Week 7 Microsoft tools and more

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What questions do we have for our speaker from SDCCD on March 20?

Recording:

If you would like to hear what went on during the workshop, you can view the recording here. Thank you Willie for an excellent presentation on Excel.

From last week: Extensions and Browsers

Extension warning

From this source:https://www.foxnews.com/tech/16-hijacked-browser-extensions-expose-3-2-million-users

A recent security breach has compromised over 3.2 million users through 16 malicious browser extensions. These extensions, initially legitimate, were hijacked via a supply chain attack, allowing cybercriminals to inject harmful scripts capable of stealing data and manipulating search results.

The affected extensions include:

Blipshot: Takes full-page screenshots with one click
Emojis - Emoji Keyboard: Provides an emoji keyboard for easy access
WAToolkit: A toolkit for WhatsApp Web
Color Changer for YouTube: Allows customization of YouTube’s color scheme
Video Effects for YouTube And Audio Enhancer: Adds effects and enhances audio for YouTube videos
Themes for Chrome and YouTube™ Picture in Picture: Offers themes and picture-in-picture functionality
Mike Adblock für Chrome: A German ad blocker for Chrome
Page Refresh: Automatically refreshes web pages
Wistia Video Downloader: Enables downloading of Wistia videos
Super dark mode: Provides a dark theme for websites
Emoji keyboard emojis for Chrome: Another emoji keyboard for Chrome
Adblocker for Chrome - NoAds: Blocks ads while browsing
Adblock for You: Another ad-blocking extension
Adblock for Chrome: Yet another ad blocker for Chrome
Nimble capture: A tool for capturing web content
KProxy: A proxy service for anonymous browsing

Users are advised to uninstall these extensions immediately and perform a thorough malware scan to ensure their systems are secure.

Browser updates

DuckDuckGo has enhanced its private browser by integrating access to several popular AI chatbots through its new feature, Duck.ai. This service allows users to interact anonymously with AI models such as OpenAI's GPT-4o mini and o3-mini, Meta's Llama 3.3, Mistral's Small 3, and Anthropic's Claude 3 Haiku, without the need for an account.

Key features of Duck.ai include:

Privacy-Focused Interactions: All conversations are anonymized via proxying, ensuring that personal information is not exposed to third parties.
Recent Chats: Conversations are stored locally on the user's device, not on DuckDuckGo's servers, allowing users to revisit previous interactions while maintaining privacy.
Customizable AI Integration: Users can adjust how frequently they encounter AI-assisted answers in their search results, with options ranging from "Never" to "Often," providing control over their experience.

DuckDuckGo's approach emphasizes providing useful AI features without compromising user privacy, reflecting its commitment to offering private, useful, and optional AI functionalities.

Pay Pay's Honey in trouble

https://www.theverge.com/news/627940/google-chrome-extensions-paypal-honey-affiliate

We discussed Honey in last semester's class when looking at online shopping. At the time, we learned of some shady practices. But it has now forced Google to update it's policy on Chrome extensions. Here is what happened:

Google has updated its affiliate ads policy for Chrome extensions after accusations that PayPal's Honey extension was unfairly taking affiliate revenue from influencers. Honey allegedly replaced affiliate links with its own when users checked out, even after paying influencers for promotion.

Under the new policy, Chrome extensions can only include affiliate links if they provide a clear and direct benefit to users related to the extension’s core function. Extensions cannot inject links without user action or without offering a tangible benefit like discounts or cashback.

The controversy gained attention after YouTuber MegaLag’s video exposing Honey’s practices went viral. Additionally, YouTuber Legal Eagle sued PayPal in January over these alleged practices. Google and PayPal have not yet commented on the matter.