remove 1000 Russian trolls pushing political propaganda. But in the past, the anonymous site has had plenty of problems with racist, mysoginistic, and homophobic content. In 2015 it finally implemented quarantines and shut down some of the most offensive Subreddits. But harassment by users contributed to the departure of CEO Ellen Pao, who was replaced by Steve Huffman, Reddit’s co-founder. Huffman went on to abuse that power, secretly editing some user comments on Reddit to frame them for insulting the heads of their own Subreddits. He escaped the debacle with a slap on the wrist and an apology, claiming “I spent my formative years as a young troll on the Internet.”
Investors will have to hope Huffman has the composure to lead Reddit as it inevitably encounters more scrutiny as its valuation scales up. Its policy choice about what constitutes hate speech and harassment, its own company culture, and its influence on public opinion will all come under the microscope. Reddit has the potential to give a voice to great ideas at a time when flashy visuals rule the web. And as local journalism wanes, the site’s breed of vigilante web sleuths could be more in demand, for better or worse. But that all hinges on Reddit defining clear, consistent, empathetic policy that will help it surf atop the sewage swirling around the internet.
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here:
For up to 10 minutes after sending a Facebook Message, the sender can tap on it and they’ll find the delete button has been replaced by “Remove for you” and “Remove for everyone” options. If you select the latter, recipients will see an alert saying that you removed a message, and they can still flag the message.
The feature could come in handy in those moments when you realize, right after hitting send, that you’ve made an embarrassing typo or said something dumb. It won’t, however, let people change ancient history.
Toyota has officially launched Kinto, a company first revealed late last year that will manage a car subscription program and other mobility services in Japan, including the sale and purchase of used vehicles as well as automotive repair and inspection.
“The French tax administration recently concluded a multi-year audit on the company’s French accounts, and those details will be published in our public accounts,” the company told Reuters. French authorities can’t confirm the transaction due to tax secrecy.
The startup was founded by veterans of Apple and Google, as well as Uber Advanced Technologies Group’s self-driving truck program. Its mission — expand and deploy — sounds a lot like other autonomous vehicle startups, but that’s where the parallels end.
Facebook has introduced new security features and announced plans to increase its team of Burmese language content translators to 100 people. While it doesn’t intend to open an office in Myanmar, it has ramped up its efforts to expel bad actors.
According to co-founder Nayeem Islam, Blue Hexagon has created a real-time, cybersecurity platform that he says can detect known and unknown threats at first encounter, then block them in “sub seconds” so the malware doesn’t have time to spread.
Apple has released a new beta version of iOS 12.2 yesterday. While the final version isn’t available just yet, here’s what you should expect: new Animojis and a fake 5G logo if you’re an AT&T customer.
If you have an iPhone X, XS, XS Max or XR, you’ll see new animals in the Animoji collection. As 9to5mac spotted, you will be able to record video message and replace your head with a giraffe, an owl, a shark or a warthog. These Animojis will also work during FaceTime calls.
Here’s a picture from 9to5mac with the new lineup:
More interestingly, Apple succumbed to AT&T’s marketing plot to rename 4G into 5G. MacRumors noticed that some AT&T users now have a ‘5G E’ icon in the top right corner when they upgrade to the beta version of iOS 12.2. Some Android phones already show a 5G E icon after an AT&T update.
But don’t get fooled, this isn’t 5G — this icon replaces the LTE icon. AT&T has basically rebranded LTE with carrier aggregation as 5G Evolution. But it still runs on the same network.
The same thing happened in the U.S. during the transition from 3G to 4G. AT&T decided to rebrand its 3G HSPA+ network to 4G. It’s the reason why many carriers talk about LTE instead of 4G.
AT&T confused everyone back then, and the company is about to do the same again. It’s too bad Apple is helping AT&T with this iOS update.
Disclosure: TechCrunch is a Verizon Media company.
Apple has released a new beta version of iOS 12.2 yesterday. While the final version isn’t available just yet, here’s what you should expect: new Animojis and a fake 5G logo if you’re an AT&T customer.
If you have an iPhone X, XS, XS Max or XR, you’ll see new animals in the Animoji collection. As 9to5mac spotted, you will be able to record video message and replace your head with a giraffe, an owl, a shark or a warthog. These Animojis will also work during FaceTime calls.
Here’s a picture from 9to5mac with the new lineup:
More interestingly, Apple succumbed to AT&T’s marketing plot to rename 4G into 5G. MacRumors noticed that some AT&T users now have a ‘5G E’ icon in the top right corner when they upgrade to the beta version of iOS 12.2. Some Android phones already show a 5G E icon after an AT&T update.
But don’t get fooled, this isn’t 5G — this icon replaces the LTE icon. AT&T has basically rebranded LTE with carrier aggregation as 5G Evolution. But it still runs on the same network.
The same thing happened in the U.S. during the transition from 3G to 4G. AT&T decided to rebrand its 3G HSPA+ network to 4G. It’s the reason why many carriers talk about LTE instead of 4G.
AT&T confused everyone back then, and the company is about to do the same again. It’s too bad Apple is helping AT&T with this iOS update.
Disclosure: TechCrunch is a Verizon Media company.
These are weird products as you still need to connect those speakers with a Sonos Amp. In other words, you can’t control those speakers from the Sonos app without the Sonos Amp.
But if you’re building a house and you want to put Sonos speakers around the house, this lineup is a good way to make sure that everything will be optimized for the Sonos ecosystem.
The in-wall and in-ceiling speakers are designed to blend in with your walls. You can even paint on the grilles to make them disappear even more. They’ll start shipping on February 26 and you can pre-order them now — each pair of speakers cost $599.
Outdoor speakers also come as a pair. They aren’t available just yet, but they’ll cost $799 a pair whenever they ship. And they should resist to extreme temperatures, water and UV rays.
According to the company, you can plug three pairs of speakers to a single Sonos Amp. If you plan on building a giant house, you can still buy multiple Amps and stack them up.
Like other Sonos speakers, you can tune them using Trueplay. This process uses your iPhone or iPad microphone to analyze the size of your room and how your furniture affects your speaker. Sonos then adjusts speaker settings.
Facebook has finally made good on its promise to let users unsend chats after TechCrunch discovered Mark Zuckerberg had secretly retracted some of his Facebook Messages from recipients. Today Facebook Messenger globally rolls out “Remove for everyone” to help you pull back typos, poor choices, embarrassing thoughts, or any other message.
For up to 10 minutes after sending a Facebook Message, the sender can tap on it and they’ll find the delete button has been replaced by “Remove for you”, but there’s now also a “Remove for everyone” option that pulls the message from recipients’ inboxes. They’ll see an alert that you removed a message in its place, and can still flag the message to Facebook who’ll retain the content briefly to see if its reported. The feature could make people more comfortable having honest conversations or using Messenger for flirting since they can second guess what they send, but it won’t let people change ancient history.
The company abused its power by altering the history of Zuckerberg’s Facebook’s messages in a way that email or other communication mediums wouldn’t allow. Yet Facebook refused to say if it will now resume removing executives’ messages from recipients even long after they’re delivered after telling TechCrunch in April that “until this feature is ready, we will no longer be deleting any executives’ messages.”
For a quick recap, here’s how Facebook got to Unsend:
-Facebook Messenger never had an Unsend option, except in its encrypted Secret messaging product where you can set an expiration timer on chats, or in Instagram Direct.
-Facebook claimed this was partly because it was “limiting the retention period for Mark’s messages” for security purposes in the wake of the Sony Pictures hack, yet it never explained why only some messages to some people had been removed.
-The next morning, Facebook changed its tune and announced it’d build an Unsned button for everyone, providing this statement: “We have discussed this feature several times . . . We will now be making a broader delete message feature available. This may take some time. And until this feature is ready, we will no longer be deleting any executives’ messages. We should have done this sooner — and we’re sorry that we did not.”
-In November, Facebook started to roll out the feature with the current “Remove for everyone” design and 10 minute limit
-Now every iOS and Messenger user globally will get the Unsend feature
So will Facebook start retracting executives’ messages again? It’d only say that the new feature would be available to both users and employees. But in Zuckerberg’s case, messages from years ago were removed in a way users still aren’t allowed to. Remove for everyone could make messaging on Facebook a little less anxiety-inducing. But it shouldn’t have taken Facebook being caught stealing from the inboxes of its users to get it built.
Smart speakers had a good holiday. Amazon already said its Echo Dot outsold all other items on its site this holiday season, which hinted towards the sizable growth for the voice-powered speaker market. Today, research firm CIRP is reporting the U.S. installed base for speakers grew to 66 million units in December 2018, up from 53 million in the September 2018 quarter and just 37 million in December 2017.
However, holiday sales didn’t have much impact on the market shares for the various speaker brands, the firm found.
Amazon Echo devices still lead the U.S. market with a 70 percent share of the installed base, followed by Google Home at 24 percent, then Apple HomePod at 6 percent, the report said.
“Holiday shoppers helped the smart speaker market take off again,” said Josh Lowitz, Partner and Co-Founder of CIRP, in a statement. “Relative market shares have remained fairly stable, with Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod accounting for consistent shares over the past few quarters. Amazon and Google both have broad model lineups, ranging from basic to high-end, with even more variants from Amazon. Apple, of course, has only its premium-priced HomePod, and likely won’t gain significant share until it offers an entry-level product closer to Echo Dot and Home mini,” Lowitz added.
Also of interest is that some portion of those buying a smart speaker for their home already own one. According to CIRP, 35 percent of smart speaker owners now have multiple devices, as of December 2018. That’s up from 18 percent in December 2017.
This figure is key to the device markers’ larger strategies, because it means that once a company is able to get that first sale, the consumer may return to buy more devices from the same vendor.
Amazon had gained an early advantage here, initially convincing more users to buy another speaker compared with Google Home users. A year ago, almost double the number of Echo users had multiple devices, versus Google Home owners. But Google is catching up, and now about a third of Echo and Google Home users have multiple devices.
It’s worth noting that CIRP data – like much that’s produced by market research firms – isn’t always going to match up exactly with other firms’ estimates and forecasts.
For example, Strategy Analytics this fall said that Amazon’s Echo market share in the U.S. was 63 percent, to Google’s 17 percent and Apple HomePod’s 4 percent. Meanwhile, eMarketer’s 2019 U.S. forecast predicts Amazon Echo will end up with around a 63.3 percent market share this year, versus Google Home’s 31 percent, with all others like HomePod and Sonos, reaching 12 percent.
That said, the broad strokes across all reports point to the same general findings – that Amazon is leading the U.S. market by a wide margin, and while that margin may be shrinking, it’s not going away soon.
Facebook has finally made good on its promise to let users unsend chats after TechCrunch discovered Mark Zuckerberg had secretly retracted some of his Facebook Messages from recipients. Today Facebook Messenger globally rolls out “Remove for everyone” to help you pull back typos, poor choices, embarrassing thoughts, or any other message.
For up to 10 minutes after sending a Facebook Message, the sender can tap on it and they’ll find the delete button has been replaced by “Remove for you”, but there’s now also a “Remove for everyone” option that pulls the message from recipients’ inboxes. They’ll see an alert that you removed a message in its place, and can still flag the message to Facebook who’ll retain the content briefly to see if its reported. The feature could make people more comfortable having honest conversations or using Messenger for flirting since they can second guess what they send, but it won’t let people change ancient history.
The company abused its power by altering the history of Zuckerberg’s Facebook’s messages in a way that email or other communication mediums wouldn’t allow. Yet Facebook refused to say if it will now resume removing executives’ messages from recipients even long after they’re delivered after telling TechCrunch in April that “until this feature is ready, we will no longer be deleting any executives’ messages.”
For a quick recap, here’s how Facebook got to Unsend:
-Facebook Messenger never had an Unsend option, except in its encrypted Secret messaging product where you can set an expiration timer on chats, or in Instagram Direct.
-Facebook claimed this was partly because it was “limiting the retention period for Mark’s messages” for security purposes in the wake of the Sony Pictures hack, yet it never explained why only some messages to some people had been removed.
-The next morning, Facebook changed its tune and announced it’d build an Unsned button for everyone, providing this statement: “We have discussed this feature several times . . . We will now be making a broader delete message feature available. This may take some time. And until this feature is ready, we will no longer be deleting any executives’ messages. We should have done this sooner — and we’re sorry that we did not.”
-In November, Facebook started to roll out the feature with the current “Remove for everyone” design and 10 minute limit
-Now every iOS and Messenger user globally will get the Unsend feature
So will Facebook start retracting executives’ messages again? It’d only say that the new feature would be available to both users and employees. But in Zuckerberg’s case, messages from years ago were removed in a way users still aren’t allowed to. Remove for everyone could make messaging on Facebook a little less anxiety-inducing. But it shouldn’t have taken Facebook being caught stealing from the inboxes of its users to get it built.
No other genre of film puts a smile on your smile quite the way musicals do. For the duration of the film, you get to participate in a heightened reality where every powerful emotion finds expression through a rousing song and dance number. It’s the type of film spectacle that moves you in a way that regular CGI-laden blockbusters cannot.
Netflix offers a wide variety of musicals for you to choose from. These musicals belong to different regions and eras. They also conform to uniquely different styles of filmmaking. Here are the best musicals on Netflix that you can enjoy for their songs as well as the powerful stories that they have to tell.
Part old-fashioned Hollywood biblical epic, part Broadway super musical. The Prince of Egypt adapts the Bible story of Moses and his fight to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.
This gorgeously mounted musical blends traditional animation with CGI. It provides a breathtakingly expansive and heartbreakingly intimate look at Moses’s journey from leaving his childhood home to fulfilling his destiny.
With multiple directors and a host of celebrity voice actors including Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Sandra Bullock, the movie feels like an event film in the same vein as The Ten Commandments, which was the direct inspiration behind The Prince of Egypt.
Earnest, heartfelt, and innocent. These are rare qualities to find in movies today thanks to modern filmmaking styles that emphasize cynicism over hope.
Which is why Newsies hits you like a breath of fresh air. This 1992 musical tells the story of a group of tween newspaper sellers who are tired of being exploited by their bosses. The children have no choice but to band together to fight their oppressors.
Directed by Kenny Ortega and starring an as-yet-unknown Christian Bale in the leading role, Newsies was Disney’s first live-action musical. The movie was unsuccessful at the box office upon release but later went on to gather a large cult following when it released on home video.
Based on Peter Martin’s stage production of the timeless Christmas classic, The Nutcracker is winter holiday magic at its finest. The film unveils a fairy tale about a young girl’s romantic awakening.
At a Christmas Eve party, little Marie is introduced to her magician godfather and his nephew. The nephew later visits her dream as the Nutcracker Prince and whisks her away to a land of adventure.
The movie stars a young Macaulay Culkin at the height of his fame as the Nutcracker Prince. It makes great use of the original Nutcracker’s score by Tchaikovsky and Balanchine’s breathtaking choreography sensibilities. This is old-fashioned all-singing all-dancing holidays cinema at its finest.
Everyone knows about Shrek, the 2001 animated film by Dreamworks Animation. But fewer people are aware of its 2008 stage adaptation. The play adds deeper layers to the original story, providing more backstory for the main characters, and even more song-and-dance numbers to the narrative.
The stage musical is more risque than even the movie, which had itself gained notoriety upon release for the inclusion of adult humor in a children’s film.
Directed by Michael John Warren and starring Brian d’Arcy James and Sutton Foster as Shrek and Fiona, Shrek: The Musical is a worthy adaptation for those who loved the original.
Based on the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan, this Disney animation takes the action to China during the Han dynasty. Fa Mulan is the young daughter of legendary warrior Fa Zhou.
Fearing for the safety of her aging father, Mulan disguises herself as a man and takes his place in the army. The film stars Ming-Na Wen, Eddie Murphy, and Miguel Ferrer in leading roles. It is directed by Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook.
It received great critical acclaim upon release. Mulan was praised for adding greater diversity to Disney’s characters. The film offers a moving tale about family duty, the horrors of war, and a female heroine who took an active role in breaking out of her confinement.
The movie that made the world fall in love with ABBA all over again. Mamma Mia! finds legendary actress Meryl Streep cutting loose like never before as she sings, dances, and riffs her way through the greatest hits from ABBA.
Ably supported by an A-list cast of singers and actors, including Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, and Colin Firth, the film balances exuberant comedy and song-and-dance numbers with a strong emotional core.
Audiences follow a young bride-to-be, who on the eve of her wedding invites three strange men to her house. All are ex-lovers of her mother, and one of them is her father. What follows is an uproarious comedy of errors set against the gorgeous background of the Greek Island of Kalokairi.
The classic Disney animation finds new life with this 2017 live-action adaptation. Based on the 18th-century fairy tale about a young maiden forced to live with a frightening beast in his castle, the movie faithfully recreates the air of enchantment that made the original Disney cartoon an instant classic.
Directed by Bill Condon, the movie stars Emma Watson and Dan Stevens as the eponymous characters. Along with critical acclaim, Beauty and the Beast received a great response at the box office. It is currently the 14th highest grossing film of all time.
Discover More Interesting Netflix Content
There is a staggering amount of content on Netflix, with more being added each day. If you’re unsure about navigating the labyrinthine website on your own, check out our our ultimate guide to Netflix to make sense of it all.
As well as musicals, Netflix also has a large collection of documentaries. They range far and wide in terms of genres, and have something to offer everyone. If you have a hankering to see what lies beyond your own city, you can travel the whole world with the best travel documentaries to watch on Netflix.
So, you want to get on the dark web? Don’t worry; we’re not judging. There are lots of perfectly legitimate reasons you might want to access all that shady content.
Joking aside, if you want to know how to access the dark web in a safe and anonymous way, keep reading. There are some crucial steps you need to take when you want to get on the dark web.
1. Always Use a VPN to Access the Dark Web
We’re not going to dwell on what the dark web is or how it works. Suffice to say that too many users think they are safe from the prying eyes of ISPs and governments just because of the way dark net uses onion routing technology.
That’s not true. Even if you use the Tor browser, your traffic can still be traced back to you by anyone with enough time and know-how (for example, the FBI!).
And remember, the Tor browser fell victim to an IP leak in April 2018. Nicknamed “TorMoil,” the flaw allowed a user’s operating system to connect to a remote host, bypassing the Tor Browser entirely. MacOS and Linux users were most at risk.
Ergo, you should also use a VPN when connecting to the dark web. It will encrypt your web traffic, ensuring its hidden from snoopers even if there’s a similar repeat of last year’s issues.
2. Download the Tor Browser from the Official Website
Tor might have had its security problems in the past, but it’s still the safest and most popular way to get on the dark web.
Because of its market-leading position and the nature of the content which you can access when using it, it should come as no surprise to learn that there are a lot of actors out there who want to spoof the app and make you download a compromised version instead.
Therefore, you should never download the Tor browser from any source other than the official website. You can find it at torproject.org. The browser is free to download and use.
You also need to make sure you keep your browser up-to-date at all times. Failure to do so could leave you vulnerable to security issues.
The dark web is a popular hangout for hackers, cybercriminals, malware creators, and other unsavory types that you really don’t want anywhere near your machine.
Sadly, the nature of the dark web means you’ll probably encounter them at some point. Ideally, you need to make yourself as small a target as possible by reducing the number of attack vectors they can use.
Therefore, before you open the Tor browser, you should close all the other apps on your machine, stop unnecessary services from running, and cover your webcam with a piece of paper.
4. Install TAILS
The Amnesiac Incognito Live System (TAILS) is a unique Debian-based version of Linux that leaves no trace of any user activity—nor the operating system itself—on your computer.
The operating system is free to use and live boots from a USB stick or DVD.
TAILS cannot save cookies or file to your hard-drive without directly asking it to do so. You also won’t run the risk of browsers dumping “page out” data onto your disk (most browsers do so for speed and efficiency.)
Furthermore, TAILS comes with the Tor Browser pre-installed; you won’t need to worry about extra steps once you’re up and running.
All web traffic on a TAILS machine is automatically routed through Tor. If the operating system detects any non-anonymous connections, it will automatically block them.
And yes, TAILS also has built-in productivity tools like a word processor and email client, meaning you can do more than merely browse the web while it is running.
When you access the dark web, you won’t have the luxury of Google neatly indexing search results for you to browse. As a result, it can be hard to find what you’re looking for; you could easily stumble into someplace you really don’t want to be.
As such, we recommend using one of the many directory sites to decide upon the pages you want to visit before you even open Tor.
The dark web itself also has plenty of dark web site directories. One of the best places to start for both newbies and experienced users is The Hidden Wiki. You can access it by pasting the following link into the Tor browser:
http://bit.ly/1iJRX3q.
You should also check out our article on how to find active onion sites—we’ve listed some of the best dark web directories out there.
6. Use Cryptocurrency for All Your Transactions
If you want to purchase something from one of the many dark web marketplaces, under no circumstances should you use anything other than cryptocurrency. Indeed, you’ll find most sellers will not accept regular credit card payments.
Of course, the temptation is to use Bitcoin—it’s the world’s most common cryptocurrency, and many people think it is entirely anonymous. In practice, that’s not true. Issues such as address reuse, connected nodes, tracking cookies, and blockchain analytics mean it’s very possible for someone to link your personal details to a transaction.
You could use a “Bitcoin mixer” to anonymize your tokens, but they’re expensive and require you to place trust in an otherwise untraceable third-party.
Instead, you should use a privacy-focused coin. The two most common are Monero and Zcash. We’ve published a complete guide to Monero on our sister site, BlocksDecoded.
7. Close Everything
When you’ve finished browsing the dark web, don’t be lazy. Make sure you shut all your browser windows and other content that may be connected.
If you’ve used TAILS, quit the operating system and reboot back into your usual interface. If you’ve used Windows or macOS, it’s a good idea to restart your machine.
More Dark Web Tips
If you carefully follow the seven tips we have provided, you will be well on the way to accessing the dark web in a safe, secure, and anonymous way.
More and more people are looking to work from home or travel the world while they do their job. If you’re a remote worker or a digital nomad or just want to get into that space, you need to visit these sites.
Digital nomadism isn’t new, but is gaining widespread acceptance with every passing day. It’s only natural to eschew the office, given the rapid advances in communications technology. But it still feels daunting since it’s off the beaten path.
These websites help you answer any questions you might have about digital nomadism. Learn about the kinds of opportunities available, and how you can ease yourself into it.
Remote Habits (Web): Interviews and F.A.Q.s From Successful Remote Works
The best way to grow in any field is to follow in the footsteps of those who have succeeded. Remote Habits specializes in interviewing remote workers and finding out what makes them keep ticking along.
The site is divided into interviews and public questions. In public questions, the entire community of readers comes together to discuss a topic, much like any forum or discussion board.
The interviews focus on a single individual who answers most of the popular questions, but also adds specifics about the hardships of their particular job role. Chances are, you will find someone whose job profile meets your own, and you can learn from what they do.
If you like Remote Habits, you might also want to check out Alberto Gallego’s newsletter for remote workers, which has a monthly guide on how to stay productive, be inspired, and live a balanced life.
Nomad List is one of the most comprehensive resources for digital nomads and remote workers. It has almost every type of information you’d want to know about any place you want to go to. Honestly, it’s the best place to figure out where you should go as a digital nomad.
But NomadList is so good at this part that the other great feature is often ignored: chat. Nomad List hosts a public chatroom for digital nomads and remote workers to talk about anything and everything under the sun. It’s free to join and participate, and you’ll find different chatrooms discussing different topics.
The chat feature is always buzzing, and you should be able to find like-minded individuals or get answers to any questions you might have. Nomad List is known for a great community of remote workers, who are welcoming and encouraging of newbies in the digital nomad world.
For remote workers, cafes often end up as offices or workplaces. They offer consistent Wi-Fi connectivity, a place to work in peace, easy access to a washroom, and refreshments to keep you going.
WorkMode is a super simple web app built on top of Google Maps and its data. This at-a-glance interface makes it easy to find a nearby cafe that offers Wi-Fi, along with other amenities. The results appear on a Google Map of the area, which you can filter by distance, fast Wi-Fi, coffee quality, quietness, or reviews.
The app also lets you test the internet speed at any location, so that other users can know what to expect. Be warned that not all cafes listed here offer free, unlimited Wi-Fi. If that’s a priority, then you might want to check our guide on how to get free Wi-Fi almost anywhere.
There are plenty of other apps like WorkFrom. But their usefulness depends on where you are. WorkMode’s Google Maps data makes it slightly more useful no matter where you are.
RemoteList (Web): Curated List of All Remote Jobs Boards
Remote jobs are popular enough now with their own dedicated online job listing boards. In fact, there are so many of them that you might wonder, which job search engine do you need? Head to RemoteList, a remote jobs board curator, to figure it out.
You can see a list of all the remote job boards and sort them by popularity. Dive deeper into the one most people are using and find more listings. Each board explains why it’s popular, and Twitter users can leave a comment on their experience with it.
There’s also a Q&A section to discuss remote working issues, as well as a Jobs tab to curate job postings from different boards. You can safely ignore both of those though, there is hardly any content there.
Nomad Pick (Web): Super-Site for Remote Worker Tools and Resources
Nomad Pick is an aggregator of the best resources and tools for remote workers or digital nomads. Bookmark this website so that you can always find the best app or site for the lifestyle you desire.
The categories include accommodation, blogs, books, communities, coworking, destination guide, finances, flight, food and drink, gear, health, insurance, passport and visa, podcasts, remote work, retreat, travel planning, and miscellaneous. Each section lets you sort the recommended sites by upvotes so that you can further drill it down.
Nomad Pick’s carefully selected choices are the easiest way for any remote worker to do as little research as possible and still find a reliable tool for the job at hand.
Ready to Remote? Check Out These Companies
With this list of super-sites for remote workers and digital nomads, you should be ready to take the leap. And remote working doesn’t mean that you’d have to look at startups and not established corporations. Well, prepare to be surprised.
Facebook is taking action in Myanmar, the Southeast Asian country where the social network has been used to incite racial tension and violence, after it banned four armed groups from its service.
The U.S. company said in a blog post that it has booted the rebel and insurgent groups — the Arakan Army (AA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Kachin Independence Army (KIO) and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) — and that “all related praise, support and representation” will be removed.
The groups are among the many Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) that exist in Myanmar, which was under military rule until elections in 2015 partially opened the country.
Explaining that the groups have violated its terms of service, Facebook said:
There is clear evidence that these organizations have been responsible for attacks against civilians and have engaged in violence in Myanmar, and we want to prevent them from using our services to further inflame tensions on the ground.
…
We recognize that the sources of ethnic violence in Myanmar are incredibly complex and cannot be resolved by a social media company, but we also want to do the best we can to limit incitement and hate that furthers an already deadly conflict.
In recent times, the MNDAA was blamed for at least 30 deaths, including civilians, in 2017 during a skirmish with security forces on the northern border with China — the group responded at the time using a Facebook group — while, in January of this year, the AA was said to have killed 13 government troops as part of an attack on Independence Day.
The internet only became available and affordable to people in Myanmar after 2015, and already swathes of the country has flocked to Facebook, which is widely heralded as ‘the internet’ in the country. Facebook has some 20 million users in Myanmar, that’s nearly all of the country’s internet users and nearly 40 percent of the population.
That digital revolution has allowed anyone to sign up to reach audiences and spread messages. That’s true across the world, but particularly extreme in Myanmar, where the country’s religious conflict has expanded into the digital arena in a short space of time only to exacerbate the problems.
Since August 2017, an estimated 700,000 Rohingya Muslims are said to have fled Myanmar following the destruction of their homes and persecution in the northern Rakhine province. Much of the violence is reported to have been state-led. A UN fact-finding mission last year concluded that Facebook played a “determining role” in inciting the genocide.
In response, Facebook has introduced new security features and announced plans to increase its team of Burmese language content translators to 100 people. While it doesn’t intend to open an office in Myanmar due to security concerns, it has ramped up its efforts to expel bad actors. Beyond today’s removals, it has taken down scores of accounts and groups and, among others, removed the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and military-owned TV network Myawady from its platform.
But still, those on the ground are critical. Facebook, they said, still isn’t fully committed to Myanmar, it is moving too slow and it is asking too much of the volunteers and civic groups that have offered their assistance.
For one thing, the social network was rounded criticized after CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggested that it was using AI to remove hate speech in Myanmar. The company was, in fact, reliant on locals reporting the content before it took action, a process that took days.
To skeptics, the latest removals look like more ‘whack-a-mobile’ tactics to remove problems only once they have become problems. In banning (EAOs), Facebook has set a precedent that could sweep up other legitimate organizations based on the actions of minorities within their ranks, government claims or other situations.
This is dumb on so many levels. Facebook has shown they're completely incapable of playing whack-a-mole with problematic content, and AI interventions drown out legitimate, terms-non-violating user material. In this fell swoop, they'll arguably be silencing civil society voices
Google has launched two new apps for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Both apps, Live Transcribe and Sound Amplifier, are designed to make it easier for people with hearing problems to communicate better with the people around them.
Live Transcribe and Sound Amplifier
Live Transcribe is a realtime transcription tool. It uses cloud-based speech recognition to transcribe conversations in realtime. This enables people who are deaf or hard of hearing to read, rather than hear, what’s being said with virtually no delay.
As detailed on The Keyword, Live Transcribe was developed based on the experiences of Dimitri Kanevsky, a research scientist at Google. Having “brought Dimitri closer to his loved ones,” Google is now launching Live Transcribe on a wider scale.
Live Transcribe comes pre-installed on Pixel 3 devices, and can be enabled in Accessibility Settings. However, Live Transcribe is also being rolled out on Google Play via a limited beta. Interested parties should sign up here to be notified when it’s available.
Sound Amplifier is essentially an app-based hearing aid. It filters, augments, and amplifies the sounds being picked up by your smartphone. And by wearing wired headphones, the person using the app can hear the filtered, augmented, and amplified sounds.
While Sound Amplifier is aimed at people who are deaf or hard of hearing, it could be useful for anyone struggling to hear over background noise. Sound Amplifier comes with a host of settings allowing you to micromanage the sound to your own personal needs.
Sound Amplifier comes pre-installed on Pixel 3 devices, but Android 9 Pie users can also download Sound Amplifier from Google Play. This app requires wired headphones to work, which is ironic given that the 3.5mm headphone jack is slowly disappearing.
Google Is Helping People Hear Better
Too often, people who are deaf or hard of hearing are ignored by technology firms. And that’s despite progress on helping blind or visually impaired people browse the web. So Google deserves credit for working to make people’s lives easier.
Teens’ aversion to Facebook jeopardizes not only the company’s feed ad revenue, but its dominance as an identity provider. The Facebook Login platform keeps people tied to the social network in order to easily access other apps without a separate username and password. But for younger users who ditch or neglect Facebook in favor of Instagram, the tech giant stands to lose one of its most powerful wedges into our lives. Meanwhile, Instagram loyalists are forced to juggle multiple sets of login credentials to manage their personal, Finsta and business accounts.
But a new feature in development could make it easy to operate multiple Instagram handles while poising the app as a successor to Facebook Login. Instagram has prototyped the “Main Account” feature that would let users set one of their profiles as a primary account and then link their other accounts to it. Logging into the main account would instantly log them in to the rest, as well. From then on, users would only need to remember a single email/username and password combo. Simpler login could get people switching accounts, posting and engaging more with Instagram.
Account linking could also power up Instagram’s existing login platform. Currently, third-party apps use it to let you compose feed posts and Stories and then share them to Instagram, or to measure the activity and mentions of business accounts. But Instagram could potentially expand the login platform to let you bring more of your identity or profile info to other apps similar to Facebook Login. That might work better if you could log in through your main Instagram account and then choose which profile you wanted to use or share back to from another app.
TechCrunch was tipped off to code for “Account Linking” in the Instagram for Android alpha version’s APK files by social media researcher Ishan Agarwal. The code explains “Quickly and securely log in to all of your Instagram accounts with one ID and password . . . Make one of your accounts your main account and use it to log in to all of your other accounts at once . . . Your accounts will remain separate but logging in will be fast and simple . . . Anyone who has the password for your main account will have access to the accounts connected to it.”
Instagram declined to comment regarding the feature. That’s standard for the company when it has prototyped something it is trying out with employees but hasn’t done any external testing. But many features first spotted in the app’s code at this stage go on to be fully rolled out, like Instagram video calling, nametags and soundtracks.
Facebook colonized the web using its login platform, scattering buttons with its logo on sites as an alternative to having to create a new account for every service. This helped grow Facebook’s user base, lock in users so it’d be harder for them to deactivate, develop new sources of feed content and gather data on what people did around the web. Many users who’ve stopped heavily posting to or reading Facebook still maintain a connection with the social network because they rely on it to log in to Spotify, Netflix and other services.
In fact, Facebook’s login platform is one of its most valuable features, where it lacks strong competition. Google runs its own identity platform, but with people increasingly using two-factor authentication and other security to protect their Gmail accounts, it can sometimes be a bit clumsy. Snapchat is trying to build up its own Snap Kit login platform with partners like Poshmark, but few mainstream apps have implemented it for account creation.
If you start to think of Instagram as not just a parallel social network to Facebook but as either an escape pod or heir to the throne, it’s important to consider how Facebook’s core assets will weather the transition. Recent profile redesigns have already tried to make your Instagram profile the center of your online personality. Uniting the prismatic shards of your identity through account linking could let you carry that personality with you across the web.
Teens’ aversion to Facebook jeopardizes not only the company’s feed ad revenue, but its dominance as an identity provider. The Facebook Login platform keeps people tied to the social network in order to easily access other apps without a separate username and password. But for younger users who ditch or neglect Facebook in favor of Instagram, the tech giant stands to lose one of its most powerful wedges into our lives. Meanwhile, Instagram loyalists are forced to juggle multiple sets of login credentials to manage their personal, Finsta, and business accounts.
But a new feature in development could make it easy to operate multiple Instagram handles while poising the app as a successor to Facebook Login. Instagram has prototyped “Main Account” feature that would let users set one of their profiles as a primary account and then link their others to it. Logging into the main account would instantly log them in to the rest as well. From then on, users would only need to remember a single email/username and password combo. Simpler login could get people switching accounts, posting, and engaging more with Instagram.
Account linking could also power up Instagram’s existing login platform. Currently, third-party apps use it to let you compose feed posts and Stories and then share them to Instagram, or to measure the activity and mentions of business accounts. But Instagram could potentially expand the login platform to let you bring more of your identity or profile info to other apps similar to Facebook Login. That might work better if you could log in through your main Instagram account and then choose which profile you wanted to use or share back to from another app.
TechCrunch was tipped off to code for “Account Linking” in the Instagram for Android alpha version’s APK files by social media research Ishan Agarwal. The code explains “Quickly and securely log in to all of your Instagram accounts with one ID and password . . . Make one of your accounts your main account and use it to log in to all of your other accounts at once . . . Your accounts will remain separate but logging in will be fast and simple . . . Anyone who has the password for your main account will have access to the accounts connected to it.”
Instagram declined to comment regarding the feature. That’s standard for the company when it’s prototyped something is it trying it with employees but hasn’t done any external testing. But many features first spotted in the app’s code at this stage go on to be fully rolled out, like Instagram video calling, nametags, and soundtracks.
Facebook colonized the web using its login platform, scattering buttons with its logo on sites as an alternative to having to create a new account for every service. This helped grow Facebook’s user base, lock in users so it’d be harder for them to deactivate, develop new sources of feed content, and gather data on what people did around the web. Many users who’ve stopped heavily posting to or reading Facebook still maintain a connection with the social network since they rely on it to log in to Spotify, Netflix, and other services.
In fact, Facebook’s login platform is one of its most valuable features where it lacks strong competition. Google runs its own identity platform, but with people increasingly using 2-factor authentication and other security to protect their Gmail accounts, it can sometimes be a bit clumsy. Snapchat is trying to build up its own Snap Kit login platform with partners like Poshmark, but few mainstream apps have implemented it for account creation.
If you start to think of Instagram as not just a parallel social network to Facebook but as either an escape pod or heir to the throne, it’s important to consider how Facebook’s core assets will weather the transition. Recent profile redesigns have already tried to make your Instagram profile the center of your online personality. Uniting the prismatic shards of your identity through account linking could let you carry that personality with you across the web.
-Facebook Messenger never had an Unsend option, except in its encrypted Secret messaging product where you can set an expiration timer on chats, or in Instagram Direct.
