TechDroider

Google Pixel 3a is the top selling smartphone on Amazon.com

Google Pixel 3a has emerged as the top selling smartphones on Amazon.com in the "Best Sellers Unlocked Cell Phones" Category. 

The device costs just $399 and provides flagship level Camera which is there in Google Pixel 3 XL. You also get the latest Android Software from Google. There's Snapdragon 670 SoC, 18W fast charging, 3.5mm headphone jack, and other decent mid range features.

$399 is really an amazing deal. Wish the pricing would have been same for other markets also. Thoughts?

3 Security Risks On Your Phone You May Not Know About

Smartphones make life convenient. Today, phones let you shop, control home lighting, and bank from the palm of your hand.

But that convenience comes with security risks. Phones contain so much personal data that cybercriminals often exploit mobile devices to gain access to bank accounts and home networks.

Want to keep your phone safe? Here's three security risks to smartphone users you may not be aware of.

1. Open or Unsecured Wifi


Most of us access the internet on the go on our smartphones to avoid going over our data limits. But we don't think about is that the connection we're accessing may not be safe. 

A security experiment by V3 proved this when three British politicians had their PayPal, social media and VoIP connections hacked.

How can you avoid getting hacked?

1. Stay off of free wifi as much as possible.

2. Don't access personal info like bank accounts when using free wifi services.

3. Use a VPN when connecting to open wifi networks to keep hackers from accessing data

2. Social Engineering

Webroot defines social engineering as "the art of manipulating people so they give up confidential information."

 An IBM study discovered mobile users are three times more likely to become victims of phishing attacks (a form of social engineering).

One way cybercriminals often fool people is through email. Because personal and business email is often viewed in the same inbox, it is easier for victims to mistake an email sent to their business email address with a personal one.

Social engineering emails often appear to come from a legitimate company you do business with. These emails contain links that redirect you to a site that looks similar to a company's official website.

Common signs of phishing emails include:

4. Misspelled words and poor grammar

5. Asking you to verify your password or financial information

6. The email is addressed to a different email address than yours If you are the victim of a phishing attack, you can report it to the IC3, a division of the FBI that deals with cyberfraud.

3. Data Leakage on Mobile Dating Apps

Mobile apps often collect tons of unnecessary data about you and sells it to advertisers and dating apps are perticulaly agressive on the data they collect and how it is used. According to a recent investigation by ProPrivacy.com, collect and store all the data you provide as well as any content, like messages, made in the app. Many dating apps also keep tabs on your location and retain all your messages and personal information long after you close your account. For example, the dating app Grinder clearly states in their privacy policy that "when you send an instant message (which may include photos or location) to other users... we will retain the messages."

Even worse, when a user signs up for the popular app Tinder, they may unknowingly give the company the right to store, use, or edit personal information and even publish that information on other sites or in online search results. If you want to date online, keep the personal information you provide through dating sites to a minimum and don't use apps with perticularly liberal privacy policies.

4. Fake Apps

Mobile apps provide an easy way for cybercriminals to install banking trojans or access your home network. According to McAfee, banking trojans increased by 77% in 2018. To stay protected, don't install any device outside of your phone manufacturer's app store.

Wrapping It Up
Only you can protect yourself from getting hacked. Follow the tips above to keep your personal information out of the hands of hackers.

Asus Zenfone 5z Gets New OTA Update

The Asus Zenfone 5z is now getting the Latest Software update with Improvements and Fixes. The update also features not so latest May, 2019 Security Patches.

Asus has also fixed and improved the Sound Quality of the Zenfone 5z.

Things to expect in the update –
  • Upgrade google security patches for May, 2019
  • Improve sound quality
  • Update and optimize System
Have you received your OTA? The update is rolling out in batches so it may take some time for your 5z to get it. 

A Deeper Insight on Data Archiving


Data archiving is becoming more and more popular with businesses and companies. Basically, it is a process of transferring not-so-frequently-used data to a separate storage location for future uses. This way, data archiving ensures that your data remains intact and safe even when you do not use it frequently.

Undoubtedly, businesses deal with enormous amounts of data daily. However, not all the information is useful. To avoid any loss of evidences, facts and figures; companies prefer to archive their data such that it can be used at a later stage if needed.

Things to Remember For Data Archiving


  • Compliance
The foremost thing that one needs to remember when it comes to choosing archive software is that the data must stay compliant with data retention policies even when it is archived. More often than not, each company has its own set of policies when it comes to data archiving. These need to be taken care of right from the beginning.
  • Storage Medium
Where the data is stored is one of the most important components involved in data archiving. Businesses often choose to store their data in disk, tape or cloud. However, more and more organizations are shifting to cloud storage as this forms a more dynamic and flexible solution.
  • Copies
It is always recommended to store data at more than a single location or platform. This will make sure that the data you want to archive is always available and is never compromised on. As most of the data is stored in the cloud, it is a good practice.
  • Data Knowledge
Having in-depth knowledge of the data in question is of utmost importance. As the owner, you must be aware of the type and properties of the data. This is essential because such knowledge will help you in judging which data is to be archived. This will help you in ensuring that only the relevant data is available
  • Data Retention Provider
Once you have confirmed that certain data is to be archived, the next step is to choose the right cloud provider. It is highly recommended to check the standards of the cloud backup provider. An organization which has experience in this field should be preferred as it can prove to be precious if there is ever a scenario of data loss. Experience always comes in handy!
  • Integrity
Just archiving the data is not sufficient. It is also important to keep a constant check on the integrity of the data. The reason for this is pretty simple. As the data is stored and not used regularly, there is always a chance that such data might lose its integrity if kept unchecked. Therefore, you must keep a tab on the archived data from time to time in order to make sure that data integrity is intact.

Finally, data archiving is not the same as data backup. While data backup is generally used for data protection in case of data loss, data archiving allows appropriate retention of data.
  • The Wrap Up
While it is important for the companies to archive the data from time to time, it is equally important to ensure that the data that is archived is properly stored and maintained.

Audiobook vs. Kindle vs. Book! Which one should I read?

Digital books or Traditional books which preferable to this generation?

Print or digital, Readers will always find a way to satiate the thirst of their digestion. Paper books came across a long way as a reader’s popular choice.

The reader, with the evolution of a hobby like reading a book, also came to know the era of the digital book like Audiobook and Kindle book.

Paper books are more about nostalgia regarding smelling and touching the pages while audiobook is rather entertaining and Kindle book is much more convenient to satisfy a number of book collections in a device.

In terms of portability, time and price preferences among physical books, audiobooks and Kindle books may vary for today’s bookworms. Here are the few pros and cons for the individual form of the books:

Pros of reading Physical Books:

• Reading in a paper-ink gives personal feeling to hold and touch the book.

•It initiates the reader’s senses via symbols and pictures on the pages. Resting upon this, one’s imagination will draw pictures anticipating the curiosity.

•Deeper meaning will unfold as the pages will come to an end through the depicted scene or the voice.

•Book reading increases better vocabulary to the readers.

•Readers can always go for a library or bookstore for their favorite physical copy.

Cons of reading Physical Books:

•Physical books can be comparatively costly than digital books like audiobook and Kindle book. As one needs to pay for each physical book every time they are to purchase one from the book store.

•Paper book is not as much lightweight in comparison to digital books.

•It’s not easy to travel with a large collection of physical books at a time. In such a case, one needs to make a minimum choice of paper book for carrying the book for traveling.

•Preferable paper books may not be available all the time in the store.

•Many modern publishers and writers now prefer audiobook and Kindle book for reaching more audiences via digital platforms.

Reading books in any form of reaching out to a reader towards the same goal. Then how it makes a difference in the form of the audiobook, let’s find out.

Pros of Audiobook reading:

•Learn audible work is offering entertainment as close as TV. The audiobook is basically listening to an audio tape.

•What if a reader prefers not to read the book using eyes? One may not be in the situation of holding a book and read it out; like gardening, cooking, driving, after a surgery. An audio book is there to read it out to the readers.

• Audiobooks are also helping to reduce stress and gain memory improvement. As the elders say, appropriate listening helps to memorize the content faster.

• The audiobook is the exact version of word to word of a physical book, so there are no chances to miss out anything from the real book so far.

• Audiobooks are now available in a digital music store like public music domain and personalized applications. Downloading an audiobook is much of downloading other audio files in the device.

Cons of Audiobook reading:

• Audiobooks are high in cost than a printed book.

• While readers purchasing an audiobook, he/she is also paying for the narrator, sound engineer and editor.

• Audiobook version is much more expensive than the E-book edition.

• Audiobook takes the same amount of attention as the paper book reading to follow the exact detail of the story via the narrator’s dialect. Get started with Audible, learn how does audible work and it has a wide range database of titles. Also get started with 50 best audiobooks for 2019

Kindle book is another reader’s popular choice in this era. Online retailer Amazon introduced this electronic device in 2007. Over time the Kindle is upgraded with many readers’ friendly features which make it another unique choice of reading for the users.

Pros of using Kindle book reading:

• Kindle book is much easier to carry as it is wireless. The reader may access the book collections without connecting it with the computer.

• Amazon offers the largest collection of digital books in Amazon online store for Kindle book readers. Kindle book initiates the demand of E-Book in the market for such collections.

• The reader can subscribe to an electronic newspaper version or buy a book on Amazon and download it into the Kindle device later.

• Kindle devices are also offering PDF, DOC, and TXT files in the personal Kindle mail address.

• Kindle book reading has some amazing features which will give you an upgraded experience over a physical book reading. Highlighting and bookmarking system are now available in improved versions.

• While reading a book with high or poor lighting condition, the Kindle device will adjust the lighting condition for the eye care of the reader.

Cons of using Kindle book reading:

• Kindle device is sometimes very flimsy. It becomes inactive without prior notice.

• Built-in Wi-Fi system may fail to catch the signal around by the device sometime.

• Kindle has limited space for the number of books. There is no SD card slot for storing more books or try a book of reader’s choice if needed.

• Book researching option is not an easy one on a Kindle device.

• A selected passage is hard to find through the search function where one can memorize the exact page or section in case of printed books.

• Huge collections of books are also creating confusion to lose track of preferable choice books in Kindle device.

• Printed books, audio books or Kindle books reader will always find a way to reach out its digestion.

I do believe in the magic of dead leaves printing but referring to the aforementioned pros and cons of the paper book, audiobook, and Kindle book, I can conclude that the Kindle book is a much better device in terms of convenience and also as far as engaging the reader is concerned. With the audience for this particular kind of book reading

available for the new generation, it can be declared as a clear winner in comparison to the other two means.