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.
Kagi Translate

Kagi Translate: text and website translations by Kagi

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Kagi has launched Kagi Translate, a free translation service that it says offers better quality than Google Translate or DeepL.

Kagi, which started out as a service to revolutionize online search, has expanded into different areas since then.

Kagi Translate is the startup’s latest service. It offers the following features:

  • Supports 244 different languages.
  • Translate text.
  • Translate full webpages.
  • Free, zero tracking.

Usage is straightforward. You may either load the main Kagi Translate website and start from there, or prepend https://translate.kagi.com/ before the URL of the webpage that you want to translate.

Free users, those who are not signed in with a Kagi account, will see a captcha. Kagi Search users will have translate functionality integrated into the search engine soon.

Kagi says that it is using a “combination of advanced language models and precise output selection” and that this “delivers translations that surpass existing solutions”.

It claims that its translations are better than those of Google Translate (average) and DeepL (high). It remains to be seen if independent tests and reviews come to the same conclusion.

DeepL, the service which I use the most currently, lacks webpage translations and supports fewer languages than Google Translate, Bing Translate, or Kagi Translate.

While I won’t switch to Kagi Translate any time soon, I will keep an eye on the service and try it from time to time to see how it stacks up against other machine-based translation services.

Still, it is always good to have alternatives, especially if they are free and do not collect user data to make money out of that.

Have you tried Kagi Translate? What is your initial impression of the translation service? Will you continue using it? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

The way you connect to public Wi-Fi networks is changing on Android

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google is about to roll out a change on Android that changes how captive portals are opened.

Tip: I never connect to open Wi-Fi networks because of security and privacy concerns. I do use the option to create instant hotspots on Android using my mobile device when possible, which is much safer. Clearly, this works only if you do have mobile coverage on Android.

Good to know: Captive Portals are webpages that are displayed by public wireless networks before Internet access is granted.

The change moves Captive Portal entry pages from being displayed using Android WebView to Android Custom Tabs.

The main benefit of the change is that saved passwords, autofill data and session data becomes available from the default system browser; this may benefit users who sign-in to specific portals regularly.

Some portals may ask users to sign-in to social media accounts or share personal data. This may be cumbersome without autofill support, and the update changes that.

So, if you trust a public Wi-Fi, you may now sign-in faster, if it asks for login data or personal information.

Note that the change is not enabled yet according to Android Authority.

How to remove “OneDrive” from the Windows 11 Explorer menu

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft introduced a new File Explorer context menu in Windows 11. This streamlined menu replaced the classic menu by default, but users can still open it from the new context menu or by holding down the Shift-key before they right-click.

Windows 11 has been around for a few years now, and some Windows 11 users may have noticed that the new context menu has grown in size since then. This is understandable to a degree. Third-party app developers learned how to add entries to the new menu so that links to their apps were shown directly to users.

Good to know:

Fixing OneDrive’s “Creating shareable link…” error loop that never ends

Microsoft did add a fair share of items to the context menu as well. You may notice a OneDrive folder, a Share with Skype option, an Edit with Notepad option for any file type and more there now.

Chance is, you may not need all of them. This guide explains how to remove the OneDrive entry.

Tip: you can remove the apps, if you do not use them, to get rid of the context menu items. If you do use them, you may follow the guide to remove them while leaving the apps untouched.

Remove OneDrive from Windows 11’s context menu

  1. Open the Start menu.
  2. Type regedit.exe and press the Enter-key
  3. Select Yes to continue.
  4. Paste HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions\Blocked into the Path at the top and press the Enter-key.
  5. Right-click on Blocked.
  6. Select New > String value.
  7. Name it {1FA0E654-C9F2-4A1F-9800-B9A75D744B00}.
  8. Double-click on the value.
  9. Set its name to OneDrive.

The change takes effect on the next restart. You may also log off and then on again, or restart the explorer.exe process.

The OneDrive listing should no longer be visible in the context menu afterwards. Note that this does not impact any other OneDrive functionality on the device. Also note that this applies only to the user account under which the change was made.

Now You: how do you handle context menu entries that you do not need? Do you remove them to streamline the context menu or keep and ignore them? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Microsoft to manipulate Mail and Calendar in Windows so that they become unusable in 2025

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

In less than two months, Microsoft will manipulate Windows Mail and Calendar on Windows systems so that they stop working. Microsoft announced the change, in less drastic words, in an update to the Outlook for Windows support page.

There, Microsoft writes:

Support for Windows Mail, Calendar, and People will end on December 31, 2024. We’re currently in the process of moving existing users to the new Outlook for Windows. After December 31, 2024, users will no longer be able to send and receive email using Windows Mail and Calendar.

The change is a culmination of Microsoft’s decision to create and push a new Outlook application to all users. Microsoft confirms that it is migrating users to the new Outlook for Windows.

Microsoft is not shy to point out the benefits and features of the new Outlook. Not all of them are unique or new though.

  • Use AI to “write better emails”.
  • Free and no subscription nedded.
  • Access all your emails in one location.
  • Organize appointments “in one click.
  • Feel secure.
  • Use Microsoft 365 free on the web and “with the click of a button”.
  • Stay organized thanks to universal search and more.
  • Unify accounts.

Not everyone is happy

Part of the userbase sees the change critically, as the new Outlook lacks some features of the classic Mail and Calendar app. On top of that, it has other deficiencies as well.

Users who miss the date may still export their data to the new Outlook, according to Microsoft. They may use the toggle under Settings > General > About Outlook in the new Outlook app to go back to the Outlook for Windows app. The limitations still apply though.

Those who are not satisfied with the new Outlook for Windows app may also switch to another email client. Thunderbird, the open source client that recently got its own Android version, comes to mind.

There are others and most allow you to import data from other clients.

Note: The change does not affect the classic Outlook application for Windows at this point. Microsoft stated in the past already, however, that it will put the classic Outlook to rest as well eventually.

Windows Mail was the default free email client of Windows for several years. The total number of users who use it is unclear, as Microsoft has never revealed usage numbers.

Have you tried the new Outlook for Windows? What is your take on this change? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Cassettes

The video downloader Cobalt just got a whole lot better

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

While streaming seems to gain more popularity by the day, some users prefer to download content at times or always. This offers several benefits, such as:

  • Access the content permanently, even if the video is deleted, modified, or blocked.
  • Enjoy the video without ads or any other unwanted content.
  • You do not need Internet to watch it.
  • Watch the video in your favorite local player.

There are plenty of services available on the Internet that let you download videos to the local system. You may also use standalone programs, Internet Download Manager is my favorite, if you prefer using a desktop program.

I reviewed the video downloader Cobalt in June. Cobalt is a free service that is easy to use and comes without any ads or unwanted content. The developers have added plenty of features to it since that last review.

Cobalt download videos
Main interface of the downloader

It now supports the following services at the time of writing: bilibili, blusky, dailymotion, facebook, instagram, look, ok, pinterest, reddit, rutube, snapchat, soundcloud, streamable, tiktok, tumbl, twitch, twitter (x), vine, vimeo, vk, and youtube.

Usage is still pretty straighforward: paste the URL of the video into the single form field on the Cobalt website and hit the check (>>) button afterwards. If things to well, you should get a download prompt right afterwards.

Tip: Cobalt collects anonymous traffic analytics “to get an approximate number of active cobalt users”. You can disable that under Settings > Privacy. There you also find an option to always tunnel files, which hides your IP and other information.

Cobalt Settings are extensive

The default video quality is set to 720p. You can open the settings to change that to anything between 8k+ and 144p.

For YouTube, you may also change the preferred codec from h264 to either av1 or vp9. There is also a beta option to enable hls for video & audio on YouTube.

Audio settings are also extensive. You may change the default audio format (mp3) to another (best, ogg, wav, or opus), the default audio bitrate from 128 kb/s to another (between 320 kb/s and 8 kb/s).

Again, there are some service specific settings available. For YouTube, you may set a preferred dub language. For TikTok, you may enable the downloading of original sound.

Filenames are set to be “pretty” by default. You may change that to classic, basic, or nerdy. There is also an option to disable the saving of file metadata, and to change the default saving method from download to ask, share, or copy.

Last but not least, you may enable custom instances, which need to be provided. This should give the service some breathing room when a site blocks the main download servers.

Closing Words

Cobalt is an easy to use downloader for video and audio content from more than a dozen of the most popular websites on today’s Internet. It is great for users who download videos occasionally, or have troubles downloading a specific video using another service or tool.

All in all, a great service that is well worth a bookmark.

Amazon Prime Video Recaps

Amazon uses AI to improve TV show recaps on Prime Video

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

I dislike recaps. Not as much as precaps, which give you a summary of what you are about to see, but still. Whenever they come up, I immediately activate the skip button to get past them.

Amazon is now experimenting with AI to improve recaps for viewers on Amazon Prime Video. The feature, which has launched for Prime Video customers in the United States, is part of the service’s X-Ray feature.

Related News:

Amazon launches the AI Clerk Rufus

Amazon calls the feature X-Ray Recaps; it is designed specifically to help customers who forgot where they left off. While that may not happen when you binge-watch a TV show or season, it may happen when you pause watching a show for weeks or months.

Amazon says:

Prime Video will deliver summaries of memorable moments and important plot points so our customers can quickly jump back into what they were watching or rediscover why they fell in love with a series in the first place.”

I have no idea how well this works. I do not use Prime Video, but it would be interesting to know if this works better than the regular recaps that you get.

Amazon says that recaps are only available for select MGM Studios Original series at the time.

To use the feature, select the recap icon on the TV shows starting page. There you get options to get a recap of the current episode, current season, or previous season.

The ability to get full season recaps could be helpful. The option to get a recap up to the minute you watched the show seems to be missing though.

In the future, Amazon could very well link these recaps to a customer’s viewing habits or purchases. Guesswork.

You may check out Amazon’s post on its About Amazon website for images and additional information on the feature.

What is your take on this new feature? Would you use it or ignore it? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Windows Updates Viewer

Windows Update Viewer: little helper app for Windows admins

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Windows Update Viewer is an open source application for Windows that serves a number of purposes all around updates in Windows.

The application is free to use and available as a portable version and as an installer. It displays all installed updates on the Windows system when you run it.

Note that it is a .NET application, which means that you need .NET 8 installed on the system to run it.

More on the Topic:

How to disable driver updates via Windows Update

Each update is listed with its ID, date and time of installation, result and title. You may sort the listing by clicking on a header.

When you select an update, you get a wealth of information:

  • ID, date and time of installation, title, and result as before.
  • The update description.
  • Operation.
  • Status.
  • Result code.
  • Support URL.
  • Update ID.
  • Windows Event Log details.

The one that stands out is the information that it pulls from the event log. The updates history that Windows itself provides does not provide the information in a single place. You have to open the Event Viewer to look them up.

Here, you get all the information in one place. Find out why an update refused to install on the Windows device by looking at the provided logs.

The link to the support URL is also handy, as you can follow it to check out what the update is all about or if it has any known issues.

Other than that, Windows Update Viewer includes a filter list to hide certain entries. Defender updates are not shown by default. You can change that, or add any other term to the filter list to block it from appearing in the table.

Closing Words

Windows Update Viewer is one of those handy free apps that make the life of administrators easier. It is great for quickly looking up information about updates, especially those that failed to install.

Do you use software to manage updates on Windows machines? Feel free to leave a comment or a suggestion below.

Thunderbird Android

Thunderbird is now officially available for Android

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

The open source email client Mozilla Thunderbird is now also available for Android. This marks a big milestone for the makers and enables users to use the client on desktop systems and on mobile systems powered by Android.

With iOS support in the works, Thunderbird will be a true cross-platform email client that you can run on all major operating systems.

One of the main questions that existing Thunderbird users may have is this: how do I get my settings imported to Android?

Thankfully, Thunderbird’s team has published an easy to follow step-by-step guide that explains the entire process.

Note: the functionality requires manual steps. It also requires the latest version of Thunderbird 128 or Thunderbird Beta 132 or newer on the desktop. Only these versions come with the “export for mobile” option that is required.

Import email data from Thunderbird desktop to Android

All the latest version of Thunderbird for the desktop include an option to export data specifically for mobile use.

Here is how that is done:

  1. Open the Thunderbird email client on the desktop system.
  2. Select Menu > Tools > Export for Mobile.
  3. Modify the accounts you want to export (Optional).
  4. Decide whether you want to include account passwords (Optional)
  5. Activate the Export button.

Thunderbird displays a QR code when you hit export. Keep the screen open and switch to your Android device.

  1. Open Thunderbird on the Android device.
  2. Activate the get started button on the first screen.
  3. Select import settings.
  4. Scan the QR code that Thunderbird on the desktop shows.
  5. Select next, if you have selected multiple accounts for export.
  6. Repeat the steps 4 and 5 until all accounts have been added.

If everything went well, Thunderbird for Android should have imported the account settings from the desktop client. Thunderbird for Android should start looking for new emails immediately.

You can check out the full blog post to find out what is new and supported in Thunderbird for Android.

Looking for Windows Wallpapers? Microsoft has a download site for them

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Wallpapers are a great way to customize your Windows PCs or any other device. Most devices come with a default set of wallpapers, but these are usually fairly limited.

On Windows, you get a few choices and may also download wallpapers from the Internet or the Microsoft Store.

A third option is provided by Microsoft’s official Design website. The Wallpapers section there hosts plenty of official Windows wallpapers and them some.

Want some examples? Microsoft Create, 10th Anniversary Windows Insider Program, Windows 11 Themes, Windows Dev Home, and a lot more.

The downloads contain just the wallpapers. Not all of them are for Windows apparently. When I downloaded the Design Week wallpaper package, I got smartphone wallpapers.

The tenth year anniversary of the Windows Insider program contained Windows wallpapers for regular and wide screen monitors.

There is no option to find out what each package contains. Microsoft does not provide any information on that. This is problematic, as you may be downloading packages that you cannot really use.

Many other wallpaper sites do that better, as they provide information about resolutions as well as filters to limit results to matching wallpapers.

Still, the site is free and interesting especially for users who saw a wallpaper in one of Microsoft’s presentations or teasers.

All in all, nice that Microsoft is offering these as free downloads for all users. You do not need a specific version of Windows to download these. If you run Linux, a Mac, or another device, you can download these as well.

What is your take on wallpapers? Download new ones regularly? Maybe even run software that downloads and sets wallpapers automatically? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Chrome

How to remove Google Lens from Chrome’s address bar

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

If you still use Google Chrome, then you may have noticed that the browser displays a Google Lens entry in the address bar. It is still rolling out I guess, but more and more installations get this.

With Google Lens integration, Chrome users may run searches for anything that they see on the page. So, activate Google Lens with a click or tap, and then draw around the element on the page that you want to know more about.

You can select text and run a search, but this is not really new, as you can do so easily already in all browsers. Lens lets you select anything though, which means that you can search for images or elements in images, and also text in images that you cannot select using basic text selection options in browsers.

Google Chrome with Google Lens visible in address bar.
Google Lens in the address bar of Google Chrome

Google Lens in Chrome depends on Google Search as the default search provider. It is also good to know that page data is transferred to Google whenever Lens is used in Chrome.

Some Chrome users will find Lens useful. Not for plain text, as you can do so already. Maybe for quick translating, but the core use is to search for anything that cannot be selected individually. So, a person in an image, text shown in videos or images, or any other element that is shown on the screen.

How to disable Google Lens in Chrome

Google Lens disable
Set Lens Overlay to Disabled to turn off Google Lens in Chrome

You can, at least temporarily, disable Google Lens in Chrome. Here is how this is done:

  1. Load chrome://flags/#enable-lens-overlay in the address bar.
  2. Set the status of Lens overlay to Disabled.
  3. Restart Google Chrome.

This disables the interface in Chrome.

Note: Experimental Flags like Lens Overlay may come and go at any time. It is possible that Google is going to remove the flag in a future version of Chrome. This would remove the option to disable Google Lens in Chrome, unless Google decides to integrate an option in the Chrome Settings.

What is your take on Google Lens in Chrome? Something that you would use, maybe if launched in a different browser. Feel free to leave a comment down below.