remove all images from a webpage

You can remove all of the images displayed on any web page by making use of the 'Remove Images' bookmarklet posted here: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/100-useful-bookmarklets-for-better-productivity-ultimate-list/

A bookmarklet is javascript code that you can add as a bookmark on your web browser. On the Hongkiat site simply select the link for the bookmarklet and drag it to your bookmarks bar. When you are on a web page and you click the link, the images will no longer be displayed.

You can get the images for a web page back by refreshing the page. The bookmarklet may not work with animated images.

Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework Approval in Doubt

The EU-US Privacy shield has been invalid since 2020, when the European Court of Justice invalidated it in Data Protection Commissioner v Facebook Ireland and Maximillian Schrems), a follow-up decision to a 2015 ruling in the first case filed by Schrems against Facebook which found the Safe Harbour Privacy Principles did not offer sufficient protections for the personal data of EU citizens because of American surveillance programs.

President Biden issued an Executive Order in October 2022 approving the Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework.  The DPF has not yet been approved by the European Commission, the executive body of the EU.

The DPF will require American intelligence agencies to update their regulations to comply with new safeguards for protecting data privacy.  A Civil Liberties Protection Officer in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence would conduct investigations into complaints about violations of data privacy.  The Attorney General would create a Data Protection Review Court to independently review the Civil Liberties Protection Officer’s holdings.  A Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board would also conduct an annual review to ensure intelligence agencies comply with the order to update their policies.

The Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament issued this press release this April faulting the Executive Order for not going far enough to safeguard personal data.  The MEPs noted the decisions of the Data Protection Review Court wouldn’t be publicly disclosed and could be overturned by the President.  They question whether or not the DPF would be held up in an EU court.   A resolution passed by the Committee recommending that the European Commission not approve the DPF got 37 votes in favor, 0 against, and 21 abstentions.  The European Commission can approve the DPF without the consent of the EU Parliament.

hunting external links

Tonight I used the below vba code posted here by Domenic to successfully generate a list of each cell in a workbook which contained a link to an outside Excel file.

This code is more convenient than searching for .xl in Find with the 'Look in: Formulas' setting.

Keep in mind that if you open an Excel workbook and this troubling warning appears:

. . . the source of the problem will not be shown in the first column of the 'Find All' search results. Look in the reference column (or the Formula column in the Find tool) for a reference to a different file embedded in a formula. See: prices.xlsx in this example for a search run in the inventory.xlsx workbook:

Option Explicit

Sub ListLinks()

    Dim Wks             As Worksheet
    Dim rFormulas       As Range
    Dim rCell           As Range
    Dim aLinks()        As String
    Dim Cnt             As Long

    If ActiveWorkbook Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
    
    Cnt = 0
    For Each Wks In Worksheets
        On Error Resume Next
        Set rFormulas = Wks.UsedRange.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeFormulas)
        On Error GoTo 0
        If Not rFormulas Is Nothing Then
            For Each rCell In rFormulas
                If InStr(1, rCell.Formula, "[") > 0 Then
                    Cnt = Cnt + 1
                    ReDim Preserve aLinks(1 To 2, 1 To Cnt)
                    aLinks(1, Cnt) = rCell.Address(, , , True)
                    aLinks(2, Cnt) = "'" & rCell.Formula
                End If
            Next rCell
        End If
    Next Wks
    
    If Cnt > 0 Then
        Worksheets.Add before:=Worksheets(1)
        Range("A1").Resize(, 2).Value = Array("Location", "Reference")
        Range("A2").Resize(UBound(aLinks, 2), UBound(aLinks, 1)).Value = Application.Transpose(aLinks)
        Columns("A:B").AutoFit
    Else
        MsgBox "No links were found within the active workbook.", vbInformation
    End If
    
End Sub