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.

New Year, New Zero-Day: The January 2026 Windows Patch Tuesday Breakdown

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

If you were hoping for a quiet start to the new year, Microsoft has other plans.

The January 2026 Patch Tuesday is here, and it marks a heavy start to the year for system administrators. Microsoft has addressed a massive 114 vulnerabilities across its ecosystem, including eight critical flaws and a zero-day that require immediate attention.

While Microsoft released a large number of patches for its operating systems and services, it is CVE-2026-20805 that requires immediate attention. It is an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability in the Desktop Windows Manager (DWM) that is being used by threat actors to bypass security controls.

Add to that a “no-click” remote code execution flaw in Microsoft Office that is triggered by using the preview pane, it is clear that administrators have their hands full in the coming days to address these and others.

Beyond the security fixes, this month also brings some significant housekeeping: Microsoft is officially purging legacy Agere modem drivers from Windows images, marking the end of the road for decades-old hardware dependencies.

The January 2026 Patch Day overview

Executive Summary

  • Release Date: January 13, 2026
  • Total Vulnerabilities: 114
  • Critical Vulnerabilities: 8
  • Zero-Days (Actively Exploited): 1 (Desktop Window Manager)
  • Key Action Item: Administrators should prioritize patching CVE-2026-20805 (DWM) immediately, as it is being used in the wild to bypass security controls.

Important Patches

  • CVE-2026-20805 — Desktop Window Manager Information Disclosure Vulnerability
  • CVE-2026-21265 — Secure Boot Certificate Expiration Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
  • CVE-2026-20952 — Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
  • CVE-2026-20953 — Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
  • CVE-2023-31096 — MITRE: CVE-2023-31096 Windows Agere Soft Modem Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

Cumulative Updates

Product, VersionKB ArticleNotes
Windows 10, Version 22H2KB5073724ESU Only. Security updates. Removes old modem drivers (Agere).
Windows 11, Version 24H2KB5074109Security updates and non-security changes. Removes old modem drivers (Agere).
Windows 11, Version 25H2KB5074109Security updates and non-security changes. Removes old modem drivers (Agere).

Deep Dive: The Critical Vulnerabilities

While the total count of vulnerabilities is high, administrators may want to focus their attention on three specific issues: a zero-day vulnerability that is exploited in the wild, “no-click” Microsoft Office exploits, and a major issue affecting in Secure Boot.

The Zero-Day: CVE-2026-20805 (actively exploited)

CVE-2026-20805 is an Information Disclosure vulnerability that allows a threat actor to read specific memory addresses from remote ALPC ports. While this does not allow the actors to run malicious code directly, attackers may exploit the vulnerability to bypass Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR).

This may enable them to create other remote code execution exploits that target system components directly.

The “No-Click” Microsoft Office issue

CVE-2026-20952 and CVE-2026-20953 are use-after-free vulnerabilities that allow remote code execution. The danger comes from the fact that they do not require user interaction for execution.

They rely on preview panes, either in File Explorer or Outlook, to trigger exploits. An attacker would have to get a specially crafted Office document on the user’s computer. When a user views the file in a preview area, for example by selecting it in File Explorer, the exploit triggers.

The Secure Boot bypass

CVE-2026-21265 describes a Secure Boot issue. It is not a bug in code that can be exploited, but a cryptographic expiration issue. Secure Boot certificates issued in 2011 are set to expire later this year.

Installation of this update rotates the certificates ensuring that devices will continue to boot and won’t fail to boot once the old certificates expire.

Significant changes

Microsoft removes drivers for legacy Agere modems from Windows with this update. The modems have not been manufactured for a long time and the main reason for removal is a vulnerability CVE-2023-31096. Instead of patching the driver, Microsoft decided to remove the driver from Windows instead.

The removal affects Enterprise and industrial users for the most part. It can affect point-of-sale terminals or legacy fax servers that rely on Agere modem chipsets. These will no longer work when the update is applied.

A quick check of the Device Manager should reveal whether “Agere Systems” or “LSI” models are used.

WDS Hardening enters first phase

This is only relevant if Windows Deployyment Services (WDS) is used. Microsoft is hardening WDS. The company introduces new event logging and Registry controls to block unauthenticated deployment requests.

Starting this month, logging is enabled. Administrators may enforce the block, but it is not enabled by default. From April 2026 onward, Microsoft plans to enable “block by default”.

Companies that rely on unauthenticated imaging have until April 2026 to switch to authenticated deployment. There is also a new AllowHandsFreeFunctionality Registry key, which enables the old status quo.

First Steps: Your Patch Tuesday Strategy

  1. Patch the Zero-Day issue that is exploited in the wild immediately.
  2. Deploy updates to mitigate the “no-click” vulnerability in Microsoft Office.
  3. Make sure legacy modem hardware is not in use anymore.
  4. Ensure that boot loaders are updated before certificates expire.

Firefox 147 Just Dropped: 5 Features That Make It Worth Updating Today

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Not every monthly browser update feels like a milestone, far from it, but Firefox 147 is an exception to the rule. Released just a moment ago, on January 13, 2026, version 147 of the open source browser is not just another round of bug and security fixes — it is a comprehensive update that crosses some of the oldest items from the community’s wish list.

Whether you are a Linux user who has been waiting for 20 years for a cleaner home directory, a privacy advocate looking for improvements, or an AMD-GPU user who is now benefitting from decreased memory use and improved battery life during video playback.

Here are the five standout features in Firefox 147 that make this update essential.

Firefox 147 released. (Image credit: Mozilla)

Closing a privacy loophole in Safe Browsing

Mozilla Firefox uses Safe Browsing from Google for security checks. This checks visited URLs to make sure they are not on a list of dangerous addresses.

Up until now, Mozilla Firefox used V4 of Safe Browsing. Under this system, Firefox downloaded a database of hash prefixes from Google. This list included only the first four bytes of a hash and not the full addresses.

When a Firefox user visited a site in the browser, it compared the first four bits of the site’s hash against the list. If a match was found, it contacted Google servers to verify if the site was on the badlist (bad then), or not (collision, not bad).

The problem here was that Firefox had to contact Google for this. This meant that Google got to see the IP address of the user’s computer and the has prefix of the site.

While local first, it was not fully private because of that.

Version 5 makes a shift to Oblivious HTTP. This adds a third-party server between the browser’s request, and thus a user’s IP address, and the Google server. The third-party server sees the IP address of the user, but only the encrypted hash that is submitted.

Google on the other hand sees the hash, which it can decrypt, but not the user’s IP address.

Site isolation support in Firefox for Android

Site isolation was introduced in late 2021 for desktop versions of the Firefox browser. The main idea was to load each site in its own separate process to avoid certain forms of attacks or privacy issues.

Now, almost four years later, Mozilla is introducing site isolation on Android. Apart from improving security, site isolation should also improve the stability of the Firefox browser on Android.

Under the old system, a crash of a website could take down other tabs or even the whole browser. With site isolation in place, only specific tabs associated with the site will crash, while all other sites and the browser itself won’t be affected.

Local network protection in Strict Tracking Protection

Only a few legitimate services require access to local network resources when you browse the Internet. However, sites may abuse the option for certain tracking forms or attacks. Fingerprinting, for example, benefits from identifying other network devices that are connected to the same network.

Starting in Firefox 147, the browser blocks requests from public websites to private RFC 1918 IP addresses, when tracking protection is set to Strict mode. Nothing changes if tracking protection is set to standard mode, which is the default.

As usual, Firefox users have the option to override this for individual sites.

Zero-Copy Video benefitting video playback on AMD GPU systems

Zero-Copy Video is a rendering technique that is designed to eliminate unnecessary transfers of data between system memory (RAM) and the graphics card (VRAM). Introduction of the feature removes one of the biggest bottlenecks when it comes to media consumption, especially on Linux systems.

To better understand the new system, it is important to understand how the old system worked. Or, more precisely, what made the old process inefficient.

When watching a video in the browser, say a 4K video on YouTube, this is what happened:

  • The GPU decodes the compressed video file.
  • The browser copies the decoded image into system RAM for the webpage frame.
  • The compositor copies the image back to the GPU for it to draw the image on the monitor.

Under the new system, the browser is no longer copying the decoded image. Instead, the GPU gives the browser a pointer to the image in its VRAM.

The main effect: The video never leaves the VRAM. This reduces memory (RAM), CPU usage, and PCIe traffic significantly.

XDG Base Directory Support

For the past 20 years, Mozilla has placed the .mozilla folder in the home folder on Linux to store configuration files and data. This has been a major annoyance for Linux users for a number of reasons:

  • Using the .mozilla folder violated the XDG Base Directory Specification, which says that files should be split into three locations based on purpose, not one location (Configuration, Data, and Cache).
  • Backup issues, as it was difficult to separate important files, such as configuration files, from trash, such as cache.
  • Some programs needed special rules to include the Firefox configuration, e.g., third-party sync software.
  • Performance problems on Enterprise networks that mounted the home directories over a network.

This changes with the release of Firefox 147. Firefox will store config files in ~/.config/mozilla and data in ~/.local/share/mozilla going forward, which resolves the long-standing issue.

Closing Words

You can check out the full release notes of Firefox 147 here. There you also find a link to the included security fixes, which, fix several issues rate high or lower, but none that appears to be exploited in the wild already.

WinSlop: The Open-Source Response to Microsoft’s AI Push—Strip the Bloat and Take Back Control of Your OS

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella argued that the discussion surrounding AI should move beyond “slop vs sophistication”, he probably did not have developers in mind that could take this literally.

Fun fact: The dictionary Merriam-Webster coined Slop the word of the year 2025.

Serial developer Belim, known for open source tools such as FlyBy11 or CrapFixer, created WinSlop as a direct response to Nadella’s plea.

What is it? WinSlop is a free open source program for Windows that removes “unnecessary, low-value system components” from the operating system that “consume resources, and reduce user control without providing meaningful benefit” according to the developer’s own description.

If you have used the developers other tools, you know what to expect. WinSlop is a lightweight tweaker for Windows that can turn off unwanted features among other things.

A screenshot of the WinSlop application running on Windows 11.

The tiny program launches directly when you execute it. It separates tweaks into three main tabs. The first displays components of Windows that you may disable by checking and unchecking boxes.

While AI components are a focus, it does not stop there. You can also use it to disable ads in certain places, tame Microsoft Edge, or remove unwanted features from the user interface.

The list is long and you may use the built-in search to find specific options faster.

One interesting option here is the ability to run a system check. This checks all 50 tweaks currently integrated to see whether they have been applied already. To enable a tweak, check the box in front of it. If you do not want a tweak to be applied, make sure its box is unchecked before you hit the “apply selected changes” button or press F9.

Most tweak titles are self-explanatory, but some may require a bit of research. The program lacks tooltips and does not provide additional information on the tweaks.

While it is clear what “Disable Bing Search” does, not all users may know what “Disable Hibernation” or “Optimize System Responsiveness” do. Detailed information would improve the app significantly in this regard. Experienced users may also want to know the exact tweaks that go into the system optimization.

Switching to the apps tab, you are prompted to run a system inspection. WinSlop checks for installed apps and lists apps that it considers bloatware. You may check apps individually to remove them from the system with a click on apply.

The Extensions tab, last but not least, can be used to load the Chris Titus app Windows Toolbox. It offers even more options, such as installing popular apps, tweaking Windows or enabling features such as the Subsystem for Linux. It is a separate app, which I guess is handy to have, but does not really add to the program itself.

Closing words

WinSlop is a handy tweaker for Windows that may get some publicity because its developer references the slop-quote of Microsoft’s CEO directly. However, it does not really add much to the world of tweaking programs that has not been there before.

Yes, it is easy to use and the system checker is nice, but that is about it. Still, if you have not used a tweaker on Windows yet, it is a good program to get started.

Slimming Down: How Checkpoint Updates Are Making Windows 11 Faster

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

When Microsoft released its Windows 10 operating system, it introduced a number of under-the-hood changes. One of these changed how updates were provided to Windows 10 PCs.

Up until the release of Windows 10, Microsoft released individual updates for its systems. While that gave administrators excellent control over the updates, as they could pick the ones that they wanted to install, it meant that a large number of updates had to be installed when an operating system like Windows 7 was installed after a number of years.

Microsoft tried to limit this with the release of Service Packs. These could be installed instead of all earlier updates, which improved the speed and stability of the installation process.

Cumulative updates entered the Windows world in 2015

Microsoft introduced cumulative updates with Windows 10 in 2015. It later introduced the system to earlier operating systems.

The idea was simple: instead of releasing individual updates, Microsoft would release updates that included all previous updates.

Instead of having to install dozens of updates, in some cases hundreds, Windows administrators would simply install the latest cumulative update and they would be done with the updating for the most part.

A new problem emerged: Cumulative updates reduced the number of updates that needed to be installed. However, since they included all previous updates, they grew in size over time.

Surprisingly though, this did not mean that systems downloaded full sized updates each month. Microsoft used a technique called differential downloads, or express updates, to deliver updates to Windows 10 systems.

This meant, that Windows Update downloaded only the update bits that were new. Everything that was installed already was skipped, which increased the updating speed.

The cumulative update model caused four major issues:

  • While computers only downloaded the update bits they needed, they had to compute which updates they were missing and do a lot of unpacking, verifiying and merging.
  • Fresh installs or factory resets take a long time. Computers had to download a massive update in the beginning, which would take long to install.
  • The system caused the WinSxS folder to bloat over time, which could result in storage problems on the main drive.
  • Storage was still a problem for, mostly, Enterprise customers who hosted and distributed updates from company servers.

Checkpoint updates come to the rescue

Microsoft introduced checkpoint updates in Windows 11, version 24H2. The main idea was to introduce updates regularly that would reset the cumulative updates.

They take a cue from service packs by creating new start points for cumulative updates. This addressed the major issues that Microsoft identified, e.g., instead of computing changes from the very release of the operating system, the processor would only have to do so from the last checkpoint update release.

Updates should install faster on recent versions of Windows 11 because of this. They also deal with the other problems mentioned, by reducing WinSxS storage or providing smaller, less CPU-taxing updates during fresh installs or resets.

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.