Web

An update to Google’s spam policies includes a new “malicious practice” that could get websites demoted: “Back button hijacking,” which is when a website stops users from leaving with their browser’s back button.

Google is officially rolling out Device Bound Session Credentials (DBSC) to Windows users in Chrome 146. The new security feature cryptographically binds your login cookies to your device’s hardware. So, even if malware steals your browser cookies, they should be useless to remote hackers. MacOS support is coming soon.

The web hosting platform is working with Cloudflare to integrate the company’s AI Crawl Control tool, which lets publishers choose how web crawlers can access their site. Publishers can use the tool to permit or block bots, or ask them to pay.

A hacker took over an account belonging to the lead maintainer of the JavaScript library, Axios, which is used to handle HTTP requests, as reported by Cybernews. Security researchers found that versions 1.14.1 and 0.30.4 contained the script for a remote access trojan capable of giving hackers access to a user’s Windows, macOS, or Linux device.

Developer Niels Leenheer decided to see if he could recreate the classic FPS using the language that describes webpage formatting. cssDOOM is a bit messy and definitely pushing the limits of what is possible using cascading style sheets, but it’s undeniably impressive.

You get a few seconds to sear a color into your brain. Then you have to find it again with a set of hue, saturation, and brightness sliders. Then you do it four more times. You can challenge yourself, your friends, or play against the entire world.

The European Commission has preliminarily ruled that Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos have insufficient measures in place to prevent minors from accessing their platforms. The porn sites are being advised to remedy the DSA breaches or risk facing fines:

A New Social’s Bridgy Fed tech has been linking microblog posts and accounts across services like Mastodon and Bluesky for a while, but now that ability applies to more macro content as well:

By joining the beta test and connecting a Beehiiv account to AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude, its paying customers can ask the chatbots for help with things like a grammar check on posts or insights on subscriber lists and specific performance details. Down the line, the Model Context Protocol (MCP) link will let people use AI chatbots to directly draft posts or send offers to particular groups of subscribers.

Leonid Radvinsky died at age 43 “after a long battle with cancer,” an OnlyFans spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal. Radvinsky acquired Fenix International Limited, the parent company of the adult content platform, in 2018.

A modest proposal from law professor Kate Klonick: acknowledge the failure of the ubiquitous “accept cookies” screen and abolish it posthaste:

A new digital trading card game called Wikigacha lets you open packs of Wikipedia articles and have them battle each other. (My Pyramid of Neferirkare card lost against the Great Sea Interconnector, in case you were wondering.)

Kit apparently isn’t a red panda either, according to Mozilla, but its own creature “with attributes from both.” The browser developer says that Kit may appear in Firefox branding and “moments that are meant to feel welcoming or encouraging,” such as discovering new features or changing settings.

I love tools that let you make music based on a simple set of rules. Tim Holman created this one based on a YouTube video in which notes are triggered by a simple binary counter. Now if only I could get this out of Chrome and into my DAW.

Three years ago Buzzfeed embraced AI, using it to generate articles and quiz responses. Turns out, nobody wants that. The company posted a loss of $57.3 million in 2025 and its stock dropped to just $0.70. But CEO Jonah Peretti is still planning to bring “new AI apps” to market. 🤦

Now users in Canada, New Zealand, and India can access Chrome’s built-in Gemini AI assistant, which has added support for more than 50 languages, including Spanish, French, Hindi, and Chinese.

In an article for Techdirt, Wayback Machine director Mark Graham raises concerns about the impact of publications preventing the site from archiving their content due to AI scraping:

Beyond part one’s exposure of affiliate revenue hijacking, MegaLag digs into Honey’s “extortion” by adding limited-use “friends and family” type discounts and lying to the store owners about never removing codes for unaffiliated businesses while trying to sign them up as partners.