The benefit is SO gets more traffic and users. Facebook benefits by off loading the management of their messy forums and rely on free crowd sourced moderation.
So Dropbox security is based on a code obfuscator? And was it an intern that let us log into any dropbox account with any password? Kidding, but seriously, they need to get more interns because one of the most requested feature for years on their site is remote wipe (https://www.dropbox.com/votebox/35/remote-destroy-purge-opti...) and they never implement it. Granted its not an entirely reliable method but its better than not offering it.
That's not what they are saying at all. The obfuscator is to protect their source code, it has nothing to do with your account and files being secured or not.
Remote wipe is a horrible way to implement security on a Dropbox account. Better is client side encryption - although Dropbox has no intention of implementing that either.
This isn't for their javascript, it's for their client which is Python code. Their previous obfuscator has been broken (by at least one nice hacker who told them).
Not sure I see the point of the Email Protection app. If you care for a product like this, you would enable 2 step verification and then there is significantly less chance of this being needed.
For a start, it's not aimed at techies who know what they're doing. More at people who have half a reason to be concerned, but don't have the technical wherewithal to do anything about it. 2 step will work... unless you've enabled the remember option, in which case you have no idea if someone you share a living space with is checking your email on your laptop when you're away from home.
It will be interesting to see if Facebook clones every single Google+ feature before Google+ is out of invite-only status. I'm guessing next will be a basic rich text status editor, to go along with the already announced video conferencing.
I don't think it will matter if they do. The integration of Google+ with Google's other products is what will drive the adoption. It's basically impossible to avoid. I can imagine even tighter integration with Google's offerings down the road. Like accepting an invite to an event could automatically add it to your Google Calendar. Or allowing you to sync your contacts with your circles.
That said, I also don't think Facebook is going anywhere any time soon. But it'll certainly be interesting to see Facebook's first moves in response to G+.
This will sooner or later be an antitrust issue. When Google is getting so successfull in their game that a new feature is impossible to fail and is even expected to dominate the market then it is getting dangerous. Microsoft is still getting flak by the European Union for bundling stuff and is forced to sell some Windows versions without their media player or have to show a "web browser choice screen".
No one is forced to use any of Google's products - Bing and Facebook are only a click away.
A monopoly born from having a superior product is not the same as a monopoly gained through the practises of price fixing or forcing people to install your web-browser with no way to disable it.
And Google products generally allow you access to your data quite easily using standard formats where appropriate (for instance, you can export your gmail contacts).
I say "generally" because there are weaknesses. For instance, I don't think you can export your search history or the archive for a google group. You can export your "contacts" but not all of your social connections (at least I haven't found a way). I also haven't found a way to export saved maps or other geo data.
If they expand this policy to all (or essentially all) of your data, they are pretty much immune to anti-trust. And more importantly, it's just better for users. Google has nothing to fear giving your data back to you, anyway -- the only companies that are afraid of that are the less competent ones.
That's a point most people don't seem to remember. I can see what Google has on me, for the most part at any rate, and opt to destroy it. Contrast that with FB and I really have no clue what data they have on me.
Impossible to avoid? Not if they give an easy option to disable it which nearly every person took advantage of with Google Buzz. And people certainly will if Google enables people to connect to their accounts to Twitter, FB, LinkedIn and it is just another site filled with duplicate content like Buzz was.
It makes sense, Facebook already have the audience, by implementing things that could possible woo people to the competition, even if they aren't quiet as a good it still deters people from making the jump across.
Entirely true. I've interacted with this guy before, and he was rude, demanding, and childish, but to me, that only told me that he was young and inexperienced in the community, not that he was mentally ill.
