You can now use a selfie to sign-in to your Google account

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google announced a new option to sign-in to a Google account this week. Called “Selfie Video”, it is specifically designed for signing-in when you are locked out or use a device that is not your “usual phone or computer”.

However, for this to work, it is necessary to set up Selfie Video prior to making use of it, Google notes.

Note: I got the “Selfie isn’t available as a sign-in option for this account” error when trying to set this up for tests. Not sure whether the feature is region-locked, as Google does not make any mentions of limitations.

Google describes the new feature in the following way:

Setting up a selfie video is simple: You just look at your device’s camera and complete a few short, guided head movements to capture multiple angles.

If you’re having trouble signing in later on, you just take another selfie to get back into your account. Selfie video compares the new video to the one you set up to confirm it is really you and help you get back into your account.

What about privacy and security? Google says the selfie video “is recorded and securely stored with your consent” and only used for sign in help, unless you decide to “share it for additional purposes”. The video is encrypted at rest according to Google, and there are “multiple layers of security to help prevent impersonation attempts”.

Here is my take: while this may look like yet another feature to get more data from its users, it is actually not the worst of ideas in some cases. First, it is optional, which means that you don’t have to use it and the majority of Google users probably won’t.

The main advantage is that this is independent of devices or security keys. If you don’t have access to your smartphone or computer anymore, you may lose access to your accounts or have troubles authorizing yourself. This selfie option could provide a way out in emergency situations. That is, provided that it works as advertised.

For users heavily invested — and thus trusting — in Google’s ecosystem, it could be an option for disaster recovery.

What about you? Would you use such a feature? Let me know in the comments below.

Google Search: AI Overviews reduces click-throughs by 60 percent, research suggests

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Ah Google Search, everyone’s favorite search engine that started out as an excellent source for Internet resources using links and is openly being turned into a service that eats everything that is in its way, even the very sites that fuel it.

A new report, cited by the Wall Street Journal, suggests that major US publishers have noticed sharp drops in organic Google Search traffic between June 2025 and June 2026.

According to the report, sites noticed decreases of organic traffic by up to 85 percent and the main reason for that appears to be AI Overviews. When Google Search displays an AI generated overview on a search results page, traffic to sites drops by about 60 percent according to the study. This leaves Discover traffic as the remaining traffic source from Google, but this comes with its own set of caveats, including a tendency for clickbait.

Major US publishers and sites, including Reddit, Politico and Business Insider, may turn to drastic measures to put an end to Google’s strategy of becoming the one and only destination on the Internet that users need.

Reddit, the Wall Street Journal reports, is considering dropping a potential renewal of its $60 million per year deal with Google. This would disallow Google from using the content published on Reddit for AI training and also prevent the company from showing Reddit content in its AI overviews.

Apart from losing the money, Reddit might also notice another drop in referrals from Google as a consequence, as it would likely no longer be listed by the AI Overviews feature.

My personal take: Google’s decisions have led to a decline in Internet blogs, at least in the tech sector. Independent owners of sites like Freeware Genius stopped publishing or pulled their sites entirely from the Internet because of Google. Now, the beneficiaries of Google’s algorithmic changes are facing a similar situation. Google is keeping the users that it used to send to these sites and now it is their business model that is in jeopardy.

Here is the outcome: Some will survive, as they may provide value that Google can’t replicate. Some will merge, others will vanish. Even big publications or sites may go down. Google might eventually notice that AI can’t generate fresh information on its own though.

Firefox

Firefox 153 launches with new security improvements and fixes

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla released Firefox 153.0 to the public yesterday. The new version of the open source browser comes with a good range of new features and changes, including some that are important for privacy and security.

The list of changes is long, but there are several standout features in changes. For one, Mozilla integrated the decade-old Containers feature of the browser directly into Firefox as an out-of-the-box feature.

Containers allow you to separate websites and data. The main idea is to contain data within containers, which means that anything that runs outside can’t access the container data. Whether it is a coincidence that Mozilla is making the feature more visible after Brave introduced it recently is unclear, but it could give Containers a much needed boost.

There are various methods to open sites in Containers. You can right-click on any open tab and select the “Open in new Container tab” option, or right-click on the new-tab-button instead.

Firefox ships with the usual four default containers personal, work, banking, and shopping, which you can edit. You can also add new containers or enable “Select a container for each new tab” to automatically open the container picker when opening a new tab.

The Multi-Account Container add-on is still useful, as it extends the functionality. You can use it to force-launch specific sites in a container and use other exclusive features.

As far as security and privacy are concerned, there are three additional changes that are noteworthy:

  • Extensions do not gain access to local files by default anymore. You can still grant them permission using the new “Access local files on your computer” permission.
  • Firefox now requires websites to request permission before connecting to devices on local networks, or to apps and services on a device.
  • Veteran Firefox users may remember the cookieBehavior preference. The values 3 (Allows third-party cookies only if the eTLD+1 already has at least one cookie set in a first-party context) and 4 (Blocks cookies from domains classified as trackers.) are being removed. They are hidden in Firefox 153 and may be removed as early as Firefox 155. Mozilla replaces them with what it says modern values. Link

Here are the remaining important changes and new features in Firefox 153:

  • HDR video playback is coming to Windows on devices that support it. Make sure that HDR video streaming is enabled under Settings > Display.
  • Share > Generate QR Code is a new option to share pages.
  • PDF Editor can now merge multiple PDFs by dragging them into the PDF sidebar and add new pages to PDFs.
  • Type “pick color” in the address bar to quickly copy a color code from the active page.
  • On Apple devices, Firefox supports Globe-F now.
  • Local permissions are not highlighted in red in the address bar.
  • You can launch Firefox labs now by typing labs in the address bar.

Last but not least, Mozilla patched several security issues in Firefox. The aggregate rating is high and there is no mention of exploits in the wild.

Win11Debloat can now block LG from installing unwanted software

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Windows has this interesting feature that enables OEMs to push software to user devices. This installs the apps automatically on unmanaged devices and supposedly helps get the most out of certain devices, such as monitors or printers.

While that sounds useful in theory, this feature has been abused in the past. The most recent example is LG installing its Monitor App on Windows PCs and using it to display advertisement for McAfee products.

Since this is unwanted by the vast majority of users, it is fair to say that this falls into the misuse of power category.

You can use Win11Debloat, a popular Windows tweaker, to get rid of the app and block LG from installing it again. Or, you could do it manually.

Here are the steps:

Remove the existing LG Monitor App

Because this is packaged as a standard modern Windows app, it can be uninstalled normally without needing to scrub your registry:

  1. Open Windows Settings (Win + I).
  2. Navigate to Apps > Installed apps.
  3. Search for LG Monitor App Installer (or just “LG”).
  4. Click the three dots (…) next to it and select Uninstall.

Prevent Windows from Auto-Installing Device Apps

Windows automatically downloads these OEM companion apps using a feature called “Device Metadata Retrieval.” You can disable this natively in the GUI:

  1. Open System Properties: Press Win + R, type sysdm.cpl, and press Enter.
  2. Navigate to Device Installation Settings:Select the Hardware tab, then click the Device Installation Settings button.
  3. Disable Automatic Downloads:This stops all manufacturer companion apps.Select “No” (your device might not work as expected).
  4. Save Changes:Click Save Changes and restart your PC.

Note that you can also make the change in the Registry or using the Group Policy.

Registry:

  1. Press Win + R, type regedit, and press Enter.
  2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Device Metadata
  3. Find the DWORD named PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork. If it’s missing, right-click an empty space > New > DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it exactly that.
  4. Double-click the key and change its Value data from 0 to 1. Click OK and restart your computer.

Group Policy:

  1. Press Win + R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter.
  2. Navigate to: Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Device Installation.
  3. Double-click Prevent device metadata retrieval from the Internet (or Prevent automatic download of applications associated with metadata, depending on your exact Windows build).
  4. Set it to Enabled, click Apply, and restart.

Here is the effect

By disabling this feature, you are shutting the door on all OEMs. This blocks automatic, silent installations of software from ASUS (Armoury Crate), Razer (Razer Synapse), Dell (Alienware Command Center), HP, Logitech, and others.

Importantly, this will not break your hardware. Windows will still automatically load the basic, essential drivers required to make the device function.

Disabling this setting only stops the automatic background installations triggered by Windows. You retain complete control to install whatever you want, whenever you want.

If you decide you actually need an OEM companion app—for example, to configure mouse macros, change RGB lighting, or update hardware firmware—you can easily bypass the restriction manually:

  • Download directly from the manufacturer: Go to the official support page for your specific hardware (e.g., LG or Razer’s website) and download the driver package or software suite yourself.
  • Install via the Microsoft Store: Many of these OEM control panels are hosted on the Microsoft Store. You can simply search for the app by name and click install.

Turning off automatic metadata retrieval is highly recommended for keeping a clean OS. It shifts control from Windows back to you, ensuring you only install the companion apps you actually plan to use.

Android

Google changes Android backup rules so that everything counts against storage quotas

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Many mobile phone users rely on the automatic backup feature of their devices. On Android, users can back up images and videos, settings, the call history or SMS.

Not all of the backed up data counted against the storage quota of the user, which is 15 GB by default for free Google account users.

While Google has been pushing users towards backing up photos and videos online, likely also to get them close to the free limit and push paid storage, it has discounted some data up until now.

This changes in less than two months. Google is emailing Android users currently about the upcoming change to Android’s backup storage policy.

The main change: All data counts against a user’s storage quota. Google says this includes things such as SMS messages, the call history or device settings.

The email reveals the extra storage requirements for the particular user, which was 0.07 GB in my case and should be around 40 MB on average. It seems unlikely that this will drive the quote of the majority users across the treshold.

Google is also extending the backup capabilities. When you open the back up other data section in the preferences, which Google says is rolling out, you find options to turn off backups for device data or app data. Each entry is listed with the storage it occupies on the device currently, making it easy to find the largest sections. However, there is no option to sort by data, which can make browsing the app data section time consuming.

Thunderbird 154: Minimize and Close functionality on Windows is changing

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

The team behind the open source Thunderbird email client plans to introduce a change in version 154 that changes the default minimize and close behavior on Windows.

Currently, when you close Thunderbird on Windows, the program exits and stops running in the background. When you hit the minimize button, Thunderbird lands in the System Tray area.

Starting in Thunderbird 154, this behavior changes to the following:

  • Minimize: When you activate the button, Thunderbird’s window is minimized, but no longer moved to the System Tray.
  • Close: This can be set to minimized to the System Tray and is the default on systems that use the “When Thunderbird is minimized, move it to the tray” preference already.

Thunderbird users may enable “close to tray” to make sure the email client continues to run when the close button is activated. You find the option under Menu > Settings > General > System Integration > When Thunderbird is closed, move it to the tray.

The team says that the option is disabled by default. Users who want the new behavior need to enable the option. There is also an option to start Thunderbird minimized in the System Tray. You find it under System Integration > Start Thunderbird in the tray.

Thunderbird 154’s release date is set to August 18, 2026. It may already be available in some of the development channels.

Brave Search features a Google Maps alternative now

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

One of the search engines that I use regularly is Brave Search. I have several reasons for that: it is fast, uses its own search index that is fully independent from Google Search and Bing Search, and often good at uncovering results that are burried deep under pages of “what the search algorithms believe is better content”.

For Maps, I do rely on Google Maps. While there are other maps services out there, I found most of them lacking in one way or another. However, in some countries, like Korea or China, I do use different map apps as Google Maps does not work well there or at all, or because they are better.

I stumbled upon Brave Maps just recently. It is not brand new, but Brave does not appear to advertise or link to it much at this point. From what I can tell, it appears to be based on OpenStreeMap for the most part.

You can run searches for places and get information, descriptions and reviews taken from TripAdvisor. One downside is that directions is not baked in but redirects to Google, Bing or OpenStreetMap route planners. That is somewhat of a let-down and will hopefully get addressed in future updates.

Another issue is that reviews are not fully baked in. You get some for a location, but they may be cut off and after three or so, a link to Tripadvisor points to the rest of the reviews. This is a main issue, as you can’t use Brave Maps to search all of the reviews for certain information.

All in all, it is good to see that Brave is adding a Maps feature to its growing list of services. However, at its current stage, it lacks essential features and that reduces its usefulness quite a lot. It is probably one of the reasons why Brave is not heavily advertising the feature yet.

Still, if you are looking for non-mainstream maps services, this is one to keep an eye on to see how it evolves in the coming years.

Windows Tweaker ShutUp10 updated with new options to disable AI and other potentially unwanted content

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

ShutUp10 is one of my favorite tweakers for Windows 10 and 11. The base version is free, it does not need to be installed, and it is super-easy to use but also comes with a good amount of tweaks to turn off features that you don’t need on Windows PCs.

The last version, released yesterday by O&O Software, adds some mighty options to the application’s already impressive arsenal. The new options deal largely with recent Windows changes, like AI in Notepad or File Explorer, denying apps access to generative AI, and taming annoyances, like Windows Search with Bing, Settings app account notifications, or Start menu recommendations.

Here is the full list:

  • Disable Click to Do
  • Disable the Settings agent
  • Disable AI features in Notepad
  • Disable AI actions in File Explorer
  • Disable Find My Device
  • Disable Microsoft account cloud content search (
  • Disable work or school cloud content search
  • Disable device search history
  • Disable Start menu recommendations for tips, shortcuts and new apps
  • Disable Start menu account notifications
  • Disable Settings app account notifications
  • Disable extension of Windows search with Bing
  • Deny app access to generative AI
  • Deny app access to generative AI
  • Deny app access to presence sensing
  • Deny app access to presence sensing
  • Do not send device name in diagnostic data
  • Windows Insider Program conflict detection: when the PC is enrolled in the Windows Insider Program, a notice explains that certain diagnostic-data settings prevent participation, and a dialog offers to disable those settings

Using the app is straightforward. Just download the latest version from the developer website and run it on a Windows machine. The app loads immediately and displays its tweaks in the interface. O&O Software uses colors to distinguish between tweaks that are enabled already and those that aren’t. Furthermore, you gain recommendations for each tweak which range from “yes” to “no”. However, no does not necessarily mean that a tweak is bad, but users should read the description to find out about potential issues that may be experienced after applying it.

“Yes”-Tweaks should be save to apply, but it is always a good idea to read the description to make sure. You can speed things up by selecting Actions to apply all “recommended tweaks”, “recommended and somewhat recommended” or “all tweaks”. I would not recommend doing so unless you are certain that the selection does not cause any issues. If you have the time, it may be better to go through the tweaks one-by-one just to make sure nothing unwanted comes out of it.

The app has a couple of other sections of interest. You can switch to other tabs, e.g. AI, to get a bit of extra control over certain features, or “Secure Boot” to check the status and whether the latest certificates are already used on the system.

Microsoft promises improved Windows Search Box and the removal of ads

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

The lackluster Windows Search has been a hot topic ever since its introduction. One of the main points of criticism is the inclusion of web-based search results, which Microsoft started to introduced with the release of Windows 8.1.

Today, Windows Search continues to return local and web-based search results. What makes matters worse, at least to some users, is the inclusion of advertisement.

Microsoft published a blog post on the official Windows Insider blog today promising to improve the Windows Search box in the near future.

Here is what Microsoft plans to change:

  • Less visual clutter. Search will only display recent searches, not other content, such as “top apps”, image of the day, trending searches, or games for you.
  • Clearer results. Search results will make it clearer where a result comes from.
  • Removal of promotional content from web results.
  • New control to turn off web and Microsoft Store suggestions in Search.
  • Local results have priority when they are the stronger match.
  • Better app search to handle typos, dropped and extra letters, and partial words better.
  • Settings results are improving. More relevant settings should appear higher in the results.
  • Finding local files is improving and support for two-character file searches.
  • Improved search reliability.

The improvements are integrated in the latest Windows Insider builds of the experimental channel. Microsoft has yet to announce when the changes will land in stable builds of the operating system. One potential option is the coming feature update for Windows 11, which is expected in the coming months.

Mozilla moves Firefox to a 2-week release cycle in September

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google announced plans some time ago to move Chromium to a 2-week release cycle to bring features quicker to users. While that does not mean that there will be more Chrome releases, it means that the main version of the browser increases twice as fast.

Mozilla announced on the official Dev Platform group that it will move Firefox development to a 2-week release cycle as well. However, Mozilla notes that this will be an experimental shift, one that it plans to monitor closely to find out if it is beneficial.

Starting with Firefox 155, which Mozilla plans to release on September 1, 2026 and not on September 15, 2026 anymore, Firefox will see a version bump every two weeks.

We are planning to move Firefox Desktop and Android from a 4-week release cadence to a 2-week release cadence starting in September 2026.

This will be an experiment. The goal is to give work that is ready to ship more frequent opportunities to reach users, while making the release process more predictable and reducing pressure on uplifts.

This does not mean that all work needs to ship twice as fast. Work that is not ready should not be rushed, and features can still take the time they need to bake.

Mozilla says that features shouldn’t and won’t get rushed when the change hits. If a feature is not ready, it should not be included in a release just like before.

For users, the main change is that Mozilla may bring some features earlier to Firefox users and that the version of the browser increases twice as fast. Firefox ESR users won’t see a change, as that version is not affected by the change.