We are one day away from saying goodbye to an intense 2021, marked by several viral waves, mass vaccination, Facebook scandals (now Meta), the establishment of teleworking -and in virtual life in general- and various attacks against our privacy or computer security, which readers are very interested in.
We have decided to say goodbye to these twelve months by revealing the most widely read news of those published throughout 2021: three of them are about news that happened during the year and another two are about software that you like. We know that privacy on WhatsApp, cybersecurity, and the big changes in bitcoin interest you. Do not miss this list:
THEFT OF DATA AND UNSOLICITED PACKAGES WHAT IS BRUSHING?
1. WhatsApp has (confusingly) changed its terms of use
Privacy matters to us. It was demonstrated at the beginning of the year when WhatsApp announced changes to its conditions of use that would allow it to share certain data with Facebook and people migrated en masse to other applications with more private technology such as Signal or Telegram.
This and the protests of users, led WhatsApp to delay this decision, but even so, its changes were very confusing. We decided, on May 15, on which the changes would take place, to thoroughly summarize what would change.
The company had changed, before that day, several times of opinion on whether it would deactivate our account if we did not accept, or if it would take away functions (or not). We also took into account that as citizens of the European Union the conditions are not the same as for other regions of the world, due to the EU Data Protection Law. And readers were very interested in this change and how it affected their privacy.
2. SMS on behalf of Correos to steal your bank details
On the same January 1, 2021, we published the news of a phishing attack on behalf of Correos that many citizens in Spain had received. An SMS that said “POST: Your shipment is on its way: https://correos-track.top/XXXXXXX/ “, where the link took people to a page that it was not the official one and that it was trying to steal our information.
The news was completed with a detailed guide explaining what to do in case of falling into the trap to be able to uninstall the malware that came from the hand of those SMS on behalf of the Post Office service.
It must be said that the year 2021 was plagued with similar attacks and even yesterday we learned that someone has obtained data from MRW and is sending messages to users with their name and even information about real orders to steal information.
3. The reasons for being a paid WinRAR user
Marcos Merino, one of our colleagues in the writing commented that he was a paying user of WinRAR and that led to one of the most attractive articles of the year on our website. Merino reflected on the reasons for this decision.
And we were able to learn that ** the WinRAR interface is the most successful of the three best-known programs ** in this sector. And, above all, it is the only one that offers an internal file viewer, a damaged file repair function and an option to create executable files.
And why pay for it instead of having it for free? Well, for “a mixture of gratitude to its developers for all their years of service (seasoned with a few drops of nostalgia)” … and tired of closing the constant notice that the company shows the 40-day notice.
4. The debt of the Swedish police with criminals for not knowing about bitcoin
Swedish authorities seized 36 bitcoins from drug dealers in April 2019 as part of a prosecution for selling drugs online. These 36 bitcoins were worth $ 150,000 at the time and now the value has been multiplied by 10 to reach 1.5 million dollars.
In August it became known that this led to the Swedish police owing this earned money to the aforementioned traffickers. This is because the authorities they did not change cryptocurrencies to a fiat currency at the time, as is common to do. Rather, they waited two years to make this change and, in making it, they found themselves with $ 1.35 million more.
This is because if the fine is $ 150,000 (the conviction was for the value of those 36 bitcoins at the time and not for the bitcoins as such), the authorities cannot keep the rest of the money that the change is worth ten times more and now it had to be returned to the condemned.
5. The Chrome Dinosaur Game
How to Play Dinosaur Game in Chrome Offline was one of the most read topics of the year. In 2018, when this game implemented in the browser turned four years old, it was played around 270 million times every month from both the desktop version of Chrome and from mobile. It is addictive and that is why it does not hurt to know that it is not necessary to disconnect from the internet to play it.
Run it in our Chrome installation is as simple as entering chrome: // dino and access. Once in it, we will press the space bar and we can start playing as usual.
We can play the games we want, although with a limit, because it is not infinite: 17 million years. Approximately the time that the species of dinosaur that stars lived on our planet the game, the tyrannosaurus rex, better known as t-rex.
Cover image | Pixabay DarkMoon