Simple tools enabling new ways of learning

So why are you still using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as your browser? The latest usage stats have Chrome at 63%, Firefox at 15% and IE down at a tiny 9% of the market. Microsoft dominated from the early 1990s to the late 2010s, and then things started to change. Chrome beat out IE in 2010 and Firefox in Jan 2016. Google has a gigantic budget, so Chrome being on top is no great mystery, and they were multi-platform early on, unlike IE with its spotty coverage.

Microsoft primarily focused on the PC market and tied the browser into their Windows OS. This worked for a while, until Europe told them to stop doing that on an exclusive basis. By comparison, Chrome works well on the iPhone and a Mac, where Safari is the default. No browser works well in all situations, for all sites and for all pages. Firefox is my primary browser, but I use Chrome on my phone and occasionally on my PC. IE is used only for those outdated sites, usually of government and financial institutions, coded specifically for it.

So, will IE eventually vanish? If the question includes Edge, then no, it won’t. Even if you consider just IE versions, the answer is no, because there are so many legacy systems that need it. Consider how much Microsoft is moving towards the web as the primary platform, for which you need a browser. If you need a browser, then IE/Edge is a natural choice for Windows users because other elements, such as Active Directory, will work seamlessly with your Microsoft cloud-based materials. Beyond these advantages, any browser will do if it supports the latest standards and technologies.

Facebook has faced some problems recently, having been accused of removing pages that don’t meet their personal — read: Zuckerberg’s — philosophies and political leanings. Facebook expressed it this way: “[We] have had to expand our security focus from traditional abusive behaviour, such as account hacking, malware, spam and financial scams, to include more subtle and insidious forms of misuse, including attempts to manipulate civic discourse and deceive people.” Some have observed that the focus for takedowns has primarily been the US right-wing or Republican side of the political divide. So, if your posts somehow hurt “civic discourse”, be they “governments or other groups”, and you are on the supposedly wrong side of the issue, and your posts have been censored, then you can now work out why.

Awhile back, Facebook contained a Messenger service that has since been split, forming two large, memory-hogging apps for your mobile phones. Unless you are somehow using all functionality, then there is an option: Facebook Lite. This was created for developing countries where connectivity was poor and the power of the handset was less than average. Facebook takes up 188MB of space, while the Lite version takes a tiny 5.64MB. The same goes for Messenger Lite, but Facebook Lite does have the messenger function, without the images and stickers. If you need those, then you will need the extra app.

Messenger Lite is available from the Play Store, but for Facebook you will need a bit more effort. First you will need to enable Unknown Sources under Security. Then go to www.apkmirror.com/apk/facebook-2/lite/, download it, swipe down to see the downloaded file, and tap on it to start the install. Open it, log in and then play with it for a bit to make sure it does everything you want before removing the larger app. I did this on my phone after typing that last sentence, and it all worked perfectly. There are a couple of caveats you must agree to and if you already have Facebook installed, login is automatic. You can do the same for Messenger Lite. Overall, it will be a lot faster to use and take up less space on your phone. Note that you get to pick from the Intel and ARM chip versions. If you don’t know, pick the ARM one first.

Apple’s iPad sales continue to drop, and iPhone sales are at best flat. Despite that, the company was able to rake in a very nice US$11 billion (380.5 billion baht) profit in the past quarter. Part of the problem is the announcement of the iPhone 8, affecting iPhone 7 sales, and movement in China is still negative.

Finally for this week, some hacks. The Indian government’s Aadhaar large-scale online identity and payment-card project has leaked 130 million records linked to 100 million bank-account numbers. O2-Telefonica in Germany has confirmed that some customers have had their bank accounts drained using a two-stage attack that exploits SS7. The Signalling System 7 protocol is what allows mobile phone networks to communicate with one another, and experts have been warning about security problems for many years now. Perhaps this will finally trigger sloths like Telcos to upgrade their networks, perhaps not.