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Sounds reasonable nOads. I will follow up with each of the sites over possible insidious tracking practices.

I ran another test – I fired up my Windows machine running Win 10 and when I set “Always Use Secure Connection” on in Chrome the URL’s from CNET, ZDNET & PCMAG were blocked. So this is not something that is unique to the MAC or New Outlook for the MAC. PITA.

Thanks for all the responses. I should add this only happens in emails received from CNET, etc. I am using the New Outlook for the MAC on a Apple M1 desktop running Sonoma. Chrome is up-to-date – Version 121.0.6167.139 (Official Build) (arm64). The message I receive is below.

The connection to url9974.online.zdnet.com is not secure

You are seeing this warning because this site does not support HTTPS. Learn more

Likewise, Firefox on my MAC, also rejects these sites because they are not HTTPS. But Safari converts the HTTP to HTTPS and opens the link.

Here is the 1st few lines from the URL as it appears in the email –

http://url9974.online.zdnet.com/ls/click?upn=YRD6WvOCYBI3oZzU3TyjPRiJrwIahHD5XizjoupAoEouJFHUrAw7fR848GgHXy4WwiQ7nf8e1GAdmNj-2BTk3UA-

If I turn off “secure connection” in Chrome then the problem goes away which is counter productive to being secure.

The only AVs I’m using are MS Defender (for the MAC) and Malwarebytes.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

 

 

Absolutely and finally a great article defining Outlook’s recent mysterious behavior.  Users of Outlook for the MAC are having nothing but painful experiences since May 2023. The Microsoft Answers forum, now up to 26 pages, shows the extent of user frustration using either the (MAC) Legacy Outlook or the New Outlook. It’s all detailed in the link below.  I would very much like to see this great article posted on this forum.  It may help frustrated Outlook for the Mac users understand what we are up against. I assume I can’t cut and paste the article due to copyright laws and without your explicit permission. Thank you.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/after-update-to-1673-outlook-for-mac-yahoo-mail/9b96de6c-ad0a-40c7-88ea-f0dc9265b310?page=1&messageId=d4e894cc-57bc-45cd-95fb-9890dd80a3f1

1 user thanked author for this post.

Peter Deegan

Thanks Fred for knocking it out of the park in your May 10^th article about the BIOS battery. My almost 7 year old Dell 8100 started taking forever to boot after a shutdown several months ago.  I did all the usual things to resolve this (forums, msconfig, startup, SFC/scan, autoruns, etc., etc.).  Solution, go get a cup of java while the system crawls through its bootup.

Then flash, your article.  The BIOS battery never even crossed this old geeks mind and I have worked with computers since Univac II (1965).  Dementia creeping in me thinks.  Anyway, installed a new battery and whamo no more forever bootup.  Another jewel Fred.  Thanks.

May I add – I upgraded to Win 10 1909 directly from 1809 on my Dell desktop.  Ever since my power config for the display stopped working.  Instead, the power shutdown (for the monitor) kicks in correctly after the specified time limit but about 3 seconds later it cancels itself as if I touched the keyboard or mouse.  Went through all the power configuration settings, no help.  The display power shutdown was working on all prior feature updates from 1809 back.  Help!

I tested my Frontier DSL line, which is way out in the boonies, and rated/contracted for 3.0 Mbps down using all the speed tests in the article plus two additional sites (Frontier and Speakeasy). All came back with a download speed of between 3.14 and 3.3 Mbps and an upload speed between .34 and .38 Mbps. Only Bandwidthplace gave somewhat inconsistent results with 2.88 Mbps down and .1 Mbps up.

Regardless, this is fine for our family and we only pay $25 a month for our DSL line since we can’t get a higher speed.

I forgot to add that for a real time speed monitor I have used Netpersec which has been around since 2001. It is accurate, monitors both up and down speeds simultaneously and the real time graphs and numbers reporting (actual and average) are quite informative. Works in XP, Vista and Win7. Get it free here: http://download.cnet.com/NetPerSec/3000-18512_4-15690.html