If you're unhappy with your cable TV or broadband provider, you're in good company. A survey of more than 14,000 consumers found that customer satisfaction with information services in the United States is at a seven-year low.
A new extension for Google's Chrome browser pushes the creepy needle into the red zone. Marauders Map tracks the location of anyone using Facebook Messenger who hasn't disabled its access to GPS location information from their smartphones.
You likely believe you've always had the right to sue a company that sells you a defective product, or to take your device anywhere you want to get it repaired without voiding the warranty. In theory, you're correct, but today many companies bully consumers out of asserting their rights. Fortunately, that's about to change.
Just a few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about Comcast's pledge to spend $300 million to improve its notoriously crummy customer service. If I wrote for a newspaper, I'd say the ink had hardly dried before Comcast once again demonstrated why it's one of the least loved companies in America. The evidence was right in my own backyard -- literally.
I don't believe in censorship, and I think it's the responsibility of parents to keep their kids away from inappropriate content on the Web. However, if a service is specifically aimed at children and marketed as a safe offering for them, that's exactly what it should be. YouTube Kids, on the other hand, is loaded with content that children should never see, according to the Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood and the Center for Digital Democracy, two consumer protection groups.
Microsoft is so happy about Windows 10 that it is releasing seven different versions. The new OS will launch this summer, and the first choice interested consumers will need to make is which "flavor" to buy. That choice shouldn't be made lightly, because Microsoft says Windows 10 is the end of the line for what you might call "Windows Classic." In other words, you'll have to live with your choice for a while.
For the first time since Google started tracking the ways that people look for information online, more searches are performed on mobile devices than on traditional PCs. More specifically, Google says that searches in 10 countries, including the U.S. and Japan, are now more likely to be conducted on mobile devices than on PCs. (For some reason, the company didn't identify the other eight countries. Google also grouped tablets with PCs, so we're only talking smartphones here.)
If I didn't love digital technology and respect the men and women who develop it, I wouldn't make my living writing about it. However, incidents like Tuesday's bizarre grounding of dozens of American Airlines flights due to an iPad app crash should serve as a reminder not to rely too heavily on technology.
By now, you've probably been lectured about the importance of using strong passwords by your company's IT department, technology-savvy friends and any number of tech writers. You get it, so I won't repeat the lecture. However, the passwords you think are strong might not be.
Small businesses generally don't get customized service from large wireless providers. It's simply not profitable. T-Mobile, however, says it's going to change that. On March 22, when T-Mobile's latest wireless plans for businesses go live, all of its business customers will get their own support team.
Adele Framer was ready to buy this year's edition of Intuit's TurboTax software when she noticed some flaming reviews on Amazon. Customers were red hot about a series of unannounced changes to the popular tax preparation program.
There's a Christmas present for broadband users buried in the huge appropriations bill that's currently working its way through Congress. The bill will extend a current moratorium on Internet access taxes through October 2015.
Even if you do most of your shopping online, there are times when you need to call a retailer. (You remember how to do that, right?) If you called Newegg, Best Buy or GameStop during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping festival, chances are you were frustrated.
It's holiday shopping season, and it's time for me to nag you about security. You'll likely be shopping online a lot in the coming weeks, and many of the sites you visit will require passwords. None of us have solid-state memory inside of our heads (yet), so it's easy to be sloppy with passwords. Don't. Seriously. People get hacked all the time, and it's a major pain in the butt.
Take a bus, take a train, take a cab -- just don't take Uber.