Gadgetory

welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred dang Firefox is the latest browser to introduce a way for users to block autoplay videos online those are those annoying videos that start playing once you land on a web page and yes CNN is guilty of the practice two good news is browsers are getting more assertive on behalf of their users to make the web a little less of a pain Google a MP or amp pages which reduced the number of ads on a page so they can load faster is another example so Alfred what are you what are your thoughts on this I mean it's I feel like this is way overdue but I'm glad that there's more browsers like making this change obviously Safari had done this before as well as Chrome and you know Firefox is the latest to join them and I understand why a website wouldn't want this in the sense of you know that's how we get or add revenue but at the same time you know it comes at the cost of the you know going on a website and being completely frustrated by it so I think it's a welcome change and I would make the point that I'd like probably 99% of the internet agrees with me on that what I don't think anybody ever goes on a web site is like yes this video played on its own that's exactly what I wanted yeah there's there's one website that's not seen at that would actually put its video player at the very end of an article and so it would start playing audio and I guess enroll actually yeah I couldn't actually find where the video is so there are obviously like some of these tactics can get really annoying for consumers and sometimes I would just mute my laptop because there are so many different auto plays but it is an interesting balancing act that goes on where there's so much more free content online these days and people don't really want to pay for it but at the same time a lot of publishers try to figure out different ways to get people to pay I guess through annoyance I suppose that's a terrible business model yeah I don't know I don't know what to tell you next up starting Tuesday Google's Chrome browser so that's starting today Google's Chrome browser will start showing you a quote not secure message when you're on a website that still uses HT TP instead of HTTP so Alfred why don't you talk us through what the difference is between those two yeah so HTTP is basically an encrypted version of HTTP and that's basically the way that you get you know onto a website or anything like that that's the start of all URLs and what that basically means is that if you were using an HTTP website somebody who's on the same Wi-Fi as you or like snooping on your Wi-Fi network won't be able to basically see your passwords or like what website you're going on or anything like that because it'd be all encrypted and a lot of hackers like do rely on people going to HTTP websites because in that way they can like gather all this information on people like very easily and it's much harder on HTTPS what Google is doing with chrome in this sense is that it used to always just show secure that if you went on an HTTPS website but now what they're doing instead is like calling out like bad behavior as opposed to like oh this is a secure website now what they're doing is if you're go on a website without it it'll say not secure at the beach at the top and then it'll also do like a little like pop-up box log that's basically hey the website you're visiting is not secure so don't enter your password or any sensitive data or anything like that if while you're on here right so it's a little bit more assertive from Google to try to encourage more sites to go to HTTPS offhand and I know I'm kind of quizzing you here do you have any idea how many sites have switched over to HTTPS I would say I believe the last time I checked 75% of the Internet is on HTTPS already um so a good chunk of the internet is on HTTPS I think when I was doing a story on this and I wanted to purposely find an HTTP web site I had a really hard time doing that so yeah I mean it's one of those things that that yeah we have another topic to go to we don't have enough time so last our own Derek Kerr wrote about Airbnb effort to stop New York City from passing a new bill against it the Big Apple argues that Airbnb rentals are taking rental units off the market and driving up housing costs Airbnb say is it helps everyday New Yorkers make ends meet it's unclear really if Airbnb --zz Boulder tactics are gonna work or if they are working but I don't know it's really weird Airbnb strategy you know characterize New York City Councilmembers as like oh there in the pocket of big hotel or anything like that but if they were you that would be pretty easy to find like these are like financial donations that are probably public and for them to go with all these accusations which if it were true I would say yeah that makes sense and but the thing is this is pretty simple to find and I haven't seen a shred of evidence about it so no I don't know anyway if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNN and thanks everybody for listening I love the essentials all right thanks everybody for joining us for the recording of the audio podcast welcome to the newbies in the chat at this point we're going to take your questions and comments comments about the the show topics at hand because I can't talk today apparently so if anything having to do with Airbnb HTTP autoplay video we're experts in that I personally want to low a little bit more since the the last story in our in our show always gets cut so short just for ya I'm sorry so Airbnb is a little more well these are all really applicable stories to the general consumer public today but I want to know a little bit more about Airbnb because I had my first experience with that few few weeks ago it was a good experience and being here in New York I'm not gonna use it in New York for a lot of obvious reasons but if I was to ever have guests come I'm kind of curious how does this really affect somebody getting a rental in Oak Brook City I can I can start this one off so basically New York City already passed a law that had stipulated that you're not allowed to have somebody in a short-term rental in your place for less than 30 days unless you're living there yeah unless you're staying there so I guess that if somebody's crashing on your couch and paying for your rent for five days and you're there that's totally kosher that's fine but otherwise the intention was to restrict Airbnb significantly from that law the problem was is that the level of enforcement wasn't really there and so Airbnb sorry New York City Council passed a new law unanimously that stipulated the Airbnb needed to provide a bunch of information for New York City to actually go after folks that were doing rentals so that that was expected to substantially harm B&Bs business in New York City which yeah believe I wrote this is their biggest domestic market just for some additional contacts here though it's not like these city council members are basically going out of their way to screw over Airbnb in New York the logic behind all this regulation for New York City is essentially that there is like a severe lack of housing and rising rent in New York City and the idea is that a part of that reason is because landlords instead of like renting out like these avail homes that they have there like keeping them open for Airbnb host what they're hosting it yeah those things yeah yeah and so instead of like you know actually providing a home for at a low price for somebody that could actually afford it they would keep that and then jack up the prices for the constant flow of tourists that are actually coming in thus jacking up the rent costs here and also contributing to the like homeless epidemic in the city right and that's primarily a reason why a lot of other major tourist destinations have also gone after Airbnb because of their concerns that people instead of going to you know hotels are utilizing Airbnb I mean I use Airbnb plenty of times when I travel but the other list of locations that have had problems with Airbnb include San Francisco LA Amsterdam Paris Berlin I think Barcelona is on that list too so it's it's so it's a lot of places that there there is substantial demand for tourists and somebody that has a housing unit might be able to get significantly more money for themselves yeah just think about like if you're if you're a landlord like you would much rather you know rent it out like on a weekly basis where you don't have to deal with like oh I need to fix a sink or something like that or like bad tenants that like just decide to stay there for a long time or anything like that like it's much more favorable for a landlord like they make more money from it they have less responsibilities but at the same time like it like drastically affects like the housing market yeah yeah yeah I mean I again I use it personally and I actually prefer to a lot of hotels because I don't like staying at a lot of hotels unless they're like boutique II yeah which I don't have the money for so it's it's a useful service for people but I I also I guess I understand both sides of the argument from the consumer situation and also really I really enjoyed so along with the Airbnb argument of you know oh these these New York City Council members are in the pocket of big hotel there are other arguments has been you know they're hurting the the little guy like you know they're not like these major hotel corporations they're just landlords in New York City that like on million dollar homes so that's the other that like I don't think really the little guy as much as you know Airbnb likes to make them out to be so an interesting point that you make about that so this is from a New York Times story a report from the school of urban planning at Merck at McGill University this was a study by the way commissioned by hotel by the hotel workers union so if you want to throw out the rest of the information that I'm gonna tell you from that then fine go ahead but either way it found that nearly half of New York City rental revenue on Airbnb was earned by 10% of the hosts in the city so there are obviously a lot of little guys but most of the money flows to that top 10% yeah to me makes a lot of sense wait I thought that was agreeing with my argument how does that undercut it no I wasn't understanding it at all I just you know I I totally had that ready to go I thought that was an interesting study that's why Ben is my true friend that never disagrees with me rich Nieva is my best friend by the way so I'd like to do a shout out to rich Nieva right now and say I hope you're watching ok let's talk a little bit more about HTTP I saw in the article down below we didn't quite reach it yet that there's this interesting graph of percentage of wet pages loaded by Firefox using HTTPS on put up on the screen now and the title of that says why haven't we been using HTTPS all along Alfred why not because it wasn't developed yeah HTTP is been around for like 25 years or so it takes a long time for these things to develop yeah but and also the idea is that like so switching to HTTPS is also kind of a process it's become much easier recently and I actually have to change that from my personal website I don't even think I should have a personal website anymore to be honest but yeah like it's this whole process like if you have assets on your webpage that like are not compatible of HTTPS it's kind of like you have to redo your whole website in some scenarios is it fair to say that that is incentive for people to not want to get on board with the HTTPS train it's more just kind of a pain in the ass to deal with yeah but like I said it's becoming much easier to do it recently like there's a website called like let's encrypt that like helps you do that and they I have you know they issue like more than like 600,000 like HTTP certificates like everyday if you have your website hosted on github which I do then they also allow you to do that but I remember when I tried doing it a few weeks ago there were like all these assets on my website that were not HTTPS compatible and I forgot like most of what I like how i coded my website so I like needed to go back and like redo the whole thing so your website by the way is it in e-commerce site for selling alfred baba Smet it's Super Smash Brothers throw pillows no if I if I had a supply of Super Smash Brothers throw pillows I just keep them all why would I sell that you're like sewing them yourself no no your website was just that go fund me that you made oh yeah yeah that's right send Alfred to the moon no I don't want that money you're gonna kneel on musk anymore but yeah it's become much easier to do it and that's why I like there's been such a steady adoption but like obviously Google is still trying to make that a hundred percent of websites that are visited because there are a lot of vulnerabilities that can happen there was a report about it back in March that you know there was this popular website that people were going on - you know download like software and things like that keep going and it wasn't H it was HTTP and not HTTP and the I believe it was this it was I forgot what God might have been the Turkish government but they had taken advantage of this and used a man-in-the-middle attack so that when people in that like country were trying to access the website to download software they got spying software on the computer and said that the like Turkish government used to spy on them yikes and it is still not HTTP man so don't download stuff from this website so yeah and cheese that's that's a pretty stark example yeah gonna happen if you go to an HTTP website versus HD yeah the other thing was so I learned a lot more about this when I was at Def Con last year where I they have a package sniffing village there which sounds really weird it's not dry but like it's like you know packets at your computer sends online back and forth and the idea was I wanted to purposely like see what they could see if I went like on the public Wi-Fi network but the thing was like every website that I was going on was HTTPS so it was like they couldn't really see that much that's why I brought up on the podcast it was like I was purposely trying to find a website that like they could see my stuff on but it's become much harder for them so does does does HTTPS make it okay to go on public Wi-Fi is like if you're in a food court or it makes it it makes it easier yeah it definitely like there's still stuff people could do from like public Wi-Fi like if you're both on the same Wi-Fi network but it makes it harder for them to like see what you're seeing and like what you're typing in and Sunday nice on a related note a question from Ranjha Corp have extensions like HTTPS Everywhere become obsolete at this point they're not becoming obsolete but like this basically kind of does what HTTPS Everywhere already does where like it warns you like if something is like not secure tell me what a HTTP T sorry HTTPS Everywhere so this was an extension that was put out by the elec I always get this wrong when I when I think of it but Electric Frontier Foundation yes I just think AFF but like but yeah basically what it did was it would when I got look at this let's just take a three minute break and let it Alfred read that breed I literally wrote about this like two months ago it's a Chrome extension I've got it open to Chrome extension that it makes your browser more secure I would imagine or like you know the sites that you're visiting even if they're HTTP well yeah I don't think it changes a to an HTTP web site though is the thing like I think on my point it yeah all right live TV right here I hate all of you for Chrome it is for Firefox it's also for opera mm-hmm yeah and the core basics of it is it's just meant to re-secure the website right so it's like a new house oh okay I get it now okay so some websites have both like HTTP and H TPS versions because like while they're making the transition over but like it'll automatically go back to the unencrypted version because it's like like I've been on like an HTTP website where like images don't load or something like that and they want the image to load so if it doesn't it'll automatically go back to it what HTTPS Everywhere does is like it'll send it back to the HTTPS version even in the website like request for that so in a way it's not obsolete but like because it'll still send you back to like a secure version of the page but I mean like as more and more web sites become have HTTPS it'll probably like go out of the way soon mmm nice I did it good job dude so being route really uneducated in the topic I wanted to ask is this the kind of thing where eventually as most things in the modern techie world is going to become obsolete well HTTPS be superseded as they're already any kind of development rumblings in that realm HTTP s I don't know ah HTTP um less I think for that to happen there'd have to be a vulnerability like associated with HTTPS currently we're but like it's become like a pretty good standard for now but you know it's hard to predict as you know security is always evolving and there's always like new vulnerabilities out there but for now I'd say it's a pretty good standard I don't know it could be some stupid blockchain things that'll pop up that was like this is the most secure thing now so oh my god that already exists I'm sure of it yeah so blockchain website webpages megaohm question I don't know yeah yeah so last but not least let's talk about Firefox and autoplay I myself have not seen the update come through on my browser and I've got eleven computers here anyone out there in chat world have you gotten the Firefox update yet how is it performing I know we all hate autoplay and I know there's been plenty of other alternatives around in history to try to supersede it but having it built right into the browser I'm just curious to see how it performs so chime in if it's not now hit us up on Twitter later let us know how you're experiencing it about you guys just to clarify it's on Firefox nightly which is a test version of Mozilla's web browser so yeah it is gonna be tested oh it's not public yet yeah I thought they were saying it went public takes not it's not completely public but to me it was very important to just say look Firefox joined the other guys and actually providing this even if it's in a somewhat limited version at this point here's to see if like places will continue pushing it out even though they know that like most people hate it and like browsers will be blocking it like if they're still gonna go for it anyway with Ottaway videos autoplay video I don't know it's hard to say like when I was first browsing the web pop-ups were like a really big thing and you know like I would go on some of my friends web site like on my friend's computer that didn't have pop-up blockers it was like almost impossible yeah doing anything online so to me this is just another iteration of the web and you know Ferb for again stuff is free online and autoplay was a way for folks to make money off line online with that free content so there if autoplay blocking becomes very regular then they're probably just gonna find like another way to do it so there's a whole South also more so it's curious about like how this will affect Facebook because like they technically autoplay when you scroll through mm-hmm but it's not like there's audio or anything on that so I don't I'm like here's how this will like play out with like Facebook Twitter Twitter which also is also autoplay how do plays become like very common like very regular and there are some I don't know some websites are much more aggressive about that's what I was talking about when I said I hate websites that do autoplay videos I don't I don't know any other websites that do that mostly Facebook a lot of them do I go on a lot of like news websites that you know like 10 News CNN does autoplay CNBC does like I guess I'm gonna call them out on it they do a really obnoxious version of autoplay where if I stop the like it playing and then go to a different website or like I switch to a different tab and then go back to that tab it'll autoplay off all over again there's just like incredibly annoying I already told you I don't want to watch this video there's one like website where like it's up top but if you like move to like the X or like the pause to make it like not autoplay it'll like scroll down into like the small box kind of thing on the side I mean yeah go there deposit like oh I'm hearing oh we're playing hide-and-seek with this nice that's the worst website experience so the good thing is is like a look yes CNET does do autoplay but you can actually turn off the autoplay function for good when you go on seeing it so like if you ever go on seeing it the first time it will autoplay but there's a little toggle there that you can actually turn it off so yeah I I can yeah go ahead and I feel fine I feel fine calling out my own website because we actually have a feature that lets you turn it off for good when you go on regularly so I'm happy about that Cena is on HTTPS yes CNET cnet.com the best hey sir enjoy said nightly and developer versions are loaded with it works fine the Cena auto play successfully blocked enjoy watching it's dig your own graves you chose to watch this now Timothy do has a question where does edge come into this that's a good question where does I don't know what they do I yeah unfortunately yeah I I don't have a lot of knowledge on Microsoft edge either so I write about at a browsers that people use yeah get the Microsoft chord after you savage yeah that's that's tough um I'll ask Mary Jo Foley later she definitely knows all right so we've got autoplay getting disabled we've got ad blockers all up the ying-yang eventually we're gonna get ad blocker blockers and they're gonna keep finding a cyclical way I mean they're they already have adblock no that's what I mean and then eventually there's gonna be like autoplay replay or something I'm just wondering what's gonna be the next logical step in obnoxious forced media consumption or ad placement yes its autoplay that's what I was saying there's no video it's just like play sound in the background like MySpace they will find a way they will find a way to make money like if they can package it to advertisers and do it like effectively and seamlessly like that's I autoplay was actually getting utilized by so many different folks it's like all thanks Jeff Goldblum it's like all the annoying people that you grew up with decided to get together in a room and after they figure out they can make money doing this mm-hmm yeah they didn't hire me for it unfortunately yeah yeah why would they they're much smarter than you so to finish it on a philosophical question farming this out to the chat and to periscope and Twitter and so on and so forth what do you think is gonna be the next logical obnoxious Auto placement on uh advertising websites we just want to hear from you yeah an autoplay pop-up it's Auto buy where it's like you go on a website and it's in your shopping cart like already oh I have an idea I have an idea what if it's like Auto you so you go on a website the entire website gets taken over by your face and it's telling you the advertisement so it's like you're talking to yourself about the advertising it's it's one of those like AI like fake videos where they get all your photos this video hey there I'm Ben I'm you know I want you to Ma Sharma I should buy it I should buy some of that now if I buy it I'm you know telling me to buy it when you when you go like grocery shopping with your kids like do they just put stuff in the cart and they're not or not we're not getting this like take like put that back they complain loudly about wanting certain things but like the two-year-olds aren't like their arms aren't long enough to grab things yeah that's basically what the new software the the new Annoying software is gonna be where it's like it just put stuff in your cars like no we want this yeah and then you have to go and like take them all out I could see that you've visited a skiing web site in March you definitely want it's in your card already oh my god that makes a lot of sense actually compared to the sites I have like the Amazon ad fill that's like you once looked at this thing it never even happened in your cart but you thought about buying the 600 dollar camera lens you thinking about it again now we're gonna now we're gonna have you follow I follow you around the web with it forever yeah the bigger problem I find is when I buy something on Amazon and then they retarget me with that ad for like three or four days later I'm like guys I already bought it hey you just bought a car you should get another one you should the car you need three vacuum cleaners you know that's that's important here's a suggestion from mark dybul ghosted logos over top a content that's not a terrible I mean it is a terrible idea but you know what I'm trying to say they would start watermarking stuff to try to block you from seeing things it's not dissimilar from when you go to like New York Times or something like that and they've got the big banner across it said white list us or buy a subscription kind of thing or you can't see this content yeah it's also it's it's like that Futurama like like running joke that they have or like they have the ads running in your dreams now that second yeah it's gonna happen man oh my god instantly happen also advertising in licensing agreements I'm also like very annoyed at I think about let that one sink in for a second that's like two bad things at once it's like the turducken of horrible things don't like Intel like you know they've had some really cool drones lately with like oh we made like a flag with like these 10,000 drones that we have in the air and everyone is like very impressed by and I'm like that's gonna be used for advertising also totally it's like you're not gonna see stars at night anymore you're just gonna see drones as ads instead like drink Pepsi like with like 5000 runs in the air I mean they do that with airplanes already they've done it for decades where they've got like the tail banners when they fly them over it was only in the daytime and that required a pilot to fly it now we've drawn like Thrones and LEDs we have a whole new opportunity of awfulness yeah so if you look at that I don't know that camera lens again then until just said Amazon will send a bunch of Intel drones to like your front door and just like show you the camera lens in drone form hey guys hey guys it's that camera lens in drone form we're gonna play a video on a drone in front of you oh your browser can't block me I'm getting like very annoyed thinking about all these horrible it's actually a black mirror writing meeting yeah I just want to say idea I just want to say there are opportunities for skywriting to be used for good one of my favorite trolls of all time is this one here and someone just got a plane and then they flew it out over a beach and it just says where is your plane peasants that is absolutely something nice something I would do this call go ahead and call me out on it there have a plane you peasant yeah no that would be fun if I paid for a bunch of Intel drones to spell in the sky Intel drones are annoying that could that could be a nice corollary we've got more suggestions rolling in as we're on our way out the door Jerrod says Amazon discounted TV with ads I think that's already happening isn't it hmm I don't know but it wouldn't surprise me if it were I mean they do that with our tablets exactly and Kindle too right I think so I definitely know definitely Kindle tablets and I think they at least for a while they did it with phones too you don't do it the echo though right no good morning you pay ten dollars for those echo dot so they're being here's really doing really cautious with advertising right now with the echo yeah and that might not be the case for ever daily ad man if that thing starts yelling ads at me in the morning when I wake up it's going right out the window when I talk to advertisers and marketers about the echo they see it as a really fertile ground like they think that this is they're like very hungry to jump into that platform it's a really great opportunity for them and great opportunity to annoy the hell out of people there is a phone company slash data mining service in Mexico that does that currently where they pay your phone bill but for the price of that like you hand over like you answer a survey for them at the end of every month but it's like yes so it's like it's basically they gather data on you based on your answers to the survey for like I don't know how much like phone those in Mexico or but I can doesn't sound that bad yeah I was expecting something like way more intrusive like they take your kid every every time you call your mom like the the call starts with like hello this is a phone provided by like whatever no or just like a straight up 30-second hat for whoever was paying the phone provider so you want to speak to a loved one and why not send them flowers from 1-800 this is we're coming up with some really horrible ideas we have to observe in this episode we have to be like mission impossible this episode because if they get a hold of this oh it's gonna be awful we'll be sure there are feathers then much worse than yeah come on boys we're just riffing stuff you know yeah they spend all day thinking of ways to annoy us so these are terrible situations or the echo yelling ads at you somebody suggested Carrie said what about having drones follow you around like just on the street that wasn't that was in the circle with our trumpet playing like well stop doing it when you buy the thing like we'll leave you alone I had to say that would work with me mm-hmm and then of course the worst case scenario from Huey yeag commercials at the start of the 359 with me just reading him off oh yeah I paid for you to plug my website earlier guys you've been getting the 359 without any commercials for a very long time well actually you know what never mind I take that back if you're watching it on YouTube you do get commercials we get none of that money yeah that's also very very true but we are out of time so thanks everybody for joining us who wants to take us out today I'll do it know it feels like an ad now I'm just gonna name a bunch of companies whatever the 359 is brought to you by we're not brought to you brought to you by by CBS Corp and every everything out alright anyway and the numbers are disappearing bin ok the 359 is available on iTunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud feed sorry not SoundCloud feed burner Google Play Music google podcast Amazon echo and check us out on Sina com - thanks everybody for your questions and we'll see you again tomorrow later everybody you