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.
Windows 11 Quick Machine Recovery

Quick Machine Recovery: automatic Windows 11 device repairs

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Quick Machine Recovery is a relatively new feature of Windows 11 that promises speedier troubleshooting of system failures. Announced earlier this year, the feature has now landed in a recent Windows Insider test build of the Canary channel.

What is Quick Machine Recovery? Microsoft describes it as an automated recovery feature that is designed to detect and fix “widespread issues” on devices running Windows 11. Think of it as an automatic repair option baked into the operating system that, Microsoft claims, is fixing issues faster than you.

How does it work? Microsoft says that Quick Machine Recovery kicks in automatically “if a device experiences a widespread boot issue”. It will enter “WinRE”, the Windows Recovery Environment, and connect to the Internet so that “Microsoft can deliver a targeted fix through Windows Update”.

A blog post on the Tech Community website offers deeper insight on how the feature works:

  • Device enters recovery mode: If a Windows 11, version 24H2 device encounters a critical failure preventing normal boot, it enters Windows RE.
  • Network connection established: Windows RE connects to the network using ethernet or Wi-Fi protected access (WPA), ensuring the device can communicate with Microsoft’s recovery services. Future updates will introduce additional networking configurations for broader support.
  • Incident analysis: Microsoft analyzes crash data from affected devices to identify patterns and pinpoint the root cause. If a widespread outage is detected, an internal response team is activated to develop, validate, and prepare a targeted remediation.
  • Remediation rollout: In this initial release, Microsoft will deliver the remediation via Windows Update, adhering to the update policies configured on the device. Microsoft will safely rollout the remediation.

Microsoft claims that the feature is reducing downtime and the need to fix issues manually. According to the initial announcement, Quick Machine Recovery will be enabled automatically on Windows 11 Home devices, once they install the update that introduces the feature.

System administrators may enable the recovery feature on all other editions of Windows 11, including Windows 11 Pro, Education, and Enterprise. Local admins find the setting under System > Recovery > Quick Machine Recovery.

The feature will send crash data to Microsoft when it triggers, which is certainly something to consider before enabling the feature.

Now You: what is your take on this? Useful feature to get Windows 11 devices faster back on track? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Google introduces Hyping on YouTube, what you need to know

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google announced a new feature for YouTube that it says is “all about helping emerging YouTube channels grow by connecting them with new audiences”. Called “Hype”, it allows any YouTube user to hype videos.

The only restrictions are that the video needs to have been published a maximum of seven days ago and that the publisher has less than 500,000 subscribers. This should apply to most channels on YouTube therefore, especially since it sounds a bit crazy that a channel with 450,000 subscribers is considered emerging.

Anyway, each YouTube user has three hypes per week. You need to be signed in to hype a video and YouTube will show a leaderboard of the “most hyped” videos from the week on the site.

In the future, Google plans to introduce options to purchase hypes. Means, once you run out of your three hypes you can start buying more. Useful for the creators whose videos you push, but also for Google as it will certainly take its share of the price of that.

Google says that hyping pushes videos to regional leaderboards, where they may get more exposure and thus views. In addition to that, hyped videos get a special badge on YouTube. It appears, however, that the amount of hype has no influence on recommendations or search results.

Is it worthwhile then? Probably not. While fans may be able to push videos from a certain creator to the top hype charts of the week, the system seems to benefit larger channels closer to the 500k limit more than smaller ones with just a few users.

The main benefactor will be Google, as users will certainly use the option to buy more hypes to push their favorite creators on the site. Also, the amount of hype a video gets on YouTube says nothing about its quality or usefulness to you.

All in all, it does not sound overly useful and could potentially be just another scheme by Google to earn more revenue on the site.

Now You: what is your take on the new Hype option on YouTube? Cool new feature that sounds useful and could really help smaller channels stand a chance against the juggernauts? Or another cash grab by Google?

KeePass 2.59 Password Manager supports Arm64 on Windows now

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

KeePass is one password manager that I’m using regularly on Windows machines for password-related activities. It is a well-designed app that runs locally, but you can extend it with all kinds of plugins and install compatible programs and apps for other operating systems.

A new version of the password manager is now available. KeePass 2.59 is the second release of the year 2025 and it introduces quite a few welcome improvements and changes. First and foremost, if you run Windows on an ARM64 device, like the latest Microsoft Surface Pro devices, then you may install and use the password manager on that device now as well. KeePass 2.59 is therefore the first version of the password manager that supports all architectures that Windows supports.

KeePass 2.59 interface

KeePass 2.59 introduces native implementations of AES-KDF and Argon2 on Windows systems, promising a breathtaking 30-50 times speed increase on systems on which the native support library was not available or disabled. Encrypting and decrypting databases that use the AES algorithm should now also be faster.

Another new feature is a new import and export module for the KeePass KDB-database on Arm64 and Unix-like systems. You find the new option under File > Export in the main KeePass interface. Exports support the default user name and database color now. The root group is now also exported, according to the release notes.

Other than that, support for opening URLs from within KeePass now supports the private modes of the browsers Maxton, SeaMonkey and Yandex, next to the already supported browsers. Also new is that some links are now clickable on Unix-like systems, which may improve handling of them, as you no longer have to use copy and paste for that anymore.

You can check out the remaining changes on the official website. They include several improvements and optimizations for the most part.

Existing users may run the installer to update KeePass to the latest version. A new KeePass 2.59 portable edition is also available for those who prefer it.

Now You: which password manager do you use and why? Feel free to share your thoughts on it in the comment section below.

Chrome

Security researchers discovered malicious Chrome extensions with more than 2.3 million combined installs

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Browser extensions can be very useful. They may help you block ads and other unwanted content, download content from websites, enhance online services, or introduce AI features that you really want to use in the browser.

However, reports about malicious extensions for Google Chrome, and thus all other Chromium-based browsers, appear online in regular intervals. Security is not perfect and users may fall pray to malicious extensions not only on third-party sites but also when they browse the Chrome Web Store.

Security researchers at Koi Security discovered a coordinated malware campaign of 18 extensions for Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and other Chromium-based browsers that had over 2.3 million users.

The extensions, among them Color Picker, Eyedropper — Geco colorpick, Free Weather Forecast, or Unlock TikTok, were fully functional according to the developers. These were not “thrown together in a weekend” and obiously scam, but “carefully crafted trojan horses”.

Color Picker, for example, provided color picking functionality. It must have done an okay-job at that, as it had a rating of 4.2 of 5 on the Chrome Web Store, over 800 ratings, and more than 100,000 users.

Interestingly enough, several of the extensions were listed as “featured” on the store, which meant that Google promoted them to users who visited the Store. It is very likely that this gave the featured extensions a significant boost, more eyes on them, more downloads.

A Reddit developer observed an increase of impressions of almost 300 percent after the extension got the coveted featured badge on the Chrome Web Store. While the percentage may vary, it is without a doubt pushing installs.

Browser Hijacking

The extensions provide users with functionality that they claim, but they also run malicious tasks in the background according to Koi Security.

The malware monitors every page you visit, submits it to a remote server along with your unique tracking ID, and may receive redirect URLs from the server.

The malware group introduced the malicious code sometime after the extensions were launched on the Chrome Web Store. The fact that browser extensions are designed to update automatically most of the time helped them. Users did not have to click on anything or fall pray to a sophisticated phishing or social engineering attack to get the malware on their devices.

All they did in the beginning was install a perfectly harmless and working extension for the browser. The malware came later.

Koi Security reported the malware extensions to Google. At the time of writing, some are still available on the Store.

Here are the names and unique IDs, so that you can check them against the installed extensions:

Chrome:

kgmeffmlnkfnjpgmdndccklfigfhajen — [Emoji keyboard online — copy&past your emoji.]
dpdibkjjgbaadnnjhkmmnenkmbnhpobj — [Free Weather Forecast]
gaiceihehajjahakcglkhmdbbdclbnlf — [Video Speed Controller — Video manager]
mlgbkfnjdmaoldgagamcnommbbnhfnhf — [Unlock Discord — VPN Proxy to Unblock Discord Anywhere]
eckokfcjbjbgjifpcbdmengnabecdakp — [Dark Theme — Dark Reader for Chrome]
mgbhdehiapbjamfgekfpebmhmnmcmemg — [Volume Max — Ultimate Sound Booster]
cbajickflblmpjodnjoldpiicfmecmif — [Unblock TikTok — Seamless Access with One-Click Proxy]
pdbfcnhlobhoahcamoefbfodpmklgmjm — [Unlock YouTube VPN]
eokjikchkppnkdipbiggnmlkahcdkikp — [Color Picker, Eyedropper — Geco colorpick]
ihbiedpeaicgipncdnnkikeehnjiddck — [Weather]

Edge:

jjdajogomggcjifnjgkpghcijgkbcjdi — [Unlock TikTok]
mmcnmppeeghenglmidpmjkaiamcacmgm — [Volume Booster — Increase your sound]
ojdkklpgpacpicaobnhankbalkkgaafp — [Web Sound Equalizer]
lodeighbngipjjedfelnboplhgediclp — [Header Value]
hkjagicdaogfgdifaklcgajmgefjllmd — [Flash Player — games emulator]
gflkbgebojohihfnnplhbdakoipdbpdm — [Youtube Unblocked]
kpilmncnoafddjpnbhepaiilgkdcieaf — [SearchGPT — ChatGPT for Search Engine]
caibdnkmpnjhjdfnomfhijhmebigcelo — [Unlock Discord]

7-Zip 25.000

7-Zip 25.00 improves performance and fixes security issues

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

7-Zip is a popular cross-platform open source program to pack files and to unpack archives. It is a lightweight alternative to heavier archiving programs and the built-in Windows functionality, that is significantly slower in all benchmarks.

7-Zip 25.00 is now available. You can download the latest version from the official project website or from its Sourceforge repository. As always, just install the new version over the other to upgrade the installation to the latest version.

Tip: check the installed version by starting 7z-Zip on your system and selecting Help > About 7-Zip from the menu at the top.

This is the first release of 2025. The changelog lists several performance improvements for various supported tasks.

Here is the overview:

  • The bzip2 compression speed was increased by 15-40%
  • The deflate (zip/gz) compression speed was increased by 1-3%.

The Windows version of 7-Zip supports more than 64 CPU threads now furthermore for “compression
to zip/7z/xz archives and for the 7-Zip benchmark”. This could improve the performance on Windows systems.

Apart from the mentioned performance improvements, the changelog lists that “some vulnerabilities” were fixed in the latest version. The changelog does not provide any details on those vulnerabilities. Since it is unclear how severe the fixed vulnerabilities are, it is recommended to upgrade to the new version of 7-Zip immediately to protect your system from potential attacks.

Xbox

Here is my take on Microsoft’s Xbox strategy going forward

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft’s current generation Xbox platform is lagging behind the Japanese competition in terms of sales. Nintendo and Sony sold more than twice the number of consoles each.

Xbox performs badly, even though Microsoft spent more money on acquisitions of gaming studios than ever before. Now, Microsoft announced another round of layoffs, many of which are hitting Xbox employees or employees in gaming studios that produce games for Xbox.

Is that the preparation of Microsoft’s exit from consoles? Write off the money and move on to bigger things?

Microsoft confirmed the next generation of Xbox consoles already and revealed vital information. While the next Xbox may not be a traditional Xbox console anymore, it could give Microsoft’s ailing games business the push it needs.

Here is what might happen: Microsoft announced plans to introduce third-party games stores to Xbox. It would not really make much sense to introduce these stores without options to play games from these stores.

The next Xbox could therefore be a PC in console format, like Valve’s fabled Steam Machine. Connect to a TV, play your favorite PC games. Icing on the cake would be backwards compatibility with classic Xbox games, which Microsoft should and probably will add support for.

With PC suddenly on board, Xbox would support more games than ever produced for consoles up to this date. Even if the system would support just a few major stores, say Steam, Gog, the Microsoft Store, it would enable support for tens of thousands of games on day one. Even better, if you are a PC gamer already, you could connect your accounts to Xbox to play the games you bought already.

With massive games support, first-party titles become less of a focus to sell the next generation console. While a next generation Halo might still help sell the system, it would probably help as much as blockbuster PC games that would suddenly all be available on the Xbox system as well.

To be fair, Microsoft did not release that many Xbox exclusive games since the launch of this Xbox generation. Some, like Starfield, were console-exclusive but launched on PC as well.

So, to sum it up. Next Xbox could be powered by Windows that also supports previous generation Xbox games. It would be the end of true Xbox gaming though.

Question is, would you buy it? What would Microsoft have to do to get you to buy it? Let me know in the comments below.

IT Crowd Turning it off and on again

Have you tried turning it off and on again? Microsoft posts fix for OneDrive Search issue

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

One of the most famous lines of the British comedy series IT Crowd, a show revolving around two IT support geeks and a manager who does not have a clue about “computers”, is “Have you tried turning it off and on again”.

When the crew gets a support call, it is this question that they ask first. Most of the time, it works and the situation is resolved.

If you used computers before, you know that turning the device off and on again can indeed fix issues that you experience. Not all of course. There is a logic behind that, as restarting a system does a number of beneficial “things” in the background that may help resolve issues. Among them terminating apps and thus freeing up memory and potentially CPU performance.

Microsoft’s IT Crowd moment

Last month, Microsoft confirmed that users could run into problems when searching files on OneDrive, the company’s cloud storage service. While the files were still there, OneDrive would return no files in search and show a blank results page instead.

Neowin reports that Microsoft fixed the issue in the meantime. OneDrive users are encouraged to update the client to the latest version to apply the fix.

Microsoft, in the meantime, posted a workaround for affected users. As you may have guessed already, it recommends refreshing the browser or turning the mobile device off and on again.

So, if you are experiencing this issue, have you tried fixing it by turning it off and on again?

Amazon Prime Video Ad Free

Amazon kills Freevee, because it moved ads to Prime Video

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

The writing was on the wall. Some time ago, Amazon pulled a fast one on Prime subscribers by introducing ads for everyone. Subscribers who did not want the new experience could pay Amazon a few bucks extra to get rid of the advertisement again. To hammer that home even more, Amazon recently started to show more ads to users per hour.

Questions about the fate of Amazon’s then ad-powered streaming service Freevee came up at the same time. It did not really make sense to have Freevee as an option if all of the streams on Prime Video would also show advertisement to users.

Amazon kept Freevee around for the time being. CNBC reports that some Freevee users see notifications when they launch the app on their devices about the upcoming end of it.

According to the report, Amazon plans to put the standalone Freevee app to rest in August 2025. The notice states “Prime Video is the new exclusive home for Freevee TV shows, movies and Live TV”.

The app will stop working in August 2025 and users may tune in directly on the Amazon streaming service to get their Freevee fix. Amazon users, with or without Prime Video subscription, may continue to watch free content with advertisement on the Amazon website. The only requirement for that is an Amazon account.

Closing Words

Amazon established Freevee in 2019 to stream videos with ads to users. The decision to turn Prime Video into a bigger version of Freevee came in 2024. The only differentiating factor will be that users may watch Freevee content on Amazon without a Prime subscription going forward. Other than that, you will get ads either way unless you pay extra.

It is probably only a matter of time before Freevee is retired entirely and the available media library is integrated into the Amazon Prime Video library.

As far as I’m concerned, I started to watch more content on DVD and Blu-Ray again as it is giving me full control and a (mostly) ad-free experience.

How to enable the advanced configuration about:config in Firefox for Android

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla has locked down Firefox for Android significantly. When it first launched the revamped version, it blocked access to what some Firefox users would call essential features: namely extensions support and access to the advanced configuration about:config.

It changes its stance on extensions support just recently, which is a step in the right direction and a main differentiating factor between Firefox and Google Chrome.

As for access to the advanced configuration, you may access it in all Firefox for Android versions. While you may get an error when you try to launch about:config in the address bar, you will get access to the configuration if you load chrome://geckoview/content/config.xhtml instead.

There you get the option to modify advanced configuration parameters. Also, if you want, you may switch the preference general.aboutConfig.enable to True to enable about:config. May be easier to access than the resource listed above.

It is a handy way to gain access to the advanced configuration of the browser on Android. Allows you to disable or enable certain features, and modify settings to your liking. (via AskVG)

Google fixes another 0-day vulnerability in Chrome, advises to update asap

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

If you have installed Google Chrome on one of your devices, then you may want to start the browser’s update engine immediately to update it to the latest version.

Google released a new version of Chrome for desktop and Android to fix a 0-day vulnerability in the browser. This one is exploited in the wild, which means that there is a chance that the issue may be exploited when you run older versions of the Google browser.

The official release notes list CVE-2025-6554 as a type confusion issue in V8, the JavaScript engine that Google Chrome uses. A type confusion vulnerability exploits a flaw in software where a program mistakes a specific type of data for another. This can lead to unexpected behavior, which threat actors may exploit in attacks.

Google mentions that the issue was reported by Clément Lecigne of Google’s Threat Analysis Group on June 25th, 2025. Google says that it mitigated the issue a day later by pushing a configuration change to the stable channel of the browser across all platforms.

This suggests that most devices — all that received the configuration change — are protected from attacks targeting the vulnerability. Still, it is recommended to update the browser immediately.

Desktop users, those who run Google Chrome on Windows, Mac, or Linux devices may select Menu > Help > About Google Chrome to do so. Chrome runs a check for updates and will install the new version automatically. Note that a restart of the browser is necessary to complete the process.

Tip: Windows users may also run winget upgrade google.chrome.exe in Terminal to upgrade the browser to the new version without first starting it.

Android users are not so lucky. The update depends on Google Play in that case, and that may take a while. There is no option to speed up the installation of the mobile browser on Android, if installed via Google Play.