Facebook Files Patent To Watch You Through Your Webcam Or Phone Cam While You Are Using Facebook

Facebook is one of the largest social media platforms in the world and the facts that it has billions of active users and around 2 billion people may join Facebook by the year 2018 are well known.

 

Facebook has been making a lot of changes to its platform lately, with the latest video ads, a separate tab for your videos and then the most popular reactions for comments.

 

While most of these new features were added for increasing the revenue share of Facebook, some of them were actually useful for the users.

 

Just when we think about Facebook as a good and a useful platform for connecting with our friends and family, Facebook goes downhill once again by filing a patent which apparently gives Facebook the permission and the required technology for the company to record and analyse your views and reactions while you are watching different types of contents like photos or videos using your Computer or your smartphone.

 

With billions of active users using Facebook frequently, this patent comes out as a major privacy issue to all of its users. Even though Facebook claims that it will use this technology only for studying the emotions and reactions of its users, it still is scary even to imagine Facebook penetrating through our everyday life via our smartphone or PC cameras.

 

What is the issue?

According to the patent, Facebook uses an algorithm to study your emotions, so if you smile while you are watching a video on your news feed, Facebook will now record this reaction and then use it to show you similar videos you might enjoy watching.

 

 

The same technique will be used for hiding videos in your news feed which you did not enjoy watching. Facebook could also use this to target ads based on your reactions, for example, if your emotions were happy while you were watching an ad about Uber, then Facebook will start to send more Uber ads your way.

 

Even though a Facebook spokesperson said that they may not even implement this technology and this is just for research purposes, it is still hard to digest how hard technology can invade your personal lives and with a humongous network like Facebook, the problem is only going to be much more severe. Mark Zuckerberg is watching you.

 

8 Developer options You Should Use If You Are A True Android Enthusiast

Android as simple an operating system it is for normal users, for people who decide to explore it further, it provides endless capabilities. 

It literally has limitless customization options and with new Android apps pouring in every day almost anything is possible with Android.

Even though apps are good and they provide you with great functionality and awesome new features, nothing is better and comforting than features that come built-in with the phone. 

With theses features, you do not have to download any app nor you have to worry about losing your precious storage space or your limited battery life.

All you have to do is to toggle the developer options hidden in your settings app and then you can access some of the most useful and sophisticated features that come by default with the operating system. 

Though these features are intended for usage by Android app or game developers and Google made it hidden to prevent the normal users from accessing, it is fairly easy to get your hands on these options and why would anyone want to miss on the additional fun when there is little to no risk involved right?

So, dive in to read more about the top 8 awesome things you could do by enabling the developer options and if you are a noobie and never heard of the developer options before, here is how to enable the awesome thing.

Just open your settings app, head over to the about phone option by scrolling till the last and then open it and tap 3-4 times on the build number information at the bottom. Android will now congratulate you as you have become a developer, but we both know that you ain’t one.

Okay, let’s talk features now.

Force Activities to be resizable:

This is one of my favorite features and the most useful among the lot. But keep in mind that this option will only be available in phones with Android Nougat 7.0 and above. So don’t be disappointed if you cannot see it, just wait for your phone’s lazy manufacturer to send it out to your device.

Enabling this feature converts all of the activities of all the apps that are installed on your phone, even in those apps which did not come with a native multi window or resizable support. This means that apps which force closed or did not respond previously when you tried to use them in a multi-window mode will now work flawlessly!

Stop apps with a single click: 

If you are an Android user with a  phone of 1 GB RAM and a dual or a quad core processor, then I am sure that you would be familiar with a situation where your phone does not respond to you as quick as it did when you first bought it. 

Apps open slower, boot time is increased, suddenly some apps force close and many similar things.

You might have tried uninstalling some apps or even made the mistake of downloading some cleaner or booster apps and then believing that they would magically make your phone smoother and faster again. 

But I hate to break that bubble, but my friend it doesn’t work that way. They either make your phone much slower or simply stay there and drain your battery for eternity.

But there is one simple way to solve it and unlike what you might have read on some other websites or blog, it doesn’t require you to open the settings page of individual apps and then clicking on the force close option to stop the app which however will reopen in seconds if any process happens thus draining your battery more in the process.

However, there is one simple solution known as Inactive apps in the developer options which when selected will present you with the list of all apps that you have installed on your phone along with the current status of the app that whether they are in an active or an inactive state. 

So when you just click on the name of an app that is currently in an active state, it instantly goes into an inactive and a hibernated state. This means that the app is completely shut down and until and otherwise, you open the app or the game it will not run again.

You can use this feature to toggle apps or games which you only use once in a blue moon as active, thus saving you the battery life they consume by constantly running in the background and also frees the RAM of your phone and ultimately improving the performance of your Android device!

Limit your background processes: 

Some people may argue against my above-said point that there are no such useful or rarely used apps or games on their phone and they actually use every single app installed on their phone daily or on a regular basis. 

There is an alternate solution for this kind of people which doesn’t require them to toggle any app as inactive. What you need to do is to just limit your background processes to 3 or 4 at the maximum. 

By doing this, whenever you are using an app that needs a lot of memory space in the RAM and there are already several apps that are running in the background and even though you don’t need them and you don’t even remember why you opened them in the first place, Android will help you limit the background processes on a priority basis.

So when you have left 3 apps open in the background and you are now opening a new 4th app then Android will automatically put the last app in the queue, the app you opened a long time before into a hibernation state thus preventing any issues with performance or your battery life.

Don’t keep activities:

If you are the kind of user who opens an app only once everyday like checking your Instagram or answering Questions on Quora and then forget that they even exist for the rest of the day, then this feature is especially for you and it is known as Don’t keep activities as the heading suggests.

What this feature does is that, when enabled it will instantly force close an app as soon as you leave the app screen on press your back button, by this way the app no longer runs in the background hogging your resources or a game you played which had occupied 70% of your RAM will now be released.

This feature is not recommended for those who send and receive a lot of messages or mails since those apps will also be closed once the user exists it, preventing them from sending you any notifications as their background processes are also shut down.

Change your screen width: 

Even though phones running Nougat come with a DPI changer by default, it only allows you to change your width to fixed values like small, medium and Large.

But using this option in the developer options, you can change the value to any number or size according to your liking thus making your display too small or too large based on your sight.

Improve response time by modifying animation scales: 

Currently Android allows you to change three different aspects of your phone’s animation by modifying the window, transition and the duration of the animations. These are all set to 1x by default and if you want to improve the responsiveness of your device, you can lower these values down a notch thus increasing the animation speed and giving a feeling that your device is blazing fast.

Cellular Data active at all times:

This particular feature is very useful for people who travel a lot or simply switch between various WiFi connections. Turning this on will keep your mobile data switched on at all times, so as soon as you leave a WiFi area or when your router is not working, you will be immediately shifted to your mobile data without any further delay thus saving you from missing any messages or notifications.

Stay awake while charging: 

You can turn this feature if you are the person who uses Facebook or Twitter or simply reads on the web a lot. So whenever you connect your phone to the charging cable and start reading or browsing the web, you no longer have to constantly tap your screen every few seconds to prevent it from turning off. Because Android will now do it for you.

Whatsapp Adds Filters, Albums And Much More New Features To June Update

WhatsApp has introduced a slew of new features to the latest version of the app for both iOS and Android. Most of the features have to do with the photos and camera features within the app. The new features can be found in the 2.17.219 and 2.17.30 versions of the app for Android and iOS respectively.

Here are the new features:

Quicker Replies : 

Reply to a message by swiping right on it.

With this iOS version of the app, you can now reply to a message by just swiping right on that message. This is a lot quicker when compared to the previous versions of the app where one had to long press the message to reply to it.

Photo Albums : 

Photos are now grouped in WhatsApp

This iOS only feature groups multiple photos sent together into a single album. This features saves valuable real estate on the screen and lets people see more on the screen. 

Photo Album is shown on clicking the image group.

On tapping the album, a new Album view is opened where the images are displayed in a facebook styled linear fashion.

Image Filters : 

Filters can now be added to images!

WhatsApp for iOS now lets people add filters to images before sending them! Filters can be added by swiping up from the ‘Swipe up for filters’ text after selecting the image to be sent. Only five filters,  Pop, B&W, Cool, Chrome and Film are available currently.

Easier Gallery Access : 

In the android version of the app, the entire photo gallery can now be accessed by swiping up on the horizontal image list! This provides an easy, gesture based method to access the entire photo gallery of the phone!

Multiple Statuses in One Go : 

Again an Android Exclusive(for now), WhatsApp now allows users to upload multiple image statuses in one go. This can be done by opening the gallery(Feature 4) and selecting multiple images just like sending multiple images to a contact.

With the recent update, WhatsApp seems to be making a shift from click-based interaction to a more natural gesture-based interaction model! All these features can be obtained by updating to the latest version of WhatsApp for iOS(2.17.30) and the latest Beta for Android(2.17.219). 

Most Useful Android Apps That Google Play Store Doesn’t Have

Google Play Store, the largest app market in the world with millions of app collections and hundreds of apps and games added everyday is one of the best places to find the app you need for your phone. 

Be it any category like a camera app, a compass, a flash light, you can find it here. But the thing with Play store is that, due to its strict privacy policy and content management rules, it doesn’t allow certain apps to be uploaded to its market.

You may ask, but how come it was most recently infected by over 40 apps with the Judy Malware when it’s policies and rules are so strong? Sssshhhhh! 

Anyway, as I am saying even though Google Play store has a ton of useful apps in every possible category imaginable, it doesn’t mean that you should not look beyond that, there are other app markets in the world besides Google like the Amazon app store, Aptoide apps, Mobogenie to name a few.

There is also a whole new world of APKs where you can download an app from a private website where an ambitious developer who loves android and smart phones and in a quest to add more and more abilities to the beloved Android operating system is working hard to upload apps that can do things which cannot be done using the apps available in the Google Play Store.

Since these APKs of several useful apps are out there in the wild among terrabytes of other content in the internet and some of us may not have the patience or the time to go through a massive amount of websites to find that one perfect app to satisfy our needs, I have taken the liberty to bring some of the most useful apps from the lot to the light so that you can also know about them and benefit from them, as I do. 

Hey, infact this website was started for that very own purpose, so be sure to check out some of our other posts to find apps that may seem interesting to you. Okay shameless self promotion aside, let’s dive into the topic and know about the apps I am talking about for the past few hundred words..

Snaptube

I bet you can guess what the app is for from its name. Snaptube is a Youtube downloader app, but unlike other similar apps like Vidmate or Videoder, Snaptube not only downloads videos from Youtube, you can also use it for downloading videos from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, A website you are browsing, Reddit or pretty much anywhere you find a video.

Also, unlike other apps you do not need to copy the link and open the app every time to download a video. Instead, you can either click on the share button and choose snap tube from the option, or if you enable the floating button, snaptube will automatically display a button on the screen when you copy a link, thus enabling you to download a video without leaving the app!

You can also browse inside of the Snaptube app by signing into your Facebook, Youtube or Instagram accounts and then simultaneously download the videos from there, without having to use separate apps for each purpose. 

Of all the best things Snaptube does it is also completely free, you can buy the pro version to remove ads though.

Viper4Android

Technically Viper4Android is not just an app, it comes with a flashable zip file, which you have to flash from your custom recovery to enable the app. 

Viper4Android is an audio enhancement mod which improves your smartphones audio performance and quality by modifying the parameters of your hardware to suit your need.

You can use the app to improve the base of your phone, enable surround and 3D audio while using your headphones and can also add Dolby atmos sound effects to your device speakers. 

It also comes with an auditory protection system which allows you to listen to songs for a longer time without any stress to your ears. Well, obviously the quality of your headphone matters.

Adaway

I think that if there is one thing all the android users would unanimously agree is that we all hate ads and wants to get rid of them. 

While some apps allow the users to remove apps by paying some money or buying a different premium version of the apps, not all apps do that. 

And there are also ads while browsing the web and unlike the web browsers in Computers, the built in chrome browser in android do not come with an ad blocker option unfortunately.

You may argue that we can download other apps with the ad blocking functionality like Opera or UC Browser, but since Chrome comes pre installed on all android device and it is not possible to uninstall it, it would be better if we had the option to block the ads on it. And yes, Adaway does exactly that.

Once you install the app and then download the latest updates and scripts using it, all you have to do is to restart your phone and voilà, all the ads from all the apps installed on your phone are magically gone! 

Though you need not flash any zip files for Adaway to work, it is recommended that you have a rooted android phone for it to work without any issues.

WiFi Kill

We have all been in a situation when some unwanted guests or visitors at your home, starts using your WiFi without your liking and proceeds to drain out your limited bandwidth. Sometimes you just want to turn off your WiFi to prevent them from using it or just to annoy your little brother or sister. But unfortunately you too can’t use the WiFi if you did this.

But what if there is a way to only disconnect their mobile devices from your WiFi without even having to access their phone? Yes it is possible with WiFi kill and all you need is the app and a rooted android phone and you are good to go.

Just download the app from the link and then once you install it scan for the devices that are connected to your WiFi, make sure to identify your device and then the device you want to disconnect from your connection. 

Now just click on it and then proceed to select the kill option. That’s it, now you can use your internet in peace, all alone.

Feel free to comment below if you have any doubts regarding how to use these apps or the steps involved and also if you know any other app that is not available in the Google Play Store, don’t hesitate to comment! 

Share this with your friends, especially those with iOs devices to let them know that what android users can do and what iPhone users cannot!

Google Increases Android Security Rewards To A Maximum of $200,000 From June 2017

Android, as we all know is the most used operating system in the world with billions of devices and new unique users joining every day. But unlike windows or other popular operating systems like Apple’s iOS, android is completely open source, meaning anyone can access the source code of android and can modify it to their liking and even create awesome custom ROMs with more features than the official version of android.

Disadvantages of being open to everyone

Though being open source sounds cool and is useful in many ways, as they say every coin has a flip side and the flip side of Android operating system being open source is the fact that along with adding new features and fixes, anyone can also bring security issues to Android by injecting some kind of malware or ransomware.

We all know what happened with the Wannacry Ransomware which shook the entire world and the latest Judy Malware which affected over 35 million android devices specifically.

Even though Google was reported of this issue and it immediately took down the apps responsible for this attack from the play store, it was still too late. 

The Android Security Rewards Program

So, Google as it always does, came with an elegant and an interesting solution to increase the rewards of its Android security Rewards Program. The Android Security Rewards Program was launched in 2015 and Google has been giving away exciting rewards and cash prizes to people who identify and report security vulnerabilities. 

The rewards were based on the severity of the bug and more recognition were given to security researchers who came with an entire report with information about the issues, the code and the patches to solve it.

Google says that it has received over 450 vulnerabilty reports since then and the average pay per security resaercher have increased by 52.3%. The most important thing to notice is that Google has rewarded over $1.5 million to security researchers in the past two years and has planned to encourage them more by setting the bar a little more high.

The exciting increase in the reward amount

Starting from June 2017, Google is increasing the rewards for a remote exploit chain or exploit leading to TrustZone or Verified Boot compromise from $50,000 to $200,000 and Rewards for a remote kernel exploit from $30,000 to $150,000. 

These rewards are more than three times they were before and this is much more exciting and satisfying to those security researchers who work constantly to make android more secure and thus making the world a safer place to live and protected from malwares like Judy in the future.

You can see the rules for the Android security rewards program here, along with what kind of reports are valid and what is the exact procedure for sending the reports to Google and receiving the reward.

How to minimize time spent on your smart phone by knowing your usage pattern

The typical day of a smart phone user would be to, wake up, start using  the phone, sleep. Smartphones have invaded our everyday life so much that we spend more time with them than we do with our friends and family.

Though sometime it is necessary and done for productive purposes, most of the time spent using smartphones or to either use popular social messaging apps like Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp or to play addictive games like clash of clans according to recent statistics by Flurry which say that an average user spends almost 5 hours everyday with his smartphone.

So, how to cut down your smartphone usage and to actually spend your time productively rather than killing it by killing the clans or the like buttons. One way is to travel to the Himalayas and then throw your phone from there and come back home. 

But since it is a lot of time and money consuming process and also you may need your phone for making calls or doing some other productive tasks like checking your mail or the time, I am going to suggest you a simple alternative which is neither time consuming nor requires you to book a flight ticket.

Ironically, to stop using apps for a long time, you need the help of an app. Time used, an android app developed by Time factory helps you to cut down your daily time spent with your smartphone and helps you to increase your productivity.

What it does is that, once you install and give the usage access to the app, it starts detecting and analysing your usage pattern and then shows you the time you spent using every single app on your phone. 

For example, If you use Facebook for 23 minutes in the morning and 45 minutes in the evening and then played a game for 1 hour it will record all the data and then show you the usage pattern in the form of a chart or a graph.

You may not worry about the app consuming your battery or occupying your RAM as it is running in the background all day. This is because the app is very light in size and since it also comes with no ads it is highly unlikely that it will affect your device performance or your battery life.

You can also go a step further in productivity and then use the Time Lock, another app from time factory which locks your phone for the specific time interval set by you so that you cannot use any of your apps or games during this time period. However you can place and receive calls based on your preference.

Be sure to check these apps and comment below your suggestions. Share this post with your friends or family whom you think should stop using their phone and start living their life!

How To Protect Your Device From Judy Malware The New Wannacry

Judy Malware is the new successor to Wannacry Ransom ware, which has affected millions of devices and several top corporate companies like Zomato, Apple and Microsoft. Unlike Wannacry, Judy has only targeted the android smart phone devices and her aim is also similar to Wannacry., to earn money.

What is it?

Judy is an animated chef character created by a Korean firm, which also created several such characters over a collection of 41 apps for android and have somehow managed to bypass the security protocols of tech giant Google and have successfully published all of the 41 apps to the Google Play Store with much ease, available for the billions of android users across the world to download. 

The apps under the name ENISTUDIO  corp, when downloaded affects your device through an adware and then uses fraudulent auto clicks to click on a large volume of ads to generate money for the masterminds behind it.

Who are affected?

As announced by Checkpoint, a popular security firm, The Judy Malware has currently affected over 36 million android devices though the potential reach is unknown. 

Checkpoint immediately announced it to Google, which in turn updated their security protocols and privacy policies to prevent such activiites in the future and have also removed all of the 41 apps from ENISTUDIO  from the Google Play Store immediately. 

The malware was largely targeted on android devices mainly because it is the operating system with the largest user base in the world and due to its open source nature.

How to Know You Are Affected Or Not?

If your phone’s battery suddenly started to drain so fast or if your battery usage statistics is wierd and shows some specific app have used most of your system resources then you may have been affected by the Judy malware or you need to change your 5 year old phone. 

You could also check for the list of Judy malware infected apps from Checkpoints blog to make sure you don’t have any of them downloaded or installed on your phone.

What Should I Do?

The first you should do if you are affected by the malware is to immediately remove and uninstall all of the apps that are causing the issue.

Next, download a reputed anti virus app from the Google Play Store and then scan your device for any affected files or apps.

If any of this doen’t work, you have no other choice than to factory reset your phone to save it.

For precautionary measures, be sure to check the privacy policies, permissions of the app, the manufacturer details before you download any app and also be sure not to use your phone in public or free WiFi to ensure safety.

Be safe, Because Judy is in town and she makes you Wannacry!

How To Get Notification Bubbles For All Your Notifications Like Facebook Messenger

Remember the app by Facebook that allows you to send messages to your friends and post stories? No, not Instagram. No, not Whatsapp. It is the Messenger app that Facebook forces on you to download a separate app that consumes hundreds of megabytes just like the Facebook app, yes the Facebook Messenger. 

Though it occupies a lot of your storage and RAM it has one really good thing and surprisingly it was not copied from Snapchat. It is the notification bubbles for your messages also known as chat heads.

These bubbles appear on the left or right corner of your phone and allows you to read and reply to your messages from any app, without having to actually open and enter the messenger app. So it kind of took multitasking to the next level. 

But unlike Facebook Messenger no other android third party app or system app have added this bubble notification feature. 

So as it always happens an enthusiastic android user have developed an app called Bubblefication which apparently, as the name suggests, bubblefies notifications sent by each and every app installed on your phone.

So whenever you get a new notification, Bubblefication will display a notification bubble at the corner of your phone, in the colour and size you like. You can even select which notifications you want to display and which you don’t. 

The app also allows you to view long messages which is normally not visible in the notification panel and you can even reply to and view messages in fullscreen activites like when you are playing a game or watching a movie. And the best part about this app is that it is completely free and has no ads!

Bubblefication also shows the history of your notifications so that you can views those old messages or alerts you dismissed. 

How to setup the app

Step 1:

Install the app from this playstore link.

Step 2:

Open the app and then enable the notification access permission to allow the app to detect and read your notification.

Step 3:

Now select and deselect which apps you want or don’t want to show the notifications.

Step 4:

Finally you can now customise the features of the app according to your preference like the colour, size and position of the bubble. 

You can also choose what action to perform when the bubble is clicked and whether or not to display the bubbles in the lockscreen.

Be Sure to check out the app to improve the multitasking abilities of your phone and comment your suggestions!

Facebook adds feature to react to comments

Facebook has been making a quite a few modifications to its website and apps lately. With the video ads and a new tab for videos along with reacting to sent and received messages on its messaging platform Facebook Messenger, a recent change Facebook has made to its social network is the ability to react to comments on a photo, video or a status.

With this feature, you may no longer have to show your love or hatred towards a particular comment on your favorite pic or video, just react a heart or a angry face to the comment just like you do for the pictures on Facebook. 

This is a welcome move by Facebook and it is also expected to save the time of the users who would rather show their emotions through the several reactions instead of typing several paragraphs to roast someone who has a different opinion than theirs.

You can react to the comments or reply comments just like you do for other posts in Facebook just hover your mouse over the like comment option in the website or long press it on the app to react.

Happy reacting!

How To Use Android Instant Apps Without Installing Them In Your Phone

Google announced a few months back that they are bringing instant apps to their Android operating system. Instant apps are a nifty little feature where you click on a shared or a posted link online, and then a small snippet of code that is required for the functioning of the app gets downloaded allowing you to use the significant part of the app without even installing it on your phone.

As we already said in our previous post, Instant apps have a lot of benefits like saving your precious storage, using apps with large sizes without even downloading them, especially useful in situations where you need to use an app quickly, but you don’t have sufficient data or speed to do that. You can read more about the advantages and working of Instant apps here.

However, as remarkable as the instant apps may sound, Google seems to take its own time in rolling them out to the extensive public user base. So, as it always happens an impatient and an enthusiastic developer, this time from India has taken the liberty to bring the instant apps version of popular favorite Android apps to his fellow Android enthusiasts. 

A recent startup which goes by the name AppBrowzer have released and Android app of the same name which allows the users to use popular Android apps as instant apps, without having to install or download them to your phone.

Unlike Google, which is planning on developing instant apps only for big developers who are enrolling in the program, AppBrowzer has developed instant apps for widely popular Android apps in every category. 

Some of them include Uber, Amazon, IMDB, Quora, Paytm, CNN and many more apps out there, All you have to do is to install a single app, AppBrowzer on your phone and then voila, you can now use multiple resource-hungry and storage consuming apps without having to spend a byte of your storage.

All you have to do is to choose your  favorite app or an app you want to use only for a single time, like booking an Uber or using Amazon to enjoy the app only offers but you are too reluctant to download those apps just for a single time usage.

AppBrowzer then loads the app you have selected and sure enough it provides the same experience you get when you actually download and install the app from the Google Play store, except for this time it is much quicker and less space consuming, not to mention saving hundreds of megabytes of your precious limited data.

Feel free to comment on your experience with AppBrowzer and post suggestions or requests below if any! You can also visit the website of the developer for more information!