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.

LibreOffice 24.8: you can now block active content in documents

Posted on August 23, 2024August 23, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

An update for the open source cross-platform office suite LibreOffice is now available. LibreOffice 24.8 is available for all supported systems.

The new version includes over a hundred improved or new features. Several are important from a security point of view.

The details:

An option to disable active content and OLE automation is now available.
Improved WebDAV/HTTP UCP authentication with Microsoft SharePoint.
Improved CMIS UCP authentication with Microsoft SharePoint.
Option to remove personal information on saving.
ODF Wholesome Encryption is now available. It improves tamper and brute-force resistance, offers improved performance, and improved hiding of metadata.

Several of these options are interesting from an end-users point of view. The ability to disable active content improves security, as it prevents attacks that exploit these options.

Here is how you enable it:

Open Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Security > Security Options and Warnings > Options-button.
Check “Disable active contents from OLE Objects, DDE and OLE Automation”.

Note: this may impact documents that rely on these technologies.

Here, you may also enable the removal of personal information on saving.

Check “remove personal information on saving” and then what you do not want included. This is supported at the time of writing:

Changes information.
Document user information.
Author name and date of notes.
Document version information.
Printer settings.

You can check out the full changelog on the official Document Foundation website.

The latest version is available for download already. You can download it from the official website or from within LibreOffice by selecting Help > Check for Updates.

Do you use LibreOffice or another Office program? What is your take on the new security features? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Is Microsoft really, finally killing the Windows Control Panel?

Posted on August 22, 2024August 22, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Almost a decade ago, Microsoft said that the Settings app of the then-new operating system Windows 10 would replace the classic Control Panel of the operating system.

While Microsoft did move some options from the Control Panel to the Settings app over the years, it has, to this day, failed to migrate them all.

On the System configuration tools in Windows help page, Microsoft is now confirming what everyone knew for a long time: the classic Control Panel is deprecated.

Microsoft writes:

The Control Panel is a feature that’s been part of Windows for a long time. It provides a centralized location to view and manipulate system settings and controls. Through a series of applets, you can adjust various options ranging from system time and date to hardware settings, network configurations, and more. The Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app, which offers a more modern and streamlined experience.

While the support page is new, it has not really been a secret that Microsoft has plans to kill the Control Panel.

Now, it is official. But that does not really answer any other questions that users may have:

When is Microsoft removing the Control Panel from Windows?
Will there be Control Panel features that won’t be ported to the Settings app?

It is quite possible that it will take years, maybe another decade, before the Control Panel is finally removed. Microsoft engineers are busy adding AI features and redesigning Recall. Moving options from Control to Settings is probably very low on the priority list at Microsoft.

Still, some of you may still live when Microsoft is pulling the plug and giving Windows what it deserves: a single app to control options and settings.

Did you know? You can still open the existing Control Panel applets directly.

Do you still use the Control Panel in Windows? Or do you prefer the Settings app, or even a third-party solution? Feel free to write a comment down below. (via Neowin)

Opera One: first look at the new dynamic themes feature of the browser

Posted on August 21, 2024August 21, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Opera Software has launched a new Opera One developer update that introduces a new feature in the browser.

Called Dynamic Themes, it is adding animation to themes in the Opera browser.

Opera explains:

The new dynamic Themes are built using the Shaders technology and are rendered using your device’s GPU. You can configure each Theme using the configuration page’s multi-dimensional color picker – meaning you can play with endless combinations to find your favorites.

The initial version launched with three dynamic themes:

Classic
Aurora – dark mode theme.
Polar Winds – light mode theme.

The Classic theme is the only one that has not shaders. As such, it should have “zero impact” on the computer’s performance, according to Opera. The two other themes do use shaders.

Here is how Aurora looks like:

And here is Polar Winds:

Note that you can customize the theme when you select it. Here is how that works:

Make sure you have the latest Opera Developer build installed.
Open a new tab in the browser.
Click on the “Easy Setup” icon in the browser’s address bar.
Select Choose Theme.

Here you get to choose one of the three themes. Remember, the only one supporting light and dark mode is the classic theme.

Once you have picked a theme you are taken to the configuration screen. Here you can modify certain parameters and use a slider to pick a color theme.

Other options may include disabling animations, or, in the case of Polar Winds, keyboard and browser sounds. The classic theme gives you options to set a custom wallpaper.

Opera saves the custom themes automatically and displays them as options whenever you launch easy setup again. It is an easy way to switch between different themes in the browser.

To make things even easier, you may also use the keyboard shortcut Alt-Shift-T to switch between the last ten theme configurations on Windows (Alt-Shift-T on Mac).

Opera plans to launch more themes before the feature gets released to stable builds.

What is your take on sound, animations, and other visuals in web browsers? Is that something you like and (would) use, or turned off immediately instead? Let us know in the comments below.

WhatsApp: set an optional username and Pin for protection against unwanted messages

Posted on August 20, 2024August 20, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

WhatsApp is working on a new feature that is intended to improve the privacy of its users. The main idea adds two new features to the messaging service:

Let users create a username, which they then may share with others instead of their phone number.
Add a Pin to the username to block unwanted messages to that username.

Any WhatsApp user may contact any other user on the platform currently. All that is required for that is a phone number. While the contacted user has the option to block any further messages or communication attempts, it is still a major nuisance.

WhatsApp users who want to communicate with someone on WhatsApp need to hand out their phone number to do so currently. This may not be a problem for someone trusted, but it could very well end in disaster for others.

Did you know? WhatsApp is also working on limiting spam messages by blocking messages from unknown accounts that exceed a certain limit.

The optional username addresses this. Instead of handing out the phone number, you could create and then hand out the username only. This protects the phone number, but still allows others to communicate with you on WhatsApp.

The pin adds a second layer of protection. While completely optional, it will prompt anyone for the pin when trying to contact WhatsApp users using their username.

WhatsApp users who pick a popular or common name for their username may want to add a pin, as spammers may start to send messages to these names in the hope that they have been created by someone on the platform.

WABetaInfo reports that the feature is in testing in the latest Beta version of WhatsApp. Not every beta tester is given access to new features and it may take some time before a feature is rolled out to more users.

There is also the chance that a feature is never making it into stable WhatsApp. Only time will tell if and when we are going to see the new username and pin option.

Closing Words

Adding a username option to WhatsApp makes a lot of sense from a user’s privacy point of view. WhatsApp is no longer just used to communicate with friends or family. Even in some of those cases, you may prefer not to hand out your phone number.

What is your take on this new feature? Would you create a username, if WhatsApp would launch it? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Oh look, Google ads are again used to scam Google Search users

Posted on August 19, 2024August 19, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Threat actors have launched another malvertising campaign on Google Search. While that is not really anything to write about anymore in this day and age, this time is special.

Not only did the threat actors manage to plant scam ads on Google, they did furthermore impersonate Google’s entire product line and used Google domains for the scams. If that is not something to write about.

The story comes from Malwarebytes. Security researchers at Malwarebytes discovered the campaign.

Here are the details:

The campaign was run on Google Search.
The threat actor used Google’s Looker Studio service to show the google.com domain as the address.
The ads targeted Google {product}, e.g., Google Translate or Google Flights.

Even after Malwarebytes reported the ads to Google, ads that impersonated official Google products continued to show up on Google Search.

Locker Studio is a service by Google that creates “interactive dashboards and beautiful reports” from data.

The scammers used the service to display a copy of the Google Search homepage. The homepage is just an image with a hidden link. When the victim clicks on the image, the link is triggered.

The user is then redirected to fake Microsoft or Apple alert pages. These go into full screen mode and play a recording according to Malwarebytes. The alerts suggest that something is not right.

They display a number to call for support and also a form to type the Microsoft account name and password.

Calls land in overseas call centers that try to scam the callers into purchasing gift cards or logging into their bank accounts to pay for the support.

The URL used in this case is on a Microsoft Azure domain, which is designed to instill further trust.

Closing Words

There is not much to like about ads nowadays. They slow down web browsing, use additional bandwidth, collect data about users, and may be distracting. If that is not enough, they may also push ads, as seen over and over again.

The only thing that is positive about ads is, in my opinion, that they allow certain services or publications to exist. There are not viable alternatives. While subscriptions are picking up, this won’t work for everyone as users seem to be fed up already with the ever increasing list of services that is asking for a monthly or yearly payments.

More safeguards need to be in place to prevent blatant abuses like the one discovered by Malwarebytes.

What is your take on this? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Brand Love: Google’s unethical attempt to get only positive Pixel reviews

Posted on August 18, 2024August 18, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Influencers play an important role in marketing today. They tend to have a certain reach that makes cooperations with them attractive to companies.

It should not come as a surprise that influencers get offers to test devices. Companies send them the devices free of charge in the hope that they get a review by the influencer in question.

This cooperation should not come with any requirements, or only light requirements, such as disclosing that the device was not paid for.

Reports suggest that Google has altered the terms for influencers recently. To get a new Pixel device for testing, influencers had to acknowledge and agree to the following:

By opting into this program, do you acknowledge that you are expected to feature the Google Pixel device in place of any competitor mobile device? Please note that if it appears other brands are being preferred over the Pixel, we will need to cease the relationship between the brand and the creator.

In other words, Google tried to influence reviews of influencers with the new terms.

At least some YouTubers who joined “Team Pixel” in the past have quit citing that the new terms were not giving them the editorial freedom that they needed and their audiences deserved.

The Verge asked Google about the new terms and Google said that they “missed the mark” and that “it has been removed”.

Still, the agreement was in place for a time and it seems likely that the participating influencers would make sure that their reviews and takes on the new Pixel devices would not violate it.

All in all, it is a new low. It is good to see that some influencers decided to quit the program because of the changes.

Do you check out what creators or influencers have to say about a certain device before you make a buying decision? Or do you get your information from elsewhere instead? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

WhatsApp: the end of Spam? New feature is a tiny step towards that goal

Posted on August 17, 2024August 17, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

WhatsApp is working on a new feature that will block messages from unknown accounts. Before you get too excited about it, there is a big but coming up soon.

If you are using WhatsApp, you may have experienced your fair share of spam. Be it messages from unknown accounts or even calls.

Over the past couple of weeks, I received a significant number of spam calls and also messages. The chat messages promised work, money, a girlfriend, and other things.

It is simple to block interactions with certain accounts on WhatsApp once they try to reach out to you. There are not that many options to block spam before it reaches your device though.

Soon, WhatsApp users will have another weapon in their arsenal to fight spam before it reaches the user’s device. (via WABetaInfo)

The details:

A new option to block unknown account messages is being tested in the WhatsApp beta.
It blocks messages from unknown accounts, but only if they “exceed a certain volume”.
Not every beta tester has the feature at this point.

In other words: If WhatsApp notices a certain amount of spam from a particular user, it will block that user’s ability to send more spam.

WhatsApp does not say how it detects spam messaging attempts. It is possible that it is using spam reports by users for that. This would mean, and here comes the aforementioned but, that spam will still land on user devices.

Not necessarily as much as before, as WhatsApp will pull the plug on the account’s ability to send messages once the threshold is reached.

Even if WhatsApp uses an automated system, it still means that spam will land on user devices, albeit less than before presumably.

Closing Words

All in all, it is a welcome new option that may reduce spam on the platform. It appears that the feature is disabled by default. You may need to enable it under Settings > Privacy > Advanced.

Do you use WhatsApp? Did you receive spam in the past? Would you enable the new feature once it becomes available? Let us know in the comments below.

A first look at Google’s new Weather app

Posted on August 16, 2024August 16, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Google announced several new Pixel devices this week as well as new AI and services, some of them exclusive at the time of writing.

The company’s main announcement on its official The Keyword website focuses more on software and services, and less on the hardware of the Pixel devices.

Among the new features is a “better weather app” that uses AI to give “super accurate weather forecasts” and “custom AI weather reports”.

The app is available for Pixel devices, but APK files are available already that can be installed on non-Pixel Android devices. The main restriction is that it requires Android 14.

Some of the advertised features, mostly those linked to KI, do not appear to work at the time of writing. I tried the app on a Samsung Galaxy A55 5G device and it worked. Other users claimed that the app was crashing on them, which some fixed by clearing the cache.

The app is basic at the time of writing and on non-Pixel devices. Weather data comes from weather.com.

You can add multiple locations to it and every location is shown on the startpage. A tap opens more details for the selected location.

Here you get:

Warnings
Hourly Forecast
10-day Forecast
Sunrise & Sunset
Wind speed and direction
UV Index
Air Quality Index (for some locations)
Visibility
Humidity
Pressure.

You can move the items around using drag & drop.

It lacks the weather background for the selected location and the weather map.

A tap on 10-day Forecast opens another page with additional details for the selected day and the period as a whole.

The app has a few widgets that you can place on the screen. At least one of is dynamic, but there are others that you may display.

I have not received any notifications, warnings, or AI reports at the time of writing. Maybe that is reserved for Pixel devices or accounts that are subscribed to Google Gemini in one form or another.

Closing Words

Google’s new Weather app is limited when you run it on a non-Pixel 9 device. It is likely that it may come to older devices, but that some features, mostly those powered by AI, may not come to older devices.

You can download the latest version from APK Mirror to give it a try.

Do you use a weather app on your mobile devices? If so, which app do you use and why? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Windows 11: Device Encryption will be enabled automatically in these cases

Posted on August 15, 2024August 15, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

The next feature update for Windows 11 enables automatic device encryption for users of the operating system. This happens automatically in the background and for most users, but there are exceptions.

What is Device Encryption and how does it differ from BitLocker Drive Encryption?

Device Encryption is based on BitLocker, Microsoft’s encryption technology. It is an automatic system that will encrypt the Windows partition and other fixed drives.

In other words: most drives that are internal will be encrypted by Device Encryption.

Encryption protects data on the drives to prevent unauthorized access.

BitLocker Drive Encryption on the other hand is only available for Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions of Windows. It gives administrators control over the technology and needs to be enabled manually.

The change in Windows 11 24H2

Starting with the release of Windows 11, version 24H2, Windows 11 will encrypt drives automatically using Device Encryption in the following cases:

During first sign-in with a Microsoft account, or work or school account.
During first set up of the device, if a Microsoft account is used.

Windows 11 will start the encrypting of the drives immediately in the background.

Windows users who create a local account during set up won’t have their drives encrypted. Microsoft notes here that it is possible to do that manually though.

Note: Microsoft is making it harder and harder to set up Windows without a Microsoft account. It is still possible, but most users are probably unaware of this.

Enabling or disabling Device Encryption manually

You need to sign-in with an administrator account to manage Device Encryption. Also, it is possible that the feature is not supported on the device.

Here is how to find out and manage it:

Select Start and then Settings to open the Settings app.
Go to Privacy & security > Device Encryption.

If you do not see Device Encryption on the page, it is either unavailable on the device or you are signed-in with a standard user account.

Device Encryption offers a simple toggle to turn the feature on or off.

How to find out why Device Encryption is now available

Here is a step-by-step guide on finding out why Device Encryption is not supported.

Open the Start menu.
Type System Information.
Select Run as adminstrator.
Scroll down to Automatic Device Encryption Support or Device Encryption support.
Hover over the entry to see the reason why it is not supported.

What is your take on Device Encryption? Do you use BitLocker encryption on your devices? Let us know in the comments below.

Beyond hardware: these Pixel 9 features launch with the phones

Posted on August 14, 2024August 14, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Google announced this year’s Pixel upgrade on its Made by Google event yesterday. As Google puts it, these are the most powerful Pixel devices ever. They are also the most expensive ones.

You find information about the hardware features of the four Pixel devices — Pixel 9, Pro, Pro XL, and Fold — on numerous sites. Check out Android Police’s or Android Central’s coverage, if you are interested in that.

Google’s main blog post on the Keyword website mentions hardware improvements just in passing. Just a few paragraphs that detail improvements over previous Pixel devices.

The majority of text is reserved for software improvements, mostly AI. The clear focus is software, therefore.

Here are the highlights:

Gemini Live — Deeper interactions with Google’s Gemini AI. Available for Gemini Advanced subscribers. Free for one year for Pixel 9 Pro, Pro XL, and Pro Fold buyers (sorry Pixel 9 buyers, no love for your).

Pixel Studio — Is an image generator that uses the “on-device diffusion model” with a text-to-image model that in the cloud. (Not available in all languages or countries, no further info on that).

Pixel Screenshots — Exclusive app for Pixel 9 that makes screenshots searchable using AI. You may later interact with the app to retrieve information. May include links and other information. (Not available in all languages or countries, no further info on that).

Improved Weather app — Google promises “super accurate weather forecasts” and custom AI weather reports. Also more customization options.

Camera improvements — The cameras get several new features and improvements:

AI-powered camera experience — Optimizes HDR+, exposure, tone mapping, sharpening, contrast, and more.
Super Res Zoom Video — Supports up to 20x super resolution zoom in Night Sight Video or Video Boost. Uses the telephoto camera with “advanced machine learning”. Only available on Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL.
Add Me — Uses AI to merge multiple photos into a single one. One application for this is that you may add the photographer to a scene.
Reimagine Magic Editor — Change images using a text box, e.g., by removing objects or people, changing the sky, or placing new objects.
Auto frame in Magic Editor — Helps frame a photo that has been taken already.
Night Sight in Panorama — Panorama mode is now also available in low-light conditions.
Zoom Enhance — This one allows you to zoom in even more using AI. Only available on Pixel 9 Pro, Pro XL, and Pro Fold.
Video Boost — upgrades video to 8K resolution.
Move anything — Allows you to move objects or people in a photo.

Clear Calling and Call Notes — Clear calling improves the audio quality of calls according to Google. Call Notes on the other hand creates private summaries and full transcripts of phone calls. Everyone is informed about the recording. (only for calls that are at least 30 seconds long. Not available in all languages or countries, no further info on that).

Satellite SOS — known from Apple, this adds an emergency option to Pixel 9 devices to call for help, even when there is no cellular service. (Only available in the U.S., free for the first 2 years).

There you have it, these are the main features that Google announced. Google does not say which of these require Internet connectivity or what data is transferred for the services that require it.

Does this sound interesting to you? Do you plan to buy a Pixel 9 device, or will you skip those? Feel free to leave a comment down below.