Tag: cheap canadian hosting
Reading Time: 4 minutes Many people lament the fact that the Internet can’t be an unimpeded digital information source and not have commercial interests to the extent it does. It would be nice if it was a fountain of knowledge that exists for everyone’s own information gathering exclusively, but living in the world we do when there’s a buck to be made somewhere the opportunity will be taken. It’s especially frustrating for people who aren’t big consumers and have never clicked on a link or purchased very little online. Google has recently moved to limit Chrome’s ad-blocking capabilities, and no doubt many of you using an ad-blocker will have already noticed this. Google also announced that this feature will not apply for Google’s paid G Suite Enterprise subscribers. Here at 4GoodHosting, we’re a Canadian web hosting provider who keeps our thumbs on the pulse of the digital world and the prospect of ad-free internet browsing only via paid web browsers would be a pretty big deal for nearly all of us who source information online. According to a recent study, as many as 40% of people browsing the web from laptops use an ad blocker. That’s a big group of people that aren’t viewing Google’s ads. So why’s this happening, and what’s the underlying current here? Beyond Blocked Blockers It’s been reported in the news how Chrome users - and developers of Chrome-friendly, ad-blocker extensions - are none too pleased with Google’s proposed changes to the Chrome Extensions platform. We have to go back to when Google announced Manifest V3, which constituted a set of proposed changes to Google Chrome’s Extensions platform. In it, specific changes to Chrome’s webRequest API were proposed with an eye to limiting the blocking version of it and this potentially would remove blocking options from most events and creating them as observational only. Content blockers would now use a different API instead, known as a ‘declarativeNetRequest.’ The Manifest concluded that this new API is “more performant and offers better privacy guarantees to users.” The reality is though that Google’s Manifest V3 changes will prevent Chrome’s ad-blocker extensions from using the webRequest API as it normally, but it will also...
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Reading Time: 7 minutes No doubt the Internet of Things needs no introduction here given how the latest big wrinkle in the application of World Wide Web-based technology has become so integrally involved in both our private and working lives. As it stands currently, working with IoT applies to some businesses more than others, but it’s fair to say that any of them that put a premium on customer accessibility and control will need to be adhering to IoT realities. Here at 4GoodHosting, we’re a good Canadian web hosting provider like any other in that we prefer to keep our thumbs on the pulse of certain trends in the greater industry more so than others. IoT is definitely one of them, and it continues to be interesting to watch how it reaches further into our digital world every day. Consumers are going to expect more and more ‘smartness’ from their ‘things’ going forward, and businesses of course need to be receptive to that. This makes choosing the right IoT platform a complex endeavor. The landscape can be confusing for IoT hobbyists, experienced developers, and senior executives alike. Today we’ll give you a quick overview of the IoT platform landscape and how you should evaluate IoT platforms based on your needs. Defining an IoT Platform Quite simply, an IoT platform is an integrated service offering what’s needed to bring physical objects online. Supporting millions of simultaneous device connections is the challenge, and your platform needs to allow you to configure your devices for optimized communication between machines. The consensus among developers is that it’s really quite difficult to build a well-functioning IoT product. IoT Platform Types End-to-end IoT Platforms End-to-end IoT platforms provide hardware, software, connectivity, security, and device management tools to handle the massive numbers of concurrent device connections. They also provide all managed integrations needed, which can include OTA firmware updates, device management, cloud connection, cellular modem and more, all of which connect and monitor a fleet of devices online. Connectivity Management Platforms These platforms offer low-power and low-cost connectivity management solutions via Wi-Fi and cellular technologies. Connectivity hardware, cellular networks, and data routing features are all part of connectivity management platforms in...
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Reading Time: 6 minutes One thing that certainly hasn’t changed from previous years as we move towards the quarter pole for 2019 is that hackers are keeping IT security teams on their toes as much as ever. That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given the cat and mouse game that’s been going on in cyberspace between the two sides for a long time now. Cyber threats are as sophisticated as ever now, and for everyday individuals they biggest concern is always that the privacy of sensitive data will be compromised. One of the most common responses to enhanced and more enabled threats is to go with a Virtual Private Network and all the enhanced security features that come with them. Here at 4GoodHosting, we’ve been promoting them for our customers very actively in likely what same way every other Canadian web hosting provider has. There’s merit to the suggestion, as VPN connections protect online privacy by creating a secure tunnel between the client - who is typically uses a personal computing device to connect to the internet - and the Internet. Nowadays, however, VPN networks aren’t as automatic as they were when it comes to trusting in secure connections and understanding that there won’t be data leaks. The good news is that even people with the most average levels of digital understanding can be proactive in protecting their VPN from data leaks. Let’s look at how that’d done here today. Workings of VPN A reliable VPN connection disguises the user’s geographical location by giving it a different IP address. There is also architecture in place to encrypt data transmitted during sessions and provide a form of anonymous browsing. As it is with almost all internet tools, however, VPN connections can also face certain vulnerabilities that weaken their reliability. Data leaks are a concern amongst information security researchers who focus on VPN technology, and it’s these issues that are most commonly front and centre among them: WebRTC Leaks Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) is an evolution of the VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) for online communications. VoIP is the technology behind popular mobile apps such as Skype and WhatsAppp, and it’s been the leading...
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Reading Time: 6 minutes We don’t know about you, but for those of us here it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago that 3G Internet speeds were being revelled in as the latest and greatest. Things obviously change fast, as 3G has been in the rear view mirror for a long time now, and the reality is that the newest latest and greatest – 4G – is about to join it there. Here at 4GoodHosting, the fact we’re a leading Canadian web host makes us as keen to learn more about what the new 5G networks have in store for us as anyone else who’s in the digital space day in and out. It appears that we’re in for quite a treat, although there are some who suggest tempering expectations. That’s to be expected anytime wholesale changes to infrastructure key to big-picture operations are forthcoming. Nonetheless, we’re supposed to be immersed in the 5G world before the end of next year. Mobile 5G is expected to start making appearances in cities around North America this year, with much more extensive rollouts expected in 2020 so a discussion of what we can all expect from 5G is definitely in order. Let’s do it. What is 5G, and How’s It Going to Work? To cut right to it, 5G is the next generation of mobile broadband that will augment 4G LTE connections for now before eventually replacing them. 5G is promising to deliver exponentially faster download and upload speeds along with drastically reduced latency - the time it takes devices to communicate with each other across wireless networks. Right, that alone is worthy of some serious fanfare, but fortunately there’s even more to this. But before getting into additional benefits expected to be seen with 5G networks, let’s have a look at what makes them different from 4G ones and how exactly these new super networks are predicted to function. Spectrum-Specific Band Function It’s important to start with an understanding of the fact that unlike LTE, 5G is going to operate on three different spectrum brands. The lowest one will be the sub-1GHz spectrum bands like GSMA / ITU. They are what’s known as...
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Reading Time: 8 minutes A discussion of cybersecurity isn’t exactly a popular topic of conversation for most people, but those same people would likely gush at length if asked about how fond of public wi-fi connections they are! That’s a reflection of our modern world it would seem; we’re all about digital connectivity, but the potential for that connectivity to go sour on us is less of a focus of our attention. That is until it actually does go sour on you, of course, at which point you’ll be wondering why more couldn’t have been done to keep your personal information secure. Here at 4GoodHosting, cybersecurity is a big priority for us the same way it should be for any of the best Canadian web hosting providers. We wouldn’t have it any other way, and we do work to keep abreast of all the developments in the world of cybersecurity, and in particular these days as it pertains to cloud computing. We recently read a very interesting article about how our preferences for the ways we (meaning the collective whole of society) use public wi-fi can highlight some of the natures and needs related to web security, and we thought it would be helpful to share it and expand on it for you with our blog this week. Public Wi-Fi and Its Perils Free, public Wi-Fi is a real blessing for us when mobile data is unavailable, or scarce as if often the case! Few people really know how to articulate exactly what the risks of using public wi-fi are and how we can protect ourselves. Let’s start with this; when you join a public hotspot without protection and begin to access the internet, the packets of data moving from your device to the router are public and thus open to interception by anyone. Yes, SSL/TLS technology exists but all that’s required for cybercriminal to snoop on your connection is some relatively simple Linux software that he or she can find online without much fuss. Let’s take a look at some of the attacks that you may be subjected to due to using a public wi-fi network on your mobile device: Data monitoring W-fi...
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Reading Time: 3 minutes In a world where Google, Amazon and Facebook dominate the tech space, Cloudflare has stolen away the headlines for the betterment of the internet with its recent announcement. The company announced on its 8th birthday that they would be launching a domain registry, and it is unlike any we have seen before. Cloudflare, to the shock of many in the industry, has decided not to charge anything above the federally mandated cost to register a domain with the government. That is right; this multi-billion dollar company has chosen to not make a single penny off of your domain registration. In a world where the average Canadian spends between $10-$15 per domain, this is remarkable. Cloudflare is not a small company and is about the same scale as Google at the moment. It has a core set of business that sees itself as a content distribution platform and secure infrastructure vendor for millions of client across the globe. It also has recently announced it is on a path to an IPO and has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in preparation for this. So why do this? Cloudflare is a unique company in the tech and capital market as they are doing two different things than any other major brand. First, the company does not see the internet as a property that you can corner, and instead looks to promote a free, equal and open internet, much like the values from Internet 1.0. Secondly, the company is doing things for the good of the internet, and although this might ultimately fail once the company scales, it is still a refreshing view from a larger company in the tech space. This does leave one important question for consumers, what does this mean for the cost and registration of their domain? Well, it is a little up in the air. The Cloudflare system is still being tested and should be live within the month, but it looks to be set up similar to every other registry system. If you are up for renewal, it might be time to take a look around and see if you can benefit from using this new system....
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Reading Time: 4 minutes Many people will have a domain name they once owned that eventually lost its value and was discarded. Most of those folks won’t have given much thought to it after declining to renew it with their web hosting provider, and 9 times out of 10 it’s true that nothing more will come of it. However, cyber security experts are now letting people know that an abandoned domain name can allow cybercriminals to gain access to email addresses of the company or individual that previously owned it. Here at 4GoodHosting, we’re not unlike any other Canadian web hosting provider in the way we claim domain names for clients across hundreds of different industries. Many of whom will have that same domain name for themselves to this day, but some will have abandoned one or more because they found something better or simply because the domain name wasn’t required anymore for whatever reason. Here’s what happens when a domain name expires. It goes into a reserved state for a certain time, during which time the the recent owner has the ability to reclaim it. If and when that time expires, it becomes available for re-registration for whomever at no additional costs, identity or ownership verification. Now while it is true that SEO professionals and spam trap operators are good at keeping track of abandoned domain names for various purposes, many of them will not know they are a potential security risk. So let’s discuss this here today. Insider Access Information Look no further for a pressing concern than the fact that the new owner of the domain name can take control of the email addresses of the former owner. The email services can then be configured to receive any number of email correspondences that are sensitive in nature. These accounts can then be used to reset passwords to online services requiring sensitive info like personal details, financial details, client-legal privileged information, and a lot more. Recently this has been more in the new because of research performed on domain names abandoned by law-firms in Australia that were cast off as a result of different mergers and acquisitions between companies. These law firms...
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Reading Time: 3 minutes Security in the digital business world is really a challenge these days, and the world wide web is becoming as full of nefarious characters at the town of Machine, the ‘End of the Line’ as it were in the cool monochrome Western Dead Man with Johnny Depp from the ‘90s. A few months back we had detailed the big bad Spectre virus that had come onto the scene and posed major threats as regarded the insecurity of data for any type of website handling sensitive personal information. It continues to be a ‘thing’, and in response to it Google recently enabled a new security feature in Chrome that secures users from malicious attacks like Spectre. It’s called Site Isolation, and is a new feature available with Chrome 67 on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS. Here at 4GoodHosting, we’re a Canadian web hosting provider that puts an emphasis on this for obvious reasons, always seeking to be as on top of our clients’ web hosting needs as effectively as possible. Google’s experimentation with Site Isolation has been going on since Chrome 63, and they’ve patched a lot of issues before enabling it by default for all Chrome users on desktop. Chrome’s multi-process architecture allows different tabs to employ different renderer processes. Site Isolation functions by limiting each renderer process to documents from a single site. Chrome then relies on the operating system, and mitigates attacks between processes and any site. Google has stated that in Chrome 67, Site Isolation has been enabled for 99% of users on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS, according to a recent post on their company blog, stating further that ‘even if a Spectre attack were to occur in a malicious web page, data from other websites would generally not be loaded into the same process, and so there would be much less data available to the attacker. This significantly reduces the threat posed by Spectre.’ Additional known issues in Chrome for Android have been identified and are being worked on. Site Isolation for Chrome for Android should be ready with Chrome 68. Need for Speed Quick mention as well to Speed Update for Google...
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