Switch to HTTPS, lose your number one and two search-engine ranking

One annoying thing about switching the majority of our sites to HTTPS is losing our positions in the search engines. We were always told that HTTPS would lead to rises in search-engine ranking, and that being a mere HTTP would lead to Google downgrading you. The reality, as I’ve witnessed since we completed our server […]

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Don’t put your events on just Facebook—they won’t be seen

We’re probably far enough along from the event for people not to know which one I am referring to, as I’ve no wish to embarrass the organizers.    Earlier in 2021, we saw a weekend event that would take place at the ‘Johnsonville Community Hub’. No address was given other than that. Both Duck Duck […]

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Nine years of promoting DuckDuckGo in Lucire

Promoting DuckDuckGo: ‘Glancing back’ in Lucire KSA, June 2021. For some time now, in every print issue of Lucire, and Lucire KSA, there is a mention of search engine DuckDuckGo. But I wasn’t sure how long we had been doing this, till I checked tonight. We started referencing DuckDuckGo in 2012, on our history page, […]

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Like communist dictatorships, Google and Facebook threaten Australia

You know the US tech giants have way too much power, unencumbered by their own government and their own country’s laws, when they think they can strong-arm another nation.    From Reuter: Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Friday it would block its search engine in Australia if the government proceeds with a new code that […]

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Even the web is forgetting our history

Hernán Piñera/Creative Commons/CC BY-SA 2.0 My friend Richard MacManus wrote a great blog post in February on the passing of Clive James, and made this poignant observation: ‘Because far from preserving our culture, the Web is at best forgetting it and at worst erasing it. As it turns out, a website is much more vulnerable […]

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Finding an Android browser that works without fuss is harder than you think

With my last two cellphones, I’ve not used the default browser. I usually opted for Firefox, and in December 2018, I believe that’s what I did on my then-new Meizu M6 Note.    I don’t recall it being too problematic, but the type on some sites displayed a tad small, so I sampled a few […]

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Why paywalls are getting more prevalent; and The Guardian Weekly rethought

Megan McArdle’s excellent op–ed in The Washington Post, ‘A farewell to free journalism’, has been bookmarked on my phone for months. It’s a very good summary of where things are for digital media, and how the advent of Google and Facebook along with the democratization of the internet have reduced online advertising income to a […]

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The EU lands Google with another fine—but will Google change?

Zain Ali   The EU gets it when it comes to fines. Rather than the paltry US$17 million certain US states’ attorneys-general stung Google with some years ago for hacking Iphones, they’ve now fined the search engine giant €4,340 million, on top of its earlier fine of €2,420 million over anticompetitive behaviour.    That US$17 […]

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It can’t be that hard to rank media meritoriously, if only the big players had the will

US Department of Defense   Keen to be seen as the establishment, and that means working with the military–industrial complex, Google is making software to help the Pentagon analyse drone footage, and not everyone’s happy with this development.   The World Economic Forum’s ‘This is the future of the internet’ makes for interesting reading. It’s […]

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Twitter’s shadow-banning: not just in the US, as Kiwis get caught up, too

Anthony Quintano/Creative Commons We’ve had years of Google and Facebook acting like arses, but it’s disappointing to see Twitter give us more and more causes for concern.    In 2017, we saw them change their terms and conditions so speaking power to truth is no longer a requirement. You can’t help but think that the […]

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