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Cyber-Haven!
Cyber-Haven!
Updated February 16, 2025
July 3, 2023 by Dwight Silverman
(Last updated 9:52 am CST February 16th, 2025)
Because I regularly review Apple’s Mac laptops and desktops, I’ve developed a setup routine for to make them my own for the brief period I have them. It’s similar to what I do when I get a new Mac for myself, though that takes place over a period of days and includes copying over data that I don’t have stored in iCloud.
Yeah, I know, I could use Migration Assistant or other tools to automate this, but I like the idea of a fresh start, and being able to ponder, then pick and choose what I want to keep or discard.
Of course, there are steps I’ll forget, so I wanted to write the process down. This is as much for my convenience and forgetfulness as it is for your geeky voyeurism. Anyway, here’s how it goes:
In the initial setup process, I typically just keep the default selections. If I want to change something, I can always do it later.
That’s it for now. I’ll tweak this over time.
Categories: Apple, Tips & tricks Tags: apple, macs
3 Comments
Updated February 6, 2025
December 31, 2022 by Dwight Silverman
(Last updated 7:56 am CST February 6th, 2025)
A view through a wall, created using Diffusion Bee, a Stable Diffusion app for the Mac.
(Note: During my brief stint at Forbes, I wrote a newsletter item and subsequent story on how to get around the web’s biggest annoyances– intrusive ads, overlays and paywalls. Since that May 2021 piece, I’ve found some new tools and strategies. This is an updated version. Content from the original Forbes article is included with permission.)
If you’re like me, you’ve got a love/hate relationship with the web. Bill Gates may have sought to bring “information at your fingertips” via the PC and Microsoft’s software, but it was Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, who made it happen.
But even Berners-Lee is dismayed at what the web has become, saying today’s version of his creation is laced with “perverse incentives.”
Indeed, trying to get the information, goods and services you want from the web involves running a gauntlet of intrusive ads, obstructive overlays and unyielding paywalls.
To be clear: Businesses and individuals deserve to be compensated for the information and services they offer online. But too often how they go about it gets in the way of the product itself. Everyone reading this has had the experience of visiting a website that has so many ads, videos, popups and overlays that it’s nearly impossible to enjoy the content.
Over the years, I’m assembled a toolkit of browser extensions and strategies that have made the web tolerable. I use these judiciously in instances where doing so might deprive a website of needed revenue. But at the same time, I don’t have much sympathy for those sites that are so junked up with distractions and obstructions that they’re inaccessible. Desperate sites call for desperate measures.
Here’s a list of tips, tricks and tools for restoring some sanity to the web. (And if you have other tips that aren’t mentioned here, please let me know.)
The most common way to clean up your web experience is through ad or content blockers. As the name implies, they block ads and other revenue-producing components from appearing on web pages. Out of the box, they’re a shotgun approach, and as such they also deny revenue to sites that rely on advertising to survive. “Free” sites are not really free, and many site operators consider content blockers to be unethical.
Nevertheless, the use of ad blockers is growing, with between 27% of U.S. web users employing them, compared to almost 43% globally.
Content blockers are available as extensions for desktop web browsers as well as iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. They allow you to block everything, which leaves sites you visit fairly ad-free, but most also feature controls that let you customize what happens at specific sites. For example, if you visit an ad-supported site regularly and its ads aren’t overbearing or intrusive, you can put its domain into what’s called a whitelist or allowlist – and indeed, this is the best use of it. If you love a free site’s content, add it to your blocker’s allowlist.
Many content blockers will also prevent tracking by third-party cookies, and you can typically toggle this feature on and off. If privacy is important to you, content blockers can help. (Though some web browsers themselves can block tracking cookies, most notably Firefox, Safari and Microsoft Edge.)
Blockers also have downsides, sometimes blocking things you may want to see. If a site isn’t behaving the way you expect it to and you have a blocker installed, disable it for that site.
I use Ublock Origin on Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome browsers. On my iPhone, I prefer 1Blocker. Both seem to be better about not interfering with a site’s desirable features than most. Tom’s Guide has a roundup of the best blockers for traditional computers; iMore has a list of iOS blockers; and Android Authority rounds them up for that platform. And The Wirecutter at the New York Times has a roundup of content blockers for those whose main concern is privacy.
There are other ways to view content without ads or other distractions without installing a content blocker. Some of them are already built into your web browser.
A feature found in Apple’s Safari (both desktop and mobile), Microsoft’s and Mozilla’s Firefox browsers provide a “reader view” that presents text without background images, ads, video players, sharing buttons, etc. Typically, these features increase the font size and tweak the background color of the page to improve readability. In some instances, the feature can reveal full stories that show only a stub as part of a paywall.
[Added 2/6/2025] Also in Safari in iOS, iPadOS and macOS: Hide Distracting Items, which allows you to tag and then remove web page components that are annoying. Tap/click the button, do the same for the thing you want to remove, and watch in wonder as it is literally “blown away” off the web page.
While Chrome doesn’t have a reader feature built-in, there are several extensions that provide it, though I’ve found that many of them don’t work as well as those built in to other browsers.
This Chrome extension does a decent job of mimicking the Reader View in Firefox.
I primarily use Microsoft Edge on both Macs and Windows PCs, and it puts an icon that looks like an open book in the URL field when a page works with reader view. Clicking it presents a highly readable view that’s pretty smart about providing both text and images of value. You can typically set reader view to always be used on specific sites, or toggle it as needed on stories.
Overlays are one of the most annoying web obstacles. These first cousins to popup ads place an image on top of a web page, and are often used to push newsletters, subscriptions and other products. They also can serve as rudimentary paywalls, blocking your view of content unless you pay a subscription fee. They’re also used to complain that you have a content blocker installed, and request that you disable it for that site.
Most content blockers don’t stop overlays, unfortunately, and a separate extension is required to block them. Most of the ones I’ve tried have undesirable side effects, or simply don’t work. For example PopUpOff for Chrome and Edge does a good job of blocking overlays, but at its most extreme setting also prevents things you want to see, including navigation menus on some sites. It’s also available for Opera and Firefox.
The one that works best for me and doesn’t seem to have negative effects is Behind the Overlay, which lets you manually blow away overlays. In Chrome and Edge, it places a button in your extension toolbar that you can click and dismiss almost any overlay, including those paywall overlays that don’t have an X button for closing. There’s also a version of it for Firefox.
Few things are as inconvenient as finding something you want to read on the web, only to discover it’s behind a paywall, meaning you must pay a subscription fee to read it. Unless you’re a regular reader of that site’s content, it’s hard to justify coughing up a monthly vig to read one story.
But let me stress again: If you do find yourself frequently consuming content from specific sites that have a paywall, you should pay for that content.
As more and more sources of journalism move away from ad-based funding, they rely on their readers to show support by paying directly. It would be nice if all sites on the web had some form of micropayments in which you could pay a buck or two to read just one story. Unfortunately, experiments like these are few and far between.
What follows are a few tips for viewing paywalled content. I’ll repeat: If you regularly consume content from the specific sites, please pay up. Otherwise, try these:
September 14, 2022
September 13, 2022 by Dwight Silverman
If you’re an iPhone user who downloaded and installed iOS 16 after its release on Monday, take some time from learning to configure those nifty customizable lock screens and tap on the included Weather app. On the surface, it looks a lot like the updated version introduced in iOS 15 – but below the surface is where the action is.
Tap any one of the cards on the main display – hourly or 10 day forecasts, humidity, air quality, UV index, wind, precipitaton and more – and you’ll get a screen with lots more information. Suddenly, the iOS Weather app is one of the best out there for climate data junkies.
But in order for iOS Weather to get this new life, something had to die. That’s Dark Sky, the hyperlocal weather app that Apple purchased in 2020. It will be shut down on Jan. 1, 2023.
The Dark Sky Company launched the app on iOS in 2012, then added an Android app. When Apple acquired Dark Sky, the Android version was killed shortly thereafter, and paid users of that platform were given full refunds. There is no indication recent buyers of the $3.99 iOS app will get their money back.
At least one user, who replied to a Tweet about Dark Sky’s impending demise, expressed annoyance because she had paid for it twice, including a few months ago.
Am I the only sucker who has paid for Dark Sky twice now (once for my Android, then again just a few months ago for iPhone) and its being 86d yet again? @Apple KNEW they were going to get rid and still took my money. pic.twitter.com/ynw2mmE5co
Dark Sky also built an API for its weather data, and charged other developers to tap into it. That API is also going away, along with the excellent Dark Sky website, shutting down on March 31, 2023. The API is being replaced by WeatherKit, an Apple weather service which will cost less than Dark Sky’s did, and offer developers 500,000 API calls per month before charging.
While the iOS Weather app is beautiful, and the depth of data very impressive, I’ll still miss Dark Sky app and the web page. The app’s interface was nowhere near as gorgeous as Apple’s, but it was simpler and I think clearer in some instances.
It’s hard to believe that Dark Sky has been around for a decade. I first discovered it in late 2013, when a friend using it told me it was about to rain, and a few minutes later the sky opened up in a downpour. I happily forked over my $3.99 and have been a fan ever since.
One of the features that Apple has finally brought over from the original app is the one that originally sold me: weather alerts for your current location. I’m hoping over time I’ll come to love the iOS Weather app as much as I do the original Dark Sky. A few predicted downpours oughta do it.
Updated September 14, 2022
July 25, 2022 by Dwight Silverman
(Last updated 8:18 pm CDT September 14th, 2022)
Anyone who reads my columns regularly knows that I’m a die-hard iPhone user. Over the years, I’ve flirted with Android (and even Windows Phone!) from time to time. But at this point I’m neck-deep in Apple’s ecosystem lock-in, and as far as I’m concerned, the water’s fine.
That said, I do enjoy playing with and reviewing Android devices, even if they are not my platform of choice. But I always feel like I don’t really know enough about Google’s mobile operating system. I want to fix that.
I’m buying an Android phone. While I regularly get review units from both carriers and phone manufacturers, I want one that I can call my own – a device I can customize, modify and hack if I want to. And one that I can use to track the changes in Android over multiple version updates.
A contender: The Samsung A53 5G. Are you my Android phone?
I have my choices narrowed to two or three candidates, but there drawbacks to each that give me pause. So, I’d like your help.
Here’s my criteria:
Here are the smartphones on my shortlist:
As I said, the Pixel 6 Pro is the leading contender, followed by the A53. The S22 still feels a little too expensive, and the 6a is something of an unknown – how it will do over time has yet to be determined. I love the idea of pure Android on the Pixel phones, but most Android owners in the U.S. have Samsung devices, so there is something to be said for keeping an eye on their experience.
If you’re an Android user, which would you recommend? And if you have any suggestions for other devices that meet my criteria and work on all U.S. carriers, please let me know. Leave a comment here, or reply on Twitter or Facebook.
Update 7/26/2022: Choice made, phone bought. It’s the Pixel 6 Pro. Thanks to everyone who offered advice!
May 1, 2022
May 1, 2022 by Dwight Silverman
As do a lot of cable internet customers, I dread each year the moment when the promotional price for my service expires. What was once a decent price evaporates, leaving an inflated number, and it’s time to make that call or do that chat and negotiate the coming year’s bill.
This year was different. For one thing, I last grappled with a Comcast rep in 2020 over their monthly vig, having agreed to a two-year deal in 2020 to pay $70 a month for the company’s gigabit service. As far as internet-bill angst goes, 2021 was peaceful.
But this time around, when $70 a month threatened to become more than $100 a month, the process was different. I didn’t interact with a rep, either by voice or chat. Instead, I opened the Xfinity My Account iPhone app, tapped a few links and buttons, and then my bill was $60 a month. I’m no longer getting the company’s 1.2-Gbps-downloads service, but close enough to it. And in reality, I never achieved the plan’s full gigabit speeds, except when I reviewed Comcast’s newest xFi gateway, the XB8.
More on that in a minute.
Back in 2020, when it came time to negotiate my price, I was offered a deal that seemed too good to pass up. I was paying for 275-Mbps downloads, and the Comcast rep I talked to offered me the gigabit service for the same price for two years. I was contractually bound the first year, but could quit if I wanted in the second, but Comcast wouldn’t raise my rate until the two-year period was up. I bit, but in order to get those faster speeds, I needed faster equipment.
I use my own network gear with Comcast, and my cable modem and router back then weren’t up to the task. I wound up replacing both, and it cost me dearly. As I wrote at the time, it would take me 32 months to recover the benefits of not paying Comcast’s $14-a-month rent for its own modem/router combo.
What I bought was a TP-Link AX6000 router and a Netgear CM1000 cable modem. As I said, I never was able to get the full gigabit service with this hardware, despite the CM1000 being a DOCSIS 3.1 modem. But not all 3.1 hardware is equal, and the best I could do in speed tests directly from the modem to the router were just over 800 Mbps, usually more in the 700 Mbps range. That said, our need for speed is not that high. We stream TV shows and movies; I’m fond of downloading multi-gigabyte operating systems; and my wife’s remote psychotherapy business involves lots of teleconferencing. We could easily get by with much, much slower download speeds.
But one of the main reasons I wanted Comcast’s gigabit tier was for its upload speeds. The cable provider is notoriously chincy when it comes to its upstream service – which, to
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