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.

Steam’s new Trending Free category is easy to miss

Posted on August 30, 2024August 30, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

If you are a Steam user, you may know that Steam has an ever-growing assortment of games that are free to play. Valve does include demoes, free to play, and free games in the category, which makes it a bit difficult to find the interesting ones.

Generally speaking, free means that the game is free to download and play. These games usually do not include payable content.

Free to play games, on the other hand, usually come with content that you need to pay for. Some limit this to cosmetic items, others limit progression or entire parts of the game, if you do not pay.

Here is the overview:

Free — No in-game purchases. May offer DLC though.
Free to Play — May include in-game purchases, often to unlock content.
Free demos — Test versions of games that offer limited access to content.

Up until now, there was not really an option to check out trending free games on Steam. While you could browse the free to play listing of games, you’d only find “new & trending” and “trending upcoming” games there.

If you wanted to get a list of the hottest free games on Steam at the time of writing, you’d be out of luck.

Valve added a new trending free listing to Steam, but it is not where you’d expect it to be. You do not find it on the free to play page on Steam. Instead, it is found on the startpage.

Here is how you get there:

Open the Steam Store, either in the browser or in the Steam client.
Scroll down until you come to the New & trending listing.
Activate Trending Free there to display the free games that are trending on Steam right now.

Steam displays the top 10 free games that are trending on Steam right now. Note that you may get a mix of everything the free category has to offer. This means, that you may see free demos next to free to play and free games on Steam.

Is it a groundbreaking feature? Not really. Still, if you like to browse what is trending on Steam, you may find this new trending free filter useful as well.

Do you use Steam or another digital gaming platform? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Vivaldi Browser’s Tab Renaming feature is an incredibly useful feature

Posted on August 29, 2024August 29, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

So, Vivaldi has released a new stable version of its web browser, which is also called Vivaldi. Vivaldi 6.9 includes a number of new features that improve customization and options for its users, as usual.

Among the batch of 6.9 features is tab renaming. To the best of my knowledge, it is a first in the browser space, but correct me, if I’m wrong.

Update: Arc Browser supports this as well.

The idea is simple: you can use it to rename any open tab in the browser. To do that, you simply right-click on the tab, select rename, and type the new name.

Note that this works better for unpinned tabs, as pinned tabs show only the site’s icon by default. But even here, it is useful. More on that later.

Once you have changed the name of the tab, it stays. Restart the browser, and you still get the custom tab names after the restart.

While some may wonder what this feature is good for, others may have noticed it immediately. It depends a bit on how you use the browser.

Here are a few examples:

Make the titles descriptive. Some sites use titles that do not always reflect their name or purpose. If you visit eBay, you get Electronics, Cars, Fashion, C as the visible title. Change it to eBay, and you do not have to look twice. If you are the romantic type, you could change tabs from your crush so that they read I love you, from Bob, or something similar.
Shorten titles. Many sites use titles that do not display fully. Also, if you open enough tabs, the available space shrinks further. You could assign the letter C to my site for instance or Chip, or whatever, and it is visible for longer.
Use titles as reminders. Don’t feed after midnight, message mom, or CANCEL are all valid.
Disguise names. If you fear that someone could catch a glimpse of the sites that you have open, and you do not want that, you could use the feature to change the title to something else. Maybe change Facebook to TikTok to avoid having to defend you still spending time on the site. The site’s icon may still reveal the real site to some bystanders though.

There is the slight chance that you may get confused and want to restore the title. This is done by selecting rename again and deleting the current title. Press the Enter-key and the original title returns. You may use the same method to alter a modified title.

The new title is also shown when you hover over tabs. This is where the usefulness for pinned tabs comes from.

You can download the latest version of the Vivaldi web browser from the official site. If you like customization options, this might the browser for you.

Tab renaming, is that something that you might use, if your browser supported it? Let me and everyone else know in the comments down below.

Latest xd-AntiSpy update introduces (mighty) plugin support

Posted on August 28, 2024August 28, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

The unofficial successor of the classic XP-AntiSpy application for Windows, xd-antispy, has added support for plugins in an update.

I reviewed the initial version on Ghacks last month, and liked it. Plugin support heaves the app to new levels and that is reason enough to check it out again.

Plugins, as the name suggest, expand the functionality of the Windows tweaker. The latest version includes a good number already, including the hyped Super God Mode script, that creates over a 1000 Windows shortcuts to speed up administrative tasks.

Note that you can use the program without any plugins, if you want. The new version displays a settings window on start. If you switch to Plugins / Marketplace, you see the available plugins.

Tip: If this window does not appear, select Menu > Find more plugins online to launch it.

Windows security warning: Windows displays the “protected your PC” message when you run the application. The app is not malicious, but it is new, and Windows SmartScreen does not like things that are new; hence the warning. Ignore it.

The names of the plugins reveal their purposes only sometimes. It is clear what the plugin Uninstall OneDrive does, but not so clear what Chris Titus App or Plugin Butler do.

It would be useful if the program would display a short description on hover.

Using Plugins in xd-antispy

Using plugins is simple. Select “more tools” at the top of the xd-AntiSpy interface and then one of the installed plugins.

These are then loaded by the app and you may check items to modify the system accordingly.

Plugin Debloater, one of the few plugins installed by default, gives you options to remove certain apps from the operating system.

Just check and hit the “remove selected apps” button to get them removed.

Closing Words

Plugins extend the base functionality of xd-AntiSpy. That is a good thing, especially since they are entirely optional. Do not want them, ignore them. Everyone else gets extensions that can be added easily to get more options.

Have you tried xd-AntiSpy in the past? Or do you prefer to use a different tweaker or even manual changes? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

AMD’s Windows 11 24H2 performance patch leaves a mixed impression

Posted on August 27, 2024August 27, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

This year’s feature update for Windows 11 includes a performance patch for AMD processors. AMD says that this should improve the performance on systems with Ryzen 9000 processors by up to 13% when gaming.

A 13% increase would be a massive achievement. Independent tests show now that there is not only light but also shadow.

German hardware-specialists at Hardwareluxx have tested the performance of Ryzen 7 and 9, as well as several Intel processors, on Windows 11 version 23H2 and 24H2 systems.

The takeaways:

There are not any meaningful application performance gains.
Some processors have performance gains in some games. The performance of Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X increased by 8% in Cyberpunk 2077.
Performance gains go up to about 23% in some games and some processors.
The testers recorded performance degradations in some games. Ryzen 7 7800X3D and Ryzen 5 7600X saw a drop by nearly 20% in F2 2024.
Performance drops in some games and for some processors by almost 20%.

Hardware Unboxed ran tests as well, and they differ from the Hardwareluxx tests in one meaningful way: the testers did not notice any performance losses in their tests.

They tested the performance of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and 7700X in more than 40 games on Windows 11 version 23H2 and 24H2.

Here is the video:

According to Hardware Unboxed, users will notice a performance gain between 10% (Zen4) and 11% (Zen5) on average on Windows 11 version 24H2 systems when playing games.

Closing Words

The tests contradict each other. It is possible that drops are recorded only in some games, and that Hardware Unboxed did not test these. More tests are needed to come to a final conclusion.

Most Windows 11 users will get the performance patch when they upgrade their devices to the upcoming feature update. Microsoft has not revealed a release date yet, but it should not be more than a month or two away at this point.

Is AMD hardware powering your PC? What is your take on the performance patch? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

How to add support for HEIC and HEVC media files on Windows 11

Posted on August 26, 2024August 26, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

If you use Windows 11, you may have noticed that you cannot open HEIC or HEVC media files by default. Windows does not ship with an app that supports the file types by default.

While it is possible that the manufacturer of a PC adds support for these file types, there is a good chance that the files won’t open by default on your devices.

Thankfully though, there is an easy solution. One that does not require that you download a full-blown codec package to your system.

Heil file previews in Windows 11's File Explorer

The details:

Both codecs are available on the Microsoft Store free of charge.
When you search for them, you may not get them.

Some third-party apps may support the media file types out of the box. Any app that relies on the codecs that Windows provides needs the Extensions that Microsoft provides or a codec from a third-party source.

Here are the steps that you need to undertake to install the required codecs to open the files on your Windows 11 PCs:

Open the HEVC Video Extensions from Device Manufacturer Microsoft Store page.
Click on the install button.
Select “Open Microsoft Store” when the popup appears.
Click the Install button to install the codec on the system.
Open the HEIF Image Extensions Microsoft Store page.
Click on the install button.
Select “Open Microsoft Store” when the popup appears.
Activate the install option on the page to install the codec on the system.

You should now be able to play the media files on your system.

Note: Default Windows apps like the Photos app and also third-party solutions such as Paint.Net will load the files from that moment on. File Explorer will also show previews of the media files, if you select one of the thumbnail view modes.

The extensions install like any other app, which means that you can remove them from Settings > Apps > Installed Apps at any time. Third-party tools like the excellent O&O AppBuster work as well.

Have you encountered HEVC or HEIF files before? What did you do to load them on your devices? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Mozilla removes Adjust marketing integration from Firefox Mobile

Posted on August 25, 2024August 25, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla has used Adjust in Firefox for mobile products for years for a very specific purpose: to determine if the installation of the mobile browser originated from an advertising campaign.

In other words, Adjust helped Mozilla track conversions of its advertising campaigns. It also send anonymous usage summaries occasionally, according to Mozilla.

Starting in Firefox 129.0.2 for Android and iOS, Adjust appears no longer integrated in the Firefox browser.

When you check Settings > Data Collection after upgrading to the latest version, you will notice that the Adjust option is no longer listed.

Firefox Mobile Adjust Marketing — **Left side**: Firefox with Adjust. **Right side**: Latest Firefox without Adjust

The Marketing data option is no longer available. It allowed Firefox users to enable or disable the sharing of usage data with Mozilla.

Mozilla did not mention the removal in the official release notes. It is therefore unclear why it has been removed, if you just look at the changelog.

Bugzilla listings confirm that this has not been done in error. Bug 1913363, for example, confirms the removal of the “metric service” and the toggle in Firefox. (via Sören Hentzschel)

Closing words

The removal addresses a major issue that some users have with Firefox: that the browser’s defaults are not ideal for a browser that strives to protect the privacy of users.

With Adjust gone, there is one less thing to worry about in this regard.

Which browser do you use on your mobile devices? Why do you use that browser and not another? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Super God Mode for Windows gives admins what Microsoft does not give them

Posted on August 24, 2024August 24, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

When it comes to managing a single Windows device, you often have to juggle between various administrative tools. Two of the most-used ones are the Control Panel and the Settings app.

There are dozens more, however, from the Device Manager and Registry to the Task Manager and Group Policy Editor.

Super God Mode is a free open source script for Windows that creates links to virtually all system tools and options that are linkable. Think of it as a next level God Mode.

What is God Mode? For those unaware, God Mode refers to a secret menu that you may create by naming a folder GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}. This folder includes about 200 links to various tools and settings in Windows when opened.

The developers describe Super God Mode in the following way:

This PowerShell script creates shortcuts to all special shell folders, named folders, task links, system settings, deep links, and URL protocols in Windows, providing easy access to a wide range of system settings and features.

Using Super God Mode in Windows

Super God Mode for Windows — Super God Mode’s setup window gives you numerous options

Super God Mode is open source. A PowerShell script sits at the core of the project. The easiest option to use it is the following one:

Download the latest version of the PowerShell script using this link.
Download the latest version of the Batch launcher using this link.
Double-click on the launcher.

This opens the user interface. You can hit the “run script” button right away or use the customization options to change the output.

Tip: if you want all links that exist, check “include third-party app URL protocols” before you run the script.

Other options include changing the output folder name and directory, skip the grouping of tasks, or allowing duplicate links.

The script generates hundreds of links based on the configuration after you hit the run button.

It created more than 1300 links on a Windows 11 test system. Once done, open the Super God Mode folder on the device to use the links.

If you did not disable the grouping, you find the following categories:

Hidden App Links — Deep links in various apps, e.g., Microsoft Store, Gamebar, or Xbox.
URL Protocols — These launch apps or tools for the most part, e.g., Notepad, PC Health Check, or Microsoft Defender.
System Settings — Deep links that point to the Settings app. These enable you to jump to specific Settings pages quickly.
Deep Links — Another list of links that launch tools or configuration options, for instance to troubleshoot issues.
All Task Links — Includes links to various tools, such as Control Panel applets, Power Options, Folder Options and many more.
Special Named Folders — Links to special folders, e.g., Downloads, 3D Objects, Startup, or SendTo.
CLSID Shell Folder Shortcuts — Even more links, some of them point to File Explorer folders, others to settings, e.g., Speech Recognition or User Accounts.

If there is one thing to criticize, it is that there are so many links that it will take time to go through them all.

It is easy enough to create a new folder to put all the links that you require into. Still, with more than a thousand links to check, it will take a while.

Closing Words

Super God Mode is a useful tool for Windows administrators who want direct access to Windows tools, directories and settings. It may be overwhelming at first, due to the sheer number of links it produces, but that is only temporary.

Instead of sifting through them all to find the ones you need, you could also use search to find them this way.

Have you used God Mode before on Windows? What is your take on Super God Mode? Feel free to write a comment down below. (via Neowin)

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.