Category: Domain Related

March 9, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

If you’re the type to stay on top of developments in the digital world then you’ll almost certainly have been front and centre for all of the fanfare that the forthcoming 5G network in Canada has received. The buzz has included both positive AND negative takes on it, but if you’re one to think positively then you’re likely very enthused about being able to get so much more out of your mobile devices in making your life easier. Here at 4GoodHosting, we believe you’ll find that every Canadian web hosting provider will be the same way we are with a real sense of anticipation for what 5G is really going to make possible once it’s rolled out. There’s been no shortage of opportunities for us to read about it, and if it’s something that has interested you in the same way it has for us then you’ll likely have been able to read a lot of different takes and perspectives. One thing’s for sure – it’s going to change the landscape in a big way. One area of discussion that seemingly hasn’t been gone over at length is what this new supremo level of network capability is going to do for mobile app development. Even if you’re not app-savvy or and app afficionado, even the most laypeople of us tend to make use of at least a few apps on our phones these days. That goes for mobile phone games too, everyone seems to have at least one on their phone. Everyone who’s in the know is saying how 5G is really going to have major affects on mobile app development. Here’s how. Early Adopter Industry This is going to move the world towards widespread connectivity, ease of accessibility, unhindered innovation, and speed. As well as being a leveraging force which is going to make everything easier for netizens of the planet. Mobile app development is almost certainly going to be one of the early adopters of this revolutionary technology, and one of the first things we all need to take into account are device features and network requirements. Developers are going to have to wade into this with an...

March 3, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

It’s surprisingly common for people to be more insistent on having some type of virus protection on their home desktop or notebook but, but less so when it comes to their smartphone. The worst way to become aware of the deficiency is if you find yourself with an infected smartphone OS and having to factory reset your phone to get rid of it. As we’re sure you know, however, that’s a best case scenario a lot of the time. These days most people keep an extensive amount of personal information in your Google account, from bank account balances to phone numbers, email addresses, and even photos of you or your family that could be used for facial recognition. Any conscientious Canadian web hosting provider is going to know that the nature of the Information Superhighway is that it’s all too easy to get your hands on what’s not yours. Phones do get hacked, and when they do it can be a big problem, especially if someone gets your financial information. These days some type of virus protection for your Android – or iPhone – is a good idea. Which leads us to what we’re highlighting today. In the face of increasing security risks for smartphones, Google is going to take some of the heat off Android smartphone users with the new Google Advanced Protection Program. What it’s being advertised as able to do is protect sensitive data with the highest level of security you can get and making it nearly impossible for anyone other than you to access your Gmail, Google Drive, Google Photos or other Google services. Sound good? We bet it does Darn Good Defence Plus, just after rollout a follow up update has now added what Google claims is the strongest level of consumer-grade security possible for your Google account. And the superlative there is important, because data breaches are occurring more frequently than ever before. Companies alone reported a staggering 5,183 data breaches in 2019 alone. Most will have heard of how even Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ phone was hacked. And then there’s the fact that even the ‘strongest’ passwords can be determined. The risk is...

February 25, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Unless you’ve got an absolutely stellar long-term memory you’re likely one of the millions of people around the world who rely on some type of password reminder or organizer app to be able to remember passwords from time to time. It’s natural that the ones you use regularly are fairly committed to memory, but we all have ones that don’t need to be entered very often. These are the ones where we may well be drawing a blank when it comes time to use them, and where a password reminder app comes in especially handy. But then there’s the ongoing fact that even the most unique password isn’t going to be 100% failsafe, and being ‘hacked’ does happen to a lot of people. Add to that the fact in today’s increasingly digital world we have more and more passwords to keep track of than ever before and for some people passwords are going to be both untrusted and inconvenient. Here at 4GoodHosting, we can certainly relate as being the leading Canadian web hosting provider AND digital world enthusiasts that we are we can certainly relate to having the sheer volume of passwords adding up big time and being tough to keep track of all of them. However, it seems that passwords actually might be becoming a thing of the past, and web security experts are venturing their opinions that there may be a more effective – and less demanding – way to ensure that accesses to certain spots aren’t available to just anyone online. This is what we’re going to discuss in our entry for today – are character and numeric passwords soon to become obsolete, and is there something better and more user-friendly while still equally effective in the works? It seems that there is. Who’s the ‘FIDO Alliance’ Say the word Fido and most people will immediately think of a less-expensive cell phone provider option, but when it comes to web security development the FIDO Alliance is an acronym for Fast Identity Online Alliance. They’re an authentication standards group dedicated to replacing passwords with a different, faster, and more secure method for folks who want to log into...

February 18, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Google Chrome continues to be the world’s most preferred web browser, and there doesn’t seem to be much of a risk of it relinquishing that title anytime soon. Sure, there’s going to be plenty of iPhone users that will be perfectly fine with Safari when web browsing with their mobile devices, but even most of them will probably spend more than a little time using Chrome on their notebook or desktop. One thing’s for sure, both of them (along with Firefox) have definitely left the now-obsolete Internet Explorer in the dust. Which is the way it should be, but it’s still true that even Google’s super-popular web browser hasn’t avoided having a few glitches as it’s been progressively rolled out. Here at 4GoodHosting, we imagine we’re just the same as any good Canadian web hosting provider in that we understand that a person’s web browser of-choice is going to be very relevant in regards to how well they experience the websites and other dynamic multimedia content that’s offered by those of people like the very same clients we have. It’s for that reason we’ve decided that a brief overview of the extensive Chrome 80 version update is a worthwhile topic of discussion for this week’s blog. So let’s get to it. Ambitious and Extensive Offering Chrome 8O arrived a week and some back, and it’s been promoted most notably as promising to put the clamps on cookies while patching 56 vulnerabilities at the same time. Making this happen has reportedly cost Google about 48k to address the vulnerabilities to ‘bugs’, with 10 specific ones being prioritized as ‘high risk’. Half of those 10 were submitted by engineers of Google's own Project Zero team. Chrome updates in the background, so by relaunching their browser most users can complete the upgrade. If a manual update is needed, then select ‘About Google Chrome’ from the Help menu under the vertical ellipsis at the upper right. You’ll then see a tab showing that the browser has been updated or displays the download process before making a "relaunch" button available. Limiting Function of ‘Cookies’ This is a...

February 11, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Stick your head around pretty much any corner and there’s bound to be something about the ever wider reaches of cloud computing and what it promises to entail for the future in the digital world. The ability to utilize non-physical storage and then share data with requiring access to this storage has really been a game changer. Now with good usually comes at least a little not-so-good, and – surprise, surprise – cloud computing is no exception. However, if there was a ‘do over’ button would anyone press it and go back to the times of exclusively physical location storage and access? Not a chance. Cloud computing is going to be one of the centerpieces of modern computing technology for the foreseeable future, so we are going to need to accept and overcome a few bumps in the road along the say. Increased security risks are at everyone’s forefront in the digital realm these days, and here at 4GoodHosting we’re like any reputable Canadian web hosting provider in that we’re making enterprise-level security measures standard with most of our web hosting packages. And while we’re huge fans of cloud computing, our expertise is in web hosting and we don’t claim to know much if anything about security risks related to cloud computing. However, research is something we ARE very proficient with and as such we’re always happy to dig into topics that our customers are likely to find relevant to what they do on a day-to-day business on the World Wide Web. Cloud with Caution And so here we are in a brand new decade and there’s going to be no one surprised with the fact that enterprises continue to feed their clouds with increasingly sensitive information. However, it would seem doing is increasingly risky and decision makers are being urged to move forward with caution. A recent study logged from anonymous data from 30 million enterprise cloud users found that roughly 26 percent of files analysed in the cloud now contain sensitive data, and the trend has been for this to increase some 23% year over year. This becomes potentially problematic when you consider that 91% of cloud services...

February 4, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

It’s not often we choose to use relevant recent software news as the subject for our weekly blog post, and the reason for that is not only because there’s usually plenty more noteworthy news out there, but also because often times these software shortcomings don’t affect a large swath of people. However, any time it’s about anything related to a Windows OS issue then the sheer number of people that rely on that particular operating system make it so that it’s worthy of mention. We’re certain that the software engineers that put out these patches are qualified and have best intentions, but we all get it wrong sometimes. Here at 4GoodHosting, we’re just the same as any quality Canadian web hosting provider in that we’ll see the value in putting certain news on the billboard – if you will – so long as it will be welcome information for a good many of our customers. Now we’re fairly sure that there’s more than a few of you sitting with a Windows OS device in front of you, so that’s we’ve decided to make the shortcomings of the new Windows patch our topic of discussion this week. Admittedly it’s not the most engrossing stuff. But if it leads even a few of you to avoid major headaches by skipping this patch and ‘leaving well enough alone’, as the expression goes, then we will have done something for the collective good. Alright, let’s get to it. A Not-So-Good Fix for Search Function Bugs? Windows 10 recently issued forth an update which was promoting itself as being the cure for the long-standing bugs in the search function that have been a real thorn in the side for Microsoft Windows OS users. To get right to the meat of this, what seems to have happened is that in their efforts to find a working fix for the search bugs (which was accomplished), what this patch has actually done has tampered with other parts of the OS and as such introduced a whole manner of new issues. Hate to be overly critical, but sometimes you just have to call it as it is – this...

January 28, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 7 minutes

It’s likely fair to say that Virtual Private Networks have been enthusiastically promoted by web hosting providers in Canada enough for the foreseeable future, at least from a consumer’s perspective. But it’s also fair to say that if the interests that lead you to have an online presence have SEO and search engine page rankings among them then the benefits of a virtual private network can’t be overstated. We may have touched on this before, but in a new decade where the digital sphere is scheduled to become even more prevalent in the business world it needs to be said again. So that’s what we’ll talk about here today. Part of being a leading Canadian web hosting provider here at 4GoodHosting is being attuned to what’s important to people who trust us to ensure their website is up and open 24/7 and 365. We don’t need to take a survey to know that for the vast majority who have business interests with their website, ranking well in SERPs is going to be well up there. That people aren’t inclined to sift past the end of the first page – if they even get that far – isn’t likely ever going to change. And so the importance of 1st page search rankings isn’t going to change either. So let’s take a short but thorough look at it for anyone who’s open to the idea of anything that can improve my website’s SEO and search engine rankings. Brief VPN Introduction Virtual private network services, or VPNs, are different from shared networks in that the user is able to create a new path for their online activities to connect to the Internet. Rather than directly connecting to the web, a virtual private network directs the traffic via one of its own servers in advance of sending it on to the resource. Data is also encrypted in this process, and that’s also a big part of the appeal of VPNs, but we’ll leave that for anther discussion. We will say that when end-users connects to the Internet in this way, there’s a lot of security benefits; Their identity, IP address and what they're accessing...

January 21, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

It’s likely accurate to say that most people put a lot more priority on security measures for their desktops or notebooks than they do for their phones. While it is true that most mobile operating systems will have anti-virus features to some extent, it’s becoming increasingly clear that nowadays that’s not going to be sufficient much of the time. Incidences of phones become infected with malware are increasingly common, and there’s going to be very few people who aren’t familiar with that term. However, one newer variety of ‘ware’ that isn’t going to be as universally well known as malware is going to the subject our post here today. Here at 4GoodHosting, we may a quality Canadian web hosting provider but our higher level of web-savviness doesn’t make us any less at risk of these bugs messing with our mobile devices than the rest of the average citizenry is. The difference is we’re in a position to always be made aware of new threats that come along, whereas most of your likely aren’t. That’s why we always make a point to share these types of information. Who wouldn’t be especially displeased to find out their phone has been compromised, so here it is – a discussion about the newest type of malware to arrive onto the scene – what exactly is ‘fleeceware’, and what can we do about it? Perils of Free Trial Periods Before we discuss this new type of malware, iPhone users can breathe easier and then see themselves out. Fleeceware is making victims out of Android users exclusively, at least for now, and it’s de facto delivery method is actually through the Google Play Store. Obviously this is one of the most visited digital storefronts in the world, if a recent research survey is to be believed then these Fleeceware apps have been unwittingly downloaded and installed by over 600 million Android users after making purchases through Google Play. Now for those of you who don’t have the most expansive vocabulary, fleece – when used as a verb – is ‘to strip of money or property by fraud or extortion’ (credit to the good folks behind Merriam-Webster’...

January 14, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Most people will need to look no further than their video doorbells, wireless thermostats, and the like to know to just what extent the IoT (Internet of Things) is increasingly integral to the conveniences of modern life. It was inevitable that consumer goods and appliance manufacturers would utilize the power of the Internet to make these products more personalized AND powerful. The majority of us are quite enthused with the development, although there are some concerns about privacy. All in all though, the ongoing development of the IoT is a big benefit for consumers for whom their everyday lives take up nearly all of available attention, and anything that can make the task that come along with it easier is going to be especially welcome. Here at 4GoodHosting, we’re like any good Canadian web hosting in that these types of trends and technological developments are especially interesting to us given the digital nature of what we do here. While it would be a challenge to find anyone who’s not at least somewhat familiar with IoT, it’s going to be understandable if you haven’t hear of UWB (Ultra Wideband) connectivity. That’s what we’re going to discuss with our entry here today, and the first thing to know about it is that it’s going to be an integral part of the IoT being expanded to have even greater functional capacities. Getting to Know UWB The new line of iPhones need no introduction, but one interesting point about them is they contain a chip called a U1 chip that provides Ultra Wideband connectivity. These chips are said to provide ‘spatial awareness’ – the ability for your phone to recognize its surroundings and the objects in it. In more example-based terms, it’s what allows one iPhone 11 user to point their phone at another iPhone 11 and transfer a file or photo. UWB is a short-range, wireless communication protocol that is similar to Bluetooth or Wi-Fi in that it uses radio waves, but it’s different in that it operates at a very high frequency. It also uses a wide spectrum of several GHz. 15+ years ago, UWB was used for military radars and covert...