Recommended Reads on the Computing Beat This Week

A roundup of the best stories on computing from other sites, collected by Tom Simonite, MIT Technology Review’s San Francisco bureau chief.

By Tom Simonite

January 21, 2016

Apps to Manage Passwords so They Are Harder to Crack Than ‘Password’
Most of us use passwords in ways that leave us vulnerable to hackers. This useful article explains why and outlines what you can do to make yourself safer.

Facebook’s Fight to Be Free
The social network’s attempt to help more people get online in India has run into stiff opposition. Critics say the company is distorting India’s nascent Internet market to its own benefit, and the Indian government recently suspended Free Basics, Facebook’s subsidized access scheme.

Tech’s ‘Frightful Five’ Will Dominate Digital Life for the Foreseeable Future
Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have built such powerful platforms they are now unassailable by smaller upstarts, a new book argues.

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The Former CEO of Mozilla Is Launching a Web Browser That Blocks All Ads by Default
Brave, as the browser is called, will strip ads and associated tracking code from Web pages—but insert supposedly less privacy-invading ads of its own.

Everything We Know About Ukraine’s Power Plant Hack
In late December blackouts rolled across large swaths of Ukraine. They appear to have been caused by attacks on the computer networks of power companies—and U.S. electricity providers are probably vulnerable to similar hacks.

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