18 September 2018
Answering its critics, Google loosens reins on AMP project
Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, has been a controversial project since its debut. The need for the framework has been clear: the payloads of mobile pages can be just insane, what with layers and layers of images, Javascript, ad networks, and more slowing down page rendering time and costing users serious bandwidth on metered plans.
Yet, the framework has been aggressively foisted on the community by Google, which has backed the project not just with technical talent, but also by making algorithmic changes to its search results that have essentially mandated that pages comply with the AMP project’s terms — or else lose their ranking on mobile searches.
Even more controversially, as part of making pages faster, the AMP project uses caches of pages on CDNs — which are hosted by Google (and also Cloudflare now). That meant that Google’s search results would direct a user to an AMP page hosted by Google, effectively cutting out the owner of the content in the process.
The project has been led by Malte Ubl, a senior staff engineer working on Google’s Javascript infrastructure projects, who has until now held effective unilateral control over the project.
In the wake of all of this criticism, the AMP project announced today that it would reform its governance, replacing Ubl as the exclusive tech lead with a technical steering committee comprised of companies invested in the success in the project. Notably, the project’s intention has an “…end goal of not having any company sit on more than a third of the seats.” In addition, the project will create an advisory board and working groups to shepherd the project’s work.
The project is also expected to move to a foundation in the future. These days, there are a number of places such a project could potentially reside, including the Apache Software Foundation and the Mozilla Foundation.
While the project has clearly had its detractors, the performance improvements that AMP has been fighting for are certainly meritorious. With this more open governance model, the project may get deeper support from other browser makers like Apple, Mozilla, and Microsoft, as well as the broader open source community.
And while Google has certainly been the major force behind the project, it has also been popular among open source software developers. Since the project’s launch, there have been 710 contributors to the project according to its statistics, and the project (attempting to empathize its non-Google monopoly) notes that more than three quarters of those contributors don’t work at Google.
Nonetheless, more transparency and community involvement should help to accelerate Accelerated Mobile Pages. The project will host its contributor summit next week at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, where these governance changes as well as the technical and design roadmaps for the project will be top of mind for attendees.
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Answering its critics, Google loosens reins on AMP project
Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, has been a controversial project since its debut. The need for the framework has been clear: the payloads of mobile pages can be just insane, what with layers and layers of images, Javascript, ad networks, and more slowing down page rendering time and costing users serious bandwidth on metered plans.
Yet, the framework has been aggressively foisted on the community by Google, which has backed the project not just with technical talent, but also by making algorithmic changes to its search results that have essentially mandated that pages comply with the AMP project’s terms — or else lose their ranking on mobile searches.
Even more controversially, as part of making pages faster, the AMP project uses caches of pages on CDNs — which are hosted by Google (and also Cloudflare now). That meant that Google’s search results would direct a user to an AMP page hosted by Google, effectively cutting out the owner of the content in the process.
The project has been led by Malte Ubl, a senior staff engineer working on Google’s Javascript infrastructure projects, who has until now held effective unilateral control over the project.
In the wake of all of this criticism, the AMP project announced today that it would reform its governance, replacing Ubl as the exclusive tech lead with a technical steering committee comprised of companies invested in the success in the project. Notably, the project’s intention has an “…end goal of not having any company sit on more than a third of the seats.” In addition, the project will create an advisory board and working groups to shepherd the project’s work.
The project is also expected to move to a foundation in the future. These days, there are a number of places such a project could potentially reside, including the Apache Software Foundation and the Mozilla Foundation.
While the project has clearly had its detractors, the performance improvements that AMP has been fighting for are certainly meritorious. With this more open governance model, the project may get deeper support from other browser makers like Apple, Mozilla, and Microsoft, as well as the broader open source community.
And while Google has certainly been the major force behind the project, it has also been popular among open source software developers. Since the project’s launch, there have been 710 contributors to the project according to its statistics, and the project (attempting to empathize its non-Google monopoly) notes that more than three quarters of those contributors don’t work at Google.
Nonetheless, more transparency and community involvement should help to accelerate Accelerated Mobile Pages. The project will host its contributor summit next week at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, where these governance changes as well as the technical and design roadmaps for the project will be top of mind for attendees.
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Instagram will promote mid-term voting with stickers, registration info
Facebook is getting ready to purposefully influence the U.S. mid-term elections after spending two years trying to safeguard against foreign interference. Instagram plans to run ads in Stories and feed powered by TurboVote that will target all US users over 18 and point them towards information on how to get properly registered and abide by voting rules. Then when election day arrives, users will be able to add an “I Voted” sticker to their photos and videos that link to voting info like which polling place to go to.
Combined, these efforts could boost voter turnout, especially amongst Instagram’s core audience of millenials. If one political party’s base skews younger, they could receive an advantage. “Ahead of National Voter Registration Day, we are helping our community register to vote and get to the polls on November 6th” Instagram writes. “From today, Instagram will connect US voters with the information they need to get registered.”
In 2010, a non-partisan “Get out the vote” message atop the Facebook News Feed was estimated to have driven 340,000 additional votes. The study by Nature suggested that “more of the 0.6% growth in turnout between 2006 and 2010 might have been caused by a single message on Facebook”. That’s significant considering the 2000 election had a margin of just 0.1 percent of voters.
You can watch Instagram’s video ads for voting below, which feature a cartoony purple Grimace character and are clearly aimed at a younger audience. They purposefully avoid any Democrat or Republican imagery, but also stick to a polished and American style that could ensure the clips aren’t mistaken for Russian propaganda.
Earlier this year, the company admitted that 120,000 Instagram posts by the Russian military intelligence group the Internet Research Agency reached 20 million Americans in an attempt to sow discord surrounding the 2016 Presidential election. They used a variety of image memes about polarizing social issues to try to divide the country. Facebook has since doubled its security staff to 20,000, required identity verification for political advertisers, and has stepped up its effort to delete scores of fake accounts associated with election interference.
The Russian disinformation attacks could still make users weary to learn about voting from social media. But more turnout means a more democratic society, so it’s easy to see the positive impact of Instagram efforts here. The question remains whether this voter drive will end up the subject of congressional scrutiny at another enevitable hearing on social media and political bias.
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YouTube to shut down standalone Gaming app, as gaming gets a new home on YouTube
YouTube will no longer maintain a separate app targeting gaming and live game streaming, the company announced today. The YouTube Gaming app, which first arrived in 2015, will be sunset sometime next spring as its host of features make their way over to YouTube’s main site.
Over the years, the YouTube Gaming app has been a place where YouTube experimented with features catering to game creators and viewers who like to watch live and recorded esports. Here, it tested things like Game Pages to make games more discoverable, Super Chat, and Channel Memberships – features which the Amazon-owned game streaming site Twitch had also popularized among the game community.
Some of YouTube Gaming’s features became so well-received that the company brought them to YouTube. For example, this June YouTube introduced channel memberships to its main site. And before that, it had brought Super Chat – a way for creators to make money from live streams – to its broader community, as well.
But while gaming remains one of YouTube’s top verticals, no one was really using the standalone YouTube Gaming app, the company says.
“We have 200 million people that are logged in, watching gaming content every single day,” Ryan Wyatt, YouTube’s Director of Gaming Content and Partnerships, tells TechCrunch. “And the majority of them, quite frankly, are just not using the YouTube Gaming app for their gaming experiences,” he says.
However, data from Sensor Tower shows the app had over 11 million installs across iOS and Android, and those installs have remained consistent over time. That indicates a large number of people were at least willing to try the app. But the firm also found that its daily users were a “tiny fraction” of Twitch’s on iOS, which confirms Wyatt’s point about lack of usage.
Instead, gamers are logging into YouTube to watch gaming, Wyatt explains.
They watch a lot of gaming, too – over the last twelve months, fans streamed more than 50 billion hours of gaming content, and YouTube has over 500,000 quarterly active live gaming streamers.
In other words, YouTube’s decision to sunset the standalone app should not be seen as an admission that it’s ceding this space to Twitch – rather, that it’s now deciding to use the power of YouTube’s flagship app to better compete.
On that front, the company is today launching a new YouTube Gaming destination at youtube.com/gaming. The destination is first available in the U.S., and will roll out globally in the months ahead.
A link to the new vertical will appear in the left-side navigation bar, where you find other top-level sections like Trending and Subscriptions.
The Gaming destination will feature personalized content at the top of the page, based on what you like to watch, along with top live games, the latest gaming videos from your subscriptions, and dedicated shelves for live streams and trending videos.
Another feature, “gaming creator on the rise,” will highlight up-and-coming gaming creators who are still trying to build an audience. That’s something that many say is still an issue on Amazon-owned Twitch – often, their early days are spent streaming to no one. They soon find that they need the blessing of an existing influencer to bring more viewers to their channel.
Wyatt points out, too, that YouTube Gaming won’t be all about live streams.
“The other thing that we learned through this process was that the gaming app, and the narrative around it, was very heavily live-focused. Everybody always talked about all the live streaming and live gaming,” he says. “But what that did was underserve the vast gaming
business. So by moving it over to YouTube main, you have this beautiful combination of both the living gaming streams that are continuing to grow massively on YouTube, as well as all the other VOD content on the platform.”
There are several things that YouTube’s new Gaming destination still lacks, however. Most notably, the ability to live stream gameplay right from your phone.
That’s why the YouTube Gaming app won’t immediately disappear. Instead, it will stick around until March or maybe even April 2019, while YouTube works on porting the experience over to its main site and app.
“We’re still working through that,” Wyatt admits, when asked how the live streaming component will come to YouTube proper. “We haven’t made a decision on if [live game streaming] will be in there by March, but we do need to have a solution for easy mobile capture from the phone,” he says.
The YouTube Gaming app was never a global release, as it was only live in select markets, we should note. YouTube’s Gaming vertical will eventually be launched worldwide. That could make it more of a challenge to Twitch, as it taps into the eyeballs of YouTube’s 1.8 billion users, while also expanding to take advantage of other new YouTube features like Premieres or Merchandise.
“It’s a great opportunity to use those features,” Wyatt notes, regarding the shift from YouTube Gaming to YouTube proper. “And we’re going to keep creating more features that will that will really lend themselves to live, but ultimately we’ll be thinking about really unique ways to apply them to VOD as well,” he says.
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Instagram will promote mid-term voting with stickers, registration info
Facebook is getting ready to purposefully influence the U.S. mid-term elections after spending two years trying to safeguard against foreign interference. Instagram plans to run ads in Stories and feed powered by TurboVote that will target all US users over 18 and point them towards information on how to get properly registered and abide by voting rules. Then when election day arrives, users will be able to add an “I Voted” sticker to their photos and videos that link to voting info like which polling place to go to.
Combined, these efforts could boost voter turnout, especially amongst Instagram’s core audience of millenials. If one political party’s base skews younger, they could receive an advantage. “Ahead of National Voter Registration Day, we are helping our community register to vote and get to the polls on November 6th” Instagram writes. “From today, Instagram will connect US voters with the information they need to get registered.”
In 2010, a non-partisan “Get out the vote” message atop the Facebook News Feed was estimated to have driven 340,000 additional votes. The study by Nature suggested that “more of the 0.6% growth in turnout between 2006 and 2010 might have been caused by a single message on Facebook”. That’s significant considering the 2000 election had a margin of just 0.1 percent of voters.
You can watch Instagram’s video ads for voting below, which feature a cartoony purple Grimace character and are clearly aimed at a younger audience. They purposefully avoid any Democrat or Republican imagery, but also stick to a polished and American style that could ensure the clips aren’t mistaken for Russian propaganda.
Earlier this year, the company admitted that 120,000 Instagram posts by the Russian military intelligence group the Internet Research Agency reached 20 million Americans in an attempt to sow discord surrounding the 2016 Presidential election. They used a variety of image memes about polarizing social issues to try to divide the country. Facebook has since doubled its security staff to 20,000, required identity verification for political advertisers, and has stepped up its effort to delete scores of fake accounts associated with election interference.
The Russian disinformation attacks could still make users weary to learn about voting from social media. But more turnout means a more democratic society, so it’s easy to see the positive impact of Instagram efforts here. The question remains whether this voter drive will end up the subject of congressional scrutiny at another enevitable hearing on social media and political bias.
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Spire Health Tags are now on Apple’s shelves
Spire’s Health Tags, the dark and tiny devices you stick on your clothes to gather all sorts of health data from your steps, heartbeat and stress levels is now available at your local Apple Store.
The company started out with a breath tracking device to detect when you are feeling tense and help calm you down. But four years in and its now all about the wearable “tags” you stick on items of clothing like your pants or sports bra.
Yes, yes, there are lots of gadgets out there to gather similar information — the Apple Watch will now even detect if you have a fall or something is wrong with your heart — but the Spire health tag is nothing like a Fitbit or Apple Watch, according to the company. For one, there’s zero need to charge the device. One tag’s battery will last a year and a half before dying out. They’re also machine washable. You just pick a few outfits and stick a tag on each of them.
Of course a few other startups out there are working on making smart, washable, data-gathering clothes. Enflux makes the clothing and then sews in the motion sensor to tell you if you are lifting correctly. Vitali is a “smart” bra with a built-in sensor to detect stress. Then there’s OmSignal, which makes body-hugging workout clothes that gather “medical-grade biometric data to achieve optimal health.” But these tiny health tags are different in that they allow you to choose the clothes you want to adhere the monitor to.
Like Spire’s first product, the Stone, which earned more than $8 million in sales, according to the company, the tags will also pick up on times of stress and help calm you down through a series of breaths and focus on the app.
“Continuous health data will revolutionize health and wellness globally, but early incarnations have been hampered by poor user experiences and a focus on the hardware over the outcomes that the hardware can create,” Spire’s founder Jonathan Palley said. “By making the device ‘disappear’, we believe Health Tag is the first product to unlock the potential.”
Spire’s Health Tags will be sold in Apple Stores as a three-pack for $130, six-pack for $230 and an eight-pack for $300, with additional pack sizes available on the company’s website.
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Facebook named in suit alleging job ads on its platform unlawfully discriminated against women
Facebook’s ad platform is facing charges that it has enabled gender-based discrimination against millions of women in a class action suit filed on behalf of three female workers and backed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The legal action also names ten employers who are alleged to have used the social media giant’s platform to exclusively and unlawfully target job adverts at male Facebook users, thereby excluding women and non-binary users from receiving the ads.
The ACLU, law firm Outten & Golden LLP, and the Communications Workers of America have filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The ten employers and employment agency advertisers named in the suit, which the charges allege ran discriminatory jobs in “mostly” male-dominated fields, include a police department, multiple retailers, a software development firm and various installation, repair and remodelling companies. (All ten named in the suit are listed in the ACLU’s press release.)
“I’ve heard stories about when people looked for jobs in the classified ads and big bold letters read ‘help wanted-male’ or ‘help wanted-female.’ I was shocked to find that this discrimination is still happening, just online instead of in newspapers,” said Bobbi Spees, a job-seeker and lead complainant in the case, commenting in a statement. “I shouldn’t be shut out of the chance to hear about a job opportunity just because I am a woman.”
“The internet did not erase our civil rights laws. It violates the law if an employer uses Facebook to deny job ads to women,” added Peter Romer-Friedman, an attorney at Outten & Golden, in another supporting statement. “The last time I checked, you don’t have to be a man to be a truck driver or a police officer. But Facebook and employers are acting like it’s the 1950s, before federal employment law banned sex discrimination.”
The charges allege that Facebook, via its platform, delivers job ads selectively based on age and sex categories that employers expressly choose, and that it earns revenue from placing job ads that exclude women and older workers from receiving the ads.
The ACLU notes that targeting job ads by sex is unlawful under federal, state, and local civil rights laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Sex segregated job advertising has historically been used to shut women out of well-paying jobs and economic opportunities,” said Galen Sherwin, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, in another supporting statement. “We can’t let gender-based ad targeting online give new life to a form of discrimination that should have been eradicated long ago.”
While online platforms are not as heavily regulated as publishing platforms the lawsuit argues that Facebook can be held legally responsible for:
- creating and operating the system that allows and encourages employers to select the gender and age of the people who get their job ads, including providing employers with data on users’ gender and age for targeting purposes;
- delivering the gender- and age-based ads based on employers’ preferences; and
- acting as a recruiter connecting employers with prospective employees
We’ve reached out to Facebook for comment on the lawsuit.
It’s by no means the first time the company has faced civil rights complaints related to its ad platform.
Back in 2016 ProPublica exposed how Facebook’s ad tools could be used to exclude users based on their “ethnic affinity” — including in protected categories such as housing, employment and credit opportunities which prohibit discriminatory advertising.
The company responded by saying it would build tools to prevent advertisers from applying ethnic affinity targeting in the protected categories. And also by rewording its ad policies to more clearly prohibit discrimination.
But the following year another ProPublica investigation showed it was still failing to block discriminatory ads — leaving Facebook to apologize for failing to effectively enforce its own policies (hmmm, now where else have we heard the company accused of that… ), and saying: “Our systems continue to improve but we can do better.”
Last year the company was also shown to have allowed ads that included hateful sentiments targeted at Jewish people.
Around about the same time that Facebook was facing renewed criticism over ethnic affinity targeting on its platform being used as a tool for racial discrimination, the company said it would also take a look at how advertisers are using exclusion targeting across other “sensitive segments” — such as those relating to members of the LGBTQ community and people with disabilities.
It’s not clear whether Facebook included gender-based discrimination in those 2017 self reviews too. (We’ve asked and will update this post with any response.)
Either way, it appears Facebook has failed to pick up on the potential for gender-based discrimination to be carried out via its ad platform.
And given all the attention its ad tools have attracted lately as a vector for discrimination and other types of abuse that looks careless to say the least.
Facebook’s ad platform has faced additional criticism in Europe for sensitive inferences it makes about users — given the platform allows advertisers to target people based on political and religious interests, meaning Facebook’s platform is quietly making sensitive inferences about individuals.
Privacy experts argue this modus operandi entails Facebook processing the sensitive personal data of individuals without explicitly asking people for their upfront consent (as would be required under EU law when you’re processing sensitive personal data such as political or religious affiliation).
An opinion on a person is still personal data of that person, they contend.
Facebook disagrees, disputing that the inferences its ad platform makes about users (based off of its tracking and data-mining of people) constitutes personal data. But it’s yet another bone of legal contention now being lobbed at the company.
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10 of the Best Cancelled Netflix Originals Still Worth Watching
It seems the lesson Netflix teaches us is: don’t grow too attached to anything. To make space for new productions, the streaming service has become notorious for axing some of its best series.
So, should you invest your time in any of these cancelled Netflix Originals? We’ve scoured the yard and found shows that are still worth watching even though no more episodes are being made.
1. Hemlock Grove
Looking for a good scare? Then enter the spooky town of Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania.
Two teenage girls have been murdered. But this isn’t one of those typical crime dramas. The suspect is a boy who might just be a werewolf. With the assistance of a member of the town’s richest family, the lycanthrope must find the secrets at the heart of Hemlock Grove.
Running for three seasons between 2013 and 2015, the show received mixed reviews, but gained a dedicated fanbase similar to that of Twin Peaks. Famke Janssen (The Blacklist), Bill Skarsgård (Deadpool 2), and Dougray Scott (Mission: Impossible 2) head an impressive cast.
2. The Get Down
Sadly, this drama only lasted one season. Fortunately, that seems to have been the plan all along, meaning its 11 episodes gives you the complete story.
The Get Down is a nostalgia fix for those wanting to remember the birth of hip-hop and disco music; specifically, this is seen through the eyes of a group of teenagers in the Bronx, New York City. A time-jump splits the season in two, with the second half catching up with the teens a year after Episode Six.
Baz Luhrmann co-created the series, so fans of Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby will know what they’re getting into. Expect stunning cinematography, melodramatic romance, and a great score. Luhrmann planned the story for some 10 years, so this really is a labor of love.
3. Seven Seconds
Here’s another done-in-one-season narrative, albeit more hard-hitting. Seven Seconds is a real tour-de-force.
Peter Jablonkski (Beau Knapp), a white police officer, accidentally hits Brenton Butler (Daykwon Gaines), a 15-year-old African American, with his car. But when his colleagues arrive at the scene, they assume this is racially-motivated and initiate a cover-up.
Seven Seconds isn’t based on a real-life incident, but creator, Veena Sud was inspired by current events. This includes the tale of the real Brenton Butler, who was arrested for a murder he didn’t commit and whose confession was reportedly a result of physical abuse.
4. Sense8
There was massive uproar when Netflix axed this science fiction series—so much so that a Sense8 finale was commissioned to appease fans and bring the narrative to a proper conclusion.
Sense8 examines a sudden psychic and emotional link between eight strangers across the world.
The show is created by sci-fi heavy-hitters, Lana and Lilly Wachowski (The Matrix; Cloud Atlas), and J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5; The Amazing Spider-Man comic). Like all the best sci-fi, the series uses its simple premise to look at global issues: politics, religion, and love. As such, it was praised for its representation of LGBTQ relationships in particular.
5. Marco Polo
When it comes to Netflix’s historical dramas, The Crown is the jewel in the… well, you get the idea. Nonetheless, the streaming service provides further adventure for anyone who thinks the past is a world worth exploring.
Netflix lavished a lot of cash on Marco Polo, yet it only lasted two seasons before the axe fell. Perhaps its slow pace put some viewers off. Still, it built a cult following and explores an era often overlooked.
You’ll know the titular hero’s journey on the Silk Road; this series looks at his time at the court of Kublai Khan (played superbly by Doctor Strange’s Benedict Wong).
6. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Looking for a good laugh? The critically-acclaimed Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is arguably Netflix’s highest-profile comedy—yet its premise is remarkably grim.
Ellie Kemper stars as Schmidt, a 29-year-old who must readjust to life after being held captive for 15 years by cultist, Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (Jon Hamm). Despite this, her cheery personality coupled with the show’s quick wit makes for a joyful experience.
If you watch all four seasons your cheeks will ache from laughing at this, one of those Netflix shows worth binge-watching.
7. Everything Sucks!
We go from a headline-grabbing comedy to a show that’s largely remained under the radar. Everything Sucks! didn’t gain a mass following, but its charm will certainly entice anyone who grew up in the 1990s.
This coming-of-age story doesn’t boast the most original concept. A group of teenagers attending the Boring High School (a fictional institution, located in the real-life town of Boring, Oregon) make a movie about their lives. Complications ensue.
Nevertheless, a likeable cast make this easy watching, and you’ll soon be gripped by their puppy-love antics.
8. Lady Dynamite
As with Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the basis of Lady Dynamite is serious. Based on the life of Maria Bamford, who plays a fictionalized version of herself, the series finds the comedian-turned-actor rebuilding her life after suffering from bipolar disorder.
Instead, the situation is mined for comedy value in a similar way to the best British comedies. This results in a feel-good surreal show that remains a solid catalyst for mental health discussions.
It came as quite a shock when Netflix cancelled Lady Dynamite after just two seasons. Then again, it’s always best to leave people wanting more.
9. The Killing
This isn’t a conventional Netflix Original. In fact, it began on AMC, but suffered two cancellations under the network.
It does, however, demonstrate Netflix’s appreciation of its audience, because the company picked up The Killing for a final fourth season to finish the story properly.
The gritty crime drama is based on the Danish series, but relocates the action to Seattle. Here, the body of a girl is found in a car registered to the campaign committee for mayoral candidate, Darren Richmond (Billy Campbell).
10. Lilyhammer
Once more, this isn’t your typical Netflix Original. It’s a great fusion between a crime drama and a black comedy. Lilyhammer premiered on the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s main station, NRK1. Its first episode was watched by a fifth of the country’s population, and was swiftly added to Netflix, giving audiences in North America exclusive access to the show.
Lilyhammer is essential viewing for anyone pining for The Sopranos.
Steven Van Zandt is Frank Tagliano, an American Mafia boss who testifies against his peers and is subsequently relocated to Lillehammer, Norway. Across three seasons, his past transgressions catch up with him and his relationships unravel—all in a gloriously deadpan fashion!
Delve Into Netflix’s Back Catalog
You might be aghast at how many series are axed by Netflix, especially when they show so much potential for more.
We’re not really complaining though. Some would say Netflix is right to cancel shows which haven’t gained a considerable following. Better that than eek out stories until they’re thoroughly dead. Regardless, Netflix is still worth the money.
Read the full article: 10 of the Best Cancelled Netflix Originals Still Worth Watching
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The Best Places to Download HTML Templates for your Website
Are you looking for responsive, beautiful and professional looking HTML templates for your next website but don’t have the budget? Well, here are a couple of free resources on the Internet where you can regularly find good templates for use in your web projects without restrictions.
Dribble is a popular community of designers for them to showcase their work online. In addition to posting screenshots of their work, designers also upload the HTML / CSS version of their projects for anyone to use. You should bookmark the freebie and the freebies tag on Dribble to never miss these projects.
Creative Market is a marketplace for website templates, themes, fonts and other design assets. It is a paid store but if you join their email newsletter, they’ll send you free design stuff every week in your inbox that can be downloaded directly to your Dropbox. And they are mostly good.
HTML5 UP is created by the same developer that built Carrd, one of the most useful websites on the Internet. HTML5 UP is a treasure house of beautiful templates built sans the heavy Bootstrap or Material framework. All web templates are available in the Creative Commons license so can you can use them in any way with attribution.
Envato’s Themes Forest is a premium marketplace for website templates but if create a free account with them, you get to download all the freebies that are published on their homepage every few weeks. These are paid items that the authors have made free only during the duration of the promotion to gain visibility in the marketplace.
OnePageLove is a curated directory of single page websites and they have a dedicated section for HTML templates that are free to download.
UpLabs is another online marketplace and community where creative designers share their work. The “web” section offers a variety of HTML templates that are free for both personal and commercial use.
Manoela Ilic’s Codrops houses the most creative collection of work for web designers as well as developers. Every single project on this site, be it an image slider or a checkout page, is unlike anything you’ve seen before and the source code is up for grabs on Github.
Freebiesbug, as the name suggests, curates web freebies including fonts, PSD designs, stock photos and, of course, HTML templates. Look for the “exclusive” tag and you’ll discover HTML/CSS templates that the designers have chosen to share exclusively on this website.
And the final resource in my list that is worth adding to your bookmarks is Codepen. Chris Coyier started Codepen as a playground for writing HTML, CSS and JavaScript in the web browser but the project has evolved into a huge community of front-end developers that are putting the code in public which are free to fork and download.
PS: If you are aware of any good resource for free web templates that we missed in the above list, please let me know at amit@labnol.org – thanks!
The post The Best Places to Download HTML Templates for your Website appeared first on Digital Inspiration.
How to Revoke Third-Party Access to Your Microsoft Account
One of the great benefits of having a Microsoft account is the ability to use your credentials to log into other apps and services.
Sometimes, the apps and services will integrate with your account in some way. For example, you can connect your Google and Microsoft accounts so you can sync your emails and calendars between the two services.
However, if you’ve been using your Microsoft credentials as a way to access third-party services for a few years, you probably have a long list of connected apps that you no longer use.
From a security standpoint, that’s not a great situation. Often, you’ll have granted those apps various reading and editing capabilities. If an old app changes hands, the new owner could use those access rights in nefarious ways.
To remedy the situation, you need to do a bit of housekeeping: revoke the third-party access of apps you no longer use.
How to Revoke Access to Your Microsoft Account
To revoke an app’s third-party access to your Microsoft Account:
- Head to account.microsoft.com/account and log into your account.
- Click on the Privacy tab at the top of the page. You may need to verify your identity via an email code.
- Scroll down to the Other privacy settings section.
- Go to Apps and services > Apps and services that can access your data.
- Review the list of apps and establish which you want to revoke.
- Click on Edit below the corresponding app’s name.
- Select Remove these permissions.
If you’d like to learn more about the security features of your Microsoft Account, check out our article on ways to keep your Microsoft Account secure and a list of other security tips you need to consider when using a Microsoft Account.
Image Credit: Piter2121/Depositphotos
Read the full article: How to Revoke Third-Party Access to Your Microsoft Account
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How Zety Can Help You Craft a Perfect Resume
You surely know how important your resume is when you’re searching for a job. Whether you’re just graduating college or making a change in your career, your resume needs to be sharp and concise. Plus, it should look attractive to grab attention.
The problem is, writing your resume takes time and it’s not always easy. If you want to get a great result in no time, you can consider creating a resume with Zety.
What Is Zety?
Zety is an online resume builder that’s slick, easy to use, and most of all, professional. It features lots of smooth templates to help you craft the best resume, expert tips for improving, and even tracking tools to find out if employers are viewing your resume.
Our overhauled guide on how to address a resume will help you get it right, from your professional title to your social media links and everything in between! Check it out and let us know what you think! #careeradvice https://t.co/DNYk9qO19G
— Zety (@zety_com) July 21, 2018
Best of all, if you’re not sure how to make a resume, the generator will walk you through the process. You can customize the font, spacing, and similar, but don’t have to worry about formatting issues like in Word.
Getting Started
You can start making a polished resume right away. Head to Zety’s homepage and click Create My Resume Now. You’ll then see several templates to choose from. Click Use this template when you’ve found your favorite.
Next, choose a color scheme for the template. You’ll see several options that you can click to preview. Hit Use this color to confirm your choice.
After this, you’ll jump into Zety’s online resume editor.
Building Your Resume in a Resume Builder
Now you can start building your resume. Use the tabs along the top to access the various features.
Start with the Add & Remove Sections header. Here, you can easily add and remove types of information to get your resume just right. Use the left sidebar to add more sections, then you can resize, move around, rename, and remove sections on the left.
Once you’ve got your sections set up, jump to the Editor tab. Here, you can enter the actual information for your resume. Next, switch between sections on the left, and use the clearly labeled sections to fill in the data as you go.
On the Preview & Customize screen, you can see how your finished resume looks. Use the options on the left to change the font and font size, toggle page numbers, change the color, and more. You can open the Advanced section for more options.
Saving, Sharing, and Pricing
To save your resume, you’ll need to sign up for a free account. An account also lets you come back and make changes at any time.
Aside from building your resume, Zety also makes it easy to share. Click the Online resume tab at the top of the editor and you can Activate your online resume. This gives you a unique URL that you can share anywhere to give others access to your resume.
You can create documents for free, but you’ll need to subscribe to a Zety plan to download them and access more features. You can choose between two monthly plans: Start and Premium.
Start gives access to four resume templates, PDF downloads, and unlimited resumes. The Premium plan builds on this with 18 templates, plus a cover letter builder to match your resume. You’ll also get expanded tools for the online resume feature, allowing you to send your resume to employers and track how many of them view it.
If you only need access to the service for a short time, you can buy a 30-day plan for either choice.
Rock Your Resume
Zety is a powerful yet straightforward online resume builder. It lets you create a professional document in a short time, giving you the power to make it look exactly as you like without fiddling in a word processor. Give it a try if you’re struggling to make your resume stand out.
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Google partners with Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi to put Android into millions of vehicles
Google will partner with Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, the largest auto alliance in the world by vehicle sales, to put Android-based infotainment systems into millions of cars, the companies told Wall Street Journal. The alliance’s next-generation infotainment system and dashboard displays will use Android and launch in 2021.
Drivers will be able to access Google’s maps, app store and voice assistant from their vehicle’s dashboards. The new partnership is a giant step forward for Google’s ambitions to get its operating system into more cars (the alliance sold a combined 5.5 million vehicles in the first half of this year, putting it ahead of Volkswagen and Toyota Motor).
The alliance’s executives told WSJ that they decided on the partnership because many of their customers are accustomed to using Google Maps and other apps and prefer sticking with them instead of using software developed by automakers when they drive.
Auto executives have also become more comfortable with Google, which made its software open source in 2007. Kal Mos, the alliance’s vice president of connected vehicles, told the Wall Street Journal that “the trust was built in the last few years.”
By partnering with Google, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi ups the ante on rival automakers to partner with tech companies instead of developing their own software ecosystems. While this may win customers over, it also means potentially ceding control over valuable user data to companies like Google and Apple. Mos told WSJ that Google will have access to data collected from its in-car apps, but must ask for user permission first.
Other automakers that are already integrating Google apps into their vehicles include Volkswagen, which put Google Earth into the Audi’s in-car navigation system, and Volvo Cars, which said its next in-car infotaintment system will run on Android.
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Become a Certified Cloud Computing Engineer with this MCSE Training
Most of the apps we use every day rely on cloud infrastructure. But who looks after those servers? Certified engineers, that’s who. Thanks to the growth of cloud computing, these highly-paid professionals are in demand. The Ultimate MCSE Certification Training Bundle can help you join the talent pool, with four courses working toward the official Windows Server exams. You can grab the training now for $49 at MakeUseOf Deals.
Cloud Management
Many technical careers are only open to people with a relevant college degree. But cloud computing isn’t like that — anyone with the right skills can find a good job.
This bundle can help you start a lucrative new career, even if you have zero experience with code. Through concise video tutorials, you learn how to maintain servers and networks to professional standards.
The courses show you how to configure local storage systems, react to incoming threats, build in redundancies, and manage advanced networks. At the same time, you work toward four different Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) certifications. These awards are highly respected around the world.
The bundle includes 61 hours of content, and you get a certificate of completion at the end of each course. With lifetime access included, you can learn at your own pace and return to the courses at any time.
61 Hours of Training for $49
Order now for $49 to get this huge learning library, worth $1,196.
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Twitter is bringing back the chronological timeline
Your Twitter prayers are answered! Well, maybe not the prayers about harassment or the ones about an edit tweet button, but your other prayers.
Today in a series of tweets, the company announced that it had heard the cries of its various disgruntled users and will bring back a form of the pure chronological timeline that users can opt into. Twitter first took an interest in a more algorithmic timeline three-ish years ago and committed to it in 2016.
Some users were under the impression that they were living that algo-free life already by toggling off the “Show the best Tweets first” option in the account settings menu. Unfortunately for all of us, unchecking this box didn’t revert Twitter to ye olde pure chronological timeline so much as it removed some of the more prominent algorithmic bits that would otherwise be served to users first thing. Users regularly observed non-chronological timeline behaviors even with the option toggled off.
As Twitter Product Lead Kayvon Beykpour elaborated, “We’re working on making it easier for people to control their Twitter timeline, including providing an easy switch to see the most recent tweets.”
Nostalgic users who want regular old Twitter back can expect to see the feature in testing “in the coming weeks.”
We’re ready to pull the switch, just tell us when.
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Spotify Raises Offline Download Limit to 10,000
Spotify has quietly raised the number of songs you can download to listen to offline. While most Spotify users spend their time streaming music, it’s also possible to download songs to listen to offline. And this makes that option a lot more attractive.
You Can Now Download More Spotify
You could previously download a maximum of 3,333 songs per device on up to three devices for a total of 9,999 songs. Now, you can download a maximum of 10,000 songs per device on up to five devices for a total of 50,000 songs.
Wtf Spotify just notified me that I’ve reached the maximum number of offline downloads ? how is this possible, I’m hurt
— who (@angefreakal33k) January 5, 2018
Rolling Stone seems to have been the first publication to notice the change, which happened with the most recent Spotify update. And it means that users who had already hit the 3,333 songs/device limit can now start downloading music again.
Spotify said: “At Spotify, we’re always working on improving the experience for our users. We can now confirm that we have increased the number of offline tracks per device — from 3,333 on three devices to 10,000 tracks per device for up to five devices.”
Unfortunately, there’s still no sign of Spotify lifting the limit of the number of songs you can have in your library at any one time. That still stands at 10,000, much to people’s annoyance. Luckily, our look at common Spotify problems offers a solution.
Other Streaming Services Are Available
This is a nice gesture from Spotify, as this was one of those arbitrary limits that seemed to exist for no reason. It may also be Spotify acknowledging that its users want to download more music to listen to offline rather than burn through their data.
Spotify is a fantastic music streaming service, so if you already use it check out our unofficial guide to Spotify. However, there are other such services available, so why not read our comparison of Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music Unlimited?
Image Credit: Andrew Mager/Flickr
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WHILL raises $45M to help people with disabilities get around airports and other large venues
WHILL, the startup known for creating sleek, high-tech personal mobility devices, announced today that it has closed a $45 million Series C. The funding will be used for expanding into new international markets, as well as developing new products for large venues, including airports and “last-mile” sidewalk transportation. The round’s lead investors were SBI Investment, Daiwa Securities Group and WHIZ Partners, with participation from returning investors INCJ, Eight Road Ventures, MSIVC, Nippon Venture Capital, DG Incubation and Mizuho Capital.
This brings WHILL’s total funding so far to about $80 million. Founded in Tokyo in 2012, WHILL plans to open a branch in the European Union and enter 10 new European countries. It also plans to start working with partners on developing autonomous capabilities for its mobility devices, senior marketing manager Jeff Yoshioka told TechCrunch. The company will build its own sensors and cameras to use in its “mobility as a service” program, which allows users to control vehicles and call customer service through a mobile app.
One of WHILL’s biggest projects is developing an autonomous personal mobility device system for airports. Yoshioka says that an estimated 20 million people request wheelchairs in U.S. airports each year. This means they need to wait for an airline employee to bring a wheelchair to them and then push them from check-in to their gates. At the same time, it doesn’t give users a lot of flexibility.
The system that WHILL has in mind, on the other hand, would allow individuals to use an app to summon a mobility device over to them. Then they can go wherever they want — coffee shops, restrooms, shops — before heading to the gate without an assistant. Once they are done with the device, it will return to a docking station on its own. WHILL has already begun testing a similar program at Tokyo International Airport in partnership with Panasonic.
Yoshioka says WHILL will most likely pursue distribution partnerships with U.S. airlines, which are responsible for supplying and maintaining the wheelchair systems in American airports, and airports to build the necessary infrastructure.
Along with airports, WHILL wants to bring its technology to other large venues, including shopping malls and sports arenas, as well as create a system for last-mile transportation. Yoshioka notes that “there are already a lot of companies out there like LimeBike and MoBike that offer bikes and electric scooters, but there’s nothing out there for people with disabilities who can’t use those devices.”
Instead, many rely on Ubers or public transportation even for short distances. Like the airport system, WHILL’s last-mile sidewalk system will use autonomous electric vehicles that can be called to users with an app. It faces unique challenges, however, because WHILL’s devices are larger and more expensive than bikes or electric scooters, so the company needs to find safe places to dock them that are still accessible to people with limited mobility. Yoshioka says WHILL likely will focus on partnering with commercial properties to create indoor docking stations.
WHILL’s largest market is still Japan, where it has between 4,000 to 5,000 resellers. In its home market, WHILL’s devices are subsidized by the government and also available for rent. In the U.S., however, many customers need to purchase devices out-of-pocket. To make their products more accessible, WHILL launched the less expensive Model Ci (called the Model C in Europe and Japan) earlier this year. While there is still plenty of room for innovation in the wheelchair market, the Model Ci and other WHILL products compete with devices like the iBot, which can climb stairs, and the Trackchair, designed for off-road use. WHILL’s current products can’t climb stairs, but they do have the advantage of being designed for both indoor and outdoor use, giving users more flexibility, says Yoshioka.
The company also expects demand for its products to grow thanks to a rapidly aging world population, citing statistics that show there are expected to be more than 2.1 billion people over the age of 60 by 2050, up from about 900 million last year.
“We don’t necessarily see [the other companies] as direct competitors. They definitely do impact sales, because people might want something that climbs stairs instead of having better outdoor capabilities, but I think overall it’s very beneficial for the industry,” Yoshioka adds. “As a company that’s trying to disrupt the industry, it’s nice to have them around because it pushes the industry forward and opens eyes for other manufacturers.”
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What Are Hard Forks vs. Soft Forks in Cryptocurrency?
In software development, a fork is a branching or splitting of code into separate projects. Cryptocurrency forks happen all the time, and there’s generally nothing to worry about.
As all blockchain projects (what is blockchain?) involve software of some kind, that’s what we mean when we talk about forking. By forking a project, you are taking a copy of the code at a specific moment in time, and then building on that code as a separate project.
An example of a fork is Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin Cash started from the Bitcoin codebase, but now runs as an independent project. Any changes made to Bitcoin do not transfer across to Bitcoin Cash, and each set of tokens are separate.
Forking doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Many companies fork their own software. This could be to maintain support for two very different operating systems, for example, or to maintain an old or outdated version alongside a more up-to-date version.
Cryptocurrency forks are no different to any other software fork. For example, developer A believes a blockchain project should do X, but developer B believes it should do Y. If X and Y are too far removed from each other, developer A or B may choose to make a fork. Each developer can go and develop their own features without interfering with each other.
Forks may also happen with risky or experimental features.
If the developers get along with each other, or an agreement or compromise occurs, the forked version may merge back into the original code later on, or the original code might be abandoned in favor of the new, forked code.
This all sounds good, but what’s it got to do with cryptocurrency users like you and me? Well, as many cryptocurrency projects are open source, forks can and do happen all the time—sometimes for legitimate reasons (like improved speed or security), sometimes for selfish reasons (like making mining easier on certain hardware).
Hard Forks vs. Soft Forks in Cryptocurrency
A soft fork often involves minor code changes. This could be terminology or changes which don’t alter the way a given blockchain operates. Soft forks are often non-intrusive and can co-exist alongside the unforked version.
With soft forks, miners may choose to switch to the new code. As there are no major changes, any nodes running older software should still be able to accept blocks generated by the new nodes—however, new nodes will reject blocks generated by old nodes. If enough miners switch to the forked version, there won’t be enough nodes on the old code to get any transactions processed. The new nodes would all reject the blocks by the old nodes, forcing them to switch over.
Here’s where it gets problematic: If a soft fork is risky or unpopular, miners may not switch to it. If only a minority of nodes run the new code, it may die out and get replaced in the code.
A hard fork is often much more troublesome. Hard forks usually need the whole network to switch over to the new code. If some nodes were to run the unforked code, the nodes may generate data in different ways and fall out of sync. While it is possible to run hard-forked and unforked nodes on the same blockchain together, it’s rarely done. Each set of nodes would reject each other, and you’d get into a heap of trouble.
So much trouble, in fact, that blockchain developers may insist that every node upgrades to the fork. This is often done at a date in the future after the mining of a specific block. This allows every node time to upgrade.
If a hard fork happens in the code but some developers disagree with the change, things can get messy. The miners themselves may find themselves in the middle of a bitter battle and be forced to pick a side. If things get really bad, a brand new project may arise—based on the original code, with the changes made by the hard fork. The unforked code continues as it always has, and the hard forked code has to start again.
This is called a chain split, and such a divorce of code can often be bad news. The original project may lose supporters, nodes, or financiers to the hard-forked project, but the new project may also need to find a source of revenue or a collection of nodes to run the network. This bitter battle rarely ends well for either party.
When a chain split happens, the developers may choose to keep a copy of the records alongside the code, meaning anyone who has tokens on the original network will also have tokens on the new network. Free cryptocurrency may sound awesome, but there are some potential hazards that can severely impact such a project.
Without careful fork management, network users may be able to double spend coins. If a transaction happens before the fork but does not get recorded until after the fork, you may have tokens on the new network which were not present on the old network. For this reason, most hot wallets, exchanges, and nodes will stop processing transactions for a small maintenance window before and after the designated forking time.
If you’re using your own secure cryptocurrency wallet, you may need to migrate your coins depending on the fork.
Cryptocurrency Forks: Wrapped Up
One of the core values behind public, open-source cryptocurrency projects is security. Forking often increases security, but hard forks can be problematic.
If you’re a cryptocurrency user, you often won’t have anything to worry about. If you’re a miner running your own nodes, then you’ll need to keep track of the project’s development status and current community consensus.
What are your experiences with forking? Maybe you’ve been running a node when a fork happens, or perhaps you’re the person on the development team making the fork. Let us know in the comments section below!
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Is AliExpress Safe and Legit? Alibaba’s Online Shop Explained
AliExpress is the international arm of the Chinese retailing giant AliBaba, aiming to challenge online giants like Amazon and eBay.
But is it safe to shop there? How long will items take to arrive, and what happens if they don’t? Is AliExpress legit? And are you more likely to be the victim of fraud if you shop there? Here are the answers you need.
What Is AliExpress?
If you’re not familiar with AliExpress, here’s a quick primer: it’s a huge online retailer owned by The Alibaba Group, a multi-billion dollar corporation that started as a business-to-business buying and selling portal. It has since expanded to business-to-consumer, consumer-to-consumer, cloud computing, and payment services, as well.
To give you an idea of just how big Alibaba is, they reported over $25 billion in sales on Singles’ Day (November 11) 2017.
AliExpress is Alibaba’s online consumer marketplace for international buyers (while TaoBao is for China). It allows small businesses in China to sell to customers all over the world. Just like Amazon, you can find just about anything there. Unlike Amazon, all of the sellers on AliExpress are a third party: AliExpress itself does not sell anything. They just provide the marketplace.
Why Is AliExpress So Cheap?
If you browse some of the products on AliExpress, you’ll probably notice right away that many of the prices are really low. Why is this? There are two different distinct possibilities, both of which you’ll find in abundance on the site.
First, there’s the possibility that you’re buying directly from a manufacturer, which reduces the cost of selling to you. Costs for production in China are quite a bit lower than in other countries. The lax enforcement of intellectual property laws may also contribute. A lot of electronics (like this 4WD Arduino robot we built) have fantastic prices on AliExpress, because they’re made in China and you can buy them direct, avoiding the retail markup added by a middle-man.
The second possibility for an item being extremely cheap is that its either counterfeit, or fraudulent (or semi-fraudulent, as in the case of the GooPhone I5). China is known as a hotbed of counterfeit production, and AliExpress is no exception. You can get all sorts of counterfeit items there, from electronics to clothing. Some sellers have also been known to defraud buyers by tricking them into paying before they receive an item and then disappearing with the money.
Of course, being able to tell the difference is crucial.
How Long Does AliExpress Take to Deliver?
All items on AliExpress have an estimated delivery time on the product page, and it’s usually anywhere from 20 to 60 days. Yes, two months is an awfully long time to wait for something you’ve bought online! In my experience, about two weeks is the average time it takes most items to arrive, but you certainly need patience to buy direct from China.
Be aware that this will be even slower at certain times of the year, like Chinese New Year (around the start of February), and Single’s Day (11/11). I once made the mistake of buying some Christmas presents during the Single’s Day sale: a few of them didn’t arrive until the middle of January.
Nearly all shipments (even those with free shipping) will have a tracking number once shipped, but it may take a week to actually dispatch before a tracking number is added. After that, you should be able to follow the package as it floats around various Chinese postal centers, and after a long wait, arrives in your local country’s customs clearance office.
If you don’t have a tracking number after 10 days, you should reach out to the seller. You won’t be able to open an official non-delivery dispute until the maximum delivery time has been exceeded though.
In six years and thousands of dollars worth of shopping on AliExpress, I’ve only had to open two cases for non-delivery. One could be tracked to my local customs office, but had been sitting there for a month. The seller offered to send it again, and sure enough, I actually received both packages about a month later. Another was never dispatched, and there was no tracking number. AliExpress issued a full refund.
The Hidden Cost of AliExpress: Import Taxes
If you’re new to having an item shipped to your country from abroad, you may not have a clear idea of the import taxes involved; or that sellers will often attempt to bypass those taxes on your behalf.
Nearly all countries have an import tax: a percentage value of the cost of the goods being imported that must be paid to your government when bringing something into the country. In the EU, this is a 20% VAT that’s levied on nearly everything. It’s your legal responsibility to pay this, and the shipping company will pay on your behalf, then issue you the bill. They’ll also charge you a handling fee for the privilege; that’s another flat rate $10-15. Of course, this means that a $10 bargain gadget may not be such a bargain once the $2 tax and $10 handling fee is added on.
How to print cash courtesy of HMRC and Royal Mail. (1) Buy charity tee-shirt, cost £15.47. (2) Charge customs duty of £11.07 on it. Thieves!
— ?????? S????? (@waswasere) September 17, 2015
Many people are shocked to find these hidden charges, and end up leaving a bad review for the seller. As a consequence, you’ll find most sellers will automatically mark any packages as a low value “gift”, bypassing import duties. To be clear: this is illegal. You should pay your taxes. But unless you’re trying to pull off a large scale fraud, it’s not the sort of illegal which will actually land you in trouble.
Note that if you were trying to deliberately import something without paying the duty, you would need to do so using the slow, free shipping method. Express couriers like DHL have stricter rules and won’t carry packages marked as a gift. If something can only be shipped by express, factor in at least another 20% of the cost to pay on arrival before your package can be released.
What About AliExpress’s Quality of Goods?
In most cases, the goods you buy will be the same as those in the high street. However, sometimes you may find yourself unhappy with the product. For instance, perhaps the thickness of material for that dress is not as you expected. In that case, you should be realistic when contacting the sellers.
Unless there’s something specific in the listing that you can point to as being incorrect, simply not liking the goods you bought is not a good reason to demand a refund. So what can you do if you’re not happy?
- Chalk it up to experience, and don’t buy from that seller again. If the item was actually delivered, and the product description and photo are accurate, AliExpress themselves won’t assist.
- You might be able to negotiate a partial refund. If your first instinct was to review the product as 1-star, this is almost certainly no longer an option. Ratings are important, and may be your only bargaining tool.
- You might be tempted to return the goods, but be very careful with this. Shipping something back to China may cost more than you paid for the item in the first place, and that cost won’t be refunded. Tracking items sent back into China is unreliable at best, and sometimes they can just disappear entirely at the Chinese customs office.
Be realistic about the price you’re paying. Check out some YouTube videos for an idea of the kind of quality to expect (apparently, “AliExpress haul videos” is a thing now).
The Real Danger of AliExpress: Fraudsters
AliExpress and Alipay are solid systems when it comes to security. They’re not invincible, but nothing is—and their track record is a good one, so you can be confident that you’re no more likely to have any of your information stolen via one of these services than you are using a more familiar service like Amazon or eBay (remember, even eBay has had a massive data leak).
However, there is one gaping hole in AliExpress: the merchant approval process. I can’t say what sort of process there is, as only merchants from mainland China are allowed to sell on the site, but there have been a lot of reports of scams on the site. So many, in fact, that the AliExpress Security Center has a section of fraud case studies and tips on how to avoid fraud when buying from their site.
So how do you stay safe from fraudsters and scammers when shopping on AliExpress? The same way you do everywhere else. Here are four tips—if you follow them, you should have no problems.
1. If the Price Sounds Too Good to Be True, It Probably Is
Scammers reel you in with the promise of a once-in-a-lifetime deal (this is one of the strategies used in the recent spate of eBay fraud). Check other sites to see what the going rate is for whatever you want to buy, to make sure that the price on AliExpress isn’t far too low. If it is extremely low, you’re probably buying a counterfeit product or being set up for a scam. For non-branded goods, savings of up to 75% compared to a high street retail store are not unusual.
2. Use AliPay’s Escrow Service
Escrow protects you in a number of ways. First, your credit card details aren’t given to the seller, so you don’t have to worry about them stealing your identity, or going on a shopping spree with your card. Second, the payment isn’t released to the seller until you’ve confirmed that you’ve received your purchase. So if you get scammed, you can just get an easy refund from AliExpress, and not have to go through the long, painful, and probably hopeless refund process with the seller.
3. Check the Seller’s Feedback Before Buying
If a seller has a bad reputation for defrauding buyers, there will likely be evidence in their feedback and reviews. Be wary of sellers with any mentions of not delivering or sending sub-par goods. In the time I’ve spent on AliExpress, I’ve seen mostly positive reviews, and I’ve never had a problem getting what I’ve ordered. But it’s still important to be on the lookout.
4. Check Your Order Carefully When You Receive It
Because the escrow system allows you to withhold payment until you’ve received your order, you can confirm that you got what you paid for. Make sure everything is included, that it looks like what you ordered, and that, if you bought a brand-name item, it doesn’t look like a fake. Once you’ve marked an item as received, you have 15 days in which you can still open a dispute about the goods.
5. Never Buy Branded Goods on AliExpress
Branded goods are offered special protection in most countries. If you purchase fake goods, and your package is inspected, they will be seized. If you bought a lot of those goods and it looks like you might be trying to sell them on, expect a knock at the door from customs officials.
6. Be Careful With Storage and Memory Components
It’s a common scam even if you’re buying from a Shenzhen market stall, but even easier to pull off online. You buy a memory stick that reports itself to be 64Gb when put into Windows Explorer, but it’s actually a lot less. The firmware has been hacked, but you won’t know until you actually try to use the whole drive. The scammer is long gone with your money.
If you’re willing to risk it anyway, be sure to test the drive with a tool like h2TestW as soon as you receive it.
So, Is AliExpress Safe to Shop On?
The evidence suggests that shopping on AliExpress is indeed safe. However, be careful and be realistic. This is the same for any other online marketplace. Some, like Amazon, offer you more protections than others, but if you’re willing to pay attention to what you’re doing to save a lot of money, AliExpress is a fantastic option.
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