Author: Martin Brinkmann

When I was young, I studied German, History and English at Essen University in Germany. I worked in computer support for several years at the time to help other computer users when they ran into issues. Writing started out as a passion project, as I wanted to help more users and not just the ones that I handled in support. This lead to the founding of Ghacks Technology News in 2005. First, as a side-project, but shortly thereafter as a full-time project as the site's popularity exploded. I sold Ghacks to Softonic some years ago, but stayed on as Editor. You can still read my articles on the site. I do publish on Betanews as well. In recent years, I started to write and publish technology books, including my latest book "Windows 11 From Beginner to Advanced", which is available on Amazon. I'm also a freelance writer for the German publisher Gamestar. Chipp.in is my newest project. I want to use it to talk about my book projects, sell my books directly, and write about technology, as this is what interests me.

Tor Browser 14.5 brings Connection Assist feature to Android

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

The developers of the anonymizer Tor Browser have released a new version for all supported operating system. The big feature in this release is the introduction of Connection Assist on Android.

The feature, which has been available in Tor Browser for desktop operating systems for quite some time, aims to help users establish a connection to the Tor network if regular connection attempts do not work.

So, if connecting to Tor fails in the browser, for example when you try to connect from a country that blocks this, then Connection Assist kicks in. It uses so-called bridges to establish a connection. Bridges use different techniques to circumvent censorship.

Android users could use bridges previously, but it was not that comfortable to configure and use.

The new feature integrates the functionality seamlessly into the Android client, making it a much better experience for users who require these.

All users should benefit from “more stable and less error-prone connections” as well, according to the release announcement.

Tor Browser 14.5 includes support three new languages as well. These are Belarusian, Bulgarian, and Portuguese (Portugal) and available in the desktop and Android clients.

Tip: Languages can be set under Settings > General > Language and Appearance > Language on desktop or Settings > General > Language on Android.

Here are other noteworthy changes:

  • Tor logs on desktop have been “enhanced to aid readability”. Also, no longer necessary to close and reopen to refresh logs.
  • Quitting Tor Browser on Android does now a “thorough job of ending background processes and clearing recent tasks”.
  • Improvements to the Connection Assist logic in general.

Tor Browser 14.5 includes several known issues which you find listed on the official issues tracker. Make sure you pay the page a visit before upgrading or installing the new version of the web browser.

You can check out the full release notes here.

About “The ActiveX content in this file is blocked” messages in Microsoft Office

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft is changing how Microsoft 365 and Office 2024 handle documents with ActiveX content. Currently, Office displays a prompt that informs users that ActiveX content found in the document is disabled and that they may enable it.

Going forward, Office simply shows “The ActiveX content in this file is blocked” instead, with no option to enable it from the prompt directly. The notification includes a link that opens this support page.

Here are the highlights:

  • ActiveX controls are disabled by default going forward.
  • Users may not interact with existing elements or create new ones by default.
  • This change applies to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Visio.
  • Users may still enable ActiveX controls.

Microsoft recommends that Office users answer the three questions before they consider enabling ActiveX controls again:

  • Were you expecting to receive a file with ActiveX?
  • Are you being encouraged to change your ActiveX settings by someone you do not know?
  • Are you being encouraged to change your ActiveX settings by a pop-up message?

How to enable ActiveX Controls in Office again

Here are the required steps to enable the controls again. Please note that the change applies to all affected Office applications and all documents that you open in them. In other words, you cannot just enable ActiveX controls for a single document.

The workaround in this case would be to enable the controls and disable them again once you are done with the document in question.

To enable ActiveX Controls:

  • Select File in Office and then Options.
  • Switch to Trust Center.
  • Select the Trust Center Settings button.
  • Activate the ActiveX Settings option on the page.
  • Make sure “Prompt me before enabling all controls with minimal restrictions” is set on the page.
  • Select OK.
  • Select OK again.

Tip: if you never access documents with ActiveX Controls, set the preference to “Disable all controls without notification” instead.

Firefox Link Previews

Firefox’s Link Preview feature is quite good – here is why

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla has officially launched a preview of the upcoming Link Preview feature of its open source Firefox web browser. Unlike traditional link preview extensions, Firefox’s implementation offers a modern take by incorporating AI for summarizing key points.

The AI runs locally on the device, which is excellent for privacy. The tradeoff is that computing will usually take longer, especially on older or slower systems.

Enabling Link Previews in Firefox

The feature is available as a preview currently in Firefox Beta and Nightly. You need to enable it before it becomes available.

  • Load about:config in the Firefox address bar.
  • Confirm the security prompt to continue.
  • Search for browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled.
  • Toggle the state to True to enable it.
  • Restart Firefox.

Tip: the preference browser.ml.linkPreview.outputSentences defines the number of A_generated keypoints. The default is three. The preference browser.ml.linkPreview.allowedLanguages defines the supported languages, which is English at the time.

Using Link Previews in Firefox

Hold down the Shift and Alt keys on the keyboard before hovering over a link. Firefox displays an overlay that lists key information, including a preview thumbnail, full title, reading time, and a meta description.

Below that is a list of keypoints, generated by AI, that summarize key elements of the linked webpage.

Note: Generation of the keypoints takes longer on first use of the feature. It was relatively speedy on my fairly potent HP laptop, but took quite some time on an older system. This is a one-time process.

Keypoint generation is not instant, but it took a few seconds usually after the initial setup. The processing is relatively quick, even on longer articles, e.g., those on Wikipedia.

The quality of the keypoints is quite good. You should realize that this is not a summary of the article, but three key arguments or points made in the article. It is often good enough for a quick overview of the content, which is the main purpose of the preview feature.

To sum it up:

  • AI runs locally, which is great for privacy, but adds to the processing time.
  • Keypoints give good overviews usually.

Closing Words

Link Previews is a useful feature that bakes privacy-friendly AI into Firefox. While it remains to be seen how popular the feature will be once it launches, it is definitely a welcome addition in the browser.

An option to change the keyboard shortcut from Shift-Alt would be welcome, as it may improve usability.

Now You: do you use link previews? What is your take on the feature that Mozilla added to Firefox?

Thunderbird for iOS: first alpha coming this year

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

The Thunderbird open source email project is making huge strides. After readying the first mobile version of Thunderbird for Android, the team has set its sight on the second big mobile operation system Apple iOS.

The details:

  • The repository of Thunderbird for iOS is not publicly available on GitHub.
  • The developers aim for an alpha release of the mobile client in late 2025.

Philipp Kewisch, mobile engineer at MLZA Technologies, the organization behind Thunderbird, revealed the good news officially in a message.

The project is just at the beginning and the developers are not openly looking for code contributors at this stage.

Kewisch explains the next steps that are going to happen:

What is next? We’re simultaneously working on some of the iOS essentials and architecture prep. These are all the basics of what types of objects and interfaces do we need, how do they play together, what does the database look like, etc. We’ll start sharing some preliminary details on this soon and give you the opportunity to share your feedback.

This means that it will take a while before iOS users can get their hands on a public prototype of the email app for their mobile operating system.

The greater picture is interesting though. One of Thunderbird’s main weaknesses up until now was lack of support for mobile apps. Mobile users had to use a different email client or access web-based email instead to access emails on mobile.

The release of the Android client and the future release of the iOS client closes that gap.

To make this a true contender for Gmail or Outlook, Thunderbird’s team is also working on a web email service.

Classics Promo: get your old games fix at a discount over at Gog

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Gog is an excellent resource for classic computer games. The platform runs a sale currently that offers discounts on more than 1,000 – mostly – old computer games. While that may deter gamers that want high-end graphics, it is a treasure trove for gamers who want to replay or play some of the greatest classics in computer gaming.

As an added advantage, games on Gog are not as expensive as modern titles. Even without discounts, you barely pay more than $10 for a game. During sales, prices drop to a few Dollar for many of the games.

Want some examples?

  • Dragon Age Origins: Ultimate Edition, arguably the best title of the Dragon Age series, is available for less than $6 for the next eleven days.
  • Ultimate VII The Complete Edition is available for $1.37. The other Ultimate games, are available in two packs (Ultimate I, II, and II, and Ultimate IV, V, and V) for $1.37 each as well. There are also discounts for Ultimate Underworld, and Ultimate IX.
  • Thief II The Metal Age, one of the greatest stealth games of all time, costs $1.07.
  • X-Com 2, one of the best turn-based strategies, is available for $2.74
  • Jagged Alliance 2, another classic turn-based game, costs $2.18

Just browse the list and you will find huge discounts for games of all genres. The games are compatible with modern Windows PCs. While controls or visuals may not be on par with modern games, you can still have days of fun with some of the games easily.

These games should also work well on older PCs, as they are not that demanding than modern games.

While this reads like an advertisement, it is not. I like Gog a lot and buy games there regularly to replay old classics or play classics that I missed out on when they were released initially.

Now You: do you play computer games at all? If so, which games to you like and do you prefer modern or classic games?

Windows updates

Microsoft releases out-of-band Windows updates, but you likely don’t need them

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft has released out-of-band updates for Windows shortly after it released the cumulative security updates for Windows earlier this week.

These new updates are available for Windows 11, version 23H2 and 22H2, as well as several Enterprise and server versions of Windows.

Good to know: out-of-band updates are usually released to fix pressing issues. Most need to be downloaded and installed manually, as the issue may not affect all installations.

The updates affect a logon auditing issue in Windows. Since logon auditing is usually not configured on home systems or unmanaged systems, it is an issue that affects Enterprise devices mostly.

Here is Microsoft’s description of the issue:

It addresses a known issue where Audit Logon/Logoff events in the local policy of the Active Directory Group Policy might not show as enabled on the device even if they are enabled and working as expected. This can be observed in the Local Group Policy Editor or Local Security Policy, where local audit policies show the “Audit logon events” policy with Security Setting of “No auditing”.

To sum it up: this is a reporting issue only that does not impact functionality.

The patch can be installed on affected systems to resolve the issue. The vast majority of home users does not need the patch.

Here are the links to the support articles:

  • Windows 10, version 23H2 and 22H2: KB5058919
  • Windows Server 2022: KB5058920
  • Windows 10, version 20H2, and Windows Server, version 20H2: KB505892
  • Windows 10, version 1809 and Windows Server, version 1909: KB5058922

Click on the link to the Microsoft Update Catalog website on the linked support websites to download the patch. It needs to be installed manually after download. This is usually done by double-clicking on the downloaded patch file and following the instructions that appear on screen.

Latest Rufus release fixes side-loading vulnerability

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Rufus, one of my favorite open source tools, is now available in a new version. Rufus 4.7 is a security release that includes new features and non-security fixes.

The developer fixed a side-loading vulnerability in the application that allowed an attacker to load a malicious DLL with escalated privileges.

For this to work, the attacker had to plant the malicious DLL file into the same directory as the Rufus executable. The impact seems low, but it is still good that the issue got fixed.

Here is the info provided on the Rufus Security forum:

A DLL hijacking vulnerability in Rufus 4.6.2208 and earlier versions allows an attacker loading and executing a malicious DLL with escalated privileges (since the executable has been granted higher privileges during the time of launch) due to the ability to inject a malicious cfgmgr32.dll in the same directory as the executable and have it side load automatically. Versions 4.7 and later are not affected by this vulnerability.

So, it is recommended to update Rufus to the latest version to patch the issue.

Note that the internal update finder may not find the update yet. You can download it manually from the project’s GitHub repository in the meantime.

As far as other features are concerned, there are a handful:

  • Ability to detect and download updated DBXs from the official UEFI repository.
  • Support for ztsd compression for disk images added.
  • Exclusion feature in Settings to “ignore disk with a specific GPT GUID”.

There are also some fixes included, which you find listed here.

Arc Browser: and then there was Dia

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of Arc Browser, a Chromium-based browser by the Browser Company that has been making some waves lately in the influencer-sphere. While I like some features, I disliked others like the forced registration on start or the lack of customization options.

Some time ago, the makers of Arc announced that they started to work on yet another browser. This one less focused on experienced or professional browser users but on artificial intelligence.

Called Dia, it is currently only available with an invite. The Browser Company did publish a short video on YouTube that provides a quick tour of the browser though.

Here it is:

The main feature that the company highlights is the integrated AI. Search, for example, combines answers from the web using large language models and open browser tabs. While you can still search the web normally, you can also direct your questions to the baked in AI to get an answer generated.

This works similarly to how all other AI tools work today. You write something, the AI responds, and you may follow-up. The most interesting feature from my perspective is the ability to use the AI to interact with open tabs in the browser.

So, you could open up tabs during research that list different products. You could use the integrated AI to find out more about these exclusively.

There is also an “ask” button available on all webpages that you may activate to ask the AI questions about the current webpage.

The main question is whether this is enough to convince users to give it a try or even switch to it. My initial guess is that this is not sufficient for that. While Arc may convince some users to give it a try or even stick to Dia, it seems to lack the same features as Arc.

To be fair, Dia is still in active development and it may take a while before the browser is published publicly.

Now you: what is your opinion on baking AI into browsers? Good thing that is useful or rather something that you don’t want at all?

Gmail’s new end-to-end encryption feature is atrocious for non-Gmail users

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google announced support for end-to-end encrypted emails on Gmail for organizations and later this year for end users last week. This allows Gmail users to encrypt emails so that only the recipient can read them.

Gmail is far from being the first email provider to offer such a feature. Proton Mail, for instance, supported end-to-end encrypted emails from the get-go.

When you read Google’s announcement, you may stumble upon the explainer on how this is implemented. Not technically, but how it works from the user’s perspective.

According to Google, end-to-end encrypted emails on Gmail work differently depending on whether you are a Gmail user or not, and whether an administrator has configured use of the restricted Gmail version for all users.

So, here are the different scenarios when someone sends an encrypted email from Gmail.

  • When the recipient is a Gmail user, the user may read it in their inbox. The email is decrypted when it reaches the inbox and the email can be read.
  • When the recipient is not a Gmail user, they receive an invitation to open the email in a guest Google Workspace account. This allows them to view and reply to the email in a restricted version of Gmail.
  • If S/MIME is configured, Gmail sends the encrypted email via S/MIME.

Google Workspaces administrators may furthermore configure encrypted emails to always require the restricted version of Gmail.

Here is why that is bad

Some emails, all end-to-end encrypted ones, no longer land in your inbox, if you do not use Gmail or when the admin enabled restricted mode. You furthermore need to sign in using an invite link and a pin. Organizations may furthermore limit access to emails by revoking access at any time.

To be fair, this is not all that different from how Proton Mail handles sending encrypted emails to non-Proton users.

Still, if you are not a Gmail user, you may have to read some emails on the Gmail website in the future using the guest account feature of Google Workspaces. This may have severe consquences:

  • When you search emails in your dedicated client or web service, encrypted email content is not included.
  • Filters may not work correctly, as they may only apply to the public part of the email and not the body.
  • Security tools can’t scan the emails.

It is probably only a matter of time before malware campaigns start to use the new feature.

Now You: what is your take on this? Do you use encrypted email already? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Pause Windows Updates

Pause Windows Updates with a tiny script

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

While it is generally recommended to install Windows security updates, there are situations that make you want to postpone the installation. Maybe it is because of another faulty update that Microsoft released, a bug that you already experienced after an update was installed on your system, or just the desire to keep the PC running for a long period without forced update reboots.

Quite a few solutions exist that let you toggle the functionality using applications or scripts. Sordum’s Windows Update Blocker is just one program that you may use for the purpose.

And now there is also Pause Windows Updates. It is a tiny open source script that you may run on your Windows PC to pause updates.

Here is how it works: run the script after you have downloaded it and accept the security prompt to get a simple interface. There you may press keys on the keyboard to run corresponding actions. There are:

  • (1) Disable Updates
  • (2) Enable Updates
  • (3) Disable Microsoft Telemetry
  • (4) Remove Update Files
  • (5) Manage Update Service

Press the h-key to get information about each of the actions. When you select the disable option, all update downloading and installing is halted. This includes updates that are in the process of being downloaded to the system.

Any update that has not been installed fully at this point needs to be downloaded in its entirety again once you enable updates on the system.

Since it is a script, you may review it before you run it on your system. Just load it in a plain text editor like Notepad to do so.

Closing Words

Pause Windows Update is an easy to use option to block updates on Windows machines temporarily. Most users probably won’t need the script or similar apps ever, but there are situations where it may come in handy.

Now You: how do you handle updates on your Windows PCs? Do you let them install automatically or prefer manual control over updates? Any tools you use? Feel free to leave a comment down below. (via Deskmodder)