Self-hosting a UniFi Network Server should only be done by experienced network administrators. For the best and most streamlined experience, we recommend running UniFi Network on a UniFi OS Console or other UniFi OS Host, such as a Cloud Key. This will eliminate compatibility risks associated with third-party software and hardware.* Other benefits of UniFi OS Hosts include:
Optimized hosting and management performance
Automatic scheduling of backups and updates
Seamless email and mobile push notifications for important system activity
*UniFi also offers the Cloud Key Enterprise (on-premise) and a native Cloud Hosting subscription for scaleable deployments managing hundreds of UniFi APs.
If you choose to continue, see below for instructions to install the UniFi Network Application on your device.
Instructions
Windows
Linux
macOS
Download the latest version of the UniFi Network application (UniFi-installer.exe) from the Download page.
The latest versions of the UniFi Network Application (7.3) require Java 11.
Previous versions (7.2) use Java 8.
Install only the x64 Java release and only one version of Java.
You will be prompted to install Java 11. Select the following options and download the x64 .msi file for Windows:
Package Type: JRE
Version: 11
Install Java, and set the Set JAVA_HOME variable to Will be installed on local hard drive.
After installing Java, continue the UniFi Network application installation and start it.
Ensure that any anti-virus/spyware programs and the Windows firewall are not blocking the application.
Open a browser, navigate to https://localhost:8443 and proceed when seeing the security warning.
1. Does the UniFi Network application have to run at all times?
If the UniFi Network application is turned off, adopted UniFi devices (access points, switches) will keep functioning.
However, it is highly recommended to keep the UniFi Network application running at at all times. This enables you gather accurate statistics and make configuration changes whenever needed.
If you are not able to keep the Self-Hosting Network Server running continuously, then we recommend to upgrade to a UniFi OS Console, which is optimized to run UniFi Network and other applications.
2. Can I manage UniFi Devices that are adopted by another UniFi Network application?
No. The UniFi Network application installed on Windows/macOS/Linux is not a viewer for other UniFi Network applications (running on UniFi OS Consoles or other hosts).
3. The UniFi Network application is running slow.
Verify if the Self-Hosted Network Server is capable of running the UniFi Network application. The more UniFi and client devices that are connected, the more resources that will be needed.
Please be aware that self-hosting the UniFi Network application is an advanced setup for those familiar with network administration. If you are experiencing poor performance, we recommend upgrading to a UniFi OS Console, which is optimized to run UniFi Network and other applications.
4. The UniFi Network application is not able to start.
Verify if the Self-Hosted Network Server is capable of running the UniFi Network application and that the correct version of Java is installed.
If you continue to experience issues, try installing the application on a different host machine.
Please be aware that self-hosting the UniFi Network application is an advanced setup for those familiar with network administration. If you are unable to get the UniFi Network application running on your host machine, we recommend upgrading to a UniFi OS Console, which is optimized to run UniFi Network and other applications.
5. The UniFi Network application starts up, but I do not see any nearby UniFi devices.
Make sure that the firewall on the host machine is allowing the ports needed by UniFi and that the UniFi Network application is not blocked by any anti-virus/spyware programs.
Also make sure that the UniFi devices and the application are on the same network. If not, then remote adoption is required.
6. I get a “Your connection is not private” warning when accessing via my browser.
This can be safely ignored. Proceed to the next page.
7. What are the UniFi Network application system requirements?
At a bare minimum, we recommend the following system requirements (make sure to read the Release Notes for more details about a particular version):
Operating system:
Linux: Ubuntu Desktop / Server 22.04; Debian 11 “Bullseye”
Windows: Windows 10; Windows Server 2016
macOS: Mavericks 10.9, 10.10 Yosemite, 10.11 El Capitan, 10.12 Sierra, 10.13 High Sierra, 10.14 Mojave, 10.15 Catalina.
Since 2014, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a U.S. federal agency, has issued guidelines for managing digital identities via Special Publication 800-63B. The latest revision (rev. 3) was released in 2017, and has been updated as recently as 2019. Revision 4 was made available for comment and review; however, revision 3 is still the standard as of the time of this blog post.
Section 5.1.1 – Memorized Secrets provides recommendations for requirements around how users may create new passwords or make password changes, including guidelines around issues such as password strength. Special Publication 800-63B also covers verifiers (software, websites, network directory services, etc.) that validate and handle passwords during authentication and other processes.
Not all organizations must adhere to NIST guidelines. However, many follow NIST password policy recommendations even if it’s not required because they provide a good foundation for sound digital identity management. Indeed, strong password security helps companies block many cybersecurity attacks, including hackers, brute force attacks like credential stuffing and dictionary attacks. In addition, mitigating identity-related security risks helps organizations ensure compliance with a wide range of regulations, such as HIPAA, FISMA and SOX.
Quick List of NIST Password Guidelines
This blog explain many NIST password guidelines in detail, but here’s a quick list:
User-generated passwords should be at least 8 characters in length.
Machine-generated passwords should be at least 6 characters in length.
Users should be able to create passwords at least 64 characters in length.
All ASCII/Unicode characters should be allowed, including emojis and spaces.
Stored passwords should be hashed and salted, and never truncated.
Prospective passwords should be compared against password breach databases and rejected if there’s a match.
Passwords should not expire.
Users should be prevented from using sequential characters (e.g., “1234”) or repeated characters (e.g., “aaaa”).
Two-factor authentication (2FA) should not use SMS for codes.
Knowledge-based authentication (KBA), such as “What was the name of your first pet?”, should not be used.
Users should be allowed 10 failed password attempts before being locked out of a system or service.
Passwords should not have hints.
Complexity requirements — like requiring special characters, numbers or uppercase letters — should not be used.
Context-specific words, such as the name of the service or the individual’s username, should not be permitted.
You probably notice that some of these recommendations represent a departure from previous assumptions and standards. For example, NIST has removed complexity requirements like special characters in passwords; this change was made in part because users find ways to circumvent stringent complexity requirements. Instead of struggling to remember complex passwords and risking getting locked out, they may write their passwords down and leave them near physical computers or servers. Or they simply recycle old passwords based on dictionary words by making minimal changes during password creation, such as incrementing a number at the end.
NIST Guidelines
Now let’s explore the NIST guidelines in more detail.
Password length & processing
Length has long been considered a crucial factor for password security. NIST now recommends a password policy that requires all user-created passwords to be at least 8 characters in length, and all machine-generated passwords to be at least 6 characters in length. Additionally, it’s recommended to allow passwords to be at least 64 characters as a maximum length.
Verifiers should no longer truncate any passwords during processing. Passwords should be hashed and salted, with the full password hash stored.
Also the recommended NIST account lockout policy is to allow users at least 10 attempts at entering their password before being locked out.
Accepted characters
All ASCII characters, including the space character, should be supported in passwords. NIST specifies that Unicode characters, such as emojis, should be accepted as well.
Users should be prevented from using sequential characters (e.g., “1234”), repeated characters (e.g., “aaaa”) and simple dictionary words.
Commonly used & breached passwords
Passwords that are known to be commonly used or compromised should not be permitted. For example, you should disallow passwords in lists from breaches (such as the Have I Been Pwned? database, which contains 570+ million passwords from breaches), previously used passwords, well-known commonly used passwords, and context-specific passwords (e.g., the name of the service).
When a user attempts to use a password that fails this check, a message should be displayed asking them for a different password and providing an explanation for why their previous entry was rejected.
Reduced complexity & password expiration
As explained earlier in the blog, previous password complexity requirements have led to less secure human behavior, instead of the intended effect of tightening security. With that in mind, NIST recommends reduced complexity requirements, which includes removing requirements for special characters, numbers, uppercase characters, etc.
A related recommendation for reducing insecure human behavior is to eliminate password expiration.
No more hints or knowledge-based authentication (KBA)
Although password hints were intended to help users to create more complex passwords, users often choose hints that practically give away their passwords. Accordingly, NIST recommends not allowing password hints.
NIST also recommends not using knowledge-based authentication (KBA), such as questions like “What was the name of your first pet?”
To account for the growing popularity of password managers, users should be able to paste passwords.
SMS is no longer considered a secure option for 2FA. Instead, one-time code provider, such as Google Authenticator or Okta Verify, should be used.
How Netwrix Can Help
Netwrix offers several solutions specifically designed to streamline and strengthen access and password management:
Netwrix Password Policy Enforcer makes it easy to create strong yet flexible password policies that enhance security and compliance without hurting user productivity or burdening helpdesk and IT teams.
Netwrix Password Reset enables users to safely unlock their own accounts and reset or change their own passwords, right from their web browser. This self-service functionality dramatically reduces user frustration and productivity losses while slashing helpdesk call volume.
FAQ
What is NIST Special Publication 800-63B?
NIST’s Digital Identity Guidelines (Special Publication 800-63B) provides reliable recommendations for identity and access management, including effective password policies.
Why does NIST recommend reducing password complexity requirements?
While requiring complex passwords makes them more difficult for attackers to crack, it also makes passwords harder for users to remember. To avoid frustrating lockouts, users tend to respond with behaviors like writing down their credentials on a sticky note by their desk or choosing to periodically reuse the same (or nearly the same) password — which increase security risks. Accordingly, NIST now recommends less stringent complexity requirements.
Here are three of the worst breaches, attacker tactics and techniques of 2022, and the security controls that can provide effective, enterprise security protection for them.
Ransomware as a service is a type of attack in which the ransomware software and infrastructure are leased out to the attackers. These ransomware services can be purchased on the dark web from other threat actors and ransomware gangs. Common purchasing plans include buying the entire tool, using the existing infrastructure while paying per infection, or letting other attackers perform the service while sharing revenue with them.
In this attack, the threat actor consists of one of the most prevalent ransomware groups, specializing in access via third parties, while the targeted company is a medium-sized retailer with dozens of sites in the United States.
The threat actors used ransomware as a service to breach the victim’s network. They were able to exploit third-party credentials to gain initial access, progress laterally, and ransom the company, all within mere minutes.
The swiftness of this attack was unusual. In most RaaS cases, attackers usually stay in the networks for weeks and months before demanding ransom. What is particularly interesting about this attack is that the company was ransomed in minutes, with no need for discovery or weeks of lateral movement.
A log investigation revealed that the attackers targeted servers that did not exist in this system. As it turns out, the victim was initially breached and ransomed 13 months before this second ransomware attack. Subsequently, the first attacker group monetized the first attack not only through the ransom they obtained, but also by selling the company’s network information to the second ransomware group.
In the 13 months between the two attacks, the victim changed its network and removed servers, but the new attackers were not aware of these architectural modifications. The scripts they developed were designed for the previous network map. This also explains how they were able to attack so quickly – they had plenty of information about the network. The main lesson here is that ransomware attacks can be repeated by different groups, especially if the victim pays well.
“RaaS attacks such as this one are a good example of how full visibility allows for early alerting. A global, converged, cloud-native SASE platform that supports all edges, like Cato Networks provides complete network visibility into network events that are invisible to other providers or may go under the radar as benign events. And, being able to fully contextualize the events allows for early detection and remediation.
#2: The Critical Infrastructure Attack on Radiation Alert Networks#
Attacks on critical infrastructure are becoming more common and more dangerous. Breaches of water supply plants, sewage systems and other such infrastructures could put millions of residents at risk of a human crisis. These infrastructures are also becoming more vulnerable, and attack surface management tools for OSINT like Shodan and Censys allow security teams to find such vulnerabilities with ease.
In 2021, two hackers were suspected of targeting radiation alert networks. Their attack relied on two insiders that worked for a third party. These insiders disabled the radiation alert systems, significantly debilitating their ability to monitor radiation attacks. The attackers were then able to delete critical software and disable radiation gauges (which is part of the infrastructure itself).
“Unfortunately, scanning for vulnerable systems in critical infrastructure is easier than ever. While many such organizations have multiple layers of security, they are still using point solutions to try and defend their infrastructure rather than one system that can look holistically at the full attack lifecycle. Breaches are never just a phishing problem, or a credentials problem, or a vulnerable system problem – they are always a combination of multiple compromises performed by the threat actor,” said Etay Maor, Sr. Director of Security Strategy at Cato Networks.
#3: The Three-Step Ransomware Attack That Started with Phishing#
The third attack is also a ransomware attack. This time, it consisted of three steps:
1. Infiltration – The attacker was able to gain access to the network through a phishing attack. The victim clicked on a link that generated a connection to an external site, which resulted in the download of the payload.
2. Network activity – In the second phase, the attacker progressed laterally in the network for two weeks. During this time, it collected admin passwords and used in-memory fileless malware. Then on New Year’s Eve, it performed the encryption. This date was chosen since it was (rightfully) assumed the security team would be off on vacation.
3. Exfiltration – Finally, the attackers uploaded the data out of the network.
In addition to these three main steps, additional sub-techniques were employed during the attack and the victim’s point security solutions were not able to block this attack.
“A multiple choke point approach, one that looks horizontally (so to speak) at the attack rather than as a set of vertical, disjointed issues, is the way to enhance detection, mitigation and prevention of such threats. Opposed to popular belief, the attacker needs to be right many times and the defenders only need to be right just once. The underlying technologies to implement a multiple choke point approach are full network visibility via a cloud-native backbone, and a single pass security stack that’s based on ZTNA.” said Etay Maor, Sr. Director of Security Strategy at Cato Networks.
It is common for security professionals to succumb to the “single point of failure fallacy”. However, cyber-attacks are sophisticated events that rarely involve just one tactic or technique which is the cause of the breach. Therefore, an all-encompassing outlook is required to successfully mitigate cyber-attacks. Security point solutions are a solution for single points of failure. These tools can identify risks, but they will not connect the dots, which could and has led to a breach.
According to ongoing security research conducted by Cato Networks Security Team, they have identified two additional vulnerabilities and exploit attempts that they recommend including in your upcoming security plans:
While Log4j made its debut as early as December of 2021, the noise its making hasn’t died down. Log4j is still being used by attackers to exploit systems, as not all organizations have been able to patch their Log4j vulnerabilities or detect Log4j attacks, in what is known as “virtual patching”. They recommend prioritizing Log4j mitigation.
Security solutions like firewalls and VPNs have become access points for attackers. Patching them has become increasingly difficult, especially in the era of architecture cloudification and remote work. It is recommended to pay close attention to these components as they are increasingly vulnerable.
How to Minimize Your Attack Surface and Gain Visibility into the Network#
To reduce the attack surface, security professionals need visibility into their networks. Visibility relies on three pillars:
Actionable information – that can be used to mitigate attacks
Reliable information – that minimizes the number of false positives
Timely information – to ensure mitigation happens before the attack has an impact
Once an organization has complete visibility to the activity on their network they can contextualize the data, decide whether the activity witnessed should be allowed, denied, monitored, restricted (or any other action) and then have the ability to enforce this decision. All these elements must be applied to every entity, be it a user, device, cloud app etc. All the time everywhere. That is what SASE is all about.
Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.
Security stakeholders have come to realize that the prominent role the browser has in the modern corporate environment requires a re-evaluation of how it is managed and protected. While not long-ago web-borne risks were still addressed by a patchwork of endpoint, network, and cloud solutions, it is now clear that the partial protection these solutions provided is no longer sufficient. Therefore, more and more security teams are now turning to the emerging category of purpose-built Browser Security Platform as the answer to the browser’s security challenges.
However, as this security solution category is still relatively new, there is not yet an established set of browser security best practices, nor common evaluation criteria. LayerX, the User-First Browser Security Platform, is addressing security teams’ need with the downable Browser Security Checklist, that guides its readers through the essentials of choosing the best solution and provides them with an actionable checklist to use during the evaluation process.
The Browser is The Most Important Work Interface and the Most Targeted Attack Surface #
The browser has become the core workspace in the modern enterprise. On top of being the gateway to sanctioned SaaS apps and other non-corporate web destinations, the browser is the intersection point between cloud\web environments and physical or virtual endpoints. This makes the browser both a target for multiple types of attacks, as well as a potential source of unintentional data leakage.
Some of these attacks have been around for more than a decade, exploitation of browser vulnerabilities or drive-by download of malicious files, for example. Others have gained recent momentum alongside the steep rise in SaaS adoption, like social engineering users with phishing webpages. Yet others leverage the evolution in web page technology to launch sophisticated and hard-to-detect modifications and abuse of browser features to capture and exfiltrate sensitive data.
Browser Security 101 – What is It That We Need to Protect?#
Browser security can be divided into two different groups: preventing unintended data exposure and protection against various types of malicious activity.
From the data protection aspect, such a platform enforces policies that ensure sensitive corporate data is not shared or downloaded in an insecure manner from sanctioned apps, nor uploaded from managed devices to non-corporate web destinations.
From the threat protection aspect, such a platform detects and prevents three types of attacks:
Attacks that target the browser itself, with the purpose of compromising the host device or the data that resides within the browser application itself, such as cookies, passwords, and others.
Attacks that utilize the browser via compromised credentials to access corporate data that resides in both sanctioned and unsanctioned SaaS applications.
Attacks that leverage the modern web page as an attack vector to target user’s passwords, via a wide range of phishing methods or through malicious modification of browser features.
What should you focus on when choosing the browser security solution for your environment? What are the practical implications of the differences between the various offerings? How should deployment methods, the solution’s architecture, or user privacy be weighed in the overall consideration? How should threats and risks be prioritized?
As we’ve said before – unlike with other security solutions, you can’t just ping one of your peers and ask what he or she is doing. Browser security is new, and the wisdom of the crowd is yet to be formed. In fact, there’s an excellent chance that your peers are now struggling with the very same questions you are.
The Definitive Browser Security Platform Checklist – What it is and How to Use It#
The checklist (download it here) breaks down the high-level ‘browser security’ headline to small and digestible chunks of the concrete needs that need to be solved. These are brought to the reader in five pillars – deployment, user experience, security functionalities and user privacy. For each pillar there is a short description of its browser context and a more detailed explanation of its capabilities.
The most significant pillar, in terms of scope, is of course, the security functionalities one, which is divided into five sub-sections. Since, in most cases, this pillar would be the initial driver to pursuing browser security platform in the first place it’s worth going over them in more detail:
The need for browser security platform typically arises from one of the following:
— Attack Surface Management: Proactive reduction of the browser’s exposure to various types of threats, eliminating adversaries’ ability to carry them out.
— Zero Trust Access: Hardening the authentication requirements to ensure that the username and password were indeed provided by the legitimate user and were not compromised.
— SaaS Monitoring and Protection: 360° visibility into all users’ activity and data usage within sanctioned and unsanctioned apps, as well as other non-corporate web destinations, while safeguarding corporate data from compromise or loss.
— Protection Against Malicious Web Pages: Real-time detection and prevention of all the malicious tactics adversaries embed in the modern web page, including credential phishing, downloading of malicious files and data theft.
— Secure 3rd Party Access and BYOD: Enablement of secure access to corporate web resources from unmanaged devices of both the internal workforce as well as external contractors and service providers.
This list enables anyone to easily identify the objective for their browser security platform search and find out the required capabilities for fulfilling it.
The Checklist – A Straightforward Evaluation Shortcut #
The most important and actionable part in the guide is the concluding checklist, which provides, for the first time, a concise summary of all the essential capabilities a browser security platform should provide. This checklist makes the evaluation process easier than ever. All you have to do now is test the solutions you’ve shortlisted against it and see which one scores the highest. Once you have all of them lined up, you can make an informed decision based on the needs of your environment, as you understand them.
Any organization that handles sensitive data must be diligent in its security efforts, which include regular pen testing. Even a small data breach can result in significant damage to an organization’s reputation and bottom line.
There are two main reasons why regular pen testing is necessary for secure web application development:
Security: Web applications are constantly evolving, and new vulnerabilities are being discovered all the time. Pen testing helps identify vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers and allows you to fix them before they can do any damage.
Compliance: Depending on your industry and the type of data you handle, you may be required to comply with certain security standards (e.g., PCI DSS, NIST, HIPAA). Regular pen testing can help you verify that your web applications meet these standards and avoid penalties for non-compliance.
Many organizations, big and small, have once a year pen testing cycle. But what’s the best frequency for pen testing? Is once a year enough, or do you need to be more frequent?
The answer depends on several factors, including the type of development cycle you have, the criticality of your web applications, and the industry you’re in.
Agile development cycles are characterized by short release cycles and rapid iterations. This can make it difficult to keep track of changes made to the codebase and makes it more likely that security vulnerabilities will be introduced.
If you’re only testing once a year, there’s a good chance that vulnerabilities will go undetected for long periods of time. This could leave your organization open to attack.
To mitigate this risk, pen testing cycles should align with the organization’s development cycle. For static web applications, testing every 4-6 months should be sufficient. But for web applications that are updated frequently, you may need to test more often, such as monthly or even weekly.
Any system that is essential to your organization’s operations should be given extra attention when it comes to security. This is because a breach of these systems could have a devastating impact on your business. If your organization relies heavily on its web applications to do business, any downtime could result in significant financial losses.
For example, imagine that your organization’s e-commerce site went down for an hour due to a DDoS attack. Not only would you lose out on potential sales, but you would also have to deal with the cost of the attack and the negative publicity.
To avoid this scenario, it’s important to ensure that your web applications are always available and secure.
Non-critical web applications can usually get away with being tested once a year, but business-critical web applications should be tested more frequently to ensure they are not at risk of a major outage or data loss.
If all your web applications are internal, you may be able to get away with pen testing less frequently. However, if your web applications are accessible to the public, you must be extra diligent in your security efforts.
Web applications accessible to external traffic are more likely to be targeted by attackers. This is because there is a greater pool of attack vectors and more potential entry points for an attacker to exploit.
Customer-facing web applications also tend to have more users, which means that any security vulnerabilities will be exploited more quickly. For example, a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in an external web application with millions of users could be exploited within hours of being discovered.
To protect against these threats, it’s important to pen test customer-facing web applications more frequently than internal ones. Depending on the size and complexity of the application, you may need to pen test every month or even every week.
Certain industries are more likely to be targeted by hackers due to the sensitive nature of their data. Healthcare organizations, for example, are often targeted because of the protected health information (PHI) they hold.
If your organization is in a high-risk industry, you should consider conducting pen testing more frequently to ensure that your systems are secure and meet regulatory compliance. This will help protect your data and reduce the chances of a costly security incident.
You Don’t Have Internal Security Operations or a Pen testing Team#
This might sound counterintuitive, but if you don’t have an internal security team, you may need to conduct pen testing more frequently.
Organizations that don’t have dedicated security staff are more likely to be vulnerable to attacks.
Without an internal security team, you will need to rely on external pen testers to assess your organization’s security posture.
Depending on the size and complexity of your organization, you may need to pen test every month or even every week.
During a merger or acquisition, there is often a lot of confusion and chaos. This can make it difficult to keep track of all the systems and data that need to be secured. As a result, it’s important to conduct pen testing more frequently during these times to ensure that all systems are secure.
M&A also means that you are adding new web applications to your organization’s infrastructure. These new applications may have unknown security vulnerabilities that could put your entire organization at risk.
In 2016, Marriott acquired Starwood without being aware that hackers had exploited a flaw in Starwood’s reservation system two years earlier. Over 500 million customer records were compromised. This placed Marriott in hot water with the British watchdog ICO, resulting in 18.4 million pounds in fines in the UK. According to Bloomberg, there is more trouble ahead, as the hotel giant could “face up to $1 billion in regulatory fines and litigation costs.”
To protect against these threats, it’s important to conduct pen testing before and after an acquisition. This will help you identify potential security issues so they can be fixed before the transition is complete.
While periodic pen testing is important, it is no longer enough in today’s world. As businesses rely more on their web applications, continuous pen testing becomes increasingly important.
There are two main types of pen testing: time-boxed and continuous.
Traditional pen testing is done on a set schedule, such as once a year. This type of pen testing is no longer enough in today’s world, as businesses rely more on their web applications.
Continuous pen testing is the process of continuously scanning your systems for vulnerabilities. This allows you to identify and fix vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by attackers. Continuous pen testing allows you to find and fix security issues as they happen instead of waiting for a periodic assessment.
Continuous pen testing is especially important for organizations that have an agile development cycle. Since new code is deployed frequently, there is a greater chance for security vulnerabilities to be introduced.
Pen testing as a service models is where continuous pen testing shine. Outpost24’s PTaaS (Penetration-Testing-as-a-Service) platform enables businesses to conduct continuous pen testing with ease. The Outpost24 platform is always up-to-date with an organization’s latest security threats and vulnerabilities, so you can be confident that your web applications are secure.
Manual and automated pen testing: Outpost24’s PTaaS platform combines manual and automated pen testing to give you the best of both worlds. This means you can find and fix vulnerabilities faster while still getting the benefits of expert analysis.
Provides comprehensive coverage: Outpost24’s platform covers all OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities and more. This means that you can be confident that your web applications are secure against the latest threats.
Is cost-effective: With Outpost24, you only pay for the services you need. This makes it more affordable to conduct continuous pen testing, even for small businesses.
Regular pen testing is essential for secure web application development. Depending on your organization’s size, industry, and development cycle, you may need to revise your pen testing schedule.
Once-a-year pen testing cycle may be enough for some organizations, but for most, it is not. For business-critical, customer-facing, or high-traffic web applications, you should consider continuous pen testing.
Outpost24’s PTaaS platform makes it easy and cost-effective to conduct continuous pen testing. Contact us today to learn more about our platform and how we can help you secure your web applications.
Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.
The premise of this article’s headline is nonsense, sure, but it isn’t clickbait—I promise.
You’re almost certainly here because you searched for “best productivity apps.” I understand that impulse. You want to get more done in less time, which is about as universal a feeling as humans can have at work. The problem: productivity is deeply personal, and the words “productivity tools” mean a lot of different things to different people. What works for you may or may not work for me, which is why—after over a decade of writing about productivity software—I don’t really believe there are objectively “best” productivity apps.
I do, however, think there are categories of tools that can help you become a better version of yourself. Some of them work better for more people than others, and not everyone needs an app from every category. Knowing what kinds of apps exist, and what you should look for in an app, is more important than knowing what the “best” app in that category is.
Having said that, you’re here for software recommendations, not my personal reflections on the nature of productivity. So I’m going to go over the main kinds of productivity apps I think most humans who use electronic devices at work should know about. I’ll explain why I think each category is important, point to an app or two that I think will work well for most people, then offer links to other options if you want to learn more.
Just remember: the specific app doesn’t matter. The best productivity app is the one that works best for you. The most important thing is having a system. Sound good? Let’s jump in.
All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who’ve spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it’s intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We’re never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.
We all have things we need to do—at work and in the rest of our lives. The worst place you could store those things, in my opinion, is in your mind. It’s just stressful: you’ll remember, at random moments, that there’s something you were supposed to be doing, and that memory will result in panic. Writing down everything you need to do allows you to make a plan, and (crucially) means you don’t have to panic.
Not everyone benefits from a dedicated to-do list app—some of the most productive people I know prefer sticky notes, email inboxes, or even spreadsheets. I think that’s great, so long as you have some place to record the things you need to do.
I think that Todoist, shown above, is a great to-do list app for most people. It’s easy to use but also offers a lot of features. It can also be installed on basically any device you can imagine, meaning your to-do list is always available. It allows you to assign due dates to tasks, sort tasks by project, or even view a project using a Kanban board. You don’t have to worry about those features if you don’t want to, though, which is why I think it’s a great starting point for someone who needs a to-do list.
If Todoist doesn’t work for you, though, check out our list of the best to-do list apps—it’s got a wide variety of recommendations. I, personally, use TickTick because I like how easy it is to add tasks, and I also can’t stop saying good things about Things for sheer simplicity on Apple devices. Find a tool you like—and that you remember to actually open. There’s nothing less useful than an app full of tasks you never look at.
Once you’ve picked your to-do list app, make the most of it with automation, so you can easily add tasks that come in by email, team chat apps, project management tools, or notes. Read more about automating your to-do list.
There are only so many hours in the day, unfortunately, which means you have to budget them. A calendar is how you do that. You could use a paper wall calendar, sure, but a calendar app lets you invite other people to an event. Also, in a world where so many meetings are virtual, calendar apps give you a useful place to store the link to your Zoom call.
I think that Google Calendar, shown above, is the right calendar app for most people—particularly people who already use Gmail. Google Calendar is easy to load on any device, lets you see your calendar in several different views, and makes it easy to invite anyone else to any event or meeting you happen to plan. I could writemultiplearticlesonGoogle Calendar features (and I have). This app does everything any other app can do, and more, all while being pretty easy to use.
If Google Calendar doesn’t work for you, though, check out our list of the best calendar apps for more options. Microsoft Outlook is a solid alternative, as is the Calendar app that comes with all Apple devices.
I’d also consider looking into some kind of meeting scheduling app. These apps let anyone sign up for appointments with you, which is particularly useful if you have a meeting-heavy calendar. Calendly, shown below, is a solid option, with a lot of customizability and the ability to sync with Google Calendar. You can check out our list of the best meeting schedulers for a more complete rundown of Calendly and other options.
Once you choose a calendar app, take it to the next level. With automation, you can do things like automatically turn calendar events into tasks on your to-do list or use forms to create calendar events. Here’s how you can bring context to your calendar by connecting other apps.
I’m constantly taking notes: before and during meetings; while researching an article; while brewing beer. And I think most people have some class of information they’ll need to reference later that doesn’t quite meet the threshold of a “document.” Who wants a sprawling series of folders with all of that information?
This, to me, is what note-taking apps are for: quickly writing things down so you can read them later and (hopefully) follow up. They also work well as a personal journal, or a place to store files related to a particular project.
OneNote, above, is probably the note-taking app most people should try first. It’s free—so long as you don’t run out of OneDrive storage—and it gives you all kinds of ways to organize notes, from notebooks to sections to sub-headers. It also has powerful search, which includes the scanned contents of any images or PDFs you might drop in a note.
But OneNote isn’t the only option. You should check out our list of the best note-taking apps for more choices. If you loved Evernote back in the day, you should check out Joplin, which is a completely free and open source replacement for that app. And I personally love Obsidian, which turns your notes into an entire database, complete with internal links and an extensive plugin collection. There are a lot of good choices out there—find something that lets you write things down and dig them up later.
I’ve never tried to work in the middle of an amusement park, but I imagine it would be distracting. The internet is worse. Everything you could possibly imagine is available, all delivered by brilliant engineers who are doing everything they can to keep you looking at more and more and more of it. It’s understandable if you have trouble getting stuff done in that context, which is why apps that block distractions are so helpful.
Freedom is a great tool for the job. It runs on every platform and can block distractions—both websites and apps—on all of your devices. That means you can’t, for example, block Twitter on your computer only to pick up your phone and look at it there. With Freedom, you can set up multiple block lists, then start timers for any of them.
I personally love Serene, which combines distraction blocking with a sort of to-do list. You say what you want to do and how long it will take, then you start a distraction-free session to work on it. There’s also Cold Turkey Blocker, which can optionally prevent you from changing the time settings on your computer as a way of working around the block you set up. You’ve got more choices, though, particularly if you’re a Mac user. Check out our list of the best distraction blockers to learn more.
Remember: the internet is distracting on purpose. There’s no shame in using a tool to build discipline.
My dentist tells me I should brush my teeth twice a day, and I believe him, but I tended to only brush at night. I used a habit tracker to change that.
These applications might sound similar to a to-do list, but they’re very different. You can’t add individual tasks to a habit tracker—only recurring ones. The idea is to set an intention to do something regularly, then keep track of how often you regularly do it. Eventually, you have a streak going, which psychologically motivates you to keep it up until the habit becomes second nature. Don’t laugh—it works.
We recommend checking out Streaks, shown above, for iPhone and HabitNow, below, for Android. These apps both live on your phone, which is the place you’re most likely to look. They both let you create a list of habits you’d like to build, then remind you about that intention. They also both show you your progress in various ways.
They’re not the only options, however; check out our list of the best habit tracker apps for more ideas. Also keep in mind that some to-do lists have habit-tracking capabilities built right in. I, personally, use TickTick‘s built-in habit tracker—I love it. And some people use a paper calendar for tracking a simple habit—just add an X every day you stick to your habit.
I’d love to read articles or watch YouTube videos all day. We all would. Sometimes, though, you have to do something else—even though your friend just sent you a really, really interesting article. That’s where read-it-later apps come in. They let you quickly save something you intend to read, so that you can come back to it when you have time.
I think that Pocket, above, is the app of choice in this class. It’s free to use, offers extensions for every major browser, and also has great mobile versions that sync your articles for offline reading. There’s even built-in support for highlighting, then reviewing your highlights later.
Instapaper is a close second, and it even lets you send articles to your Kindle. These aren’t your only choices, though—check out our list of the best read-it-later apps for some more options. It’s also worth noting that some people use bookmarking apps or even note-taking apps for the same purpose, and that’s great—they both make it easy to save things for future reference.
Automate the process of saving articles by connecting your read-it-later app to Zapier. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Whether it’s for a quick presentation or troubleshooting a problem, sometimes recording what’s on your screen and sharing it just makes life easier. Screen recording tools are perfect for this, allowing you to quickly record your screen, your voice, and even your face if you have a webcam.
Loom is a great first tool to check out in this category. It’s easy to set up, works on all major platforms, and makes it really simple to share recordings. You can even add your face, via a webcam, to the recording.
I personally use Zappy, which was originally an internal tool used by Zapier. It’s honestly the best screenshot tool I’ve ever used, and it’s free—if you use a Mac, it’s worth a try. Check out our list of the best screen recording tools for more options, and keep in mind you can actually record your screen without any software, if you don’t mind managing the file yourself.
Want to share your screen in real-time? You need a screen sharing tool (Zoom works pretty well, surprisingly).
Other productivity tools worth checking out
This article could go on forever. There’s no end to great software out there, and I love writing about it. I think the above categories should save you all kinds of time—and take up plenty of your time to set up—but here are a few other suggestions if you’re feeling particularly motivated.
Password managers, like LastPass or 1Password, help you generate random passwords for all of your different services without the need for memorization. This is great for security, but it also makes logging in to stuff faster. Here’s a list of the best password managers.
Mobile scanning apps, like Microsoft Lens, let you scan documents using your phone while also digitizing any text using optical character recognition (OCR). Check out our list of the best mobile scanning OCR apps for more choices.
Time tracking apps, like Toggl Track, are great for keeping track of how long projects take and making sure you’re not spending too much time on the wrong things. Take a look at our list of the best time tracking apps to find the right one for you.
Mind mapping software, like Coggle, helps you map the connections between different ideas while you’re brainstorming. Here are our picks for the best mind mapping software.
AI software, like OpenAI, could make all kinds of tasks easier in the future. It’s early, granted, but I already find it useful when I’m in the brainstorming phase of a project—I can ask the bot to generate ideas.
Once you have apps set up in some of these categories, you can take the whole productivity thing even further. Automation software like ours at Zapier connects all the other apps you use, with workflows you can build yourself—no code required. Like the tools above, Zapier won’t solve every problem you have, but it’s a great way to connect tools that otherwise don’t integrate well—which means you can use the best tools for you, as opposed to the tools that happen to play nice together. And it’s not limited to productivity—eventually, you’ll find yourself automating even your most business-critical workflows.
Plus, if you sign up for Zapier, we’ll be able to write more useful articles like this one. Here are five things you should automate today to get started.
This post was originally published in September 2018 by Matthew Guay. The most recent update was in December 2022.
There are too many to-do list apps. Trying them all would be a massive task, and I know because I did.
Why are there so many apps for something easily done on sticky notes? Because managing tasks is an intensely personal thing. People will reject anything that doesn’t feel right. That’s a good instinct, but it makes it hard to find the right app.
To that end, we’ve been hard at work researching the best to-do apps, trying to find the right ones for various use cases. Research for these pieces was exhaustive. We started by finding the best apps for every platform: Android, Windows, macOS, and iPhone/iPad. We then tried the top-rated apps in every respective app store, and spent way too much time migrating our personal to-do lists from one app to another.
And now I’m offering you what I feel is the cream of the crop. Whatever you’re looking for, one of these apps is going to be right for you. Click on any app to learn more about why I chose it, or keep reading for more context on to-do list apps.
Other options, including project management software, note-taking apps, and other tools that can do the job
What makes the best to-do list app?
How we evaluate and test apps
All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who’ve spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it’s intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We’re never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.
I’ve written about technology in general, and productivity specifically, since 2009. In that time, I’ve personally tried basically every to-do list app that has come out, and I’m usually depending on at least one of them to function.
Of course, when it comes to managing a to-do list online, everyone has different criteria. I kept this in mind as I tested, and I noticed a few features that made certain apps stand out.
The best to-do list apps:
Make it fast to add and organize tasks. Ideally, a task is added and categorized in a couple taps or keystrokes.
Offer multiple ways to organize your tasks. Tags, lists, projects, and due dates are all helpful, and the best to-do apps offer at least a few categories like this.
Remind you about self-imposed deadlines. Notifications, widgets, emails—if you’re using an online to-do list, it should help you track what needs to happen when.
Offer clean user interfaces. The best to-do app fits into your workflow so you can get back to what you’re supposed to be doing.
Sync between every platform you use. Which platforms will depend on what you personally use, but I didn’t consider anything that doesn’t sync between desktop and mobile.
I tried to find the task list apps that balance these things in various ways. None of these options will be right for everyone, but hopefully one of them is right for you. Let’s dive in.
Make 2023 your most efficient year yet
Start the year off right with our five-email course that helps you streamline work across your whole business.
Todoist isn’t the most powerful to-do list website out there. It’s also not the simplest. That’s kind of the point: this app balances power with simplicity, and it does so while running on basically every platform that exists. That’s a strong selling point—which is probably why Todoist is one of the most popular to-do lists right now.
Adding tasks was quick on every platform in my tests, thanks in part to natural language processing (type “buy milk Monday” and the task “buy milk” will be added with the next Monday set as your due date). You can put new tasks in your Inbox and then move them to relevant projects; you can also set due dates. Paid users can create custom filters and labels, and there are also some basic collaboration features.
Todoist is flexible enough to adapt to most workflows but not so complicated as to overwhelm. And it adds new features regularly: you can view projects as a Kanban board, for example, and navigating the app by keyboard is much smoother after recent updates. Overall, this is a great first to-do list app to try out, especially if you don’t know where to start.
Todoist also integrates with Zapier, which means you can automatically create tasks in Todoist whenever something happens in one of your favorite apps. Here are some examples.
Add new Google Calendar events to Todoist as tasks
Best to-do list app with embedded calendars and timers
TickTick(Web, Android, Windows, macOS, iPhone and iPad)
TickTick is a fast-growing task list app that offers a wide array of features on just about every platform you can imagine. Adding tasks is quick thanks to natural language processing. There’s also a universal keyboard shortcut offered on the desktop versions and pinned notifications and widgets on mobile, which makes it quick to add a task before getting back to what you’re doing. Tasks can be organized using lists, tags, and due dates, and there’s also the ability to add subtasks to any task.
TickTick offers all of this with apps that feel native—the macOS version is distinct from the Windows version, for example, in ways that make sense given the differences between those two systems. TickTick also offers a few features that are above and beyond what other apps offer.
First, there’s a built-in Pomodoro timer, allowing you to start a 25-minute work session for any of your tasks (complete with numerous white noise options, if you want). Second, there’s integration with various third-party calendars, allowing you to see your tasks and your appointments in one place, and even do some time blocking. There’s also a built-in habit-tracking tool, allowing you to review how many days you did or didn’t stick to your exercise and diet commitments. And an Eisenhower Matrix view allows you to prioritize your tasks based on what’s urgent and what’s important. It’s a great collection of features, unlike anything else on the market.
With TickTick’s Zapier integration, you can connect TickTick to the other tools in your tech stack to automatically create tasks whenever you get new leads, deals, or emails.
In 2015, Microsoft bought Wunderlist and put that team to work on a new to-do list app. Microsoft To Do is the result of that, and you can find Wunderlist’s DNA throughout the project. The main interface is clean and friendly, adding tasks is quick, but there’s a lot of flexibility below the surface.
But the real standout feature here is the deep integration with Microsoft’s ecosystem. Any email flagged in Outlook, for example, shows up as a task. Outlook users can also sync their tasks from that app over to Microsoft To Do, meaning there’s finally a way to sync Outlook tasks to mobile. Windows users can add tasks using Cortana or by typing in the Start menu. For example, you can type “add rice to my shopping list,” and rice will be added to a list called “shopping.” If you’re a Windows user and an Outlook user, this is the app for you.
This is also the prettiest to-do list app on the market, in my opinion. You can set custom background images for every one of your lists, allowing you to tell at a glance which list you’re looking at. You’re going to be looking at your task list all day—it might as well look good.
Microsoft To Do integrates with Zapier, which means you can make sure Microsoft To Do is talking to all the other apps you use, not just the Microsoft ones. Here are some examples to get started.
Create Workboard action items from new tasks in Microsoft To-Do
To-do list apps tend to fall into two categories: the complex and the minimalist. Things is somehow both.
That’s about the highest praise I can give a to-do list app. This is an app with no shortage of features, and yet it always feels simple to use. Adding tasks is quick and so is organizing them, but there’s seemingly no end of variation in ways to organize them. Areas can contain tasks or projects; projects can contain tasks or headers that can also contain tasks; and tasks can contain subtasks if you want. It sounds confusing, but it isn’t, which really speaks to how well Things is designed.
Other apps offer these features, but Things does it in a way that never feels cluttered, meaning you can quickly be done with looking at your to-do list and get back to whatever it is you’re doing. Combine this blend of functionality and beauty with features like a system-wide tool for quickly adding tasks, integration with your calendar so you can see your appointments while planning your day, intuitive keyboard shortcuts, reminders with native notifications, and syncing to an iPhone and iPad app.
The only downside here is the complete lack of versions for Windows and Android, though this decision is probably part of what allows the team to focus on making such a clean product. If you’re an Apple user, you owe it to yourself to try out Things.
You can automatically add to-dos to Things from your other apps with Things’ integrations on Zapier. Here’s some inspiration.
OmniFocus is nothing if not flexible. This Apple-exclusive application is built around the Getting Things Done (GTD) philosophy trademarked by David Allen, but an array of features means it can be used for just about any organizational system you can imagine. There are three different kinds of projects you can set up, for example, depending on whether you need to do tasks in a specific order or not. There are six main views by default, allowing you to organize your tasks by things like due date, projects, and tags. You can even add more views, assuming you have the Pro version.
You get the idea. OmniFocus is a power user’s dream, with more features than anyone can hope to incorporate into a workflow, which is kind of the point: if there’s a feature you want, OmniFocus has it, so you can organize your tasks basically any way you can imagine.
Syncing is offered only between Apple devices. There’s a web version that’s intended for occasional usage away from your Apple machines, but non-Apple users should probably look elsewhere.
You can connect OmniFocus to your other favorite apps with OmniFocus’s Zapier integration. Whenever something happens in another app that you want to keep track of in OmniFocus, Zapier will automatically send it there.
Create OmniFocus tasks from new saved Slack messages
OmniFocus price: From $99.99/year for the recurring plan, which includes all apps and the web version. Also available as a one-time purchase from $49.99 (14-day free trial).
Games are fantastic at motivating mundane activity—how else can you explain all that time you’ve spent on mindless fetch quests? Habitica, formerly known as HabitRPG, tries to use principles from game design to motivate you to get things done, and it’s remarkably effective. You can add tasks, daily activities, and habits to a list. You also have a character, who levels up when you get things done and takes damage when you put things off. You can also earn in-game currency for buying offline rewards, such as a snack, or in-game items like weapons or even silly hats.
This is even better when you join a few friends and start a party. You can all fight bosses together, but be careful: fail to finish some tasks on time and your friends will take damage. If that doesn’t motivate you, nothing will.
What’s the downside? Habitica isn’t a great to-do list for managing long-term projects, so you might need something else for that. But if motivation is your problem, Habitica is well worth a spin.
Habitica price: Free version available; paid version from $5/month.
If you live in Gmail and Google Calendar, Google Tasks is an obvious free to-do list app to try out. That’s because it lives right in the sidebar of those two apps, and offers more than a few integrations. Plus, there’s a dedicated mobile app.
The app itself is spartan. Adding tasks is quick, particularly if you spend a lot of time in Gmail anyway, but there’s not a lot of organizational offerings. There are due dates, lists, descriptions, subtasks, and the ability to “Star” tasks. There’s not much beyond that, which is ok. On the desktop, the integration with Gmail is a key selling point. You can drag an email to Google Tasks to turn it into a task, for example. You also can see your tasks on your Google Calendar, if you want.
The best to-do app is one that’s always handy. If you’re the kind of person who always has Gmail open on your computer, it’s hard for any app to be handier than Google Tasks. The mobile versions make those tasks accessible on the go.
You can automatically move information between Google Tasks and your other apps with Google Tasks’ integration on Zapier. Here are a few examples of workflows you can automate, so you can stop manually moving your tasks.
Any.do offers a really slick mobile app that makes it quick to add tasks, organize them into lists, and add due dates. But where it really shines is with its daily “Plan my Day” feature, which forces you to schedule when you’ll accomplish your various tasks, so that you remember to actually do things. Any.do also integrates nicely with Google and Outlook calendars, allowing you to see your appointments and your tasks in one place. This is exactly what you need if you’re the kind of person who adds things to a list and forgets about them.
The desktop version isn’t quite as slick as the mobile version—it feels cluttered and is more than a little confusing. Still, Any.do’s mobile version alone makes a compelling reason to give it a shot, especially if that’s where you do most of your task management.
Any.do integrates with Zapier, so you can automatically add tasks to Any.do whenever there’s a new calendar event, note, or task in your other apps.
Any.do price: Free version available; paid version from $2.99/month.
Other to-do list options
We focused on dedicated to-do list apps in this roundup, but plenty of other software can fulfill the same function. Here are a few ideas if none of the above quite fit what you’re looking for:
Project management apps like Trello and Asana can be used as to-do lists, especially if you already use them to manage your other work.
Note-taking apps like Evernote, OneNote, and Google Keep also have to-do list features, if you want to combine your to-do lists and notes.
Automatically convert the case of your text in Word, Excel, Google Docs, and more.
Capitalization isn’t something you have to think much about. The first letter of a sentence gets capitalized, along with any proper nouns—and you write in all caps when you’re angry (or excited, depending on who you ask).
As long as you type with the capitalization you want, everything’s fine. But when you go to write a long title and have to hold Shift for every first letter or when you write a few sentences without realizing caps lock was on, capitalization can suddenly get more frustrating. It can take seemingly forever to edit each letter back to the case you want—and it’s so easy to miss the stray cApital letter in a long essay or blog post.
Here’s how to automatically capitalize text properly in Word, Google Docs, and other text editors—and in thousands of other apps using Zapier’s Formatter tool.
How to change case in Word
If you’re working in Microsoft Word, it’s easy to change the capitalization or case of text in your document.
Select your text.
In the Home section of the toolbar, click the Change Caseoption. (It’s right next to your font options: a capital and lowercase Aa with a dropdown arrow.)
Select the case you want.
Your options are: Sentence case., lowercase, UPPERCASE, Capitalize Each Word, or tOGGLE cASE to swap your writing’s current case—perfect for the times you swap capital and lowercase accidentally.
Or you can highlight the text and use Word’s keyboard shortcut—Shift + fn +F3—to change selected text between lowercase, UPPERCASE or Capitalizing Each Word.
How to change case in Excel
It’s a little more complicated in Excel—you’ll need to use a formula to get the job done.
To make text uppercase in Excel, use the formula =UPPER(A1:A99), where A1:A99 is the cell range you want to change.
To make text lowercase in Excel, use the formula =UPPER(A1:A99).
To make text Title Case in Excel, use the formula =PROPER(A1:A99).
In every case, you’ll need to put the formula in another cell, and the new text will show up in that cell or column.
How to capitalize text in Google Docs
Google Docs also includes a capitalization tool, hidden in its menus.
Select your text.
Click Format > Text>Capitalization.
Choose the case you want (lowercase, UPPERCASE, or Title Case).
How to capitalize text on macOS
Using a Mac? Lots of apps on your Mac already includes macOS’s built-in spelling and grammar checks along with text transformations.
In most Mac apps:
Select the text, and right-click on it to see the text options.
Hover over the Transformations menu.
Select the case you want (the Capitalize option will capitalize the first letter of every word).
If you don’t see the options in the right-click menu, check the gear icon in the app’s font settings—that’s where Pages and other Apple apps put those same transformations.
How to capitalize text in Sublime Text
One of the most popular code and text editors Sublime Text also includes a capitalization tool.
Select your text.
Click Edit > Convert Case.
Select the case you want.
In addition to the standard options, Sublime Text also includes snake_case (lowercase, with an underscore between each word) and kebab-case (lowercase, with a hyphen between each word).
How to convert case online
Another option is to use a web app to format your text. There are a number of simple web apps that can swap your case for you.
In TitleCase, type or paste in your text, and then choose the case you want to automatically convert your text to.
In Convert Case (pictured above), type or paste in your text, then choose each of the case options you want. It’ll give you your text in all of those cases for a quick way to pick what looks best.
Automatically convert text case with Zapier
These tips work great for changing your capitalization within an app, like if you want to convert caps to lowercase in an article you’re writing. But if you want to change capitalization as you send information from one app to the other, here’s how to automatically convert text case with Zapier.
An internet outage can have major consequences for a digital business, especially when it happens during peak usage times and on holidays. Outages can lead to revenue loss, complaints, and customer churn.
Of course, internet outages regularly impact companies across all verticals, including some of the largest internet companies in the world. And they can happen when you least expect them.
Read on to learn about some of the most impactful internet outages to date and some steps you can take to keep your business out of harm’s way.
Historical Internet Outages You Need to Know About
1. Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a major outage in December 2021, lasting for several hours. The outage impacted operations for many leading businesses, including Netflix, Disney, Spotify, DoorDash, and Venmo.
Amazon blames the outage on an automation error causing multiple systems to act abnormally. The outage also prevented users from accessing some cloud services.
This outage proved the largest and safest cloud providers are also susceptible to downtime.
2. Facebook
Facebook as well suffered a major outage in 2021, leaving billions of users unable to access its services, including its main social network, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
According to Facebook, the cause of the outage was a configuration change on its backbone routers responsible for transmitting traffic across its data centers. The outage lasted roughly six hours, an eternity for a social network.
3. Fastly
Cloud service provider Fastly had its network go down in June 2021, taking down several sizeable global news websites, including the New York Times and CNN. It also impacted retailers like Target and Amazon, and several other organizations.
The outage resulted from a faulty software update, stemming from a misconfiguration, causing disruptions across multiple servers.
4. British Airways
British Airways experienced a massive IT failure in 2017 during one of the busiest travel weekends in the United Kingdom.
This event created a nightmare scenario for the organization and its customers. Altogether, it grounded 672 flights and stranded tens of thousands of customers.
According to the company, the outage ensued when an engineer disconnected the data center’s power supply. A massive power surge came next, bringing the business’s network down in the process.
5. Google
Google had a major service outage in 2020. It only lasted about forty-five minutes, but it still impacted users worldwide.
Services including Gmail, YouTube, and Google Calendar all crashed. So did Google Home apps. The outage also impacted third-party applications using Google for authentication.
The issue happened due to inadequate storage capacity for the company’s authentication services.
6. Dyn
Undoubtedly, one of the biggest distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in history occurred in 2016 against Dyn, which was a major backbone provider.
The attack occurred in three waves, overwhelming the company’s servers. As a result, many internet users were unable to access partnering platforms like Twitter, Spotify, and Netflix.
While the internet outage lasted only about an hour, Verizon experienced a sharp drop in traffic volume. Naturally, many customers complained about the loss of service.
At first, the company reported the incident was the result of someone cutting fiber cables. However, it was unrelated and turned out to be a “software issue” during routine network maintenance activities.
8. Microsoft
Another major internet outage occurred at Microsoft when its Azure service went under in December 2021. Azure’s Active Directory service crashed for about ninety minutes.
Compared to some other outages, this one was relatively small. Nonetheless, it prevented users from signing in to Microsoft services such as Office 365. Although applications remained online, users couldn’t access them, making this a major productivity killer for many organizations worldwide.
9. Comcast
There was an internet outage at Comcast in November 2021, which happened when its San Francisco backbone shut down for about two hours.
Following the outage, a broader issue occurred, spanning multiple U.S. cities, including hubs like Philadelphia and Chicago. Several thousand customers lost service, leaving them unable to access basic network functionality during the height of the pandemic.
10. Akamai Edge DNS
Akamai, a global content delivery provider, experienced an outage with its DNS service in 2021. The Akamai outage resulted from a faulty software configuration update activating a bug in its Secure Edge Content Delivery Network.
In a similar fashion to other attacks against service providers, Akamai’s outage caused widespread damage. Other websites—including American Airlines, Fox News, and Steam—all experienced performance issues following the incident.
11. Cox Communications
Cox Communications reported a major internet outage in March 2022, impacting nearly seven thousand customers in the Las Vegas region.
The problem resulted from an NV Energy backhoe damaging a transmission line and triggering a power event. The surge caused a cable modem to reset, and many customers tried to reconnect simultaneously. As a result, it took several hours for service to resume.
12. Slack
The recent Slack outage in January 2021 created havoc for distributed workers who rely on the platform for communication and collaboration.
The platform’s outage impacted organizations across the US, UK, Germany, Japan, and India, with interruptions occurring for about two and a half hours. Slack says the issue came from scaling problems on the AWS Transit Gateway, which couldn’t accommodate a spike in traffic.
Best Practices for Avoiding Internet Outages
At the end of the day, there’s nothing you can do to prevent outages entirely, especially if your business relies on multiple third-party systems. Eventually, your company or a partner will experience some level of service disruption. It’s best to plan for them and, where possible, enable systems to ‘fail gracefully.’
As part of your resiliency planning, here are some steps to mitigate damage, maximize uptime, and keep your organization safe, along with some best practices to help you avoid disruptions from network and connectivity issues.
Set Up a Backup Internet Solution
It’s impossible to protect your business from local internet outages completely. They can stem from issues like local construction, service disruptions, and more.
Consider setting up a backup internet solution as a workaround, so you never lose connectivity. For example, you may choose to combine broadband with a wireless failover solution.
Consider a Multi-Cloud Strategy
If your business is in the cloud, it’s a good idea to explore a multi-cloud strategy. By spreading your workloads across multiple cloud providers, you can prevent cloud service disruptions from knocking your digital applications offline. This approach can also improve uptime and resiliency.
Use Website Performance and Availability Monitoring
One of the best ways to protect your business is to use website performance and availability monitoring. It provides real-time visibility into how end users are interacting with and experiencing your website.
A robust website performance and availability monitoring solution can provide actionable insights into the health and stability of your website. As a result, you can track uptime and performance over time and troubleshoot issues when they occur.
The Pingdom Approach to Website Performance Monitoring
SolarWinds® Pingdom® provides real-time and historical end-user experience monitoring, giving your team deep visibility from a single pane of glass. With Pingdom, it’s possible to protect against the kind of outages helping your company make headlines for the wrong reasons.
This post was written by Justin Reynolds. Justin is a freelance writer who enjoys telling stories about how technology, science, and creativity can help workers be more productive. In his spare time, he likes seeing or playing live music, hiking, and traveling.
We see this question floating around the web quite a bit: will my AirPods work with a Pixel? The simple answer is, of course, yes! Though AirPods (or AirPods Pro) are designed to work best with Apple products, they are still Bluetooth earbuds that can be connected to a wide variety of devices. As a matter of fact, I’ve used both the AirPods and AirPods Pro with my Chromebook, too, and there’s no real issue in getting them connected on that front, either.
How to pair your AirPods
Pairing is pretty simple. With the AirPods in their case, flip open the lid, hold the button around back until the LED begins pulsing, and look for your AirPods in the list of available Bluetooth devices to pair. Again, I’ve had little issue whatsoever in getting them connected to anything I’ve tried, so thankfully Apple hasn’t put any blocks in place for non-Apple devices.
What works with AirPods on Pixel
Once you get them all connected, the functionality is pretty basic. For standard AirPods, you can listen to media, take calls, and double-tap near the top to play/pause audio. That’s about it. They stay connected well and have very little latency, so for all sorts of applications, they are pretty great. If you are OK with a straightforward bluetooth earbuds experience, there’s technically nothing broken, here. There’s just not a ton of added features.
For the AirPods Pro, the haptic buttons on the earbuds themselves will work based on how you set them up. Out of the box, they default to a single click for play/pause, double-click for skip forward, and triple-click for skip back. A long press will toggle ANC and transparency modes, too.
What doesn’t work with Airpods on Pixel
When looking at the variety of available earbuds on the market, clearly the AirPods are pretty Spartan in their functionality on non-Apple devices. While they do technically work fine for the basics, there’s a bunch of stuff you need to know that these earbuds won’t do on a Pixel phone. First up, since there’s only support for a double-top on the standard AirPods (it defaults to play/pause), when you are needing to adjust volume or skip a track, you’ll need to grab your phone. As stated above, the AirPods Pro get around this limitation a bit more effortlessly thanks to the haptic buttons on the stems.
None of the physical shortcuts can be adjusted when using a Pixel phone, however, and you’ll need an Apple device of some sort in order to change the device name and customize your click functionalities. It is worth noting, however, that even on Apple devices, the number of custom things you can do with the AirPods Pro is pretty limited, so you aren’t missing out on too much if you don’t have an Apple device around.
A software battery life indicator is another key thing missing from the equation, and apart from installing some 3rd-party software, you won’t know the remaining charge you have on your earbuds when paired to a Pixel phone. If you have a wireless charging pad and keep your AirPods on them regularly, it’s not a huge deal. The only time it really bugs me is with my old, 1st-gen AirPods that don’t come with wireless charging. I forget to top them off regularly.
And speaking of charging, all the AirPods at this point still charge with Lightning cables. That’s right: if you don’t have one of those lying around, you’re gonna be in trouble. For me, wireless charging has solved this issue, but it is still unfortunate. As an Android/ChromeOS guy, I don’t have Lightning cables around very often. It’s a small-but-aggravating thing you need to remember.
Why the Pixel Buds Pro and Pixel phones are a better pair
This should be pretty obvious, but the Pixel Buds Pro are a far better fit if you have a Pixel phone. Well, I say it should be obvious; but Google hasn’t always made it that way, have they? With issues here and there with their older Pixel Buds, I’ve not been a huge fan up until the Pixel Buds Pro. At this point, however, I’m a huge fan and all the niceties you get along with them have totally turned the tide for me.
For starters, the on-ear functionality is fantastic. Gestures like swiping for volume controls, tapping for play/pause/skip, and holding for ANC or transparency are the best in the business. It all works like you’d expect, the surface of the actual earbud is big enough to keep you from missing on a regular basis, and the way the Pixel Buds Pro sit in your ear keep them from feeling uncomfortable when you press on them.
The Pixel Buds Pro also come with Fast Pair, so as soon as you open them up, your Pixel will see them and get you paired up with ease. To be fair, the AirPods do this as well, but only on Apple devices. Pixel Buds Pro will Fast Pair with any eligible Android device or Chromebook, too.
Obviously, the Pixel Buds Pro also have an app (it is baked-in on Pixel phones) that allows for all sorts of customization for your presses, swipes, and EQ settings. Again, this sort of thing is present for the AirPods on Apple devices, but Google’s customization on Pixels and Android phones is far more robust and with Feature Drops, it will only get better over time.
So, in a nutshell, if you are a Pixel owner, AirPods will definitely work with your device, but I’d recommend the Pixel Buds Pro in the end. They’ve been on sale a ton of times for $149, and for that price, they are barely more expensive than the standard AirPods and far cheaper than the AirPods Pro. They pair easier, have more features, and I’d argue the sound quality is better too. While the AirPods and AirPods Pro technically will work for you, I’d only recommend them if you are in possession of them already, have an Apple device or two you use on a regular basis, or you get them as a gift. In any other case, go for the Pixel Buds Pro.
Print
