Eliana Willis

ZDNETFacebook has not been making friends lately with its policy changes. While some people have left, others find it hard to leave. It’s where their friends and social groups — from old co-workers to church members to fellow sufferers of obscure diseases — are. Also: The best data removal services in 2025: Delete yourself from the internetIn addition, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, tracks your activity not just on Facebook, but across the internet with Meta’s tracking pixel. If you’d rather not have Big Zucker looking over your shoulder, here’s what you can do to limit how much Meta can track you.Facebook has been collecting data on you for yearsBefore getting into protecting your privacy, you should know what data Facebook has already been collecting data on you for years. Besides the obvious — your name and that you liked Aunt Jodie’s funny cat picture — companies that use Facebook Business Tools, such as Facebook Pixel, the Facebook Software Development Kit (SDK), and Facebook Login and Account Kit, also share what they know about you with Facebook. Specifically, Meta tracks when you’re:Opening an appLogging into an app with FacebookViewing contentSearching for an itemAdding an item to a shopping cartMaking a purchaseMaking a donationWhen you’ve been naughty or niceOK, I made up the last one, but when you use Facebook, you really are giving up your privacy in ways that would make Santa Claus envious. Don’t believe it? According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Facebook tracks you on 30% of the top 10,000 websites. On my own account, I see that Facebook and its partners have data on me from 955 apps and websites that I’ve used or visited in the last 180 days. That includes every time I checked my Ring doorbell, the time I checked StubHub for WVU-Kansas basketball tickets, and how often I checked into Zillow when searching for a new home. And, of course, what sites I visit daily.Also: What is DuckDuckGo? If you’re into online privacy, try this popular Google alternativeAlso keep in mind that things that sound like they help, such as clearing your Facebook history, may not help at all. Clearing your history, for example, doesn’t delete anything. Instead, all it does is disconnect your activity history from your account. Meta will continue to receive your activity from the businesses and organizations you visit in the future.The only real way out is to delete your Facebook account. But even then, Facebook says it will take up to 90 days to remove all your data. It may take longer. Much longer. In any case, Meta doesn’t spell out what it does with your activity history.What doesn’t work You can turn off, sort of, the data Facebook and its partners share about you. But, even then, Facebook says: “We’ll still receive activity from whatever site. It may be used to measure and improve their ads, but it will be disconnected from your account.” (You can believe Facebook if you like, but I’m inclined to doubt it.)Next, simply putting a post on your page that claims to be a legal notice forbidding Meta from using your personal data and photos won’t help you a bit. No, I don’t care who told you that this would work. It doesn’t. Never has, never will.Also: Stop exposing your Venmo activity – by changing this privacy setting. Here’s whySo, what can you do? Well, first things first. Facebook has a bad habit of changing its menus. If the specific suggestions below don’t work for you, use the Facebook search function to find the settings you’re looking for.Don’t share public posts – it’s dangerous More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways The Govee Neon Rope Light 2 is available in white or black and in two lengths: 10 feet for $70 and 16.4 feet for $100. More pliable than other neon light strips on the market, the Govee Neon Rope Light 2 is easy to install and comes with bend clips to […] More

David Gewirtz/ZDNETDeepSeek exploded into the world’s consciousness this past weekend. It stands out for three powerful reasons: It’s an AI chatbot from China, rather than the USIt’s open source.It uses vastly less infrastructure than the big AI tools we’ve been looking at.Given the US government’s concerns over TikTok and possible Chinese government involvement in that code, a new AI emerging from China is bound to generate attention. ZDNET’s Radhika Rajkumar did a deep dive into those issues in her article Why China’s DeepSeek could burst our AI bubble.Also: The best AI for coding in 2025 (and what not to use)In this article, we’re avoiding politics. Instead, I’m putting DeepSeek R1 through the same set of AI coding tests I’ve thrown at 10 other large language models. The short answer is this: impressive, but not perfect. Let’s dig in. Test 1: Writing a WordPress plugin This test was actually my first test of ChatGPT’s programming prowess, way back in the day. My wife needed a plugin for WordPress that would help her run an involvement device for her online group. Also: How to use ChatGPT to write code: What it does well and what it doesn’tHer needs were fairly simple. It needed to take in a list of names, one name per line. It then had to sort the names, and if there were duplicate names, separate them so they weren’t listed side-by-side.I didn’t really have time to code it for her, so I decided to give the AI the challenge on a whim. To my huge surprise, it worked.Since then, it’s been my first test for AIs when evaluating their programming skills. It requires the AI to know how to set up code for the WordPress framework and follow prompts clearly enough to create both the user interface and program logic. More

Jason Hiner/ZDNETApple is officially rolling out iOS 18.3 to eligible iPhone models after a briefing testing period. The patch is a modest one. It doesn’t introduce new features or make sweeping changes, but it does make adjustments that will impact how users interact with the system. Apple Intelligence is now enabled by default, the company is restricting notification summaries for news apps, an d improving iPhone cameras.Also: The best iPhones you can buy today (and if you should wait for iPhone 17)After you’re done reading, you can install iOS 18.3 on your iPhone by opening the Settings menu and then going to General. Tap Software Update to install the patch. Be aware that you will need a phone capable of supporting iOS 18, like the iPhone 13 Pro. Also, note that the Apple Intelligence features are exclusive to the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 16 series. Older models don’t support them.1. Apple Intelligence is now the default More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways The Lenovo Tab Plus retails for $330. Contrary to its small size, the model houses a booming eight-speaker system and a long-lasting battery. The MediaTek Helio chipset and dim display won’t be winning any awards. more buying choices If you’re in the market for a new tablet that won’t break the […] More

Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNETOpenAI is constantly adding new features to ChatGPT to make it more functional for everyday needs. The Canvas feature was unveiled last October and has transformed my ChatGPT workflow — and the best part is that it keeps getting better. Canvas is a separate interface that makes collaborating on your writing and coding projects easier with ChatGPT. Also: Are ChatGPT Plus or Pro worth it? Here’s how they compare to the free versionCanvas is available to all web users in GPT-4o, regardless of plan. As of this week, Canvas is also available with o1, OpenAI’s model that excels at reasoning, making it even a better assistant for coders. However, to access the tool in o1, you need a ChatGPT Plus plan. If you use ChatGPT as a co-editor in any capacity, you will never again use ChatGPT without this feature. Don’t believe me? The concept is best understood visually, so stick with me. Here’s how Canvas works. More

J Studios/Getty Images We’re losing the battle against complexity. So, can artificial intelligence (AI) rise to the rescue? A new survey of 800 IT decision-makers by Camunda found IT teams deal with an average of 50 endpoints (applications, APIs, robotic process automation) in their efforts to satisfy business processes. AI could help reduce complexity, but 84% […] More

ZDNETThere are many lightweight Linux distributions on the market, many of which are outstanding options for bringing aging hardware back to life with speed, flexibility, and security that those old computers might never have known. That’s part of the beauty of Linux — it’s not only flexible, reliable, and secure, but it’s also perfectly capable of performing like a champ on machines that modern Windows iterations would cripple.Also: If you’re ready to break up with Windows, this is the Linux distro I suggest for new usersOne such distribution is WattOS. This no-frills, lightweight desktop operating system will feel immediately familiar to you and will make that ten-year-old computer feel brand new again.But before you dive in, let’s talk about WattOS for a bit. WattOS system requirementsThis Linux distribution is specifically designed to be lightweight, which means it uses a desktop environment that won’t hog system resources. That desktop environment is LXDE, which is modular and performs well on everything from your ancient computer to a Raspberry Pi. The system requirements for WattOS paint a very obvious picture:192MB RAMAny Intel or AMD CPU700MB disk spaceEven on a PC with such low resources, WattOS performs very well. And because the desktop is laid out in a very familiar fashion (start button, panel, system tray, desktop icons), anyone who’s used any iteration of Windows should feel right at home.Also: Deepin 25 Linux preview looks and feels more like Windows – but is it safe?I installed WattOS as a virtual machine on VirtualBox, with more than enough system resources (3GB of RAM, 2 cores, and 100GB of internal storage), so you can imagine that my VM performed like a Ford Tempo with a rocket engine.It’s fast.Very fast. More