Porn Ban Warning For Millions Of iPhone And Android Users
Porn bans are more dangerous than you think.
There's a new warning for smartphone users. Free apps with hundreds of millions of installs are now putting users, devices and data at risk. And this problem is about to get worse, with millions more certain to install those apps within weeks as a new porn ban goes into effect, putting more iPhone and Android users in danger.
We're talking VPNs and a new report that says many of the top free apps on both Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store are secretly sending data to China. Free VPNs are dangerous, but two events have turned many of these apps into viral blockbusters.
The first was the short-lived TikTok ban in the U.S., which saw a VPN surge even if using VPNs did not actually solve the problem — those apps are still on phones today. The second is ongoing and more widespread and is set for a new surge.
We're talking porn bans and the age or identity verification checks required to access the world's most popular websites. Multiple U.S. states have now jumped on this bandwagon, resulting in many U.S. users installing VPNs for the first time.
As the Tech Transparency Project warns, 'millions of Americans have downloaded apps that secretly route their internet traffic through Chinese companies.' And if the political push to introduce a national U.S. porn ban is successful, this will get much worse.
VPNs — virtual private networks — route all online traffic to and from a device via a third-party server. The risk is that the wrong type of VPN is more dangerous than no VPN at all. And while users in plenty of places around the world cannot access the free internet without these location and identity masking tools — that's not the case anywhere in the U.S. At least not before these porn bans started to come into effect.
But unlike the TikTok ban, VPNs easily bypass porn restrictions, tricking the websites into thinking you're in a different location not subject to any bans or requiring any form of verification. But while it's easy to skirt the rules, you could be putting your device and your data at risk, sending all your traffic to a shady foreign server.
Now the U.K. is set to do the same. A month from now — on July 25 — it will mandate the same government approved age verification before users can access porn sites.
Per BBC News, 'Pornhub and a number of other major adult websites have confirmed they will introduce enhanced age checks for users from next month. Parent company Aylo says it is bringing in 'government approved age assurance methods' but has not yet revealed how it will require users to prove they are over 18.'
The U.K.'s controversial Online Safety Bill will 'bring pornography into line with how we treat adult services in the real world,' say the regulator charged with enforcing the new laws, warning that 'recent research indicated 8% of children aged 8-14 in the UK had visited an online porn site or app over a 28-day period.'
Porn is more popular than ever on mobile devices, which are more at risk from free VPNs than other devices. It's all too easy to install a free app from even the official stores without asking how the app is being funded or who operates the service.
As BeyondTrust's James Maude told me, 'if you aren't paying for a product, you are the product. These VPN services are a perfect example of the hidden costs of free apps.'
The advice on VPNs is simple:
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Digital Trends
35 minutes ago
- Digital Trends
Windows has a major AI problem, and it's pushing me closer to Apple
Just over a year ago, Apple Intelligence was announced. It continues to be somewhat of a 'meh' affair compared to other rival products like Microsoft's Copilot and Google's Gemini. What was not 'meh' was the support for Apple's generative AI bundle, which extended all the way back to the M1 silicon introduced in 2020. Even the fresh batch of AI features — such as live translations and intelligent Shortcuts — are fully supported on the machines that will soon be five generations old. I can't say the same about Windows and its AI-powered rebirth with the Copilot package. Before confusion ensues, let me clear things up. Recommended Videos Copilot is a suite of AI features, just like Gemini or Apple Intelligence. Then we have Copilot+ machines, which is a branding for PCs that meet certain hardware-level requirements to enable AI-powered features on Windows laptops and PCs. Here's the weird part. A healthy bunch of Intel silicon launched in 2025 — even those in the powerful 'H' class — don't meet those AI processing requirements. All of it has created a weird kind of divide in the Windows ecosystem where certain advanced AI features are locked to a handful of cheaper machines, even if you paid a much higher price to get a laptop with a far more powerful processor. Oddly, it's not just the hardware, but the software experience that now feels different. Copilot+ is not merely AI hype Before we get into the hardware limitations, let's break down the features. Copilot+ machines require a powerful hardware chip for AI acceleration to enable certain features, down to the OS level. For example, in the Settings app, Microsoft is pushing its own Mu small language model (SML) that runs entirely on the NPU. The NPU on a chip, however, must meet a certain performance baseline, something not even Intel and AMD silicon launched in 2025 fulfill universally. Let's start with the AI-powered Settings app interactions. It can now understand natural language queries and make suggestions so that users can directly take action with a click. If you type something like 'My screen doesn't feel smooth,' the Settings app will show a dialog box underneath the search bar, where you get an actionable button to increase the refresh rate and make the interactions smoother. Apple is chasing something similar and has implemented it within the Spotlight system in macOS Tahoe. Next, we have Recall. It's like a time machine system that takes snapshots of your PC activity in the background and analyzes them contextually. In the future, if you seek to revisit or find something, you can simply type a natural language query and find a record of the activity, complete with a link to the webpage or app you were working with. It almost feels magical, and you can read more about my experience here. The crucial benefit is that a healthy bunch of Copilot+ AI features will run on-device, which means they won't require an internet connection. That's convenient, but in hindsight, it's a huge sigh of relief that all user activity remains locked to your device and nothing is sent to servers. Copilot+ hardware also enables a bunch of creative features such as Cocreator and Generative Fill in Paint, Super Resolution, Image Creator, and Restyle in the native Photos app. But there are a few that are meaningful for day-to-day PC usage. With Click to Do in the Snipping Tool, the AI analyzes the text and image on the screen, somewhat like Google Lens and Apple Intelligence. You can select text, look it up on the web with a single click, send email, open a website, summarize, rewrite, and take a wide range of image actions such as copy, share, visual search in Bing, erase objects, remove background, and do more — without ever opening another app. On the more practical side of things, we have translated Live Captions that cover over 40 languages. The translation and captioning happen in real-time and work during video calls and video watching, too. Finally, we have Windows Studio Effects, which can perform chores such as automatic frame adjustment, portrait lighting tweaks, switch background effects, minimize noise, and even make gaze adjustment. The Copilot+ hardware wall Even if you splurge $4,899 on a Razer Blade 18 with an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor and Nvidia's top-of-the-line GeForce RTX 5090 graphics, your beastly gaming laptop still won't be able to run the Copilot+ features in Windows 11. That's because the NPU on this processor can only manage 13 TOPS, but a pint-sized $800 Microsoft tablet with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor can handle all the exclusive Copilot+ features just fine. It's disheartening, because the Copilot+ experiences in Windows 11 are meaningful OS advancements. Most of them, at least. I have used a few of them extensively, and they feel like a practical evolution. Yet, depriving machines that merely miss out on a powerful NPU, despite packing plenty of compute and graphics processing power, is simply unfortunate. Microsoft has laid out tight hardware requirements for machines that can bear the Copilot+ badge — 256GB of storage, 16GB DDR5 RAM, and a processor with a dedicated AI accelerator chip that can output a minimum of 40 TOPS performance. That's a bottleneck from both ends. First, there are still a healthy bunch of machines that ship with 8GB of RAM, and that too, the DDR4 type memory. Take, for example, the Asus Vivobook 17, which costs $700 and ships with 8GB of DDR4 memory on the entry-point configuration, even with the variant that packs a 13th-generation Intel processor. Let's say you pay up to reach 16GB of RAM. Despite that added stress on your wallet, you are still limited by the RAM type and won't be able to run Copilot+ tools on the machine. It's worth mentioning that there are a LOT of Windows machines that still pack 8GB of RAM, and even when they go up to 16GB capacity, they still rely on the DDR4-type memory. Now, it's time to address the elephant in the room. The silicon situation. The latest from Intel is the Ultra 200 series processor family, which is bifurcated across Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake lines. These Ultra 200 series processors are available in four formats: V-series, U-series, H-series, HX-series, and H-series. Out of the four brackets, only the V-series processors support Copilot+ experiences on Windows 11. Even the enthusiast-class H and HX series processors don't meet the NPU requirements, and as such, they are devoid of the Copilot+ AI features. As perplexing as the situation remains with Intel Core 200 series silicon, the situation with AMD and its Copilot+ readiness isn't too different. At the moment, only AMD's Ryzen AI 300 series processors fall under the Copilot+ bracket. That means if you invested in a top-shelf AMD silicon in the past few years, or even aim to build an AMD gaming rig this year, you either lose out on Copilot+ perks or must pick from the Ryzen AI 300 series line-up. Even older Macs do better The situation with Copilot+ is weird because it has created fault lines in the Windows 11 experience that don't make sense, neither from a price perspective, nor from a firepower angle. It even makes one feel bad about spending a fortune on a top-tier Intel processor, only to find it locked beyond next-gen AI features in Windows 11 because the NPU isn't up to the task. The only other option is to pick a Qualcomm Snapdragon X-series processor. But in doing so, you run into the compatibility hurdles that come with Windows on Arm. Plus, the GPU limitations rule out gaming or other demanding tasks where you need a powerful GPU. Right now, it seems like Copilot+ is a bag of serious caveats. And as Microsoft's team comes with more AI-first experiences, the gulf within Windows 11 is only going to widen. An $800 Copilot+ machine will run native AI experiences that even a powerful desktop won't be able to handle in the near future. The situation within the Apple ecosystem is just the opposite. Even if you have a nearly five-year-old M1 MacBook Air, you can run all the Apple Intelligence features just fine. Now, one can argue that AI is not the deciding factor for picking up a laptop. But as companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google deeply integrate AI packages such as Copilot, Siri, and Gemini across their OS at the native level, these AI features will essentially serve as a key computing evolution. Google has already given us a glimpse of how tightly interweaving Gemini across its Workspace tools can flesh out, and somewhat similar is the progress of Apple Intelligence within maCOS. But when it comes to the OS-level AI progress, it's Microsoft that finds itself in an odd place where a huge chunk of Windows 11 users are going to feel left out, while macOS users will move forward just fine even on aging hardware.
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Are You a Growth Investor? This 1 Stock Could Be the Perfect Pick
For new and old investors, taking full advantage of the stock market and investing with confidence are common goals. Achieving those goals is made easier with the Zacks Style Scores, a unique set of guidelines that rates stocks based on popular investing methodologies, namely value, growth, and momentum. The Style Scores can help you narrow down which stocks are better for your portfolio and which ones can beat the market over the long-term. Growth investors build their portfolios around companies that are financially strong and have a bright future, and the Growth Style Score helps take projected and historical earnings, sales, and cash flow into account to uncover stocks that will see long-term, sustainable growth. Headquartered in Pleasanton, CA, Veeva Systems Inc. offers cloud-based software applications and data solutions for the life sciences industry. The company's product portfolio includes Veeva CRM (customer relationship management), Veeva Vault (content and information management), Veeva Network (customer master and product data management) and Veeva data services (Veeva OpenData and Veeva KOL data). VEEV is a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stock, with a Growth Style Score of A and VGM Score of B. Earnings are expected to grow 15% year-over-year for the current fiscal year, with sales growth of 12.7%. 11 analysts revised their earnings estimate upwards in the last 60 days for fiscal 2026. The Zacks Consensus Estimate has increased $0.29 to $7.59 per share. VEEV boasts an average earnings surprise of 10%. Veeva Systems is also cash rich. The company has generated cash flow growth of 21.4%, and is expected to report cash flow expansion of 37.9% in 2026. Investors should take the time to consider VEEV for their portfolios due to its solid Zacks Rank rating, notable growth metrics, and impressive Growth and VGM Style Scores. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Veeva Systems Inc. (VEEV) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Uber Technologies (UBER) Backed Electric Bike Startup Prepares for IPO
Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER) is one of the . On June 24, Reuters reported an Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER) backed electric bike and scooter network startup called Lime has hired investment banks to prepare for an IPO in the United States. Lime is a San Francisco-based startup, according to the sources of Reuters, it has hired Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase to help with its IPO. The company is anticipated to launch next year and could value the firm higher than its Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER) led funding round in 2020. The source added that reports at that time valued the company at about $510 million. The company was founded in 2017 and is now led by Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER)'s former executive Wayne Ting. It provides short-term rentals of electric bikes and scooters in more than 280 cities in nearly 30 countries. Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER) is a technology company that operates a ride-hailing platform working in three main areas including Mobility, Delivery, and Freight. While we acknowledge the potential of UBER as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: The Best and Worst Dow Stocks for the Next 12 Months and 10 Unstoppable Stocks That Could Double Your Money. Disclosure: None. Sign in to access your portfolio
