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Each year we have more privacy violations and security breaches. And each year, VPN popularity grows with them. To keep track of all the changes, we decided to collect the most sought-after VPN statistics and put them under a single roof. Below, you’ll find the most recent information about VPN users, popularity, market size, and legality.How much do VPNs cost?The average cost of a VPN varies from company to company. Any product that belongs to more popular brands costs an average of $3.69 a month for their discounted 1-3 year deals. Regarding monthly prices without discounts, it averages at $10.45.How...

In the wake of The New York Times’ false reporting , claiming the Israel Defense Forces bombed a hospital in Gaza, a report which was later totally debunked, X, formerly known as Twitter, removed the Times’ verification badge. The Times ran an article on October 17 that trumpeted, “Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say.” The New York Times and CNN were also caught using images from different incidents that showed buildings that had been completely destroyed. Footage from ground level showed that none of the buildings were destroyed and that there were no impact craters from an aerial...

The Office 365 at one of my work computers will soon expire. Office 365 Family for 6 devices is about $99 Office 365 Business for 1 device is about $150 It is tempting to get Office Family (less money and works with more computers) but if I do, will Microsoft bust me and send me to the gulag? The other temptation is to work with Open Office. Any experience with that?

A video posted to social media claimed to show Hamas fighters shooting down an Israeli war helicopter in Gaza. The footage was actually taken from a video game. Another video claimed to show Israeli jets bombing targets in northern Gaza. But it was actually footage of fireworks celebrating a football win in Algeria three years ago. In recent weeks, the Israel-Hamas conflict has seen a sharp rise in fake videos and photos being posted to social media in a bid to mislead internet users and sow confusion and doubt. […] The European Commission is ramping up the pressure on social...

The experiment is meant to urge users to disable their ad blockers or subscribe to YouTube Premium. YouTube is looking to take a more aggressive approach in preventing viewers from using ad blockers while watching videos on its platform. As BleepingComputer reports, people have been posting screenshots on social networks like Reddit that show a pop-up notice warning them that their player will be blocked after three videos. The warning says YouTube will block their ability to play videos on the platform unless they disable their ad blocker or add the website to their white list. "Ads allow YouTube to...

One of the most telling statistics from the General Social Survey, is that Americans are having less sex now than they did in 1980s and 1990s. Young men especially have become less sexually active. Since 2008, the share of men under 30 reporting no sex at all has nearly tripled. This stat is one of the clearest signs of what has turned into a counterintuitive but reliable pattern. The more “liberated” and “progressive” our culture becomes, the less interested in or capable of finding human partners we become. I say, “human partners,” because the decline of sex and the rise...

Business in Russia and China...

SACRAMENTO, CA — As part of a new initiative to provide public services to minority groups in need, California Governor Gavin Newsom has promised the state's new "Ebony Alert" system for black people will be "separate but equal." "We've designed this to separate them from the rest of the populace," Newsom said in his announcement. "While we want to have a way to send out urgent alerts to everyone when a child is in danger or abducted, we thought it would be best to keep the alerts separate based on the color of the child's skin. This new ‘Ebony Alert'...

It's been two years since Google first debuted Project Green Light, a novel means of addressing the street-level pollution caused by vehicles idling at stop lights. At its Sustainability ‘23 event on Tuesday, the company discussed some of the early findings from that program and announced another wave of expansions for it. Green Light uses machine learning systems to comb through Maps data to calculate the amount of traffic congestion present at a given light, as well as the average wait times of vehicles stopped there. That information is then used to train AI models that can autonomously optimize the...

Captain Jack Sparrow has struck again! A 68-year-old Omaha woman told police she was scammed out of $15,000 by a man who claimed he was Johnny Depp. The scam happened last month, according to a police report. The woman told police “Depp” first contacted her through the Meta app Messenger and then from various phone numbers. The man told the woman he wanted to marry but needed $10,000 from her to afford a wedding planner because, according to the report, “he had his money tied up in different things.” At the man’s request, the woman sent him the money through...

Anyone else notice how bad FoxNews APP and website have become with pop up ads during the past week or so? I can't view stories because my computer freezes, and I deleted the APP on my iPhone because the ads steal the screen completely...

Fun's over, kids. As Windows Central reports, Microsoft appears to have lobotomized its Bing Image Creator. The DALL-E 3-powered image-generating AI was integrated into Bing's platform last week, prompting netizens to quickly test its guardrails. As it turns out, those guardrails were incredibly ineffective, with users — 404 Media's Samantha Cole notable among them — quickly realizing that they were able to generate problematic, copyright-infringement-laden AI generations of beloved cartoon characters like Disney's Mickey Mouse doing things like wearing bomb-covered vests and perpetrating the 9/11 terror attacks.

Generative AI “will undoubtedly revolutionize our workforce and enhance Guardian’s ability to operate at speed,” Lisa Costa, Space Force’s chief technology and innovation officer, said in the memo. But Costa also cited concerns over cybersecurity, data handling and procurement requirements, saying that the adoption of AI and LLMs needs to be “responsible.” No further explanations were provided. Experts have flagged a risk that, under some conditions, voluminous and potentially non-public data involved in feeding models with documents and prompts could end up leaking out into the public arena or get hacked in other ways. The memo said Costa planned to...

Edwin Castro, who won Powerball’s record-breaking $2 billion jackpot this February, isn’t quite done spending his newfound cash on luxury real estate. The lucky lotto player has already purchased at least two other California mansions since coming into the money this past winter — and now he has splurged yet again, this time on a $47 million compound in Bel Air. Castro’s newest crib brags seven bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, and an infinity pool with panoramic views of Los Angeles, the Daily Mail first reported. The 31-year-old’s newest home further boasts DJ turntables, a champagne tasting room, a suspended glass walkway,...

Evidence of the most powerful solar storm in history has been uncovered in an unlikely place: within the rings of a tree. This immensely powerful solar storm is thought to have been at least 10 times as powerful as the Carrington Event of 1859, which caused chaos in the rudimentary telegraph system of the time. The researchers found a strange spike in radiocarbon within the rings of subfossilized trees dating to around 14,300 years ago. "Fusa Miyake discovered a sudden and unexpected spike in radiocarbon levels in a Japanese tree from 774 AD. Initially, this was thought to have been...

What happen to the FR feature that helped convert webpages to email? Right click on tab to activate.

I'm looking for a new hosting service for the images that I sometimes put on Free Republic. A few months ago, somebody's browser freaked out at one of the images I put up, thinking there was malware involved. Since then, I stopped posting the images, but I want to migrate my site to a new hosting service with a decent SSL, because the host and SSL I have are obviously not that good, and the price is almost constantly increasing. What say you, fellow FReepers? What is a good one to check out? I am looking on my own, but...

We have been denied access to our accounts at vanguard. A message telling us to call them, can’t call on weekends. Anyone else having trouble getting to their accounts??

An ex-Amish TikToker revealed that the national smartphone emergency alert got his friends from the religious community in trouble for having phones. Every US smartphone, television and radio received an alert on Wednesday at 2:18pm ET as part of a nationwide test for an emergency alert system. Unfortunately for three members of the Amish community, the alert also involved a powerful alarm sound that outed them for having modern devices - which go against their beliefs. Amish beliefs and traditions condemn modern technology and encourage plain clothing. The community is known for not using any modern devices, dressing in old-fashioned...

Update from @SBF_FTX #SBFTrial: Questioning Gary Wang, co-founder of #FTX : Q. Did you commit financial crimes while working at FTX? A. Yes. Q. What types of crimes did you commit? A. Wire fraud, securities fraud, and commodities fraud. Q. Did you commit these crimes by yourself or with other people? A. With other people. Q. Who were the main people you committed these crimes with? A. Sam Bankman-Fried, Nishad Singh, and Caroline Ellison. Q. You're talking about Alameda Research? A. Yes. Q. Okay. We'll come back to it in a minute. When you say withdrew unlimited amounts of funds,...