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Web programming language HTML5 gives developers a lot of new options, but it also lets advertisers identify and track users without their knowledge or consent.

A group of researchers from Princeton University developed a technique called PinMe that allows to define a smartphone’s location by combining information from the phone’s sensors and other data from open sources like public transport timetables or elevation maps.

We are very proud of our users, and especially of our beta testers. They are the most dedicated testers we know, but even among them there are those who stand out, those who always long for more beta versions to put their hands on :) Specifically for them we decided to introduce so-called "Nightly" builds for Windows and Android versions of AdGuard. In this article I will explain what are they and how to get them.

Internet of Things still lacks security, regulation, and sensibility, while users are greatly concerned about its impact on privacy and quality of life. These are the results of IoT research made by Cyber Security Research Institute at the request of F-Secure.

Some highlights and quotes:

Over the last two months, we received many reports on more than 120 thousand websites. It's important to notice that sometimes cryptojacking was detected on some legitimate websites (Google, Youtube, Instagram, etc) and this is most likely caused by malicious browser extensions or malvertising)...

The year 2017 was a tough one for privacy protection and ad blocking apps, but a good one for their users. But any paradox seen here is illusory.

It was back in 2016 that the ad and marketing industries acknowledged the impending crisis. Ad-blocking growth statistics created great concern for many advertisers and publishers. Extrapolations showed that in a year or two almost nobody would see ads. Advertisers got ready to sell their lives at a high price. That was the year that ad reinsertion startup companies like PageFair, Admiral, Sourcepoint, Secret Media propagated, offering technologies to push ads through ad blockers.

It also was the year when the Coalition for Better Ads emerged.

Zirconium, a group of 28 fake ad agencies, has been exposed by security researchers from Confiant. They built business relationships with 16 ad platforms and generated a billion impressions (ad views), showing among other things fake software update requests and all sorts of tech support scam.

Good news from browsers keeps coming. Mozilla has recently added opt-in tracking protection in the new version of Firefox Quantum. Previously the protection worked only in the Private Browsing mode, now it can be turned on in settings and be active all the time. Besides privacy protection, the option provides faster web experience, it takes less time for web pages to load without trackers.

Android is an awesome operating system that provides us developers with incredible capabilities. There are quite a few great apps and features Android users benefit from that are simply impossible to implement on other platforms.

Unfortunately, nothing comes free, and this wide array of capabilities is the main reason why Android is so vulnerable from privacy and security standpoints.

In our latest research, we decided to focus on the privacy issues. We took a look at the top 1000 Android apps to find out if they collect any sensitive personal data.

We are slowly getting back into the usual release rythm, and the honor of being the first AdGuard release of the year 2018 goes to Browser extension! The last bugfixes have been implemented and the new version has been uploaded to the stores.

Note: Safari store is traditionally on the slow side in terms of reviewing and approving extension updates, so it will take some time for the new version to get there. Other browsers' users can already download the fresh version.