Month: November 2019

5 Considerations Before Making the Jump to Gigabit Internet

November 26, 2019

Reading Time: 7 minutes

If you live in one of the major metro areas of the country you will very likely have never had to deal with insufficient internet connectivity. Consider yourself fortunate, as that’s exactly the frustration that many people in more rural areas of the country have had to tolerate for a good long while now. The fact is that Gigabit internet speeds were something that you did without if you were living somewhere without much in the way of population. Which is a shame, as quite often those spots are the best places to be in the country if you want an especially high quality of life. The good news of course is that this is changing. Long-awaited gigabit internet speeds are slowly but surely coming to a growing number of smaller communities in Canada, as fiber infrastructure improves and companies offer ultra-fast service packages. Here at 4GoodHosting, this is something that we’ve heard lamented by people in these areas, and that’s likely the case for nearly every good Canadian web hosting provider too. So what we’re going to do here this week is share what we know about ways you can be best prepared for the high-speed Internet revolution that may well be on your horizon too if you’re living in smaller town Canada. Here’s 5 simple and very doable suggestions for you Set Up Quality Wired Connections Wired connections tend to be better for gigabit speeds due to their reliability and lack of interference. To benefit from the best of gigabit internet, the right wired connections go a long way and if you’re on a desktop most of the time this is the way you want to go. Start with evaluating the wired connection from the internet modem to your router. Most modern Ethernet ports manufactured in the last few years are gigabit Ethernet capable. However, if you have a router or other wired device that’s older than that, then it may be using an older type of Ethernet connection and possibly one that will not be able to support Gigabit Internet speeds. In this scenario what’s going to happen is the router will bottleneck your entire home network,...

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What’s to Know: Wi-Fi Direct

November 19, 2019

Domain Related

Reading Time: 7 minutes

There are few if any shortened terms that are as immediately recognizable as Wi-Fi, and the way it’s universally understood to mean a wireless internet network for people to access the web via mobile internet browser devices. Unless you’re the type of person who never leaves home you probably take advantage of them more than a few times every week, and for any number of different reasons. This ultimate digital convenience isn’t likely to be any less popular anytime in the future considering we live in a world that’s increasingly digital all the time. It’s for this reason that Wi-Fi Direct is definitely deserving of some fanfare, and while many of you may already be familiar with it there’s plenty of others who might enthusiastically welcome an introduction to anything that puts them online without having to dip into their monthly data allowance. Here at 4GoodHosting, we imagine we’re like any other Canadian web hosting provider in that we’re no different than the rest of you in that regard. We need to start with this, though - Wi-Fi Direct is not new at all. In fact, it’s been enabling versatile, peer-to-peer wireless connections for almost 10 years now, but it’s kind of been flying under the radar the whole time it would seem. So what we’re going to talk about here is what it is, what it can do, and what you need to know when using it. What Exactly is Wi-Fi Direct? The simplest and most accurate definition here is that it is a connection that allows for device-to-device communication. It links devices together without a nearby centralized network. The first device acts as an access point, and the other one connects to it using WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) and WPA/WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access) security protocols. It was in the early 2000s that this standard was developed and incorporated into web browser equipped devices. Some of the more knowledgeable of you may now be saying to yourself that sounds like the working of Bluetooth technology. It does sound like it, but it’s not the same operation here. The difference is that Wi-Fi Direct can handle more information at higher...

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Google Achieves ‘Quantum Supremacy’: What This Means

November 12, 2019

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

It’s pretty much a weekly occurrence for the world’s leading web world giant to be making a splash of some sort, and lately a good many of those splashes have been stark reminders of just how increasingly omnipotent Google has become in every aspect of digital life. On the one hand the way they’ve pushed the development of new technology has been of great benefit to all of u, while on the other there are times when we hear of news that makes you wonder if it’s a good idea to have so much power and influence consolidated in one pair of hands. Here at 4GoodHosting, it’s safe to say we’re much the same as any other Canadian web hosting provider would be in the way we regard this. The nature of what we do gives us a very valid first-hand overview of such proceedings, and offering genuine perspective on it is really something that comes with the territory. It’s also likely safe to assume that the majority of those trusting their web presences to us will have you understanding of what would be meant by ‘quantum supremacy.’ That term is definitely trending online right given what’s recently been announced as it regards Google’s latest accomplishment. It certainly has the potential to be quite a pivotal development in the world and one that is maybe even a little ominous too (read on), so we’ll make it the topic for this week’s blog. An End to Effective Encryption A term that most of you will know, however, is encryption. To encrypt something is to keep it locked behind some sort of code that is nearly unbreakable for some and entirely unbreakable for most. Up until now, encryption has been the means by which digital files and the like have been effectively kept out of the hands of those who should not have access to them. If what is being reported here now is true, however, Google’s new 53-qubit quantum computer has achieved ‘quantum supremacy’ and apparently it will soon come to mean that nothing is entirely secure, even with the best and most advanced encryption. To give you an idea of...

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Newly Identified Risks with Horde Web Email

November 7, 2019

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

It’s nearly impossible to veer away from web security and privacy concerns these days, as it’s a pressing issue in the digital world and the frequency with which new hacker attacks are arriving makes this types news as necessary as it is overwhelming. As we discussed in an earlier entry here, hackers are motivated by money, as there’s dirty dollars to be made selling sensitive information acquired from people without their consent, approval, or anything or the sort. So here we are into the second last month of 2019 and – not surprisingly – another new and urgent software vulnerability is pushing its way to the forefront of what’s new and noteworthy in the world of web hosting. Here at 4GoodHosting, it’s likely that we’re not different from any other good Canadian web hosting provider in that we don’t have the luxury of not paying attention to developments like these, and so here we are again today. Most of you will be familiar with Horde, as it’s one of the most popular free and open-source web email systems available to consumers these days. In truth, it’s the epitome of what a quality open-source web resource should be, as it’s been very responsibly built and is a good example of what can and should be done to ensure that software does not eventually become exclusive to deep-pocket development businesses. However, unfortunately it seems that a major security flaw with Horde has been exposed and we believe it’s always best to put users in the know as soon as possible regarding this stuff. We’ll try to go short on the technical stuff, but this vulnerability is related to CVE 2018-19518, an IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) and it exists in the ‘imap-open’ function that is used to open an IMAP stream to a mailbox. Invisible Thieves In most cases where security is compromised and information or identity theft occurs – both in the digital world and otherwise – there’s more often than not some type of identifiable evidence of an unwelcome guest having been on the ‘premises’. Not so here, as a prominent web security researcher claims they’ve detected several vulnerabilities in...

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