Comcast is just relentless in making your Internet experience just awful..

Ah, Comcast — will you ever stop coming up with creative ways to irritate your customers? Redditor FriendlyDespot has noticed that Comcast has started injecting code into user traffic that warns them when they’ve reached 90% of their monthly data cap limits. Below is a picture of what this looks like when it pops up on your browser.

“Injecting code into user traffic is not EVER okay,” writes FriendlyDespot. “It popped up again as I went to upload this screenshot to Imgur, and it broke the site.”

On its support page, Comcast says that it also sends out emails to your primary Comcast user email address when you hit the 90% threshold and that it will send you automated phone calls if you exceed the 100% threshold for two consecutive months. Comcast also gives you the option to sign up for text messages when you reach certain thresholds.

Why it also fees the need to also inject code into user traffic is anyone’s guess, though we imagine the company will say it wants to make extra certain that users know when they’re about to exceed their limits.

All the same, this is something that could be fixed if Comcast… wait for it… decided to abandon data caps. After all, the unlimited broadband model has worked well for consumers and bandwidth caps aren’t an efficient way to manage traffic congestion — in fact, they’re really only there to make ISPs more money.

Comcast is now trialing its data caps in several markets throughout the United States: Huntsville and Mobile, Alabama; Tucson, Arizona; Atlanta, Augusta and Savannah, Georgia; Central Kentucky; Maine; Jackson, Mississippi; Knoxville, Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee; and Charleston, South Carolina. The company is hoping that customers in these markets will tolerate its broadband caps enough so that it can roll them out to all of its other customers in the future.

Before you donate, make sure you are not giving away an Apple I!

Did you drop off a box of old technology at a Bay Area recycling center recently? You might have $100,000 waiting for you.

Clean Bay Area, a Milpitas-based e-recycling company, is looking for a woman who dropped off a box of her husband's old gadgets in April. As the Mecury News reports, that box of "junk" contained something that was actually quite valuable—an original Apple I computer.

Clean Bay Area sold the device to a private collector for $200,000, and they would like to give the donor half of that cash. But there's one problem—they don't know who she is.

The company's vice president, Victor Gichun, said the woman stopped by near the end of the day on a Friday and said she did not need a tax receipt. She simpy wanted to rid her garage of some clutter after her husband passed away, the Mercury News said.

Gichuan, however, said he remembers what she looks like, so all she has to do is return to the warehouse at 1310 Piper Drive in Milpitas to collect $100,000.

Over the years, Apple I computers have sold for hefty sums at auction. Last year, one sold for almost $1 million, though others have fetched $365,000 and $387,000.

The Apple I is the first computer made by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976. Only about 200 were made, and they originally sold for $666.

Netflix rules the Internet!

Internet denizens must really love their Netflix—so much so that according to a recent study, the streaming service accounts for over a third of peak-hour downstream Internet traffic in North America.

The numbers come to us via the networking firm Sandvine, whose latest Global Internet Phenomena report shows that Netflix streams gobble up 36.5 percent of Noth America’s downstream traffic during “peak evening hours.”

But Netflix isn’t the only video streaming service that has made a dent on the Internet: the company also says that HBO’s two streaming services, HBO Go and HBO Now, “accounted for 4.1% of traffic on one US fixed network” during the fifth-season premiere of Game of Thrones.

Meanwhile, the company found that BitTorrent traffic is declining as a percentage of Internet traffic, making up 6.3 percent of traffic on North American broadband networks. Sandvine also found that Facebook and Google comprise 60 percent of mobile Internet use in Latin American countries.

Why this matters: At first blush, Sandvine’s data may seem to be merely interesting bits of trivia, but it underscores the profound impact streaming media has had on the Internet as a whole. All you have to do is look at the Internet’s looming capacity crunch.The fact that BitTorrent is in decline also speaks to the rise of convenient, affordable legal digital media services such as Netflix, iTunes, and Spotify. 

Comcast, Time Warner Cable 'bottom dwellers' in new Consumer Reports ratings

You might say you already know.

But when what you already know is put to the music of figures, there's an extra dimension to the way you feel your knowledge.

Here, then, are the latest Consumer Reports ratings for cable companies. They're a delight in consistency. As Consumer Reports itself says: "Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Charter are among the bottom dwellers in overall customer satisfaction for TV service."

There's something you feel deeply when people think you're not very good. But to be described as a bottom-dweller carries with it a certain level of insult.

Twenty of 24 TV-service providers achieved the lowest score possible. Which is something of a collective success.

The Consumer Reports National Research Center separates human feelings about TV, Internet and cable services into separate scores. It even examines bundles as a single entity.

You will be stunned into a three-week online fast when I tell you that only one of 39 providers of Internet service managed to achieve a middling score. Time Warner Cable almost managed to come last for both TV service and bundled packages.

I contacted both Time Warner and Comcast to ask for their reactions. A Time Warner Cable spokesman told me: "Today more than 90 percent of all our appointments are one-hour windows or specific time of day. We're bringing dramatically faster Internet speeds and more than 20,000 on-demand choices to customers in markets throughout the country, and we've also introduced a new six-tuner, 1-terabyte DVR to meet viewer demand. And we're going to keep working every day to make TWC the most reliable, highest-value choice in the areas we serve."

This survey suggests there's still quite a way to go.

For its part, Comcast is at least trying to do something to improve its customer service. Comcast has promised to place determined focus on its customer service, saying it will hire 5,500 more customer service staff.

Those suggesting this will increase the number of their customer service staff to 5,512 are not telling the truth.

Comcast has even hired more Twitterers to soothe kvethers in real time.

Time Warner Cable, meanwhile, is busy merging with Charter.

Another stimulating item that emerged from this latest Consumer Reports survey is that 42 percent of respondents said they'd tried to negotiate a better deal. Of these, 45 percent said that the provider had lowered their bundle price by up to $50 a month.

The only thing left when you're not happy with something is to complain. And complain. And complain.

After all, one strategy used by Comcast when you try to leave is to complain about it, complain about it and complain about it, until you can take no more.

Use Your iPhone To Find Free WiFi Networks Anywhere In The World

nternet is a basic human right in some countries, while in others, it’s pretty much a luxury. Regardless of what status the internet has where you live, free WiFi is something no one would say no to. WiFiMapper is a free iOS app that uses your location, and your WiFi radio to scan your surroundings for free WiFi networks. Naturally, the range is short but it’s also a crowd-sourced tool for mapping all the free WiFi available in the world. Users can log places where free WiFi is available and they are displayed in the app on a map so you can see from miles away where free internet is available even if you can scan the area with your phone.

Launch WiFiMapper and allow it to use your location. It will search for all WiFi networks that are in range and do not require a password to use. On the map, you can zoom out to view larger areas. The networks that show up outside your range are the ones that other users have marked as free.

Tap a network to view details for it. For each network, you can see how many people have seen it and marked it as free. If available, you can also see how well the network performs. You can connect to one of these networks, identify a new one, or you can leave a comment for a network that you may have used.

In order to mark and identify free WiFi networks, you will have to sign in with your Facebook ID. Tap the cog wheel button at the top of the home screen to view the sign in option. A WiFi network’s location can be shared as an image over social media and messaging apps.

The networks are identified by users so whether they are accurate or not depends on how many people have vouched for a network. That said, one thing the app fails at is sharing the location of a network. It’s baffling why they decided to share it as an image when the exact location can be shared and is an effective way to share just about any place. This needs fixing, post haste.

Your Windows 10 upgrade options

Sometimes it feels like the closer we get to the release of Windows 10 (slated for this summer), the less we actually know. Yes, Microsoft finally revealed a list of Windows 10 editions last week, of which there are quite a few, but how exactly will upgrades work for users rocking a copy of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1? The answer is out there, or so it seems.

Podcaster and senior technical analyst for Windows IT Pro, Paul Thurrott, stumbled onto a blog post from the Microsoft Australia Partner Network that contained information on the various Windows 10 announcements of late.

The blog post was written by Alex Snelson, a Windows product manager for Microsoft Australia. In it she lists the various editions that were announced, and then goes over the upgrade paths. Here's what she wrote:

• Microsoft will offer a free upgrade to Windows 10 for qualified Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.1 devices in the first year. After the first year, upgrades will be paid via boxed product and VL Upgrades
• Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 7 Home Basic and Home Premium devices upgrade to Windows 10 Home
• Windows 8/8.1 Pro and Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate devices upgrade to Windows 10 Pro
• If upgraded within the first 12 months following launch, the device will receive ongoing Windows 10 updates for free for the life of that device
• Excludes Windows Enterprise and RT devices
• The free Windows 10 upgrade is delivered through Windows Update; domain-joined machines can manually get the update via Windows Update. The upgrade cannot be deployed through WSUS