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Google FLoC
News

Google FLoC in a Nutshell

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Google FLoC beta: Google announced that they launched the beta of Google FloC and that around 5% of Chrome’s users will be included in this experiment. For those of you who don’t know FloC is short for Federated learning of cohorts and is Google’s alternative for third-party cookies. Instead of letting third-party cookies track you individually, FloC let’s your browser do all the work on your Chrome browsers will use algorithms to create a huge number of groups or “cohorts,” groups of people that share certain qualities and interests. Each person’s individual browsing history will be kept private and won’t be shared with anybody, but the browser itself will look at the history and then assign the user to one of the cohorts. FLoC backlash FLoC has received a lot of backlash from the community because, in essence, google FLoC is a summary of your browsing history which raises a lot of privacy and security concerns. The backlash is so severe that multiple browsers such as Edge and Safari refused to support it. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EEF) has openly called the FLoC a terrible idea in their article, calling it just as bad or even worse than third-party cookies. The EEF has a few reasons to call FLoC a bad idea. The first one is that FLoC is supposed to be made to prevent fingerprinting (the practice of gathering many discrete pieces of information from a user’s browser to create a unique identifier for that user) and Google promised that cohorts will at least contain thousands of users meaning each user’s behavior will be hidden with thousands of other users however this might give fingerprints a head start since instead of searching for millions they will only have to search within thousands and that’s not even considering the fact that some fingerprinter can already track and in this case they will have a lot more info than they already have. Another big company that attacked FloC is WordPress. WordPress like the EEF thinks that FLoC is a bad idea; however, they are taking much more drastic measures against it. WordPress is proposing to block FLoC entirely and treating it like a security issue. Another thing that has the community attacking FLoC is that nobody really asked for it. While FLoC may be a better alternative for third-party cookies, third-party cookies are already in the process of dying out and nobody asked for a better alternative. The problem with third-party cookies isn’t who is moderating it, the problem is with the targeted ads and privacy.   Conclusion While we don’t think that FLoC is inherently a bad or evil idea, there are some problems with it that Google needs to address before committing to this standard and expecting people to accept it.

what is DNS?
Web Hosting

DNS explained!

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The Domain Name System or DNS as it is more commonly known is undoubtedly one of the most important and underrated parts of the internet. Without DNS, the internet as we know it today will simply cease to exist. Most of us know that the internet is made of large groups of servers connected to each other via wires and that each server is identified by a unique number called IP addresses, but we cannot possibly remember the IPs for every website; it’s just way too hard remember all of them, so we use Domain names such as hostilica.com. When you enter a URL into your browser, it will first check if it has the IP address in the cache. If it doesn’t, it will send a request or query for the more tech-savvy of you to the DNS server (think of a phone book for the internet), which matches the URL to the IP address which operates the website. But how does it work? A DNS request is first sent to a recursive name server typically operated by your ISP. IF the recursive name server has the IP address you’re trying to visit already stored, it will forward the request to one of the root DNS servers, which are responsible for managing all the TLDs such as .com or .net. The root server then forwards your request to the appropriate TLD server, who will then contact an authoritative name server that contains a list of IP addresses and their matching URLs and is updated every time someone buys or registers a domain. Once the requested IP address is found, it is sent back to the recursive name server, which sends it back to you and both your computer and the recursive server will save that IP address for a while so that they don’t have to go through the same process each time you want to access that website.   Problems with DNS DNS usually works very well; however, since computers and recursive servers will try to use their own cache, this can cause a problem, especially when websites change IP addresses.   DNS propagation: When any information about the website servers change, this change needs to propagate through all the servers around the world which are involved in the DNS process, which can take up to 72 hours (typically a few hours in most cases) which might lead your website to be unavailable for users in different locations. You can check this article in order to learn more about DNS propagation.   Local computer cache: As we mentioned above, the computer will cache a website IP and try to access a website through the saved IP address. This will cause a problem if the IP address for the server changes. However, it’s easily corrected by removing all IP addresses stored in the system, just fire up cmd in windows as an administrator and typing ipconfig/flushdns   DNS poisoning: Every system has its vulnerability that hackers will try to use and DNS is no exception. Hackers use a technique called DNS poisoning where an attacker will change the DNS cache on your computer to point to malicious sites that look legit sites to try to steal sensitive information like passwords and credit card information.   Conclusion The domain name system is the backbone that makes up the internet as we know it and without it we wouldn’t have the same easy experience we have to today when we access an online website or service.

What is website defacement
Security, Web Hosting

What Is Website Defacement and How to Avoid It

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Have you ever wondered what website defacement is and how to prevent it? If not, then it is high time that you do some research for yourself. Defacing a web page is to change its appearance (when viewed by the user) by removing, adding, or altering files in the webserver, which is generally done by defacers. Defacers are hackers who hijack your website and replace the hosted website with their own. A defacing attack is considered as an electronic form of graffiti and vandalism. Defacing attacks are generally executed via one of five ways: 1-Unauthorized access: This one is relatively simple. A hacker has somehow gotten the credentials to access your web hosting and changed the website files directly. This can be done by various methods, such as phishing, brute force or a vulnerability in your CMS. 2-SQL injection: Also known as SQLI is a common attack in which the attacker tries to guess how your database works and how it is structured and sends malicious queries to display data that is not intended to be displayed; this includes but not limited to sensitive company data and user lists. After gaining some information, the hacker can then gain administrative rights to your database and manipulate the site as he sees fit. 3-Cross site scripting (XSS): The difference between cross site scripting (XSS) and other similar types of attacks (e.g. SQL injection) is that it targets the users of a web application not the web application itself. The way it works is that hackers scan for vulnerabilities in your web application and injects malicious code into the web application. The malicious code can be a trojan horse that modifies your content. 4- DNS hijacking: DNS hijacking is also known as DNS redirection. It’s a type of attack in which DNS queries are incorrectly resolved in order to direct users to malicious sites. DNS hijacking is executed by installing malware on users’ computers, hacking their routers or hijacking DNS servers. How to protect your website from these attacks You can protect your website from website defacement attacks by following security best practices below: Following the principle of least privilege The principle of least privilege (PoLP) is a concept in information security. All users are given the minimum level of access or permission to do their jobs. By limiting access and permissions to your website, you decrease the risk of a compromised account doing damage. Never use the default admin or email When setting up a server or cms, always change the default user, password, and directory because hackers know them all too well and try to use them to gain access to your website. Limit the use of addons and plugins The more plugins or addons you add to platforms such as Joomla and WordPress, the more likely you are to have vulnerabilities in your website because some of these plugins don’t follow best code practices and are not well updated. Needless to say, you should constantly update your cms and plugins. Use SSL/TLS Always use SSL on your websites because this encrypts all communications between the user and your website, preventing Man In the Middle attacks (MITM), which can be used to deface your website for a specific user. Scan for vulnerabilities Regularly check your website for vulnerabilities and take the time to remove them completely. This can be time-consuming and may even break some of your website’s functions, but this is the best way to make sure your website is secure and reduces the chance of your website getting hacked. All plans of Hostilica comes with sitelock lite to help you scan for malwares Conclusion Making sure your website is secure is not an easy feat. Still, you should always take your security seriously and never ignore the risk of getting hacked, and it will have serious consequences that you may not be able to recover from. Always make sure that you follow security best practices when creating and maintaining a website.

Web Design

What is a Website Builder?

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So you’ve been researching web development because you want to make a website for your business or even a personal (blog) website, but you’re not tech-savvy enough to build a website yourself and don’t have the budget to hire a web developer. What do you do? Well, the answer is very simple, use a website builder. But what is a website builder? I hear you asking yourself. To put it simply, a website builder is a piece of software that allows you to quickly build a website without needing to have any coding or technical skills. So how do they work? Website builders have predefined templates installed in them, so the base code is already set. They then allow you to change the template by letting you upload your own pictures, branding images and change the text; website builders also have drag and drop mechanics that enable you to make a place for text boxes, buttons, menus, images, etc. That’s what makes them very easy to use and allows you to build a website within a few minutes. There are two types of website builder: Offline website builders: In the case of offline website builders, you download and install the software on your computer, fire up the software, and when you are done, save the files and upload it to your server. In that case, you don’t need to be online in order to work on your website. However, you will have to have little technical experience to buy your hosting account and upload the files to the server. Online website builders: You don’t need to install any kind of software on your computer since Online website builders are web-based; you just need a browser (google, firefox) and an internet connection. The advantage of online website builders comes in twofold. Firstly, you can work on your website from anywhere and you don’t need a specific computer to access your work. Secondly, you don’t need any kind of technical expertise to upload the files since they are tied directly to your server if you buy them from your hosting provider. So what should I look for in a website builder? Of course, not all website builders are built equal, so here are a few things to consider while searching for a website builder: Multimedia support: Having multimedia support is something you should always make sure your website builder supports, especially if you are building a blog because people expect quality content, including pictures, videos, and audio, not just a bunch of text. Mobile responsiveness: According to google analytics, over 50% of all online traffic was generated by users in 2016, So your website should be able to adapt well on small mobile screen sizes and not all website builders do this well. That’s why you should make sure your website builder has built-in mobile responsiveness. Ease of use: You are using a website builder because you don’t have time or technical experience, so there’s no reason for the experience to be frustrating. Always try a website builder before you buy and make sure you are comfortable using it. Performance: You should always test your website loading speed yourself because people don’t have the patience to wait for a website to load. You can also check Google’s performance tool here. SEO: SEO is short for search engine optimization. A website won’t get traffic all by itself; after your website gets crawled by search engines such as Google and Bing, it gets ranked according to criteria set by the search engine, and the higher you rank, the higher you will be in search engine result pages (SERPs). That’s where SEO comes in. You have to make sure it has built-in SEO functions to enable you to make SEO-friendly URLs,alt-text, All metadata, XML sitemaps and robot.txt. Too busy to do the research No worries, Hostilica is got you covered and you don’t need to waste your time because Hostilica provides you with a web builder that ticks all the boxes. Weebly is one of the most powerful web builders out there. It also comes for free with all of our web hosting plans.

cPanel & WHM, Web Hosting

Common Beginner cPanel Mistakes

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Using cPanel to manage your servers makes your job ten times easier and saves you a lot of time since most of your tasks and configurations will only take a few clicks to do. But it can be daunting, especially for inexperienced beginners who might make decisions that can affect their website performance and flexibility in the long term. In this article, we will share with you common beginner mistakes so you can avoid them.   Not using Business email: Many people out there use their web hosting for their websites only or even try to cut costs altogether if they don’t have a website and rely on Gmail or yahoo for email services without a personalized address tied to your domain name. For example, if you use Gmail, your email will look like person@gmail.com instead of person@companyname.com. This is not good for your business since it decreases your authenticity to your customers and will make them hesitant to choose your company. An even worse mistake is using your cPanel Forwarder to forward emails that come to your business email to your Gmail. Doing this can have serious consequences. Spammers have gotten very good at using insecure email forwarders to steal your identity, which led many Email providers to send forwarded emails to spam folders. This will either lead you to miss an important email or your email might end up in your customer’s spam folder. Both of these situations can be a costly mistake and harm your business perspective.   Setting all your website service and application under a single FTP account or database: When you start setting up your site in cPanel, you will have the option to create FTP accounts and databases for your website, and you might be tempted to use a single FTP account or a single database for all your website services and subdomains. First of all, setting up a single database for all of your websites and services will backfire. When creating a database, you always want it to be small specific. Doing this will decrease your database size, increasing its performance and making it much easier to adjust and optimize things when needed. Secondly, never give anyone more access than they need on your website. As a rule of thumb, the tighter the access people have to your website, the more secure it is. That’s why you should create multiple accounts with different access levels to your directory in order to make your website more secure.   Using too many subdomains: Most companies will allow you to create unlimited subdomains. However you should only use them when necessary. If not used right, subdomains will make it harder for you because they decrease your flexibility in the long-term and might hurt your SEO badly.   Only pointing your A record instead of NS records: This mistake happens with beginners who have to migrate their website from a hosting provider to another. In most cases, it would be better to point the NS record to the new hosting provider as only pointing your A record can seriously bottleneck your website performance because it restricts the provider’s ability to optimizing your website performance and protecting it from attacks.   Conclusion These mistakes are very easy to avoid; just make sure to consider the long-term effects of your decisions when setting up a website. If you want a more in-depth tutorial for cPanel, check out our article, you can also learn why you should use cPanel in the first place here

CDN
Linux, Web Hosting

What is a Content Delivery Network and How It Works

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A Content Delivery Network is a vital component of any good-old-fashioned website and software these days. The content you see on your smartphones today, on almost any site or app, images or videos, or any other sort of online content will be delivered over a content delivery network. This means the internet is divided up into many different “neighborhoods” where the same content is made available across various networks – this makes it far easier for the end-user to find what they want, and the data doesn’t have to travel all over the world. They simply go to their PC, fire up the relevant software, enter their credit card details and it’s done. Simple! In terms of the technology itself, a CDN works by using IPs or IP networks that are fast enough to be able to route packets of information much faster. The reason why many companies (not just those in telecommunication) are getting a CDN is that they have a common use case which is people accessing information from mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops from different parts of the world. With a common use case such as this, there’s a much greater potential for traffic to increase on a CDN. With a CDN technology system, every server connected to the system is essentially acting as an “edge server”. The edge servers act as “redundant” connections since all the data requests will be routed through the edge servers and not directly from the source servers. This means that with each request, your computer gets the request for that data in its pool and then sends that request out along to whichever edge servers it can find. This saves time since the user doesn’t have to wait for the actual source server to receive the request. This saves you lots of bandwidth, which is especially important if your website has a lot of traffic from different parts of the world. The CDN provider also ensures that no packets are lost and that they arrive at their destinations promptly increasing the network’s reliability.   Conclusion CDN allows for faster and higher quality transmission and reception of information because all of the information is handled internally. Because of these key components, CDN is becoming increasingly popular in many different circumstances, from enterprise to residential use and from large institutions to small ones.

apache vs nginx
Linux, Web Hosting

Apache vs Nginx – What is The Difference?

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In the world of web hosting, you’ll come across two very popular web servers: Apache and Nginx. Both are the most popular web servers for Linux. They both serve over 50% of all web traffic on the Internet. It’s no surprise that these two are so popular. This article will compare the two to see which is better for your web server needs. Both Apache and Nginx have a lot of the same features. They both are open source projects. They are both made for the same purpose, which is serving content over the Internet; however, they are very different in the way they serve their content.    Apache: Since it’s release, Apache has been a mainstay piece of technology used to power various websites. Apache works well with PHP, Perl and other languages based on the Common Gateway Interface (CSI) and the HTTP protocol. Apache’s flexibility with web technologies makes it an extremely economical choice for hosting websites of all sizes. Apache is easy to install and comes with a large number of features. Apache uses a multi-process approach which means it creates a new thread for each request. Apache has a variety of multi processing modules (MPMs) which define how clients are served. Three main MPMs are used :   Prefork MPM: This module creates a new process with a single thread to handle a single connection at a time. This module is very fast as long as the number of connections is lower than the number of processes. The module performance degrades substantially when the number of connections becomes higher than the number of processes and is also very hard to scale.   Worker MPM: This module creates processes that can handle multiple threads, which means each process can handle multiple connections. This module is much more efficient than Prefork and is much easier to scale.   Event MPM: Very similar to how Worker MPM works but handles Keep alive requests better. This protects the module from getting overflowed with Keepalive requests. Apache is very flexible and user-friendly and is known for its wide support, especially the fact that it supports PHP, meaning it supports serving dynamic content, which is very important, especially if you are planning on streaming video from your server or are going to use a CMS like WordPress.   Pros: User-friendly Great flexibility Large community Support for dynamic content Cons: Spawns new process for each request which makes it much less efficient   Nginx: Nginx is also very popular as a web server. It was developed by Igor Sysoev and released to the public in 2004. Igor made it explicitly to outperform Apache and address the C10K challenge, which is serving 10 thousand concurrent connections. Nginx utilizes an asynchronous event-driven architecture. Nginx creates a worker process that can handle thousands of concurrent connections by placing each event in a loop while processing connections asynchronously. This makes Nginx much more efficient in serving static content than Apache and enables it to scale enormously on minimal resources; however, it limits the flexibility of Nginx. Another problem with Nginx is that it doesn’t support dynamic content forcing their users to pass their dynamic requests to an external processor and wait for the content to be rendered so Nginx can then relay it, which can complicate things and affect performance Pros: Lighter and more efficient than Apache Able to 10k simultaneous connection on low system resources Best for static content Cons: Community support isn’t as great as Apache Doesn’t support dynamic content natively Less flexibility   Conclusion: When both are used on the same website, they both serve the same purpose. However, there are subtle differences between the two that a web developer needs to be well aware of. Nginx is less flexible than Apache, making it unsuitable if you want a fully-configured and dynamic website. Nginx is also faster and can provide support for various protocols and different sets of coding standards. In the end, it is the preference of the website owner as to which type of web server is best.

domain name registrar
Web Hosting

What is a Domain Name Registrar?

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A domain name registrar refers to any business that deals in the registration of Internet domain names for profit. A domain name registrar usually has its own reservations and control of domain names and often acts as a registrant with the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) in an effort to reserve them for profit. Most domain name registrars are ICANN accredited but not all.   ICANN Organization ICANN is the entity that oversees the registry of top-level domain names. A domain name registrar normally acts as an intermediary between the customer (you) and the ICANN staff. Your domain name is registered in their registry, and you use their services to reserve your name. Once reserved, your name remains in their registry until you cancel your account or the lease expires.   Web Hosting Companies Role Web hosting companies provide the names and addresses for the domain name servers. These companies work closely with ICANN to handle the DNS requests for each site. The customer does not need to know anything about how the names are handled by the web host companies. The web host company simply responds to the DNS request from the customer and registers your domain name on their web server. They also provide the customers with business email addresses.   Always Check the Policies When buying a domain name from a registrar there are some things you should look for such as contact information, technical support, privacy policy and FAQs. It is important to read the whois and other domain name Registrant details to get a good idea of what you are purchasing. You should find out everything you can about them before you make your final decision. Not knowing this important information could cause you major problems later on. Always make sure that you find a registrar that offers you plenty of options when it comes to domain names, as you will want to be able to register your domain name with different names, resell them later, or transfer them to a new owner.

Common WordPress Mistakes to Avoid in 2021
Web Design, WordPress

WordPress for Beginners: 10 Common WordPress Mistakes to Avoid in 2021

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Making the decision to start a blog is easy, but what happens when you start the whole blogging process and then something goes wrong? What are the most common mistakes that new blog owners make? There are several, and I’m going to address some of the more common mistakes that I see. The last thing any new blogger wants is to make a mistake in their very first few blog posts. So, let’s get started!   Forgetting about SEO A lot of wordpress beginners forget about SEO. SEO, for those of you who don’t know, is short for search engine optimization and is the process of optimizing your website for search engines in order to rank higher in search queries. This is very important because you want your blog/website to rank higher to get more traffic to your website, So you should make sure your website is optimized for search engines. By making it easy for the search engines to index. Your website should always be listed in the search engine results pages, so you must make sure your title tag and meta tags are relevant to your site’s content. You can learn more about SEO basics here and learn more about the best WordPress SEO plugins here.   Choosing the wrong theme One of the most common beginner WordPress mistakes is selecting the wrong theme for your website. When you install WordPress, you should always choose the “All-In-One” theme. This is the theme that makes everything work together. It is usually the easiest theme to change from and it comes with everything you need to get started. You can check this article for more WordPress design tips.   Not keeping up with security practices Keeping your wordpress website secure is your responsibility and you really shouldn’t ignore it. Getting hacked will cause you many problems, and some of them are irreversible, so don’t take the risk and keep up with the latest security practices that you can learn more about in this article.   Using too many plugins or conflicting ones A third common mistake that many people make is using too many plugins or plugins that conflict with one another. For example, if you have two plugins that aren’t meant to work together, then using both of them on the same site can lead to security and performance problems. WordPress will alert you whenever a plugin conflicts with another, and it will also try to fix the plugin versions that conflict with the other one. However, if you don’t test your plugins before using them, you might end up with two very similar plugins, with completely different coding, security issues, and so forth. By using best practices and avoiding these common mistakes, it’s much easier to build a website that works as well as possible. If you want to learn more about how WordPress plugins work, you can check this article.   Not making use of development practices Another mistake I have seen mainly from people who use WordPress without a development background is not using development best practices. There are several different ways that you can develop your WordPress site, and by “development best practices” I mean things like separating your content from your header, keeping the header simple and testing all content on a new version of WordPress before applying it to the site. Some developers think that the WordPress template engine is the best way to achieve this, but it can be very time-consuming.   Making all of your posts really long Putting all of your posts into one big post. There’s a big problem with this; first, it slows down the post-viewing experience and second, it takes longer for your blog to load. Your content is very important, so you want people to read your content and visit your website. It’s okay to have multiple long posts on your blog if you need space to explain something. Just don’t use this space to try to fill up every single post.   Not backing up your website Many people think that nothing can go wrong and they will never have to worry about backup and say it will not happen to them. This is wrong, you never know what can happen. That’s why you should regularly backup your website in order to protect your data should anything happen. [themify_layout_part slug=”web-hosting-discount”] Not checking your website performance If your website is slow, people won’t check it. That’s because human attention span is continuously decreasing, and studies show that people most probably will leave your website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. That’s why you have to regularly check your website performance and speed to make sure that it’s working perfectly. You can check out our guide on how to increase your WordPress website performance and how to check your WordPress website performance.  one of the common reasons for bad performance websites is the hosting plan you are purchasing. to avoid this problem you must choose the most suitable web hosting plans for your business. WE WILL LEAVE HERE A LINK FOR THE BEST WEB HOSTING PLANS  [themify_layout_part slug=”web-hosting-discount”] Forgetting to update WordPress WordPress updates are very important because they patch vulnerabilities, fix bugs, increase your performance and introduce new features. Not updating your website will have serious consequences such as performance penalties and of course, leaving your website vulnerable to be hacked will cause a lot of problems.   Duplicating content The final beginner WordPress mistake that I want to talk about is creating multiple posts from one post. Creating a series of blog posts with different variations of the same content is called duplicate content. This is a big no-no in WordPress.   A word before you go All of these beginner WordPress mistakes are very easy to avoid if you know what you are doing. WordPress is a powerful platform that is used by thousands of professional bloggers, businesses and individuals everyday. If you don’t know how to use it properly,

web-server
Web Hosting

What is a Web Server?

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Any website that you view on the internet is a collection of raw data such as images, texts and database content stored on a computer somewhere on the internet. A web server is software installed on that same computer for the sole purpose of answering a client’s http request meaning that a web server puts all the material that you request into a web page and then sends it back over the internet to your browser, which renders the page.   How does a web server work? The basic concept of how a web server works is very easy to understand. When you install a web server, it stays idle and listens on ports waiting for requests (probably 80 for http or 443 for https), and as soon as it receives a request, it replies with a response containing the request resources.   Communicating through HTTP As mentioned above a web server communicates with a client’s browser through HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol). A protocol is a set of rules that govern the communication between two computers and HTTP is a textual, stateless protocol.   Textual: all commands are in plain text (not machine language) and human-readable Stateless: neither the server nor the client remember any previous communication by relying only on HTTP, for example, a server won’t remember a password you type you need an application server for that.   HTTP has a clear set of rules, but for this topic, we need two focus on three of them: Only the client can make a request and only the server can give a reply A client must provide a URL to request a file via HTTP The web server must answer all HTTP request even if only with an error message   The next three steps are roughly how a web server handles an http request: When a web server receives an HTTP request, it checks if the URL matches any of the existing files If the web server found a matching file it will send it back to the browser, if not a web application will build the necessary files If neither can happen, it will respond with an error message. The most common message is error 404 which means file not found (most web designers will take the time to make a unique design for them since they are very common)   Options  When it comes to web server software, you’re pretty much confined with three options Apache, Nginx or Litespeed, with Apache being the oldest and most commonly used. For most people especially beginners, we recommend sticking with Apache since it has tons and tons of tutorials and explanations and has the biggest support of all of them.

Web Design, Web Development

Front End vs Back End

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If you’re new to web development, you have probably heard about the two terms Front end and Back end, and you might be confused about the difference and what they do. In this article, we are going to explain both of them. Front end: Front end are programming languages that control how things look in a website which involves images, content, and structure of a website which are features that are directly viewed and accessed by the end-user. So when a company is looking for a front end developer, they are looking for someone who will be responsible for everything you see like an architect who designs a building. For front end development there are three languages only which are HTML, CSS, and javascript. Those are the three pillars that build any website. However, there are frameworks that facilitate the coding by giving pre-written standard code. There are many frameworks than you can count, but here are some examples: Bootstrap (HTML & CSS framework) AngularJS (javascript framework) jQUERY (javascript framework) Skills front end developers need: As we mentioned above, front end developers are responsible for a website’s aesthetics, although sometimes they don’t have to work from scratch. In some companies, they hire both a web-designer (he is responsible for the design) and a front end developer, in this case, the front end developer for coding the design only. Here are some of the required skills required to be a front end developer: A good understanding of front end programming languages Able to make a design responsive Knowledge of testing and debugging Knowledge of front end tools and features like CMS, APIs, and frameworks Back end: Back end programming languages define and handle how a website works. Back end addresses server-side processes, logic and data flow through the website. In a nutshell, Back end languages handle what you don’t see. A good example of this is when you search for a product on a website, back end languages are responsible for searching for the database for data on the item and returning it back to your browser. There are a lot of Back end programming languages such as Ruby, Python, PHP, Java. And like front end, back end has a lot of frameworks such as: Laravel (PHP framework) Django (Python framework) Ruby on Rails (Ruby framework) Skills Back end developers need: Back end developers are responsible for making the website work through the back end language. They are also responsible for monitoring how the website is performing and implementing updates to improve functionalities. A back end developer is not limited to working on a website. He can work as a Software engineer or an IOS developer. Here are some of the required skills required to be a Back end developer: Good knowledge of database systems and manipulation languages (mostly SQL) Knowledge in Back end development languages such as Java, PHP, and python Knowledge of security compliance Strong problem-solving skills Knowledge of Back end frameworks   Conclusion Front end developers control how a website looks for the end-user and back-end developers are responsible for the server side processes and integrating them with the work of the front-end developers.  We hope that you have a clear understanding of front-end and back end development and know the difference between them.

What is an API
Web Development

What is an API?

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Nowadays, we are connected to each other and the world like never before. We are all used to the instant connectivity that puts everything literally at our fingertips from computers or mobile phones. We can purchase anything, share information or search for it and of course, text or call each other and check news using social media.  But how does it work? How seemingly very different applications connect with each other, how is data transferred from different devices and different applications and websites with each other?   What Does API Stand For?  API Stands For Application programming. API interface The reason we can do all of the activities above is the API which stands for Application Programming Interface.  The definition of API is a computing interface that defines interactions between multiple intermediary devices. What that means is that an API provides a set of functions without the user having to worry about how they work.  Think, for example, a waiter in a restaurant. When you order a meal from a restaurant, the waiter writes your order and then goes to the kitchen tells the chef about the order and when it’s done, the waiter comes back with your food.  Here you don’t have to worry about what happens in the kitchen, you don’t have to worry about the food supply or the food getting burnt, but the waiter organizes all of that. The waiter in this example represents the API.  A real-world example would be the weather app on both IOS and Android devices. The weather app on both systems shows the weather anywhere in the world, but neither google nor apple have placed sensors all over the world instead they both partnered with the weather channel which provides them with an API that takes weather info from their database and displays it on your phone.   Uses of APIs System APIs: API is not used for sharing data only. They have a lot of use cases. One case is that app developers don’t have to worry setting up a wifi connection, drawing shapes on your screen or how to talk to the sensors of your device such as your gyroscope (allows your phone to know where it is in space can be used to put phone landscape mode for example) or GPS (to know your location like uber). Instead, the system provides a lot of APIs to simplify all of this. An app just asks the system to do what it needs.  It would be impossible for developers to write code for each function for each model that can use the app, doing so would millions of lines of code and would make any app considerably heavier.   Extend functionality: Smart devices are becoming more and more popular, and APIs are the reason why they exist in the first place. Now you can order your speaker to play music through google assistant, Siri or  Alexa this is possible because the speaker manufacturer took the API of each the assistant and integrated into the speaker so they can speak with each other and in turn allows you to control it via these softwares   A Gatekeeper: When an app asks for your permission to access something like your contacts or location, it doesn’t do so because it wants to but because the system does it for them and there’s no way around it. The system also allows you to revoke this permission anytime if you wish so. Also, a lot of websites use the same concept. You can use your Facebook and google account to login to a lot of websites. It’s fast and convenient however this gives those websites some data from your social media account to make an account for you and can be misused since a lot of these permissions can last for a long time.  This concept is what allowed Cambridge Analytica to collect massive data through the Facebook API. They created a personality quiz which asked for some of your personal info which is fine. However, the permission allowed the app to access your data for months even if you didn’t use it anymore, which allowed Cambridge Analytica to gain massive amounts of data and use it in the trump 2018 election campaign.

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