HTTP or HTTPS site? Google tells us which one is better

Google says HTTPS versions are better than redirecting with HTTP. Why? Let’s find out.

John Mueller, Google’s search advocate has something new for all of us. He recently informed us that replacing HTTP links with HTTPS versions instead is much more favorable. And the reasons behind are countless.

It all started years ago. It was declared that redirects, when already in place, shouldn't be replaced with links. Since then, people have abided by this. However, times have changed and as Mueller informs us, it is better to replace redirects with links now. He insisted that it is 'always' worth it to replace them.

Now, why does he insist so? He gave two reasons to support his comment. The first one is that redirects are messier, and are a lot to handle. While on the other hand, HTTPS versions are more secure and concise. There is no need for numerous redirects. Secondly, when you place HTTPS versions, you have complete control over where you direct your traffic.

The main question here is if these links will have any impact on how your search ranks. The answer is no impact. There would be no change in your ranking or how your content appears, however it would be a lot cleaner.

Having redirects instead of HTTPS versions has a lot of disadvantages. Some of them include;

It takes the user more time to reach the content. Since there is a ‘hop’ in the process, where the user has to go through the HTTP version first, delaying the process.

Broken links, redirect chains, and redirect loops are common errors that break a page and lower your credibility.

Pictures on URL sites make your page seem untrustworthy and suspicious. Google displays a ‘not secure’ message when such an instance occurs.

It lowers your crawl budget since the number of redirects you have, the more your crawls will get affected.

If the links on the other end get broken, your redirects will break.

Lastly, here’s a solution. You can just replace the links. You can either replace them one by one, although it will take forever to do that, or you can just mass replace them. Mass replacing will find all your redirects and replace them with HTTPS versions.

However, there is a little problem with that. Doing anything on such a large scale will cause problems. It can cause your whole site to crash hence it is important to always back it up before going ahead with any change.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

As Per Reports Data protection is a major issue regardless of Gender

It has always been declared that data protection awareness is a matter subject to the gender gap. However, recent surveys beg to differ.

A recent survey by Incogni, a data company, showed the levels to which both men and women are aware of their data privacy awareness. Among the 2310 participants surveyed, it turned out that men and women do differ based on their awareness, however, it is only by a small degree. It turned out that both genders lack all the basic knowledge needed to protect their data.

It was proven that women have lower access to awareness resources hence they know less about VPNs, private browsing, or even ad blockers. Women generally were found to be a little slow with technology.

When comparing if the people are aware of their data being stolen online, half the women were not aware. As for men, only one-third of them were unaware. Another topic explored was data brokers. About what they are and how they handle data. Only 30% of women were aware of this while 40% of men were too.

When comparing the answers about the awareness of data protection help, or what people can do to protect their data, 80% of the women did not know what to do. The margin between men and women regarding this wasn’t huge either since 70% of the men were unaware as well.

As a solution, company leaders are looking to provide more opportunities and advocate the importance of learning about cyber security at a very young age. Although they focus more on women, we believe both genders are given equal opportunities and knowledge.

However, we do admit women need it more at this time since women are being continuously tracked by big names and prosecutors to stop abortion plans. The data being looked into includes search history, app usage, and similar items.

For now, people are resorting to data brokers and having their data removed by calling the companies. However, this isn't such a common practice either with few people aware that they can do this.

Read next: 94% of Companies Aren’t Ready for Upcoming Data and Privacy Regulations
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

You Can Now Fix Old Family Photos With This New Free Tool That Restores Low-Resolution Images

The great thing about pictures is that they capture memories that can last a lifetime. It’s always great to look back on old family photos and see how far technology has come from the black and white, low-resolution images.

Now, we’re getting more information on a new free tool that can actually restore old images by producing slightly newer versions.

While it does do the job impeccably, there is always this small risk of getting a picture at hand with a slight change in the actual identity.

Thanks to the power of AI-powered technology, not only can you get new pictures, but restore old ones as well. The new free-of-cost tool is brought to us by the efforts of researchers hailing from Tencent.

The technology can merge data from two separate models of AI and combine to fill up the missing elements of an image using realistic detail. Within a few seconds, low-quality images are given the kick they need to appear as good as new. And the same goes for pictures that were damaged.

The way accuracy is maintained with quality enhancement is just too good to be true for some experts that call the ordeal nothing less than amazement.

Old and conventional techniques that were in use today have the capability to get your images back to looking new by determining the difference between both artificial with what’s real. And in the end, you’re left with nothing but poor quality images, as revealed by scientists researching such procedures.

This new technique is designed to make use of pre-trained visions of models that give a heads-up of what’s happening throughout the process of image production. The whole idea is to preserve the true identity of those individuals seen in the picture.

There is a special emphasis drawn upon specific facial features such as the mouth, nose, or even the eyes.

GFP-GAN has even allocated a demo that interested users can try out to see the master effects in seconds. This comes alongside the posting of a code that enables anyone to make use of the revolutionary technology in their design projects too.

It should be remembered that despite the huge benefits, the project is still limited by the current levels of artificial technology available. And while we do love how accurate it can be, it really ends up putting forward educated guesses on what’s missing and what’s not.

Therefore, this is the main reason why researchers are issuing warnings to users that there could be a possibility of small changes in identity and even a resolution that is less than what some may expect.

In case you have plans to get such images of your ancestors printed to fit across a poster, well, don’t because there could be some differences.

Whatever the case may be, we’re sold. Everything over here that we’ve discussed regarding the tool appears to be promising. We’re hinting toward a future where images can be salvaged instead of memories being erased forever.

H/T: PP

Read next: AI-Based Art Is The New Trend, But The Internet Questions Whether Or Not It Is Harmful
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Uber is set to launch Upfront fares for more United States drivers to enhance the experience

The mobility service provider, Uber has rolled UpFront fares to provide better transparency to their drivers. The Upfront feature came a few months back and was made accessible for only a few cities in the United States. But, now the company has decided to further expand the operability of Upfront fares to most US cities. The firm says drivers can earn a lot more money through this feature, and they can have access to see where they are heading before agreeing to have the trip.

To understand what the Upfront feature looks like, we visited the Help option to tell users more about this in detail. The standard strategy for estimating the amount of a trip comprises several parameters, for instance, base fares, kilometers, time duration, length, and price boom. Uber will suggest the fastest and nearer routes to the pick and drop-off destinations. This early information helps drivers consciously decide whether to accept a ride or not. Moreover, Uber will also incorporate a radar system in the app that would manifest drivers' nearby rides. Uber clarified that with Trip radar, drivers will still receive trip offers. However, now, they can also choose some other requests that are favorable to them.

All of these changes and updates in the Uber app are meant to assist drivers, but we can't think of the advantages of it from the customer's point of view. In addition, Uber has rolled out the Uber Pro debit card to help Uber drivers to get rewards for filling up fuel at certain stations. In a similar stance, Uber facilitated its drivers by adding additional fuel charges to rides and pickups to prevent the loss of drivers due to high fuel prices.

To conclude, it's great that Uber is considering expanding features for more US drivers to get aware of the potential of a trip in terms of earning profits. This will enable drivers to distinguish the trips that are worth it more easily. With that said, this update has no real benefit to the actual customers. However, these features may lead to misuse and raise trip discriminations. But on one side, it will prevent the possibility of canceled trips because now Uber drivers will deliberately make a decision when getting requests for trips.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

New Lawsuit Filed Against Meta And Top US Hospitals For Unlawfully Collecting Patient Data For Advertising Purposes

Meta and a series of leading healthcare-providing institutions across the US have received a lawsuit that was recently put forward by California’s Northern District.

Common hospitals included the likes of UCSF Medical Center and Dignity Health Medical Foundation. They, alongside tech giant Meta, were accused of assembling sensitive patient records so they could be made use of for purposes like targeted advertising.

It was alleged that the process through which such tracking and data collection occurs in a number of medical portals is far beyond the limitations of login systems.

Here is where so many parents put forward an array of details regarding themselves, their particular health condition, their healthcare professionals, and any drugs they were taking.

While extracting such sensitive and confidential data, neither do US hospitals or Meta take consent or inform the patients about their data being used. At the same time, there happens to be a complete lack of transparency involved.

But how exactly did we come to know about all of this?

Well, the plaintiffs mentioned how this sort of violation against one’s privacy was only made obvious when Meta-owned apps like Facebook started to target such individuals with advertisements that were specifically customized in regard to their particular health condition.

This gave rise to a new term that not too many may be familiar with. It’s called Meta Pixel which is another name for a code that is injected across any webpage so that visitor profiling can be carried out, along with user data collection with benefits of tailored advertising too.

While it manages to take up space linked to a specific pixel, it can powerfully collect all sorts of important data like button clicks, data in forms, IP links, and even various scrolling behavior.

You don’t even require a Facebook account to get your data collected. But in case you already have one, well, it’s going to be linked to your account and further correlated for more information.

The worst part is related to how Meta Pixels gets installed across various websites, you can well be tracked with particular advertisements across different internet locations.

Interestingly, new research even found the feature sighted across some of the leading websites around the globe, such as those linked to clinics, hospitals, and anti-abortion locations.

Meta has been accused of being spotted on at least 33 of the top websites as experts delineated its tracking code on these pages. Similarly, at least 100 hospitals were also guilty of such behavior, the research adds.

And worsening stats showed that one of the medical centers involved had even admitted patients as high as 26 million in just 2020.

The legal documents proved how so many patients were bombarded with targeted advertising strategies through their emails and also through Facebook. They were told about medications, medical services, and some treatments that had zero to no support too.

Plaintiffs felt extremely disappointed as they had never signed up for this and were still being targeted and stripped of their personal medical records.

The case argues that both parties involved knew all along that their methods of collecting data were wrong and unlawful, yet they moved ahead with it. They even went about hiding it from the relevant authorities.

This just goes to show that the big promises made by leading tech companies like Meta about filtering out user-specific data are ineffective, as was previously noted in February of last year.

For this reason, plaintiffs want an immediate explanation and relief from these respective parties for invading their privacy and going above the law for their own personal interests and benefits.

H/T: BC

Read next: Facebook Might End Up Being Banned In Kenya Over The Platform’s Inability To Moderate Hate Speech
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Facebook Might End Up Being Banned In Kenya Over The Platform’s Inability To Moderate Hate Speech

Facebook is potentially on a path toward getting banned in Kenya over the platform’s incompetent efforts towards tackling hate speech in its community.

Meta and its social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) are…let’s say not the best at moderating online discourse. To some extent, maybe that’s a good thing considering how easily the bar for moderation can tip over into crass censorship. However, these social media platforms are terrible at even keeping the most blatant expressions of hate speech off of the platform. I’ll even take a step further and say that Facebook is a much more gross offender than its sister communities; something about baby boomers rampaging around the website probably contributes to the problem. On one hand, I understand the issue: governing a platform with hundreds of millions of active users isn’t easy. There are bound to be fringe communities and groups that escape oversight.

However, it’s not that difficult to run into the likes of anti-vaxxers or white power groups on Facebook. Also, while we’re on the topic, allow me to be clear: I don’t care how much you as a white person think that Black Lives Matter is racist, or how supporting white power is justified; you’re not utilizing free speech, you’re utilizing privilege to shut down the more disenfranchised. Having the privilege of skin color isn’t a badge of honor, and instead of using it as a soapbox maybe consider growing an actual personality.

Kenya’s had a massive problem with hate speech for quite a while, and much of it has been politically motivated. The country’s National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) conducted a study on the prevalence of hate speech, went through a massive list of examples, and then decided against publishing anything but hard numbers due to the examples being in poor taste, unnecessarily graphic, or both. For a yardstick measure, however, after the 2007 elections a total of 1,300 individuals were murdered and plenty of others had to flee the country over threats.

Facebook has been a major platform via which hate speech is carried out by radical dissidents in the country; which is surprising because almost every post made by them is both published and widely shared. The posts are often in Swahili but are also made in English as well, making the idea of Facebook allowing posts containing calls to murder and assault an asinine one. Yet, that is what’s happening and the NCIC isn’t happy. Facebook has been given a total of seven days to figure its stance out and deliver tangible results before risking being banned in the country.

Read next: Investors Fear Meta’s Overly Ambitious Plans For The Metaverse Will Lead To Facebook’s Downfall
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Twitter Tests New Unexpected Service Where Users Can Follow Others Without Making An Account

Twitter is definitely on a roll in terms of testing out a number of salient features that it hopes to introduce very soon.

First, we heard about a new price hike for Blue Subscribers who were recently sent out an email in this regard. This was closely followed up by a feature that enables users to update their statuses with activities that they’re doing or perhaps a mood they’re in while tweeting.

And now, we’re getting more information about a test that’s probably a huge shocker for many, including us. This was related to a new service that allows users to follow others without even creating an account, to begin with.

The company made the mega announcement through a recent blog post on Twitter which stated how the firm is well aware that not too many people are ready to sign up for accounts when they first arrive on the platform.

Keeping this in mind, the team wishes to give so many people one of the easiest ways out by providing this new feature whereby users can read tweets while experiencing some added benefits like seeing what it’s like to have a timeline too.

Yes, this is still in its experimental phase and that means we’re not sure if it's ever going to be rolled out but if it does, wow, that’s a huge step forward for any platform.

The feature is called ‘Try Twitter’ and it is designed with the purpose of letting users follow and even read various tweets on their mobile application without even signing up. Obviously, if you wish to comment, post, or feedback, you’ll need to sign up for that.

Twitter refers to the new experiment or test drive as one that’s available to the public and needs personalization. Meanwhile, it did confirm how other simple actions such as bookmarking, retweeting, and even liking would require you to sign up.

So you may be getting access to people’s tweets and their relevant timelines but you’ll definitely be bound to various other places. The whole idea, in case you’re wondering, is related to giving users a taste of what to expect and if interested, they can join.

But what is a little shocking is how you need to provide your location details to the app, in case you wish to avail the freebie feature. Then, you need to follow a minimum of one account and then go on from there.

H/T: Jane Manchun Wong

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World