Dish's new Sling TV Internet TV service starts at $20

Fewer people -- and particularly fewer young people -- want to pay for cable or satellite TV service. So Dish Network, which has been gradually shedding subscribers, is trying something a little different to acquire new customers: It's launching Sling TV, a cheaper Over-the-Top (OTT) Internet TV service, which starts at $20 and includes a slate of Disney and Turner Networks channels, among others.

The service is scheduled to be available in the coming weeks -- no exact launch date was given -- on an impressive array of Internet-connected devices, including Xbox One , Roku media streamers, PCs, Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, and iOS and Android smartphones and tablets.

"Millennials don't choose paid TV," said Roger Lynch, who was named CEO of Sling TV LLC. "So we designed a service based on how millennials consume content, with no contracts. You can come and go as you please."

Lynch said that users can pay for a month at a time and that the theme for Sling TV's marketing and advertising campaign would be "Take Back TV."

The $20 Sling TV base package includes ESPN, ESPN2, Disney Channel, ABC Family, Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, TNT, CNN, TBS, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and the "best of Internet video" with Maker Studios. Add-on packs with additional kids and news programming will be available for $5 each.

Lynch said the launch channel lineup was set, but the lineup would evolve over time and other channels would be added. No DVR capabilities or local channels would be available to Sling TV subscribers, but they'd be able to access plenty of on-demand content, he added.

Get A Five Second Window To Take Back An Embarrassing Facebook Post

We’ve all done it at some point in our lives; whether it was in a fit of rage, the throws of passionate heartbreak, or just being plain intoxication, we’ve all at some point in our lives posted something on Facebook only to regret it later. It’s the same with emails, tweets, and text messages and there are very few services that offer us a way to take it back, or re-think our decision. Gmail is great in that it has a delayed sending feature you can enable which waits a minute before sending the email even after you’ve hit the Send button. Facebook, the nucleus of our social life could do with something similar and Facebook Undo does exactly that. It’s a Chrome extension that works in the background and gives you a five second countdown to reconsider posting an update after you’ve hit the Post button.

Facebook Undo will modify the Facebook UI after you click ‘Post’. Other than that, there will be no changed made to Chrome’s interface or to Facebook. Install the extension, go to Facebook, and compose an inappropriate post. Click ‘Post’ and the button will change to read ‘Undo’ with a timer that counts down from 5 seconds. Click the button before the timer runs out and the post will be aborted.

Refresh Facebook, or simply open it in a new tab (close the previous instance) for the extension to take effect. If the tab continues to load, never stopping when it should, close it, disable and then re-enable the extension. The problem should go away in all subsequent uses.

Facebook Undo has no customization options which means your window for saving yourself from embarrassment and public ridicule is five seconds and not a nanosecond more. Use them well. Since the extension is new, we can hope maybe the developer will up the take-back time on a post, or maybe add a feature that lets us identify people (read ex-boyfriend/girlfriend) that the extension should prevent us from messaging or writing on their walls if the hour is late. It would be out of the scope of a simple take-back feature which is what Facebook Undo claims to give you but we can hope.

Install Facebook Undo From The Chrome Web Store

How to stop autoplay videos from playing in your browser

I'm willing to bet that everyone reading this article who hasn't already solved this problem knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Most of these videos run on Shockwave Flash, so I'm going to concentrate on that technology. The trick isn't to block Flash entirely, but to make it work only with your permission.

How you do this varies with each browser. So I'll offer instructions for the three most popular ones. Christopher Breen of Macworld offered these alternative fixes as well.

Chrome

1. Click the menu icon on the upper-right corner and select Settings.

2. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the Show advanced settings link.
3. Scroll down further until you find the Privacy section. Click the Content settings button.
4. In the resulting Content Settings dialog box, scroll down to the Plug-ins section. Select Click to play, then click the Done button in the lower-right corner.
   

From then on, a Flash window will appear as a gray box with a jigsaw piece icon in the center. If you want to watch the video, click in that box.

Firefox

1. Press Ctrl-L to go to the address bar, and type in the local URL about:addons.
2. Click Plugins in the left pane.
3. Find Shockwave Flash in the list of plug-ins.
4. Click the Always Activate pop-up menu on the right, and select Ask to Activate.
   

When you visit a page with an embedded Flash video, the video window will again be a box, but this time it will be white with Adobe's Flash logo (a stylized letter 'f') in the center. A gray bar at the top of the page will give you options to continue blocking or allow the flash.

If you click Allow, you'll get options to Allow Now or Allow and Remember. If you want to allow it at all, I recommend Allow Now.

Internet Explorer

1. From the menus at the top of the window, select Tools>Manage add-ons.
2. In the resulting Manage Add-ons dialog box, make sure that Toolbars and Extensions is selected on the left. Wait for the list to appear.
3. Find and double-click Shockwave Flash Object on the right (it's listed under Adobe and will likely be near or at the top).
   
4. In the resulting More Information dialog box, click the Remove all sites button. Then close the dialog boxes.
   

The Flash windows may not appear at all, or they may appear blank. A bar at the bottom of the window will offer options to allow Flash to play. Click the x on the right to say "No."

Are you using the most secure and private web browser?

It’s up to each of us to be proactive about security and privacy; it’s risky to trust a company to manage your privacy in a manner that benefits you the most and not them. If you could have a browser that offered security, privacy and speed for free, then why not try it?

WhiteHat Security originally developed Aviator as the company’s in-house browser, but eventually released Aviator web browser in two flavors, OS X and Windows. It is billed as “the web’s most secure and private browser.” Users simply install the browser and it’s setup to maximize privacy and security safeguards by default. Unlike Chrome or Firefox, you don’t need to get add-ons or extensions to configure privacy and security. Those protections are built into Aviator, but since the browser uses open-source Chromium code, it does support “tens of thousands of extensions.”

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Say goodbye to Internet Explorer as you know it

The reason Microsoft is rolling with Windows 10 instead of Windows 9 for its next major operating system is because the changes are so dramatic, it warranted a generational leap in naming the product. That's the official story Microsoft wants us to believe, anyway, and while there are alternative theories -- like lazy coding -- there are parts of Windows 10 that are truly shaping up to be vastly different than Windows 8/8.1. That includes the browser, and word on the web is that Microsoft is rolling out a new vehicle for surfing through cyberspace in Windows 10.

There's already been plenty of talk about Microsoft stripping down Internet Explorer so that it more closely resembles the look and feel of Chrome, but according to ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley, the Redmond outfit is actually building a new browser. The codename for the new browser is "Spartan" and as far as Foley's sources are concerned, it's not an early version of IE 12, but something completely different.

Those same sources say Spartan will still use Microsoft's Chakra JavaScript engine and Trident rendering engine (sorry, WebKit fans), but in a new lightweight package that resembles Chrome and Firefox, and of course supports extensions.

The desktop version of Windows 10 will supposedly ship with both IE 11 and Spartan. Why both? IE 11 will be included for backwards compatibility, while Spartan will ship on both desktop builds and mobile versions of the OS.

Microsoft Sues Tech Support Scammers

Microsoft is taking tech support scammers to court.

The company sued Omnitech Support, a division of Customer Focus Services, for the misuse of Redmond's name, trademarks, and service marks in conjunction with phony services.

According to Courtney Gregoire, senior attorney with the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit, Omnitech Support staff have been cold-calling people and claiming to be Microsoft tech support. They then convinced consumers that their computer was infected with malware, and tried to sell unnecessary security services to "clean" the PC.

Omnitech sometimes went as far as to install malicious software like a password grabber on victim's computers, gaining access to personal and financial information.

"Tech support scams are not a new phenomenon," Gregoire wrote in a blog post. "However, today's scam artists have added a new twist—using a so-called 'technician' to gain access to a person's computer."

The crook will often use scare tactics to get them to hand over some cash—warning that if the customer doesn't pay up, they'll suffer a computer crash, or something worse.

Since May, Microsoft has received more than 65,000 customer complaints regarding fraudulent tech support scams, according to Gregoire.

While Redmond fights the bad guys in court, customers can do their part to defend themselves at home. The Digital Crimes Unit suggests that, if someone claiming to be from Microsoft tech support calls, don't purchase any software or give control of your computer to a third party. Always ask if there is a fee (if there is, hang up), and immediately take the caller's information and report it to the local authorities. Most importantly, never provide your credit card or financial information.

Last month, the Federal Trade Commission cracked down on phony tech support companies, including New York-based Pairsys, and Florida's Inbound Call Experts and Vast Tech Support. Together, all three have scammed tens of thousands of consumers out of more than $122.5 million since 2012.

If you're in the market for legitimate tech help, check out Testing the Top Tech Support Services and Every Customer Support Number You'll Ever Need.