France Plans To Move Away From Reliance On Windows

France is stepping up efforts to reduce its dependence on U.S. technology, signaling a broader shift in how governments view digital control.

The country now plans to move some of its government systems away from Microsoft Windows and toward Linux, an open-source operating system.

Officials see the move as part of a larger push to secure national infrastructure and limit exposure to foreign tech providers.

The change will begin within France’s digital agency, DINUM. Authorities have not shared a full timeline.

They also have not confirmed which Linux distribution they will use. Microsoft has not commented on the decision.

French officials frame the move as a strategic necessity.

Minister David Amiel said the goal is to "regain control of our digital destiny." He added that France cannot accept losing control over its data systems.

The decision reflects wider concerns across Europe. Leaders worry about dependence on foreign technology providers.

Many now see digital infrastructure as a national security issue.

France’s approach aligns with broader European Union thinking.

In January, the European Parliament adopted a report. It directs the European Commission to identify areas to reduce reliance on foreign providers.

Recent geopolitical tensions have accelerated this push. U.S. sanctions have shown how access to services can be restricted.

Some sanctioned individuals lost access to banking and U.S. tech platforms.

That risk has sharpened calls for sovereign systems. Governments want tools they fully control. Open-source software offers that flexibility and transparency.

Linux plays a central role in this strategy. It is free, open source, and customizable. Governments can modify it for specific operational needs.

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Demand For Surveillance Cameras Are Increasing In The U.S.

If you have taken a walk through a large parking lot, such as that of a car dealership or a shopping mall, you may have passed by a towering metallic mast with a small wheeled cart beneath it. These devices are known as "cameras on wheels," or "COWs," and if you're feeling intimidated by them, that's not an accident.

Rather than the secret cameras placed above roads, COWs are there to be seen. These rapidly expanding surveillance devices are becoming a common fixture throughout the United States, and they're equipped with the latest in both video and audio monitoring and deterrent technologies.

COWs are manufactured by a variety of different security and surveillance technology companies, including the controversial Flock Safety and the Texas-based ECAM, and then rented out to both local and state police agencies or private security companies. These cameras have become a crime deterrence tool of choice for police departments in numerous U.S. States because of their ability to see and hear everything in their vicinity.

And now with artificial intelligence features, they're a simple set-and-forget solution that allows officers to easily and comprehensively monitor a particular area with a combination of multi-function cameras and two-way audio capability. The COWs' tall masts and mildly unsettling flashing lights have led to them receiving the unofficial nickname of "scarecrows," and security contractors are ramping up production to meet the demand from police.

COWs utilize a combination of solar power and internal batteries, making them largely self-sufficient once installed, usually in either a high-crime area or areas where police may have blind spots, such as large parking lots. A COW can monitor a full 360 degrees in high definition, constantly recording footage in their immediate vicinity. Moreover, they're loaded with the latest in security tech, including pan, tilt, and zoom functions, thermal and night vision modes, and even AI-powered recognition for things like faces and license plates, which might encourage you to wear reflective glasses.

Additionally, they're equipped with two-way audio, recording sound around them and allowing an officer to broadcast verbal warnings to those nearby, as well as sound loud alarms. COWs can even detect the sound of nearby gunshots to aid in triangulating the position of a discharged firearm. Police and security officers can connect to a COW unit from anywhere using either cellular networks or local Wi-Fi connections. This ease of use has made the devices incredibly popular, not to mention numerous, with ECAM alone maintaining an array of over 150,000 active cameras.

"Our first line of defense is deterrence. We stop crimes before they start," ECAM Vice President Niles Coates said in an interview with Los Angeles local news station KTLA5. "This presence alone reduces risk, and when activity escalates, our team can dispatch directly to local guard partners as well as law enforcement."

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Public Wi-Fi Is A Threat To Data Security

Millions of users are still connecting their phones to networks that can expose passwords and financial data in seconds. Google and U.S. security agencies have already warned about the risk. But new data now shows the threat is getting worse.

"Avoid using public Wi-Fi whenever possible," Google warns, "as these networks can be unencrypted and easily exploited by attackers." Despite this, a new mobile security report shows millions are still connecting anyway. And when the device is a work phone, that risk doesn’t stop with you.

In its 2026 mobile threat report covering Android and iOS, Jamf reports that 18 percent of employees still "connect to risky hotspots (which) open the door to infrastructure threats like rogue access points or Adversary-in-the-Middle attacks." That’s especially true "if devices are not configured to address this risk."

Almost all phones are not.

In cybersecurity, this advice to avoid public Wi-Fi is almost as contentious as the advice to avoid public charging points. The reality though, is that cyber experts pouring scorn on warnings from these tech firms will have set their phones up properly, will always apply updates, and are less likely to fall victim to attacks.

For normal users, the risks are much higher. Jamf also warns that in more than half of organizations, "at least one device has a critically out-of-date operating system. An out-of-date OS means unpatched, exploitable vulnerabilities. Automating and enforcing updates goes a long way to protect your devices."

America’s NSA says "accessing public Wi-Fi hotspots may be convenient to catch up on work or check email, but public Wi-Fi is often not configured securely. Using these networks may make users’ data and devices more vulnerable to compromise, as cyber actors employ malicious access points, redirect to malicious websites, inject malicious proxies, and eavesdrop on network traffic."

Even TSA has warned travelers to avoid these networks. "Don’t use free public Wi-Fi," especially "if you’re planning to make any online purchases." TSA also warns you should "never enter any sensitive info while using unsecured Wi-Fi."

"Networks and web risks threaten even the most secure devices," Jamf warns. "Without proper configuration, your data is exposed. Phishing and other web risks continue to run rampant. Attackers mimic popular sites across multiple categories of online content: entertainment, business, utility and finance. And users fall for them every day, especially as generative AI helps attackers advance techniques."

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Why Are Page Views and Impressions Important To Online Creators?

For bloggers, vloggers, and online creators, page views and impressions are very important. They are both widely used used terms in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and they are mostly being used while analyzing the web analytics.

Well, there are people who are confused in both these terms, so here is the basic difference for them. Page Views is a condition which denotes the number of times a particular page is being viewed whereas impressions denote the number of times an element on a web page is viewed.

When a web user visits on the page of the website, it counts as one pageview and each visitor who is visiting the website will have at least one pageview. If the same visitor clicks on another page and that comes into search then it will also be counted as a pageview.

When the monthly report of the particular website is being analyzed after the month end, then an average number of pageviews per visitor is divided by the total number of views by the number of unique visitors. This analysis gives the exact count of the page views.

According to the pageview count, be it low or high, the SEO department decides to make an amendment and further strategy to run the website. If the page view count is lower than the expectation, then certainly there is something confusing for the visitor, it may be design, content or site navigation that doesn’t make it user-friendly.

Impression is different than pageview. Impressions refer to the number of times a visitor look into a specific element of a page, be it an image, text, video or content. Impressions are usually calculated to know that how much an advertiser needs to pay to advertise his ad on the website and as it is based on the advertisements. Each time a person loads a page then their ad appears and it is counted as one impression for the individual. Impressions are calculated in sets of 1,000.

Both pageviews and impressions are very important and they are easy to calculate a website’s success. When the count of pageview gets low then it certainly indicates the problem such as poor website design, call to action, poor quality content or bad search engine optimization. Such kind of an analysis helps the professionals to measure the effectiveness of a marketing campaign and find the area of improvement.

On the other hand, the impressions calculation helps the company to decide how many advertisements can give them benefit, so to how many numbers of people are left to pitch for the same and convince the existing clients to stay back for the better results.

The procedure of tracking pageview and impressions is very simple. It is being done through web analytics program like Google Analytics. One needs to sing up an account and insert the piece of code that is generated by the tool and also fill all the details of the business into the website analytic account and regularly keeps checking the track of the website. The code inserted into the website will keep on checking all kinds of behavior and make people analyze what to do next and how. In this way, people can enhance their business by working on diverse behavior calculated by the web analytics.

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Something Has To Change For 500 Million Windows Users

More than 500 million Windows 10 PC owners cannot upgrade to Windows 11 and now risk a security nightmare. Google says it has the answer, confirming a free PC upgrade for all those users. And it’s available now.

"You can transform your aging, unsupported laptop into a fast, secure, and sustainable machine for free," Google says. The offer is to "upgrade" your PC to ChromeOS Flex. "Refresh the devices that you already own at no cost with a modern, cloud-based operating system that’s secure and easy to manage.

While this offer has been available for a while, it’s now easier than ever to take it up. "Starting today, a new ChromeOS Flex USB Kit is available," Google has just announced. Its new partnership with Back Market "helps you install our fast, secure and free operating system to modernize the PC or Mac you already own."

Google says Microsoft’s decision to end-of-life Windows 10 last October "left many people with a difficult decision: spend hundreds on a new device, or continue using an insecure, outdated one." Windows 11’s infamously slow take-up meant more Windows users on a retired OS than ever before.

Microsoft continues to offer a free extended support update (ESU) program for any Windows 10 user, albeit that only runs to October this year. After that you’re out of support, unless you work for an organization with an enterprise plan in place.

While the ChromeOS Flex "upgrade" is free, the USB kit is not. "This physical kit, priced around US$ 3 or €3," Google says, "is reusable, and our partnership with Closing the Loop further minimizes e-waste."

Avoiding e-waste is the other theme here, as well as securing hundreds of millions of devices. The threat of hundreds of millions of PCs becoming unusable has created headlines as various waste organizations calculate the landfill impact.

"The manufacturing process of a new laptop is responsible for a large part of its carbon footprint," Google says. "ChromeOS Flex allows the already-manufactured device to be used for longer, which keeps hardware out of landfills and avoids the emissions of making a new device. Savings do not stop there, ChromeOS also consumes 19% less energy on average than other comparable systems."

Whether it’s time to move from Windows to Chrome is a contentious decision to say the least. The situation for Windows 10 users with PCs that cannot run Windows 11 is perilous. This is at least a solution. Even if you buy a new machine, you can still upgrade your old one, perhaps for a younger family member.

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