Apropos Tech Solutions Corp. Blog

Category: electronic lifestyle

  • Electronic lifestyle, web: Cookies, part 1

    It seems that, with some new laws, we are often asked to accept cookies. But, should we, and to what extent?

    The following is according to my understanding.

    In my post from May 30 I mention some ideas about cookies, their tracking potential, etc.

    To me, cookie banners can be a little much, sometimes, because some ask the visitor to agree to questionable (in my opinion) or even outrageous cookie usage.

    Today I was on a site where this offer was made on a cookie banner:

    If you accept all cookies, you can be shown personalized ads on other sites beyond our own, since we can share your interests with our partners.

    One might wonder how many partners could be involved; I’ve seen one cookie banner that suggested over nine hundred.

    Somehow, being asked to agree to such things can be somewhat off-putting.

    I guess these cookie agreement banners stem from the GDPR, General Data Protection Regulation, out of Europe. For websites, it seems, they came into effect in 2018. As a result, sites need visitor consent to use said visitor’s data in certain ways.

    Lots of people probably just click “Accept All” on the cookie banners. I usually customize them down to the minimum necessary unless I like the site.

    Source:

    commission.europa.eu

    cookie-banner.ca

    -js

  • Electronic lifestyle: forgotten username, part 2

    Sometimes, the username is the hard part to remember.

    The following is by my understanding.

    I mention in my post from June 13, 2026, a situation where I knew the password but not the original email (username) I’d signed up from. I had to go looking, but eventually discovered it.

    One thing I didn’t mention is that I quickly found recent communication from that service on a different email account. However, I couldn’t log in using that email.

    The interesting point is that sometimes one might change their email with a service, so then communication happens with the new email. However, the log in, aka username, doesn’t necessarily change; it might still be the original email the client signed up from.

    Therefore, changing the email to a more convenient one may make it more likely that, one day, one won’t recall how to log in.

    -JS

  • Electronic lifestyle: authenticator apps

    One GenXer faces the authenticator premise.

    For maybe two years, I’ve heard about authenticator apps. I don’t generally like to change if it’s not needed, so for a long time I didn’t use one.

    At the same time, I appreciated the advantage of two factor authentication: if someone gets your username and password, they still need to get something off your phone, for instance, to log in. Nowadays, a typical person always has their phone on hand, so a hacker penetrating two factor authentication seems a lot less likely than just cracking a name and password.

    For a long time I just would provide my texting number and get the second code for 2fa that way. Yet, some places don’t seem to want that. (Perhaps I’ll look into why in another post.)

    Yesterday I finally broke down and decided to try an authenticator app. The research behind it took about an hour, but downloading it, then putting it to use, took only around five minutes. So far, I’m impressed.

    I’m not going to say which authenticator app I adopted, because people have their own reasons for choosing one versus the other. However, I began with a very helpful video from Cyber Lab on YouTube: Best Authenticator Apps in 2025 (Top 5 Tested and Reviewed).

    Cyber Lab’s video, about twelve minutes long, goes deeper than I had been thinking regarding authenticator apps. It gave me some very useful perspective.

    In broad strokes, here’s my experience.

    • The app I went with, I downloaded from Google Play onto my mobile phone.
    • Later, I was logged into a site on a PC where it offered 2fa.
    • How a site offers to turn on 2fa, with an authenticator, seems to be that it shows a QR code one can scan. (A printed code may be shown as well, which one can enter manually.)
    • I opened my mobile phone, opened the authenticator app, then tapped that I wanted to add a new input.
    • Next, I scanned the QR code.
    • An authentication number then appeared on the screen for me to enter, which I entered at the site for 2fa.
    • Then, 2fa was set up through the authenticator app.

    After 2fa is established between the site and the authenticator, it’s simpler. When one goes to log in at the site with 2fa, one enters their username and password as usual. Next, the site sends the user to the authenticator app to retrieve a log-in code.

    That’s my experience, anyway. Like I say, I’m happy with it.

    -JS