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: 63% increase in new monthly users in Europe

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

Opera Software announced that on April 10, 2025 that it saw an increase in monthly new users by 63% on iOS one month after the Digital Market Acts came into force in Europe.

Apple, much like Google on Android, is required to display a browser choice screen to users. The aim here is to level the playing field and limit Apple’s and Google’s ability to prioritize their own browsers over others.

Apple iOS users may still select Safari as the default browser. The browser choice screen allows them to pick another browser.

Opera Software claims furthermore that it is also seeing growth in regards to being selected as the default browser on iOS. This metric increased by 39% from March 3rd to April 4th, 2024.

The countries with the largest jump in monthly new users are:

France with 146%.
Germany with 57%.
Spain with 50%.
Poland with 45%.
Italy with 20%.

Opera Software does not reveal usage numbers. In 2023, Opera Software said that it had about 350 million users across all supported platforms. Back in 2020, Opera announced that it had reached 300 million users, 232 million on mobile alone.

If the numbers are correct, Opera is seeing significant growth on iOS in Europe.

Other browser makers are also seeing upticks in usage. Brave Software, for example, saw a huge jump in daily installs after the browser choice screen rolled out on iOS.

Mozilla too reported that it saw a jump in users in select European countries. The organization said that its German users increased by 50% and the users in France by 30% in the time.

Closing Words

Even if you do not use any of the browsers, it is good to see efforts to level the playing field. Apple having to allow other browsing engines on iOS is another milestone. While Apple seems to fight this in different ways, it is probably only a matter of time before pure Chromium and Firefox browsers are launching on iOS.

Which browser do you prefer on mobile?

YT Channel Downloader review

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

YT Channel Downloader is an open source downloader for YouTube videos. It supports downloading individual videos and also entire channels or playlists. You can download it from its GitHub repository. It is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS devices.

The program is based on yt-dlp, scrapetube, and pytube, but much easier to use.

The main interface is almost barebones. It features an URL field at the top. Paste YouTube URLs into the field and hit Fetch afterwards to get a list of found videos returned. Fetching may take a few seconds to complete.

Videos are listed with their name and link only. Other information, such as playtime or maximum resolution, are not shown.

From here, it takes two additional clicks to download all videos to the local system. Activate the “select all” button to check all videos, and hit the download button next to start the process.

You may also select individual videos to download only them, or enable audio conversions in the settings.

Before you start using the program, you may want to open File > Settings. Here you find just a few options:

Change the local download folder.
Enable conversion to audio files.
Set the preferred video format and quality.
Set the preferred audio format and quality.

Once set, the program runs almost on autopilot. It is a great way of quickly downloading videos for offline viewing. Ideal before you make a long trip, but also for safekeeping.

Tip: here is a method to download age-restricted YouTube videos without account.

Closing Words

YT Channel Download is an easy to use program. It makes the downloading of videos from YouTube channels or playlists almost effortlessly.

While that is great for getting things done quickly, it lacks options that other downloaders may support. There is no option to download subtitles or process videos in any way after download (other than converting them to audio).

Not everyone needs these options. If you just want a reliable mass downloader that is easy to use, this may be it.

The program worked reliably during tests. Fetching may take a while. It seems to depend on the channel or playlist that you want analyzed.

Vivaldi testing new Privacy Guard feature in browser

Posted on April 13, 2024April 13, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Privacy Guard is a new feature of the Vivaldi web browser. It is free at the moment and only available in development builds of the browser.

Broken down to its core, it is protecting user privacy through a technology called Multi-Hop Relay. To better understand it, it is necessary to understand how regular connections work in the browser.

When the browser loads a domain, a direct connection to each resource of a webpage is loaded. This means that the server the site is hosted on as well as any third-party resource loaded communicates directly with the IP address of the user’s device.

Multi-Hop Relay changes this by putting servers in-between. In other words, instead of directly connecting to resources, the browser connects through other servers first. This is done to separate the identity of the user’s device from the requested resource.

Vivaldi’s Privacy Guard technology uses two servers for this. The first is operated by INVISV, the startup that developed the Multi-Hop technology. The second is operated by Fastly.

Vivaldi says that INVISV has been founded by Paul Schmitt, University of Hawaii, and Barath Raghavan, University of Southern California. The startup has advisers, including Bruce Schneier and Jon Callas.

The feature in Vivaldi

You need a development version of Vivaldi to use the feature at this time. Another limitation is that Privacy Guard requires a Vivaldi account. Creating an account is free.

A click on the Privacy Guard toggle enables the feature. A public IP address is assigned to the browser. Vivaldi displays the location of the server as well, so that you know about the country you are connected to.

The fastest server is selected by default, which means that you will connect to a server closest to your location usually. You can switch this to random instead, which may further improve privacy.

Websites may be added to the list of exceptions. Direct connections are used for any of these sites.

Initial tests were promising. All tested websites and services, including YouTube, Twitch, online game websites, blogs, and others worked as before. Some sites may display captchas, but this is also the case when other anonymization services are used.

Privacy Guard vs. Tor Browser vs. Multi-Hop VPNs

How does the privacy feature compare to similar technologies?

Privacy Guard — uses two hops. Hops are operated by different companies.
Tor Browser — uses three hops. Hops are (usually) operated by different companies and organizations.
Multi-Hop VPN — uses another hop. Operated by the VPN provider.

Closing Words

The technology is free to try at the moment and Vivaldi says that it uses the current implementation for testing and to find out if this is something that Vivaldi users are interested in. A release in Vivaldi Stable would require a subscription. Details have not been revealed at this point.

Some Vivaldi users will certainly find the option appealing. The main appeal it has over VPNs is that its servers are not operated by the same company. It is also easier to use, but it lacks advanced features that VPN services do offer.

Would you use Privacy Guard? How much would you pay for it?

VPN by Google One is shutting down

Posted on April 12, 2024 by Martin Brinkmann

Google is informing customers currently that it is shutting down VPN by Google One “later this year”.

I reviewed VPN by Google One in March 2023 and concluded that it was “the most basic VPN that you can get”. Subscribers would get access to the VPN if they paid Google at least $1.99 per month.

While that sounded like a good deal on paper, the VPN itself was severely limiting and only available to customers in 22 countries. The real downside was that it lacked core functionality. You basically got the option to connect to the VPN, use its kill switch and configure bypass options for apps.

One of the main downsides was that you could not use it to connect to select servers, only to servers that Google picked. This meant that you could not use it to quickly connect to a server in another country to get an IP associated with that country.

Other features found in clients of popular VPN servers, such as NordVPN or SurfShark, were missing as well. No protocol selection, no advanced servers or security features, or to set a custom DNS server.

It still helped protected the connection, especially when connected to public wireless access points, but that was it.

Google informs subscribers and Pixel owners

All Pixel owners and Google One members are informed about the change. The news that VPN by Google One is shutting down at the end of the year may be overlooked easily.

Google writes:

Phasing out two benefits: With a focus on providing the most in-demand features and benefits, we’re discontinuing free shipping for select print orders from Google Photos (in Canada, the UK, US, and EU) starting on May 15 and VPN by Google One later this year. As a Pixel user, you’ll continue to enjoy being able to access VPN from Google through Pixel settings if you have Pixel 7 or newer models.

In other words, the VPN service is removed from Google One. Pixel owners may still connect to Google’s VPN.

The official Google One website does not list VPN by Google One anymore already.

Closing Words

Another one bites the dust. I know quite a few users who do not commit to Google products anymore, because there is a good chance that the company will tear them apart in the future.

While there are better VPN services out there, it is still disheartening to add it as another discontinued product to Google’s Graveyard of products.

Opera GX’s Cyberpunk 2077 Mod is mighty cool

Posted on April 11, 2024April 11, 2024 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:

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 April 10, 2024April 10, 2024 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 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:

Right-click on a blank spot on the desktop and select Personalize.
Activate the background menu on the page to open it.
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:

Open File Explorer.
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.
You find a list of images in the folder. These do not have a file extension associated with images.
Copy the files to another directory.
Rename them, so that the file extension is .jpg.
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:

cd c:\tempdir\wallpaper
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?

You can now sign in to Microsoft accounts using Outlook

Posted on April 9, 2024April 9, 2024 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:

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.
Microsoft displays a number on the next screen and prompts you to check your Outlook app.
You need to tap on the right number, out of three presented to you, in the Outlook app.
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?

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

Posted on April 8, 2024April 8, 2024 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 April 7, 2024April 7, 2024 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

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

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:

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

Bonus Tip: Android

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 April 6, 2024April 6, 2024 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

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)