Items tagged with Email
For anyone who uses IFTTT (If This Then That), a free web-based service to create chains of simple conditional statements via applets, be aware that Gmail integration is about to be broken in a big way. Simply put, every IFTTT action and trigger for Gmail will stop working at the end of the month, save for "Send and email" and "Send yourself an email." Those are the only two functions that will remain. Everything else has been marked as "inactive," and as a result, many IFTTT applets that use those functions have already stopped working. The rest will join them on March 31. March 31 is when Google will implement previously announced changes to its API ecosystem. Unfortunately for IFTTT users,...
Read more...
Google has already given its popular Gmail service a visual and functional overhaul, having refreshed the design in April of last year. It's also steadily been adding new features, such as Smart Compose and a native offline mode. Perhaps even better, Google is adding more options to the right-click context menu in Gmail. This is going to impact all G Suite users, who will have access to a wealth of more options with right-click on a Gmail message. Users will be able to reply to or forward an email with a single click from the main page, search for all emails from a particular sender, search for all emails with the same subject (if conversation mode is turned off), open multiple emails in multiple...
Read more...
In a letter sent to US lawmakers, Google reaffirmed its policy of allowing third-party app developers to access private information belonging to Gmail users, so long as the developers are upfront about the data they are collecting. It comes with the territory of allowing third-party apps to integrate with Gmail, as ultimately it is up to the users to make sure they fully understand exactly what permissions they are granting. The policy has drawn increased attention over the past several weeks, especially in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Back at the beginning of July, Google felt compelled to pen a blog post discussing security and privacy within Gmail. The company insisted that...
Read more...
Are you concerned about who might be reading your emails? You should be, especially if you allow third-party app developers to access your Gmail account, as many of them request. A recent report highlighted the extent of which third-party app developers can access private information, prompting Google to respond with what amounts to a soothing message saying, 'There, there, everything will be okay'. Google is not necessarily wrong, either, provided you are tech savvy enough to understand the risks associated with giving a third-party app certain permissions, and know how to take control of your privacy settings. The latter is not always straightforward—we have laid out the steps for preventing...
Read more...
Google is continually making improvements to its Gmail service, and more recently it introduced a couple of new features that many people will find handy. One of those is native offline mail support so that users don't have to rely on third-party software or any special extensions, and the other is Smart Compose, a predicative text feature that Google unveiled at its recent Google I/O event. Predicative text is not a new technology, it's just new to Gmail as a native feature. What it does is suggest words, phrases, and even entire sentences that fit within the context of what you're typing. "Smart Compose helps save you time by cutting back on repetitive writing, while reducing the chance of...
Read more...
Security researchers are warning anyone who uses PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) or S/MIME for email encryption to disable the scheme in their email clients right away, and to uninstall tools that automatically decrypt PGP-encrypted email, due to a security flaw. They've discovered a critical vulnerability dubbed EFAIL that could allow an attacker to view the contents of encrypted messages in plaintext, including emails that have been sent in the past. "There are currently no reliable fixes for the vulnerability. If you use PGP/GPG or S/MIME for very sensitive communication, you should disable it in your email client now," Sebastian Schinzel, a professor of computer security at FH Münster, stated...
Read more...
Microsoft has added new features to Outlook on Windows, Mac, web, and mobile devices. The software giant says that the changes are meant to help users manage their time and keep important stuff up front where it is easy to find. There are new features coming to Outlook for iOS and Android devices soon to help connect users to people, apps, and tech that improve productivity in the business environment. Among the changes are bill pay reminders in Outlook Calendar with the addition of bill payments to events that the calendar already tracks for users like travel reservations and package deliveries. Outlook can identify the bills you receive via email and then give a summary at the top of the message...
Read more...
Google has rolled out the long-awaited update for Gmail that users will find quite interesting. One of the main goals in the redesign was to allow users to do more without leaving their inbox. This means you can now do open photos and other attachments without having to open the email or scroll through long conversations. A new snooze button also allows you to put off emails you don’t have time for and you can access other Google apps like Calendar, Tasks, and Keep more easily. For those times when you are busy and forgot to reply to something important, Gmail will now "nudge" you with reminders to follow-up and respond to messages that appear next to the emails in your inbox. Smart Reply...
Read more...
Several years ago, spammers figured out they could fill up a user's Google Calendar with advertisements and other unwanted messages by sending them out as event invites. The issue has largely flown under the radar, but unfortunately for some Google Home owners, the exploit (if you want to call it that) is preventing them from receiving legitimate notifications over their smart speaker, turning what was a nuisance into a major problem. We were alerted about the issue from Micah Stroud, a former NVIDIA employee who sent us an email detailing his frustration with the situation. "For the past three months I've been living with an out of control spammer in my house: it comes from Google Home. According...
Read more...
Most of you reading this have probably at some point been contacted by someone claiming you are the beneficiary in a will of a Nigerian prince. As the scam goes, all you have to do is submit your personal information and Western Union some funds to process the necessary paperwork, and in return you will receive hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. One of the people behind the popular scam, Michael Neu, has been arrested by police in Slidell, Louisiana. This may come as a shocker, but Neu is not a prince, nor is he Nigerian. He is a 67-year-old male possibly of German descent (based on his last name) who is facing 269 counts of wire fraud and money laundering for his alleged role...
Read more...
As part of a recent case study, Google teamed up with the University of California, Berkeley, to better understand how hijackers attempt to take over email and social networking accounts. As any thirty-something who grew up watching G.I. Joe cartoons can attest, knowing is half the battle. So, after learning the most common methods for hijacking, Google has some tips on how Gmail users can protect their accounts from outside threats. Hijacking is a common problem, with more 15 percent of Internet users having reported experiencing the takeover of an email or social networking account. From March 2016 to March 2017, Google and UC Berkley analyzed several black markets to see how hijackers steal...
Read more...
Here is some good news for Gmail users—living up to its promise earlier this year, Google today expanded the potential capabilities of Gmail by launching native support for third-party add-ons. Now users can tap into services such as Asana, Dialpad, Hire, Intuit QuickBooks Invoicing, and others right from within their inbox, negating the need to toggle between the inbox and other apps. "With Gmail Add-ons, your inbox can contextually surface your go-to app based on messages you receive to help you get things done faster. And because add-ons work the same across web and Android, you only need to install them once to access them on all of your devices," Google stated in a blog post. Google previously...
Read more...
Have you ever noticed that if you mention a product in email, it has a way of translating over to ads? In some cases, it might be a coincidence. But if you use Gmail, there is a much higher chance that Google scanned the contents of your email, picked up on a keyword, and delivered a targeted ad based on what you wrote. Oh, you didn't know? Google does in fact sift through the contents of your Gmail, though starting soon, it will stop doing that. Google is looking to bring its consumer-based Gmail service in line with its G Suite for businesses, the latter of which includes a version of Gmail that does not get scanned in order to personalize ads.Image Source: Flickr (C.E. Kent) "G Suite’s Gmail...
Read more...
Most of us could probably stand to be a little bit more organized, whether it's remembering to pick up milk on the way home or making sure not to miss little Katie's recital right after turning in those blueprints to the boss at noon. That is where digital assistants can be useful. Cortana is one of them and Microsoft is making its smarty pants AI even more helpful by having her hold you accountable to what you say in emails. "Cortana already gives you reminders for people, places and times, and helps you make and manage to-do lists so you don’t forget a thing. Now, Cortana can help you remember things you’ve said you would do in your emails—without you even having to ask," Microsoft explains...
Read more...
