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.

Why is the first drive in Windows always labeled C by default?

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

When you check File Explorer on a freshly installed copy of Windows, you will likely notice that the main drive, the Windows drive, has the label C:. Why not A: or B:?

Computer users who grew up in the age of floppy disks and drives know the answer. Back in the days when computers shipped with floppy disks as the main storage system, drive A: and drive B: were reserved for these.

The first floppy drive got the A: label and it was used as the boot drive. You would insert a MS-DOS or Windows startup disk and the computer would load the operating system from the drive.

The second floppy drive, if the computer had one, got the B: label. Two floppy drives were useful, as it meant that you could copy data from one floppy disk to another easily, and also needed to swap disks less often.

Games with lots of floppy disks. Image generated by Gemini.

However, some games came on more than ten floppy disks. Even if you had two disk drives, you still had to swap disks a lot. While you could connect more than two floppy drives to computers, barely any computer user had more than two floppy drives.

The age of the hard drive

Computer hard drives became more affordable in the mid to late 1980s. Floppy drives were still common, and since it would mean utter chaos to change the default order of assigning the first two drive letters to floppy disk drives, the first hard drive of the computer got C: assigned as the next available letter after A and B.

Drive C:, a hard drive with an astonishing amount of storage space — 20 or 40 megabytes– in the late 80s, became the standard drive for the operating system.

Fun fact: The first 1 gigabyte hard drive cost about $5,000 in 1991.

A computer with two hard drives would assign the drive letters C: and D: to the two drives by default.

CD-ROM drives enter the world

Disk drives increased in storage capacity rapidly, and so did requirements of operating systems, software, and games. Games and apps started to become that big, that they could not be delivered on floppy disks anymore.

CD-ROM became the new standard for delivering software and games. These optical drives were often assigned the label D:, on a computer with just a single hard drive, or the letter E:, on a computer with two hard drives or mapped partitions.

Why has not Microsoft moved to using A: for the system drive?

Floppy disks and drives are hard to come by these days. This has not changed the fact that the drive letters A and B are still not used by Windows for the main system drive.

The main reason why Microsoft has not changed the default mapping is backwards compatibility. Doing so could break countless older programs, scripts and shortcuts that reference hard-coded file paths on drive C:.

Technically speaking, it is possible to use the drives A: and B: on Windows. You can, for example, assign a hard drive or USB flash drive to the drive letters, and they will work. However, Windows will never map new drives or partitions to the first two drive letters.

Hacks even allow knowledgeable users to install Windows on A: or B: instead of C:, but it may lead to instabilities and most users might want to refrain from doing so because of that.

Dell admits that PCs sell better when it does not mention AI capabilities

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

While companies such as Microsoft or Google are adding AI capabilities to more and more of their products and services, it seems that not all customers do share the excitement that these companies try to convey.

Do customers want these AI features or care about them? It is certainly too early to conclude how this will all play out. Do companies spend billions on AI research, infrastructure and products that they will never recoup because the audience is not big enough?

Dell admitted something interesting in an interview with PC Games recently during CES 2026. The company revealed that it moved away from putting AI PCs front and center in marketing stating that the message that it tried to deliver with its products instead was “not AI first”.

Dell realized that consumers were, by large, not really interested in AI PCs. They were interested in PCs, but whether these were equipped with NPUs and capable of running AI operations locally or not, was apparently not something that the majority of Dell customers prioritized.

We’re very focused on delivering upon the AI capabilities of a device—in fact everything that we’re announcing has an NPU in it—but what we’ve learned over the course of this year, especially from a consumer perspective, is they’re not buying based on AI,” Terwilliger says bluntly. “In fact I think AI probably confuses them more than it helps them understand a specific outcome.

While all recent Dell devices come with NPUs and AI PC capabilities, the company is not focusing its marketing efforts on that.

It seems likely that other PC manufacturers are experiencing the same. While none has come forward that openly yet, there seems to be a clear divider between the interests of companies that push AI and the people that buy PC products with AI capabilities.

Most AI features that Microsoft introduced in Windows 11 do not appear overly useful to the majority of Windows users. Many mimic features that every AI chat on the Internet supports. This could change the moment Microsoft introduces something truly useful, like an AI that reacts to support requests by fixing the issues automatically. Whether something like this is coming this year remains to be seen.

For now, expect to be continued to be bombarded with AI announcements and integrations in products and services. Whether this are truly useful, annoying or even obnoxious is up for every user to decide.

Gmail is getting a full dose of Gemini AI

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google started to add AI features to its popular email service Gmail last year. These focused on productivity and included options to summarize long emails, optimize drafts, or improve search.

These features were limited to Google AI Pro or Ultra subscribers, and also available as part of a Google Workspace subscription.

Tip: looking for emails on Gmail? They may have been pushed to the updates category.

Google announced today that Gmail has entered the Gemini era. It does not come as a surprise that more AI is being added to Gmail.

Here is an overview of the new features that Google announced today on its The Keyword blog.

AI Overviews

AI Overviews, which are already available when you search using Google Search, is coming to Gmail. Google expands the feature somewhat, as Gmail will display summaries of emails to display key points to Gmail users.

The feature comes into play as well when you type a question in the inbox. Gemini will display the answer as a simple AI Overview” in that case.

Google says that this enables new and better interactions with the content. Gmail users may search for “Who was the plumber that gave me a quote for the bathroom renovation last year?” to quickly get the answer they are looking for, according to Google.

The AI Overview feature is being rolled out starting today to all Gmail users while Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers get the option to ask inbox questions.

Help me Write

Another new feature is Help me Write. Google describes it as a way to use AI to draft emails from scratch or improve them.

The already available Smart Replies feature is upgraded to Suggested Replies, which is now using the context of the conversation to offer more relevant responses.

Last but not least, a new proofread feature makes “advanced grammar, tone and style checks”.

Help me Write and Suggested Replies are rolling out to all Gmail users. The advanced proofreader is only available for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers.

AI Inbox

Gmail users will also see a new AI Inbox entry above the regular inbox on Gmail going forward. Google says that this new feature is designed to remove clutter from the inbox so that users “can focus on what’s most important”.

The company compares it to a personalized briefing that is helping Gmail users catch up quickly.

It helps you prioritize, identifying your VIPs based on signals like people you email frequently, those in your contacts list and relationships it can infer from message content. Crucially, this analysis happens securely with the privacy protections you expect from Google, keeping your data under your control. This lets high-stakes items — like a bill due tomorrow or a dentist reminder — rise to the top

This feature is only available to “trusted testers” at the time but rolled out broadly in the coming months.

Closing Words

All three features roll out to Gmail users in the United States who are Google AI Pro or Ultra subscribers first.

Google has little to say about privacy, but it should be clear that the AI needs access to the emails for its functionality. Google did not reveal if there will be options to turn off the AI features in Gmail.

Now You: do you use AI features in your email client or on a website already? What is your take on these new features?

If you have a Samsung phone, look out for the next security update, it is massive

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Android phone and tablet owners know the drill. Google releases monthly security updates for Android and pushes them to supported Pixel devices quickly. Other manufacturers, Samsung, Xiaomi or Sony, to name a few, create patches for their devices and push them to these devices as well.

Depending on how much you paid for the device and its status in the support lifecycle, your devices may also receive monthly security updates. Some devices receive delayed updates, which makes them vulnerable to potential attacks.

Samsung has just posted information about the January 2026 Patch Day, and it is a massive one. The company has corrected a total of 55 security issues.

Here are the highlights:

  • The update includes a fix for a critical vulnerability, and 28 vulnerabilities rated high.
  • 23 of the included patches are provided by Google (with two not applying to Samsung devices).
  • The remaining 34 vulnerabilities come from Samsung Semiconductors (4) and Samsung Mobile (30).

Select Settings > About Phone > Software Update to check manually for the update. Samsung delivers updates on a monthly, quarterly, or biannual schedule.

Samsung’s security model

Samsung releases monthly security updates for Flagship- and Enterprise-devices only. You find Galaxy Fold and Galaxy S supported here mostly. In fact, the only non-Enterprise A-series model is the Galaxy A 56 5G device.

Most non-Flagship devices receive quarterly updates only. This is a problem from a security point of view, as Samsung collects security updates for these devices to release them once every quarter. If you have any A-series device other than the latest A5x, your devices will receive quarterly updates only, unless it is an Enterprise-device.

While Samsung has extended updates support in recent time, only its Flagship devices offer a monthly update frequency.

Brave slashes memory use of its ad-blocker by at least 45 megabytes on all platforms

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Brave Browser is one of the few major web browsers that supports native content blocking on all supported platforms that is enabled by default. It should not come as a surprise that the browser is on an upwards trajectory when it comes to users and popularity.

While Brave is not without controversy, it is clear that Brave Software has made several meaningful strategic decisions in the past that has benefitted the business immensely.

Quick Tip: do this, if websites do not react anymore in Brave on first load.

Content blocker improvements

Brave announced today that it has improved the memory usage of its internal content blocker significantly. The company claims that it has reduce memory usage by about 75 percent, which equates to a reduction of about 45 megabytes on all supported platforms.

Brave says that users who have enabled additional filters will see an even larger reduction in memory usage going forward.

How it managed to do that? Brave explains:

..we achieved this major memory milestone by iteratively refactoring the adblock-rust engine to use FlatBuffers, a compact and efficient storage format. This architectural transition allowed us to move the roughly 100,000 adblock filters shipped by default from standard, heap-allocated Rust data structures (such as Vecs, HashMaps, and structs) into a specialized, zero-copy binary format.

Brave notes that it has implemented several optimizations in addition). These are:

  • Memory management: Used stack-allocated vectors to reduce memory allocations by 19% and improved building time by ~15%.
  • Matching speed: Improved filter matching performance by 13% by tokenizing common regex patterns.
  • Sharing resources: Resources are shared between instantiations of adblock engines, saving ~2 MB of memory on desktop.
  • Storage efficiency: Optimized internal resource storage memory by 30%.

The main memory reduction and optimizations landed in Brave 1.85 while additional optimizations will be included in the next release of the browser.

It will be interesting to see how users who have enabled additional filters in Brave benefit from the change.

Adding extra filters in Brave

It is quite easy to add more filters to Brave to extend the content blocking functionality.

Note: Each list that Brave supports natively offers a short description of what it does. Fanboy’s Anti-Newsletter list, for instance, blocks newsletter popups on websites.

  1. Select Menu > Settings, or load brave://settings/ directly in the address bar.
  2. Go to Shields > Content filtering.
  3. Click on “show full list” to display all included filter lists.
  4. Check the lists that you want to enable in Brave.

Note that adding lists will increase the memory usage of the content blocker and thus Brave. It is recommended to keep the list as short as possible.

As for recommendations, it depends largely on your Internet browsing and which annoyances you encounter regularly. YouTuber regulars, for instance, could enable filters for mobile distractions and recommendations, if they use Brave on their mobile devices.

There are also language-specific block lists, which are useful if you visit websites regularly in a specific language.

Goodbye WD Black and Blue, Hello (again) SanDisk Optimus

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Western Digital has been a household name for many years. In late 2023, Western Digital announced that it is splitting into two separate companies. All platter-based hard disk drive products would remain under the Western Digital brand while all NAND Flash memory products would spin off as an independent company.

Today, SanDisk, the company that owns Western Digital, announced that it is reviving the Optimus name to resolve branding problems created by the split.

Good to known: SanDisk used Optimus as a brand name for enterprise products until 2013. The new Optimus is consumer focused, however.

Western Digital Blue and Black products will be consolidated under the Optimus brand going forward.

SanDisk is splitting the different WD hard drive series into three groups intended for different target audiences.

Old WD BrandingNew SanDisk BrandingTarget Audience
WD Blue (SN5000 series)SanDisk OptimusMainstream / Creators
For standard PC builds and light creative work.
WD Black (SN7000 series)SanDisk Optimus GXGamers
High-speed drives for gaming rigs and consoles (PS5).
WD Black (SN8000 series)SanDisk Optimus GX ProEnthusiasts / Pro
Flagship performance (PCIe Gen 5) for workstations and extreme gaming.

Initial capacities range from 512 megabytes to 8 terabytes just like before. SanDisk has not announced any new products at this time, but it is probably only a matter of time before new Optimus products are announced.

Here is how this affects consumers

All warranties for existing Western Digital Blue and Black drives remain valid. However, support will be handled through a new SanDisk support portal.

The first wave of Optimus drives are identical to WD Black and Blue drives. They will have a new packaging to highlight the change, with Western Digital branding gone and a new SanDisk branding taking its place.

A Tech-YouTuber tested the speed of Windows from XP to 11 and made an astonishing observation

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

If you have used different versions of Windows, you may have discovered that some versions feel faster than others. Maybe you are still sad that Microsoft dropped support for Windows XP or Windows 7 several years ago, because you found them to be much faster than the latest and greatest versions of Windows.

A direct comparison is difficult, especially for home users, as it is necessary to run all tests on the same hardware and under the same conditions.

Tech-YouTuber TrigrZolt tested the performance of the six most recent Windows versions, from Windows XP all the way up to Windows 11, and publish the results on YouTube.

Key findings:

  • Windows 11 uses significantly more RAM than any other of the tested Windows versions.
  • Windows 11 does not feel as responsive as the other operating systems.

The testing platform is a Lenovo ThinkPad X220 device from 2011. It is powered by an Intel Core i5-2520M processor, 8 gigabytes of RAM and a platter-based hard drive.

What he discovered is remarkable, but the choice of hardware needs to be taken into consideration. Modern operating systems are optimized for Solid State Drives. Additionally, the processor is not supported officially by Windows 11.

How much storage space do the Windows versions occupy on disk?

  • Windows XP (18,9 GB)
  • Windows Vista (37,8 GB)
  • Windows 7 (44,6 GB)
  • Windows 8.1 (27,9 GB)
  • Windows 10 (36,7 GB)
  • Windows 11 (37,3 GB)

Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 operating system comes out first in a comparison of the boot process. It boots faster than any other candidate to boot into the desktop. Windows 11 comes last in the test.

RAM use is not as surprising, as the oldest operating system, Windows XP, requires less than a gigabyte of RAM. Windows Vista, Windows 7 and 8.1 come in second as a group, even though RAM use almost doubled here. It tripled under Windows 10 and more than quadrupled under Windows 11.

Browsing was tested as well. There, the YouTuber tried to open as many browser tabs in the browser Supermium, a Chromium-based browser, until 5 gigabytes of RAM were reached.

The clear winner of the test is Windows 8.1 with 252 open browser tabs. It is followed by Windows 7 with 235 tabs and Windows Vista with 184 tabs. Windows 10 reached 150 tabs while Windows 11 only 49 tabs. Windows XP crashed after 50 tabs were opened, which is still more than Windows 11 managed.

You can check out the full video here:

The YouTube user sums up the test in the following way: “Windows 11 is one of the slowest operating systems out of every version of Windows”.

It seems likely that Windows 10 and 11 would perform better with newer hardware and it would be interesting to see a second test that follows the same modules to find out how all operating systems would perform on a machine that is modern.

However, while hardware gets faster with every passing year, software seems to get slower and heavier as well, eating up much of the performance gains.

A rare PlayStation game is now worth ten times as much as before: here is why

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Most physical games for consoles drop in value over time. There are exceptions, however, especially when it comes to games that are released in limited quantity or special editions.

Star Wars Racer Revenge was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2002 originally. It got average scores and was re-released by Limited Run Games in 2019 for the PS4. Since the PS5 supports PS4 games, it can also be run on the PlayStation 5, including the refreshed version.

Good to know: Limited Run Games is a company that re-releases classic games. Think of it as Gog, but for the physical games market and usually with tiny print runs compared to the general market.

Less than 1,000 copies of the game were produced by Limited Run Games reportedly. Up until recently, users could grab a copy from marketplaces such as eBay for about 30 Dollars.

When you check the price of the game now, you may notice that the PS4-version of the game is offered for several hundred Dollars now.

The PS5 jailbreak

Rumors of a potential jailbreak of the PlayStation 5 made the rounds a couple of days ago.

The exploit, reportedly, was found in the PS4 game Star Wars Racer Revenge, which explains why it is in high demand right now. It contains a security issue that enables the running of unsigned code under certain circumstances.

This, according to reports, gave access to the PlayStation 5’s Level 0 BootRom keys, which has been published on the Internet.

Good to know: The Level 0 BootROM contains the keys used to verify and decrypt the very first stage of the console’s startup software.

Hackers may decrypt all subsequent layers of the PlayStation 5’s security using the keys. It could pave the way for custom firmware that hacked consoles can boot into.

The main issue for Sony is that it could bring piracy to its platform.

For Sony, it is a worst case scenario, as it can’t patch the vulnerability via a software update. The company has a few options to respond, but none affect current PlayStation users under certain circumstances.

  • Introduce checks for tampering. This requires an update of the console though and Internet connectivity.
  • Ban consoles of users who run modified firmware. Also works only with Internet connectivity.
  • Release games that require a specific firmware version.
  • Release a new PS5 revision that has new BootRom keys.

As is stands, all current PS5 consoles are vulnerable to the exploit and they may fetch a premium on second-hand marketplaces as well, if Sony releases a revised version of its PS5.

LanguageTool blocks free user access to browser extension: here are the best alternatives

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

LanguageTool is a popular AI-based grammar checker. It is available as a free — limited — version and a premium version that offers more features for a price.

Free LanguageTool users were limited in several ways since the introduction of the service. It lacked the advanced spell, style and grammar checking capabilities of the premium version. However, up until now, free users could use LanguageTool browser add-ons for deeper integration in web browsers.

This integration is being taken away. When you open the comparison of the free and premium version on the official website, you will notice that Learneo, Inc, the owners of the service, have removed browser add-ons support for free users.

The only integration that remains available is for the open source email client Thunderbird. Support for every browser listed on the page requires a premium subscription now.

Why is LanguageTool making the change? The company does not say, but the main reason is likely to drive subscriptions. Free users who have come to rely on the tool may not want to lose access to it. The only option, if they want to continue using the add-ons, is to pay LanguageTool for the privilege.

LanguageTool users may use copy and paste for the checking of style, spelling, and grammar, but it is cumbersome in comparison.

LanguageTool alternatives

There are two groups that I would like to highlight.

  • The first offers capabilities that are very similar to LanguageTool. These tools rely on server-side checks, like LanguageTool, which makes them convenient to use but not-so-great for privacy.
  • The second group runs locally. This is much better for privacy, but features may be limited because of that or not as powerful.

Best privacy-friendly alternatives

Harper is a free locally-hosted open source grammar checker. That is great for privacy and it does come with browser and services integrations. Since it runs locally, its latency is much lower than that of cloud-based services.

However, the main downside is that Harper supports English only. The developers hinted in the past that other languages would be added in the future, but for now, English and some if its major dialects is all you get.

Self-hosted LanguageTool. It may come as a surprise, but you can actually host a LanguageTool server, if you have the technical know-how to get it up and running. This allows you to continue using the add-ons — I think — and you find starting instructions here. Could be an option for technical users who do not mind setting up their own server and fiddling around with configurations and such.

General alternatives

If you do not mind that your texts are transferred to cloud-based servers for checking, you may find the following tools or services useful.

QuillBot is an all-in-one writing assistant that offers a similar feature set. The free version checks spelling and grammar, comes with a few AI-based features, such as paraphrasing text (up to 125 words), browser extensions (no Firefox apparently), and some other applications and operating systems.

Windows users who use Edge may also check out the free Microsoft Editor of the browser. It offers limited grammar and spell-checking, but lacks deeper functionality.

Grammarly is another popular choice, but it has been criticized heavily in the past for its data collection practices.

Now You: do you use a grammar checker service or something else to make sure that mistakes are kept to a minimum? Feel free to post your suggestions and about your experience with these tools below.

Windows 11 SE: Microsoft confirms the end of the operating system

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft confirmed that Windows 11 SE is on its way out. The operating system will reach end of support in October 2026 and won’t receive updates anymore after that month’s Patch Day. It is one of several Microsoft products that reach end of support or life in 2026.

What is Windows 11 SE? Windows 11 SE is a limited version of Windows 11 that is cloud-first and specifically designed for the education market, which requires cheap, secure, and easy to manage devices.

Microsoft created the operating system as a way to compete directly with Google’s Chromebook, regain lost grounds and increase the reach of its Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

Windows 11 SE offered a simplified interface, better offline capabilities than Chrome, and manageability via Microsoft Intune for Education. Critics found Windows 11 SE to be considerably heavier than Chrome OS. Additionally, availability was limited and users could not install apps on their devices.

Windows 11 SE: the countdown to end of support

Microsoft confirms that Windows 11 SE will no longer be supported after October 2026. This does not come as a total surprise, as Microsoft announced last year already that it would not release another feature update for Windows 11 SE.

The last feature update is Windows 11, version 24H2. From October 2026, Microsoft won’t release software updates or security fixes, and won’t offer technical assistance either.

Devices will continue to work, according to Microsoft. However, Windows 11 SE devices were low-spec devices. Microsoft’s own reference device came with an Intel Celeron N4020 or N4120 processor, 4 or 8 GB of DDR4 RAM, and either 64 GB or 128 GB of eMMC storage.

Third-party manufacturers, including Dell, Lenovo and HP, created custom devices, but they all had in common that components were not designed for speed of performance.

While it may be possible to install a different operating system on the devices, it would be ironic if Chrome OS would be installed on those devices. A clean install of windows 11 may also be an option, at least on some devices. However, this will likely lead to performance issues due to the low-power processor and bare minimum storage for running Windows 11.

It seems unlikely that Microsoft is working on Windows 12 SE. Microsoft recommends that customers migrate to devices that run Windows 11, but does not seem to offer any discounts to affected customers at this point.