In the fight to protect your PC and privacy, Firefox is on the front line

Of all browsers, Firefox arguably has the longest history of keeping security at the front of its mind, both technically and philosophically. The browser’s parent company, Mozilla, is an active participant in many cyber-security initiatives; it filed suit against the FCC over net neutrality, eagerly adopted Do Not Track when it debuted, and has partnered with The Washington Post to improve online comments.

Dave Camp, Vice President of Engineering at Mozilla. Mozilla

Recent events of the last year have put a new, intense spotlight on security and privacy, as nearly everyone has been impacted by security issue recently – be it a processor security flaw or the breach of a major company, like Equifax.

This week’s column is an interview with Dave Camp, Vice President of Engineering, Mozilla at Firefox. We visited Mozilla’s Portland, Oregon office to discuss looming security threats, such as the Meltdown and Spectre flaws that impact Intel processors, and Facebook’s privacy debacle.

Digital Trends: Recent problems like Meltdown and Ryzenfall have made it seem there’s a hoard of security issues lurking in every device. As a browser developer, how do you respond to a problem like that, one that impacts hardware at a very low level?

Dave Camp: The first thing we do is when we hear these things, we figure out what we can do to quickly mitigate the problem. So, when we first found out about Meltdown and Specter, for example, the quickest thing we were able to do is just change the resolution of our timers so that it was harder for attackers to take advantage of that.

Browsers are in a unique position. We have to be the first line of defense.

Then we work with other browser vendors, we find fixes, we do our best to work around it, and we encourage users to upgrade – though with Spectre, that’s not always possible. We do our best to work with security researchers and other browser vendors to find fixes and roll them out quickly.

Browsers are in a unique position because it is our job to take untrusted code and run it on your machine. And so, a lot of times we have to be the first line of defense. Even if it’s the hardware vendor’s responsibility, we have a responsibility to our users to do what we can to mitigate these attacks.

Today, Mozilla blocked Firefox tracking with an add-on, which I thought was an interesting development. From an engineering perspective, how does an add-on like that function?

Firefox’s had a feature in our engine for a while called Firefox containers. What the containers do is they isolate things like cookies and sessions to a specific tab on a specific site. So, when you install a Facebook container it makes sure that any time you visit Facebook.com, it’s setting up new sessions and setting up new cookies.

It’s not sharing those cookies with other tabs. So, let’s say you navigate away from Facebook over to Food.com. If Food.com loads a Facebook plus one button, typically Facebook sees that cookie, can tie it to your login on Facebook, and can track you that way. Because this container scopes that down to just Facebook.com, when you go to Food.com and see a plus one button on Facebook, it doesn’t see that you’re logged in. It tries to keep separate applications separate so that they can’t see each other and prevent Facebook from getting information from that site.  

Is the container feature core to Firefox, or something only enabled by this add-on?

The browser has this functionality that’s not exposed to users. We’ve been trying different ways to expose it. Another add-on that’s just called Firefox containers lets you configure all this and figure out how you want to set up your containers.

Facebook is a particular point of interest right now

Facebook is a particular point of interest right now, so we built this add-on out and customized it to Facebook so users know how to interact with it.

The core containers add-on that we’ve already published is pretty advanced and takes an understanding of what you want to do, so we just released this one that’s easy for Facebook.

Editor’s note: Firefox pointed us to a blog post that explains the feature in-depth.

How does Quantum fit into your efforts? On a performance level, it’s built for better use of multiple cores – but what does it do for security and privacy?

Firefox Quantum really represented this rethinking of how we build the browser and how we pay attention to performance. We don’t typically use the Quantum project as a release of security features, but we do have a security roadmap that runs alongside the Quantum project.

The major piece we have there is content process sandboxing. We kind of work with the operating system to say “this is not trusted,” so the OS can try and prevent the browser from compromising the system. It’s an extra layer of security around the security we’re trying to do within the browser.

As we work through our security program with the next year, we’re working to tighten up our sandbox to find more ways to get the operating system to help us be secure.

What do you think is the next major security issue that browser developers should, as a community, take on?

I think all browsers are going to have to spend significant time understanding the Spectre vulnerabilities. That is going to take a lot of work, and we spend a lot of time understanding how it works, and all the implications of it.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Mozilla’s Facebook Firefox tool helps keep your browsing habits more private
• The best web browsers
• Facebook isn’t the only one tracking you. Here are 5 ways to protect yourself
• Did I do that? Intel is going to make a killing fixing its own Meltdown
• Qualcomm is working on patches to address Meltdown and Spectre flaws

Huawei sees strong rise in profit for 2017, despite U.S. opposition

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

Following a lackluster 2016, Huawei’s star is on the rise, with the Chinese tech company enjoying a strong increase in sales over 2017.

2017 was a rollercoaster of a year for Huawei. The Mate 10 Pro was one of our favorite phones of the year, packing an amazing camera and exceptional battery life. The Chinese company also came third in overall smartphone sales for the last part of the year. Despite those victories, it has been continually hampered by an inability to break into the U.S. market, culminating in various U.S. carriers and retailers cutting ties with Huawei in early 2018, following paranoia over links to the Chinese government.

But is Huawei having the last laugh? The company’s profits rose 28.1 percent throughout 2017, taking the total profit to a very respectable 47.5 billion yuan ($7.3 billion). This comes in contrast to a slow period of growth in 2016, in which the company post an increase of just 0.4 percent.

The company also revealed it sold 153 million smartphones worldwide last year, and overall revenue rose to 603.6 billion yuan ($96.1 billion), a 15.7 percent rise on 2016. This growth seems mostly driven by the consumer side of the business, where revenues rose 237.2 billion yuan ($37.8 billion) — an increase of 31.9 percent on 2016.

Huawei looks set to capitalize on these gains by taking a hold of new tech as it emerges, and has increased funding for its research and development wing by 17.4 percent, pumping 89.7 billion yuan ($14.3 billion) into the next generation of mobile internet and other new technologies.

Huawei has recently launched its newest range of smartphones in the Huawei P20 and P20 Pro, and you can read our first thoughts on the P20 Pro. It comes with a world-first of three rear-mounted camera lenses, with incredible camera tech that recently earned it DxOMark’s highest ever camera rating on a smartphone. We’ll have to wait a bit longer to get an in-depth rundown of how well the rest of the phone fares, but based on the strong initial reception, Huawei may have introduced another winner. Unfortunately, you’ll struggle to get hold of it in the U.S., thanks to Best Buy backing off from Huawei’s phones, and U.S. carriers refusing to stock it.

Based are these U.S. companies shooting themselves in the foot? It seems U.S. consumers are the ones missing out the most.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Huawei P20 Pro vs. the P20: Which smartphone is the right Huawei to go?
• Huawei P20 Pro hands-on review
• Huawei P20 Pro vs. Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus: Are three better than two?
• Xiaomi plans to launch its smartphones in the U.S. by the end of 2018
• T-Mobile keeps adding more customers with low prices and freebies

How to enable swipe-down notifications on the Galaxy S9

Stop struggling to reach the top of your screen.

The Galaxy S9 is an incredible phone that combines beauty and brawn, packing the latest and greatest specs into a relatively small and comfortable form factor. The curved glass feels great in the hand, and the modern 18.5:9 aspect ratio helps turn almost every inch of the phone into usable screen space.

There’s just one problem: that extra-tall aspect ratio makes the top of the screen hard to reach. That can be a big problem for usability, since the top of the screen is where all of your notifications and quick toggles sit. Luckily, it’s easy to set up quick shortcuts to pull down the notification shade without having to shift the phone around in your hand.

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• Access notifications with the fingerprint sensor
• Access notifications from the home screen

Access notifications with the fingerprint sensor

One of the easiest ways to access your notification shade without reaching the top of the display is by swiping down on the fingerprint sensor. The gesture is disabled by default, but it’s simple to activate.

Open the Settings app.
Tap Advanced features.
Tap the switch next to Finger sensor gestures (blue means on).

With gestures enabled, you can swipe down to open your notification shade, swipe down again to expand the quick toggles, or swipe up to collapse the panel.

Access notifications from the home screen

You can also access notifications directly from the home screen. By default, a swipe down on the home screen functions the same way as a swipe up, opening your app drawer, but with a quick tweak, you can make the gesture a bit more useful.

Press and hold on a blank space on your home screen.
Tap Home screen settings.
Tap the switch next to Quick-open notification panel.

That’s it! From now on, accessing your notifications and quick toggles on the Galaxy S9 should be much easier. Hopefully, with these tricks, you won’t have to shift the phone around in your hands as much to reach the top, minimizing the risk of dropping and breaking it.

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+

• Galaxy S9 review: A great phone for the masses
• Galaxy S9 and S9+: Everything you need to know!
• Complete Galaxy S9 and S9+ specs
• Galaxy S9 vs. Google Pixel 2: Which should you buy?
• Galaxy S9 vs. Galaxy S8: Should you upgrade?
• Join our Galaxy S9 forums

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Does the notch add screen space or take it away?

The answer may depend on if you’re a glass-half-empty or half-full person.

After seeing a flood of notched Android phones at MWC, there’s been a lot of talk about the benefits and disadvantages of having a cutout in a phone’s display. The main idea is that by housing a phone’s various sensors and earpiece speaker into a notch at the top of the display, OEMs are able to further slim down bezels and fit a larger screen on a smaller body.

To say the notch has been met with some backlash would be a severe understatement. While the main goal is to create more screen real estate for the user, many view the notch more as an obstacle than an add-on, and find the small display strips to the sides of the notch (also known as “bunny ears” or “horns,” among other nicknames) largely useless.

Assuming a taller aspect ratio, a notch can add to a display’s overall usable vertical space.

I understand that sentiment. With a notch as wide as the iPhone X’s, there’s little room for notification icons in the system tray — especially with most notched phones moving the clock to the left side where notifications typically reside. There’s also less space to the right for system icons like WiFi and Bluetooth, meaning you may not be able to see certain information at a glance; on my iPhone X, for example, the battery icon is always in the upper-right corner, but I have to swipe down into Control Center to be able to check the actual battery percentage.

Maybe that’s why most Android OEMs are using much smaller notches than the iPhone X. The newly announced Huawei P20 Pro has just enough room in its notch for the earpiece speaker and front-facing camera — Huawei even took a moment to brag during the phone’s announcement about how small its notch is. Yes, really.

It’s come to this. pic.twitter.com/yP7cTdAdJZ

— Michael Kukielka (@DetroitBORG) March 27, 2018

Likewise, OnePlus has confirmed that the OnePlus 6 will feature a small notch, explaining that they see it as a means of adding screen space rather than taking it away, and I tend to agree with them. With enough room around the notch, you’re still able to allocate the very top of the display for notifications, all while gaining a bit of vertical real estate — at least, assuming a taller aspect ratio. Fortunately, we’ve already seen evidence that the OnePlus 6 will have a 19:9 display, which should easily make up for the notch.

It’s up to the user to decide whether the notch is a useful design trait or just an annoying gimmick — though a quick skim through the comments of my last notch-related article is all it takes to see that most Android users aren’t particularly fond of it. Maybe that consensus will start to shift as more people get their hands on notched Android phones in the coming year, and as Google builds native notch support into Android P.

For now, what are your thoughts? Does the combination of a notch and a taller aspect ratio equal out to more vertical space for you, or is it still simply a design nuisance? Will it even matter this time next year, with nearly every flagship moving to a notched design anyway? Sound off in the comments!

Huawei P20 + P20 Pro

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• Join the discussion in the forums

Under Armour says data breach compromised 150 million MyFitnessPal accounts

Leaked data includes usernames, email addresses and hashed passwords.

Athletic apparel brand Under Armour announced that a data breach exposed details of over 150 million MyFitnessPal users. The leaked data includes usernames, email addresses, and hashed passwords, but government-issued identifiers like social security numbers and driving licenses were not compromised as the app doesn’t collect that information. Similarly, credit card numbers were not leaked.

MyFitnessPal first detected the intrusion — believed to have occurred sometime in late February — on March 25, following which it started coordinating with law enforcement authorities and data security firms to understand the scope of the attack.

From the press release

The affected data did not include government-issued identifiers (such as Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers), which the company does not collect from users. Payment card data was also not affected because it is collected and processed separately. The company’s investigation is ongoing, but indicates that approximately 150 million user accounts were affected by this issue.

Four days after learning of the issue, the company began notifying the MyFitnessPal community via email and through in-app messaging. The notice contains recommendations for MyFitnessPal users regarding account security steps they can take to help protect their information. The company will be requiring MyFitnessPal users to change their passwords and is urging users to do so immediately.

Under Armour acquired the food and nutrition app back in 2015 for $475 million, and has seen its userbase nearly double over the last three years. If you’re a MyFitnessPal user, you should immediately change your password. To know more about the breach and the nature of the data compromised, head here.

The best PlayStation 4 games for kids

It’s time to get silly with adventures

So your kiddos are old enough to know that their controllers aren’t actually plugged while you were letting them pretend to play. Now what? You probably don’t want them playing your Overwatch game just so you can hear your heart audibly break when they plummet your score, so it’s time to get them some fun PlayStation 4 games of their own! Heck, even if you don’t have children these games are still pretty fun for adults!

• Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
• LEGO Worlds
• Just Dance 2018
• Rayman Legends
• Overcooked
• Minecraft

Crash Bandicoot N. Trilogy

We all remember what it was like to rip the plastic off of our brand new Crash Bandicoot game for the original PlayStation. After school we all spent hours on end beating the levels, looking for the secret floors and trying to collect all of the gem shards. Well now for as low as $33.49 delicious Wumpa fruits you can have the entire trilogy to pass down the legacy of defeating Dr. Neo Cortex before he can take over the world. Get your kids collecting all of those delicious Wumpa fruit to gain lives and spin their way to the top! You can even make it a family adventure and show them all the neat tricks you remember!

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LEGO Worlds

Any of the LEGO games are perfect for all ages. The stories and objectives are easy enough for your children to follow along to, and fun enough for you to want to plug in your own controller to play with them. That means this game isn’t just a perfect reward system for your child to earn time playing for their good grades, it’s also a great bonding experience. It’s hard to beat the price of $14.98 for a game that will go on and on like this one. Boost your child’s creativity by having them build their own world from the ground up with LEGO Worlds!

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Just Dance

Just Dance is perfect for getting some quiet time for yourself because the kids are entertained and know that they’re actually up and moving too. For $40.99 on Amazon you can find this wonderful title, full of the best music to get up and groove to. Not just that, but all of the fun and whacky rave style graphics are sure to get this party bumping. The multiplayer option makes this game great for when they have friends over as well.

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Rayman Legends

This side-scrolling platform game is sure to grab the attention of anyone. Much like Sonic your goal is to get to the finish line on the other side of the map, but instead of collecting coins you are saving fury friends from impending doom. For $23.99 on Amazon you can be the proud owner of Rayman Legends, which is the best Rayman game to date. Not only have they upped their gameplay and graphics, but not much can get you more pumped than running from bad guys to the tune of Black Betty by Ram Jam.

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Overcooked

Overcooked will always be on my list of some of the funnest family games to play when you’re looking for time to kill on game night. With only 3 control buttons this is a game that is super easy to get the hang of. Although the levels do get increasingly hard (even for a group of adults) the amount of fun you’ll have will triumph over any defeat. You can get this 4 player game for $19.99 on Amazon, and the fun won’t stop there. Although only 4 people can control characters on the screen, a 4th (or even 5th) person is always handy for calling out the orders from the top of the screen to help the process go by easier.

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Minecraft

For $34.99 you can add Minecraft to your PlayStation library as fun for the whole family. Although it’s a single player game there is a multiple save option available so everyone can have their own world to create. If your kids are old enough to creatively build their own world, but not quite old enough to battle the Enderman and zombies you can always set the mode to “Peaceful” so that they’ll be left alone to build. Minecraft might be low on the graphics scale, but the creators seem to always be adding new content like donkeys, horses, and botanical magic. Get the creative juices flowing!

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Tell us in the comments below which games you plan on getting, or which ones you already have gotten for your children!

PlayStation 4

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• PlayStation VR Review
• Playing PS4 games through your phone is awesome

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This $30 Syma drone deal is too good to let fly away

A purchase worth making.

Aside from a brief price drop to $59.99, this popular Syma drone has sold for $79.99 since its release. As part of a one-day deal at Amazon, you can pick one up for just $29.99 if you clip the $10 off coupon that is on the product page.

It has a built-in 720P camera for recording videos and taking pictures, and a real-time first-person view to allow you to see what it sees as you fly. Whether you are a beginner or drone pro, you’ll be able to easily fly it thanks to the auto-hovering feature and more. It comes with two batteries, allowing double the flying time, and it easily integrates with a mobile app to help you draw routes and more.

At this price, we don’t expect this deal to stick around for the whole day. Be sure to get one now, before it’s too late.

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New leak shows off the Moto G6, G6 Plus, and G6 Play in all their glory

The leak gives us a detailed look at the specs on offer with the Moto G6 series.

We got a first look at the Moto G6 series earlier this year, and now a leak out of a Hungarian retailer gives us a detailed look at Motorola’s upcoming budget phones. All three phones have a similar design aesthetic and sport 18:9 panels. The Moto G6 and G6 Plus feature a home button with an embedded fingerprint sensor, with the G6 Play featuring a rear-mounted sensor tucked into the Batwing logo.

As for the hardware, the Moto G6 Plus is said to feature a 5.93-inch FHD+ panel, 2.2GHz Snapdragon 630 chipset, up to 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, microSD card slot, 12MP + 5MP rear cameras, 16MP front camera with LED flash, Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 5.0, and a 3200mAh battery with TurboPower fast charging.

The Moto G6, meanwhile, is set to offer a 5.7-inch FHD+ 18:9 display, 1.8GHz Snapdragon 450, up to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, microSD slot and the same camera configuration as its larger sibling — dual 12MP + 5MP sensors at the back, and a 16MP shooter up front. Other specs include Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, and a 3000mAh battery with TurboPower.

The Moto G6 Play will round out Motorola’s budget series, with the phone offered as the base variant. The phone is rumored to come with a 5.7-inch HD+ (1440×720) panel, along with a 1.4GHz Snapdragon 430, up to 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, microSD slot, 12MP rear camera, 5MP front shooter, and a 4000mAh battery. Based on Motorola’s track record, it’s likely we’ll see several SKUs of each device tailored for individual markets.

All three phones offer Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box, and it doesn’t look like Motorola is making any drastic changes on the software front this year.

As noted by FoneArena, the date in the renders — April 3 — suggests a launch is imminent. We should know more about the Moto G6 series next week, but in the meantime, what are your thoughts on Motorola’s upcoming phones?

TP-Link’s one-day sale on routers, switches, and more will ensure you never go without Wi-Fi again

The whole series of tubes at your fingertips.

TP-Link is having a huge sale on a variety of routers, switches, and adapters all of which are meant to improve your current wireless Internet situation. This is part of Amazon’s Gold Box deals of the day, so not only is it only good for the day but some of these might just disappear before it’s all over. The prices are all super low, some even at all-time lows.

If you need a way to stop paying rental fees, grab one of these routers. If you have dead zones around your home, grab a range extender or upgrade to the Deco mesh networking system. If you’re building your own computer, you’ll want this $40 Wi-Fi adapter. TP-Link has every wireless situation covered with these deals.

Here’s a few of the items we liked:

• Archer C1200 smart Wi-Fi dual-band router – $34.99 with on-page coupon (from $60)
• AC1900 dual-band Wi-Fi range extender – $69.99 (from $100)
• Deco 2-pack mesh networking system – $139.99 (from $180)

Check out the full sale going on through the end of the day.

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I enjoy the Galaxy S9+ despite its software, not because of it — and that’s a problem for Samsung

Samsung needs a true re-thinking of its software strategy.

I’ve been using a Galaxy S9+ since the end of February, going through a full review process and lengthy set of comparisons to really put it through its paces. A month in, I’m still using it every day. I continue to use the phone because I like it overall, not because of some work obligation. The hardware is good (though it benefits from a case), the performance has been solid, battery life is fine, the screen is amazing, the rear cameras are great, it has a headphone jack, and I’m back in the swing of using wireless charging daily.

But every single day I’m reminded that I still don’t like Samsung’s software. The fact that I keep using the Galaxy S9+ despite my distaste for its software is a testament to all of the other great things the phone offers … but it’s still a bad sign for Samsung.

After a couple solid weeks of using my Galaxy S9+, I finally got it all set up the way I wanted it. The reason it took me that long is partially due to how I need to use this phone for work, but removing that extra time wouldn’t have substantially streamlined the process. It really does take several days to finally get through all of the Galaxy S9’s software to turn things off and tweak settings to the point where it isn’t annoying me at every turn. Because out of the box, it sure has a frustratingly large pile of things going on that I don’t care much about using yet insist that I stop what I’m doing and deal with.

The first 5 things to turn off in the Galaxy S9’s software

And I’m not talking about the visual differences that are generally a matter of personal preference or familiarity. Sure Samsung’s launcher looks a little different and the quick settings have a bit more going on — but that’s fine, those are just visual differences. I can get used to those, and Samsung’s design itself really isn’t bad nowadays. I’m talking about the functional portions of the phone experience that get in my way: the cavernous settings panes, duplicate apps and services, dueling app stores, needless “features” and endless configuration options.

I had to dial back Bixby to its base components, turn off a bunch of settings and sounds, get the phone to stop bothering me with “device maintenance” warnings, sign into my Samsung Account across a handful of apps, set up a secondary app store, swap out Samsung’s keyboard, turn off the useless Edge panels, hide a dozen apps from the app drawer that I’ll never touch … the list goes on. Year after year I feel like I have to fight with my Samsung phone to get it just to be simple and easy to use. It still feels like a chore to get all of the superfluous crap out of my way and let me get to the dozen or so core features and apps that I need on a daily basis. Because no matter how much of a power user I may be, benefiting from all this phone can do, a majority of my smartphone use is still pretty simple, like most people’s.

As top-end hardware reaches parity, we shouldn’t have to begrudgingly deal with subpar software.

Props to Samsung for actually letting me turn off or change most of these things that I don’t want to use. Going through this process several times now, I have a good baseline for what I know I don’t need and how to turn everything off. And in the end, yes, I did arrive at a much more usable software slate. But that doesn’t eliminate the whole frustration of the process, nor does it make me feel any better about having to do this all over again with my next Samsung phone.

And that’s a problem, because differentiation in the hardware between all of these flagship phones is getting smaller with each generation — leaving the software and user experience to be the true differentiator between devices. It’s the reason why so many people love the simplicity of the Pixel 2 XL, OnePlus 5T, Moto G5 and others — they’re clean, easy to use and don’t provide a daunting task of features and settings to configure. Samsung isn’t playing at that level right now, and it diminishes the overall positive feelings toward the Galaxy S9. With hardware stagnating in many ways, the best thing it can do is focus on improving its software, so it’s no longer a sore point holding back the rest of what makes its phones amazing.

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+

• Galaxy S9 review: A great phone for the masses
• Galaxy S9 and S9+: Everything you need to know!
• Complete Galaxy S9 and S9+ specs
• Galaxy S9 vs. Google Pixel 2: Which should you buy?
• Galaxy S9 vs. Galaxy S8: Should you upgrade?
• Join our Galaxy S9 forums

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