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.
Opera GX Cyberpunk 2077

Opera GX’s Cyberpunk 2077 Mod is mighty cool

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Opera GX’s browser is not the web browser that I use the most, but I check it our regularly just to see what Opera has been adding to it since the last time.

This time, Opera is introducing a full-fledged modification for the browser. Its new Cyberpunk 2077 Mod takes browser themes to the next level.

Apart from the usual — giving the browser UI a splash of fresh paint — it is delivering these features:

  • Dynamic Wallpaper that changes based on the time of day.
  • Custom Cyberpunk sounds and background music.
  • Custom themes supporting RGB sync.
  • Optional shader effect.

Not all of the options may be enabled by default. It depends on the current configuration. The optional shader effect is turned off by default, as it turns browsing into quite the experience.

If you played Cyberpunk 2077, you know about cyberpsychosis. It is a mental illness caused by an overload of cybernetic augmentations to the human body. The optional shader effect simulates a mild form of that in the browser.

Here is how it looks:

Opera GX Cybperunk 2077 Mod

Not something that you would want to experience regularly, but a fun effect nevertheless.

Opera published a video that highlights the new mod:

How to install the Cyberpunk 2077 Mod

You need the Opera GX browser, which you can download from Opera’s website. Installation is quick. You may want to block data collecting and the like while you are at it.

Once you have installed the browser, load the official Opera GX store here. Activate the “show me” button under Official Cyberpunk 2077 on the page and hit the install button to add it to the browser. This works in desktop and mobile versions of Opera GX.

The mod is enabled automatically. You get the fresh paint, dynamic wallpaper and sounds by default.

Note that you may configure all of these in the Settings under Sounds, Background music, and Shaders.

Closing Words

I enjoyed Cyberpunk 2077 and its only expansion. While gameplay was solid, what kept me entertained the most was the underlying setting. Heck, I even picked a cyberpunk term for the domain name of my website.

Bringing a game mod to the browser is interesting. It may not appeal to the masses, but fans may like it very much. Whether it will persuade them to switch browsers remains to be seen, but I’d say that most won’t switch because of this. They may however take notice of the browser and may even use it as a browser on their devices.

What about you? Would you pick a browser based on a theme or mod that you find interesting?

How to use Windows Spotlight wallpapers on Windows 11

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

When it comes to wallpapers, there are different camps. Some prefer to handpick images for their desktops, others prefer automation, and a third group likes to display a solid color instead.

If you belong to the automation camp, you now have another ace up your sleeve. The most recent update for Windows 11, released yesterday on the April 2024 Patch Day, introduced Windows Spotlight support for the desktop background.

While it is not certain that every user who upgraded has it right now, as Microsoft loves to roll out changes gradually over long periods, it should be available to most users by now.

What is Windows Spotlight?

Windows Spotlight

Windows Spotlight is a built-in feature that downloads and displays wallpapers. It has been available as a personalization option for Windows 11’s lock screen and for Windows 10’s lock screen and desktop background.

The images come from Microsoft’s Bing search engine. More precisely, from Bing’s image of the day feature.

Windows Spotlight displays information about images, which may include geographical information. Microsoft may also use Windows Spotlight for advertisement.

Downloaded images are stored on the computer for a period before they are deleted.

Configure Windows Spotlight for wallpapers in Windows 11

Configuring Windows Spotlight as the provider for wallpapers is straightforward. Make sure you check out the next section as well, as it reveals a way to use the images manually.

Here is the process:

  1. Right-click on a blank spot on the desktop and select Personalize.
  2. Activate the background menu on the page to open it.
  3. Use the menu on the right of Personalize your background to select Windows spotlight.

Windows 11 displays the first Spotlight image immediately. These images change regularly.

Where are Spotlight images located?

Windows 11 downloads and stores Windows Spotlight images locally. You can copy them out of the temporary directory for safekeeping.

Here is how you do that:

  1. Open File Explorer.
  2. Paste the following path C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets and replace USERNAME with the name of the current user, e.g., martin.
  3. You find a list of images in the folder. These do not have a file extension associated with images.
  4. Copy the files to another directory.
  5. Rename them, so that the file extension is .jpg.
  6. You can now open them in any image editor and set them as the wallpaper.

A faster option is to use the following commands in a command prompt window:

robocopy C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets c:\tempdir\wallpaper /mir

Replace [username] with the correct username. This copies all images to c:\tempdir\wallpaper by default. You can change the directory.

To make things even easier, run the following two commands:

  1. cd c:\tempdir\wallpaper
  2. ren *. *.jpg

The first changes the active directory, the second adds the .jpg file extension to all files. (thanks)

Run this regularly to save all spotlight images.

Closing Words

It comes down to personal taste for the most part. I prefer a solid color background over Windows Spotlight for a number of reasons, but the main one is that I find them distracting.

What about you? Do you like the variety of images that Windows Spotlight offers?

approve sign in request

You can now sign in to Microsoft accounts using Outlook

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft’s Outlook app may now be used to sign in to Microsoft accounts and services. How useful is the new functionality?

Sign ins to accounts on the Web or locally on devices are still a major nuisance for users. If you follow security guidelines, you pick a secure unique password for each service, and preferably, enable two-factor authentication as well.

Passkeys promise an improvement, but most Internet services and operating systems do not support this yet fully.

Microsoft has now enabled authentication functionality in its Outlook app to improve the login flow and make it more secure for certain setups. Classic two-factor authentication options such as text messaging are insecure, as the code is submitted in clear text.

Using the Outlook app for authentication

The main idea here is to use Outlook to verify the sign in. It works similarly to Authenticator apps, including Microsoft Authenticator.

Here is the entire process:

  1. You submit your username and password to sign in to your Microsoft account. This can be in Microsoft 365, OneDrive, Teams, or even Microsoft Windows.
  2. Microsoft displays a number on the next screen and prompts you to check your Outlook app.
  3. You need to tap on the right number, out of three presented to you, in the Outlook app.
  4. You then need to allow this using biometric or PIN verification.

Why is Microsoft introducing the functionality?

Microsoft Authenticator offers this functionality already. Why then is Microsoft introducing it in Outlook? Microsoft does not say in the official announcement.

The most likely reason is reach. Microsoft Authenticator has over 100 million downloads on Google Play, which is impressive for such an app. Microsoft Outlook, however, has over 1 billion downloads on Google Play alone. While a good portion of these downloads are not active, it is still likely that the Outlook app has a bigger reach than the Authenticator app.

Microsoft can reach ten times as many users in Outlook. To make things even simpler, the company is enabling the new functionality automatically in the latest Outlook app.

Microsoft says:

This sign-in verification functionality will be automatically enabled when you use the latest version of the Outlook app.  

In other words, if you use the Outlook app on Android, it sounds as if you have two factor authentication enabled automatically for your account. I have the app installed, but cannot verify this at this point because of Microsoft’s rollout of the feature.

There is a chance that this functionality becomes available only to users who have two-factor authentication enabled already for their accounts. This would improve the process, if they use weaker verification options, such as text messages.

Closing Words

Microsoft’s Authenticator app offers advantages over the Outlook implementation. Microsoft notes that users of the Authenticator app can continue using it. The app supports adding different accounts as well, while the Outlook app is limited to securing Microsoft accounts.

Microsoft says that the functionality is rolling out to all Android users. An iOS update is in development already and will be launched in the future.

Do you use two-factor authentication to improve account security?

Microsoft

Windows 11 24H2 may be the death of custom tweaking tools

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 11 version 24H2 release will block certain tweaking apps from running or making modifications to the system.

When you look at Windows development of the past ten years, you may notice a trend: certain options get removed without proper alternative. The release of Windows 11 is a prime example. Suddenly, users could no longer display the taskbar on the right or left side of the screen.

Tools like StartAllBack or Explorer Patcher were created to address these shortcomings. They used hacks and undocumented APIs at times to restore functionality or even top what Microsoft offered in previous Windows versions.

Now it seems that this period is slowly coming to an end. The signs were on the wall for some time. Microsoft blocked updates on systems, if certain software was installed on them.

Microsoft does have a valid argument: some of these programs did in fact cause issues in the past. In July 2023 for instance, users noticed that the Start Menu was broken after installation of the latest cumulative update.

This was caused by third-party customization apps according to Microsoft. The company put the “won’t fix” tag on the issue and left users more or less stranded.

Removal of the programs resolved the issue, but many liked what the tools brought to the table. Explorer Patcher, for instance, removed the “recommended” section from the Windows 11 Start Menu entirely. It filled it with apps of the user.

While Microsoft added an option to hide all recommendations, it never implemented an option to use the space of the recommended section for user apps.

These programs block the installation of Windows 11 24H2

Microsoft is blocking the installation of Windows 11 version 24H2 or the update to the new feature update, if certain tweaking software is installed on the system.

Our colleagues over at Deskmodder published the entire list. The two tweaking programs on it are StartAllBack and Explorer Patcher.

There is a lengthy workaround, which involves deleting the app, updating the system, renaming the application’s name, and then running the application.

It is possible that this workaround will work for a while, but there is a good chance that it is blocked eventually as well.

No quick changing of default apps or file extensions anymore

Microsoft implemented a new filter driver in Windows 10 and 11 that prevent the changing of default apps or file extension associations using the Registry.

This breaks tools like SetUserFTA, that allow users to modify these settings comfortably. These tools are even more important to administrators, provided that they need to modify system defaults.

You can check out my article on the userChoice Protection Driver for a detailed overview. Only this much: the filter prevents modification of userChoice Registry settings. These hold the keys to the default apps and file associations.

All programs could manipulate the keys previously. Now, Microsoft is limiting changes to its own programs only. Programs that do not meet the requirements get an access denied error and that is it. Microsoft is also blocking common Windows tools used to change Registry keys.

In other words, only Microsoft programs that are not on a deny list may change the keys. If that is not an unfair advantage over other programs, what is?

Do you customize your systems? Have you used some of the tools that Microsoft is now outlawing?

How to create screenshots of a full webpage

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

If you found great helpful content online, you may want to save it for safe keeping. Screenshots are one option to do that. There are others, including saving the entire webpage to the local system or using tools such as SingleFile.

All operating systems support the creation of screenshots natively. On Windows, you’d just use Ctrl-Print to capture a screenshot. These screen capturing options are useful, but they are not ideal when it comes to capturing entire webpages, as they only capture the visible part.

Browsers with native screenshot tools

Firefox Take Screenshot

Several web browsers include native screenshot tools. Here is a list and how you activate the built-in screenshot function:

  • Microsoft Edge — Open menu and select screenshot from the list of options. Pick capture full page next and use the save icon to download the screenshot of the webpage to your system.
  • Mozilla Firefox — Right-click anywhere on the page and select take screenshot from the menu. Select Save full page to create a screenshot of the entire webpage. It takes a moment before a preview is displayed. Use the download button to save it to the local system.
  • Opera — Select the snapshot icon in the address bar to create a screenshot. Activate the capture full webpage button to create a screenshot of the entire webpage. Options to edit the screenshot and save it to the local system are provided after a moment.
  • Vivaldi — Activate the camera icon in Vivaldi’s status bar to open the screenshot options. Select full page and then the capture button to save the screenshot to the local system.

Browsers that require an extension to take screenshots

Chrome capture full size screenshot
  • Google Chrome — You may use a browser extension such as GoFullPage or FireShot to capture entire pages.

Technically, Chrome supports capturing screenshots natively. The feature is available in the Developer Tools, which makes it difficult to access. Still, it may be an option if you do not want to install a browser extension for creating screenshots.

Here is how you use it:

  1. Open the webpage that you want to create a whole screenshot from.
  2. Use Ctrl-Shift-I to open the Developer Tools. On Mac, you use Command-Option-I. This opens the Developer Tools interface.
  3. Use Ctrl-Shift-P to open the run box. On Mac, you use Command-Shift-P instead.
  4. Type screenshot and select capture full size screenshot.
  5. Chrome saves the screenshot to the local system.

Bonus Tip: Android

Android capture full webpage

Android’s native screen capturing tool supports full webpage captures. You may know that you can take a screenshot of the visible screen by pressing the Power and Volume Down buttons at the same time.

Android displays several options afterwards. This includes a a “down” icon. Press it once and Android scrolls down a bit on the webpage and appends more to the screenshot automatically.

Tip: press and hold the icon until the end of the page is reached to create a full webpage screenshot.

Do you take screenshots of webpages? If so, how do you capture them and why? If not, do you use a different method to save information?

Google Vlogger: creating videos from a single input image

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Vlogger is the latest AI tool that may generate videos. While there are plenty of tools around, Vlogger seems special. It can take a single input image of a person and generates a video out of it.

Apart from generating the video, Vlogger may also create audio. This works well in conjunction with an existing video file. Say, you have a video of someone talking in English. Vlogger can take that video, translate the video into another language, and manipulate the video so that the person’s lip activity and face areas are consistent with the translated content.

This technology allows video producers to create a single video and make it available to a worldwide audience in all supported languages.

Vlogger is short for “Video Blogger”, and a VLOG is a “Video Blog”.

How Vlogger works

Vlogger

Google notes on GitHub that Vlogger does not require specific training, or face detection and cropping. This would make the tool ideal for use on YouTube, but also for other purposes.

On YouTube, Google could offer the tool to publishers. They could use the AI to create videos in different languages using a single source video. Vlogger is also capable of changing the expressions of a person in the video. It could therefore also be used for video editing specific parts of a video, e.g., to close or open the mouth or eyes of a person.

The ultimate goal of the team behind Vlogger is to “generate a photorealistic video of variable length depicting a target human talking, including head and gestures”.

This sounds relatively static, and it seems to be the case at this stage. Not all video bloggers use portrait mode videos. Numerous creators walk around with camera in hand, and switch between different views.

Whether Vlogger will also be able to use its generative capabilities for these types of videos remains to be seen. Eventually, it might even be capable of synchronizing an entire movie that you feed it.

Closing Words

You can check out sample videos on GitHub. There you also find additional technical information about the AI.

Sounds cool, or scary? The next couple of years will certainly see many breakthrough technologies in the AI field, but also misuse of the technology. (via Günter Born)

Limit: Set daily Time Limits for distracting websites in Chrome

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Browser extension Limit promises to keep you focused on important tasks by setting time limits for distracting websites.

We have all been there probably: you need to focus on “something” important on your electronic devices but are distracted all the time. Notifications, chat messages, a quick browse on YouTube, checking your social media feed, or something else. The Internet is full of distractions.

Not everyone has the focus of a Shaolin Monk who keep focused no matter what. Extensions like Limit promise to help you out.

Limit – daily time limits for distracting websites

Limit interface

Limit is a browser extension for Google Chrome and also other Chromium-based browsers. It worked well in Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi during tests.

The core idea behind the extension is to set access limits for certain websites. In other words: you may access the sites for the set limit only on any given day.

The extension is developed by the makers of Freedom. Freedom is the big brother of Limit. It runs system-wide, which means that it can also block distracting apps on supported systems.

Limit comes with a list of preset sites. These include some of the worst offenders when it comes to distractions, including YouTube, Netflix, Reddit, and Facebook. These sites can be removed from the configuration.

There is also an option to add any website. Just open the Settings of the extension, type the domain name, e.g., chipp.in, and activate the “add website” button.

Limit Website Access

Limit displays a notification when a time-limited website is opened. It reminds you of the time limit. Hover over the extension icon in the browser’s interface to get detailed information on the time spent and time left.

Limit blocks access to the website once you reach the set time limit.

Limit reached

Caveats

Limit is provided as a browser extension. It works therefore only in select browsers. While that may be sufficient if you just need a little push in the right direction to remain focused, it is quite easy to bypass the limits.

Apart from changing the daily time limit for the site to get more play time, using another browser is also an option to bypass the restriction.

If that is not enough, there are plenty of additional options available. Access the site using its IP address, use a proxy service, or a screenshot service.

Obviously, since you are in control, you may also uninstall the extension at any time or disable it.

Closing Words

Limit’s main goal of reducing the time spent on distracting websites depends entirely on the user. If you just need a little push, it may work well to keep you focused. If you need a bulletproof option, Limit is not the right extension for you. Freedom might work better, but it is a subscription-based service.

Now You: how do you handle distractions while working?

Windows updates

Microsoft is tight-lipped about Windows 10 update extensions for consumers

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the price that organizations have to pay to extend Windows 10 support after October 2025. What Microsoft did not say was how much consumers will have to pay to keep their Windows 10 systems supported.

The Windows 10 operating system will reach end of support in October 2025. This means, that Microsoft won’t release security updates or any other form of update for the operating system after end of support.

There is a way out though. Extended Security Updates allow organizations and home users to continue using a patched system. Microsoft established ESU when its Windows 7 operating system ran out of support in 2020. Organizations could extend support by up to three years through extra payments.

To extend Windows 7 support, they had to pay $50, $100, and $200 in the first, second, and third year. Consumers were ignored back then, as Microsoft did not make an Extended Security Updates offer.

Windows 10: extended security updates

Microsoft announced that Windows 10 would also get Extended Security Updates. Unlike Windows 8, which ran out in 2023 and did not receive any, Windows 10 is widely used.

It is the most used Windows operating system today and hundreds of millions of users will still use it in the second half of 2025.

Extended Security Updates are available for organizations and consumers this time.

Microsoft announced the price that organizations have to pay yesterday. The company bumped the price significantly to $61, $122, and $244 respectively. Summed up, it means that organizations have to pay $427 to extend Windows 10 for three years for a single machine.

Other options are available, but they depend on the use of update management systems or Microsoft 365.

And consumers?

No information was provided. Price and conditions are unclear. Microsoft provided the following comment:

Final pricing and enrolment conditions will be made available closer to the October 2025 date for end of support.

It is almost certain that Microsoft knows the conditions and set the price for extended security updates for consumer machines already.

Keeping customers in the dark may give Windows 11 a push. Most Windows 10 customers are probably unaware of ESU and that the option will become available in 2025.

These may update their machines to Windows 11, if compatible, or even buy a new PC with Windows 11 as a consequence.

If Microsoft would tell them now that they could extend support for their current machine by up to three years, for this much, it would certainly slow down Windows 11 adoption further.

Consumer pricing is a wildcard. Clearly, Microsoft won’t charge consumers more than it charges organizations. Apart from that, anything is possible. From doubling the price each year or a fixed sum per year, to linking ESU to a Microsoft 365 subscription.

Would you pay for extended security updates for Windows 10? If so, what is your limit?

Cookies

Cookie stealing may soon be a thing of the past

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google is working on a new security feature for the Web that aims to protect users against cookie theft malware better. Called Device Bound Session Credentials (DBSC), its main purpose is to bind cookies to the user’s device.

To better understand this, it is necessary to analyze the current situation. When you sign-in to a web service, a cookie is usually saved to the local system. This session cookie may then be used in future sessions. The effect is that you do not need to sign-in again, as this has been done in the past.

Cookies expire eventually, but until that happens, they may be used. One of the problems that arises is that cookies may also be used on other systems. This is what makes them attractive to criminals. If they manage to get their hands on session cookies, they may access the service without authentication.

A subtype of malware is designed to find and extract cookies from user systems. While this requires access to the user’s system in one way or another, it is a fairly common type of attack.

Device Bound Session Credentials

As the name implies, Device Bound Session Credentials limit cookies to individual devices. If you sign-in to a web service, the boundary is your computer (or a particular application). Anyone stealing the cookie cannot use it to access the account on another device, thanks to the new protective system.

Google explains:

By binding authentication sessions to the device, DBSC aims to disrupt the cookie theft industry since exfiltrating these cookies will no longer have any value.

Google admits that attackers may still get value out of attacks, but only if they act on the user system thanks to the boundary.

Technically, DBSC uses key pairs that are created when a new session starts. The private key is stored by the operating system and protections such as TPM help protect the keys against attacks. Servers may associate sessions with the public key; this ensures that a session is still on the original device.

Google notes that there is no “persistent user tracking” as sites may not “correlate keys from different sessions”. Keys may also be deleted at any time using the browser, e.g., Chrome’s option to delete site data.

Going forward

Google has open sourced the project and plans to make it a public standard. It is already experimenting with a prototype in Chrome Beta that protects Google Account users. Some companies, including Microsoft, have expressed interest already in DBSC.

You can check out Google’s post on the Chromium blog for an overview or the technical explainer on GitHub for additional information.

Firefox 124.0.2 fixes a video playback issue

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla will release another point update for Firefox 124 later today. Firefox 124.0.2 is a bug fix update that addresses four non-security issues in the browser. Apart from a crash on Linux AArch64, it is fixing a video playback issue that is causing video playback on sites such as Netflix to go blank or crash the browser.

The update is not available yet, but it will be released shortly to the public. You may check Menu > Help > About Firefox to display the current version. Firefox runs a check for updates. Once released, it will download and install the update automatically.

Firefox 124.0.2: the fixes

The main fix of the point update addresses a playback issue on video sites such as Netflix. The bug report offers a very specific example, and it is unclear how narrow the issue is based on it.

According to the report on Bugzilla, the issue was caused on Netflix when users activated the “Inuyasha” icon to play it. Firefox’s window would then flash and go blank. Mozilla reproduced the issue and found out that the issue was caused by a crash of the GPU process.

The new Firefox release fixes several other issues:

  • Users with large amounts of bookmarks could not restore backups of bookmarks. This has been addressed in this release. The bug report suggests that this was caused if the bookmarks were crossing the 32766 mark.
  • Fixed a crash that affected Linux AArch64 builds. Details about the patch can be found here.
  • Fixed the loading of some webpages on Ubuntu 24.04 systems caused by the “changes made to the default AppArmor configuration”.

Closing words

There is no need to rush the update if you have not experienced any of the issues in Firefox. Firefox 125, expected on April 16, 2024, will include these fixes.

Do you use Firefox or another browser as your main driver?