Category: News

Invidious YouTube Playback error

YouTube: Google has found a way to break Invidious

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Update: A workaround is now available that fixes the issue.

If you use Invidious to access YouTube videos, you may have noticed that most (all?) instances are broken right now. Attempts to play YouTube videos are met with error messages.

Messages such as “the video returned by YouTube isn’t the requested one” are thrown by Invidious instances at the time.

A bug report on the official GitHub repository confirms the issue. Good news is that the team is aware of the issue. Bad, that there is no fix yet to address it.

YouTube search works on all instances, but videos won’t play anymore. You can try any of the listed Invidious instances or others, and you will likely get the same result.

The issue was reported three days ago on the GitHub project site.

Another popular YouTube frontend, Piped, appears affected as well. Attempts to play videos are met with the error code “failed with error code 1002”.

Google seems to have implemented changes to YouTube that break video playback functionality of the frontends. It is too early to say whether this can be fixed at all.

Google seems to be tightening access to YouTube in an effort to increase revenue and lock out alternatives. Privacy conscious users like these alternatives, as they include no ads or tracking.

It is quite possible that Google is going to lock down YouTube further in the future. It is probably only a matter of time. It is likely that existing alternatives and new alternatives will see huge user jumps when that happens.

Now You: do you watch videos on YouTube? Did you run into these issues?

You may soon limit Microsoft Edge’s RAM usage

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

In the past 20 or so years, browsers have grown significantly. From tools used solely to display webpages to general purpose tools. Yes, you can still open webpages in modern browsers, but that is not all.

Nowadays, browsers are used to watch media streams, play highly demanding games, or do your homework. It comes as no surprise that RAM usage of browser processes has gone up significantly as well.

Browsers can easily use 1 gigabyte of RAM or more these days. Much of it depends on use. If you open a single plain text website only, you will never cross the threshold. Open a stream on Twitch, play a game in another tab, and have dozens or hundreds of tabs open, and you reach that threshold easily.

Microsoft Edge Task Manager

Most Chromium-based browsers may display memory usage of individual tabs. This is a recent feature addition. There is also the option to press Shift-Esc to display the built-in Task Manager, which reveals memory usage of individual browser components.

Microsoft Edge, like other Chromium-based browsers, supports a sleeping tabs feature next to that. The main idea of it is to reduce memory use by putting inactive tabs into sleep mode. Microsoft says that the feature saves an average of 39.1 MB per tab.

Microsoft Edge: control memory usage

Microsoft Edge resource controls

Microsoft is working on another feature to tame the browser’s memory usage. The new resource controls option gives users control over the maximum amount of RAM that Edge may use.

It is disabled by default, which means that Edge may use as much RAM as available. Once activated, options are provided to limit RAM usage always or when playing PC games.

The new preference is found under Settings > System and performance > Resource controls.

Once enabled, you may use a slider to set a RAM limit in gigabyte. The lowest amount selectable is 1 gigabyte, the highest the available RAM of the system. You may increase or decrease the limit in 1 gigabyte steps.

When you enable the new feature, RAM usage is displayed in Browser Essentials under performance.

Browser Essentials RAM usage

You need to run the latest Microsoft Edge Canary release and start the browser with the parameter –enable-features=msEdgeResourceControlsRamLimiter to get access to it.

Here is what happens when Microsoft Edge reaches the designated RAM limit: it puts tabs to sleep in order to reduce Edge’s RAM use.

Closing Words

It is too early to say if the feature will ever make it into Edge stable. If it does, it will likely remain a niche feature. While it may help some users free up RAM for other activities on the PC, most may prefer to close Edge instead, if they do not use the browser actively at the time.

Usefulness depends on how you use your system and Edge. If you use Edge all the time, you may benefit from it. There are downsides, on the other hand. Edge puts tabs to sleep and you get no say in the matter. If you need access to those tabs, you need to wake them up again.

All in all, Edge’s new RAM usage feature is a niche feature. It might grow to something more in organizations and for some edge cases.

Now You: what is your take on limiting RAM usage in browsers? (via Leopeva)

PC game

DirectSR promises to push gaming on Windows 11

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

The next feature update for Windows 11 will likely introduce support for a new technology that Microsoft calls DirectSR. This technology promises to make the life of game developers easier. While gamers do not benefit directly from it, they will benefit indirectly, as games will make use of the technology.

DirectSR, the SR stands for Super Resolution, is a new DirectX API designed to improve the implementation of upscaling in games. Microsoft collaborated with NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel to develop DirectSR.

Developers have to implement specific upscaling technologies currently to support them. If they want to support these for AMD and NVIDIA cards, they need to implement NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and AMD FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution). These implementations take time to develop as the systems require different implementations.

This led to issues in the past, when games supported only one of the available upscaling technologies.

DirectSR promises to improve how upscaling is implemented. It offers a standardized interface for multiple upscaling technologies. Developers may use this option to implement upscaling technologies in their games across Windows and Xbox systems.

How DirectSR works

The core idea is simple: developers feed data that the API then routes to the upscalers. This works because upscalers tend to require the same set of data.

In other words: the API takes care of the processing of the data that the upscalers need to improve game performance and visuals. This means that developers need to provide the data just once to support all upscalers.

Microsoft promises that its new API covers upscaler updates as well. Company engineers update the API whenever necessary to support new features and changes.

Closing Words

Microsoft has not announced a release data for the new API yet. A likely target for inclusion on Windows is the release of the 2024 feature update for Windows 11. This will be released in the second half off 2024, like at the end of September or beginning of October 2024.

As is the case with new gaming technologies, it will take some time before games will make use of them. While some games may support the feature early, it may take years before a good number of games support it.

Much depends on Microsoft’s promise that the technology will make things easier for game developers.

Now You: do you play games at all?

Brave

Brave 1.64 browser update brings more AI and blocks VPN services from installing by default

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Brave Software released a new stable version of the company’s Brave browser today. Brave 1.64 continues the AI push in the browser, but it also privacy improvements as well as new features.

Existing installations of the browser should receive it automatically via the integrated updating functionality. Desktop users may speed up the installation of the new version by loading brave://settings/help in the address bar. An alternative to that is to click on Menu > Help > About Brave.

Brave displays the current version when the page opens. It runs a check for updates and will download and install new updates automatically at this point. Note that it is necessary to restart Brave once to complete the installation.

One big change of Brave 1.64 deserves special mention. Brave notes in the changelog that it is no longer installing VPN services automatically. This is only done when users purchase a VPN subscription or enable it.

Tip: check out six Brave features that you may like.

Brave 1.64

Brave 1.64 Browser update

Like Google and Microsoft, Brave Software is also integrating AI into its browser. Called Leo, it is different from Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Gemini. A core difference is that Leo gives you access to different large language models. Not all of them are free, but the core service is.

Brave 1.64 introduces a Leo AI Tools right-click context menu entry. Right-click on any text element on the webpage and you may select a diverse range of AI tools. The two main options are to ask the AI to provide context and for help with your creative efforts.

Leo AI Tools

For instance, you could select a few paragraphs of text and ask Leo to summarize or explain it. When you are writing, you could ask Leo to rewrite the entire text, improve it, or change its tone or length.

How well this works depends on the text itself but also on other variables, including the large language model. Selecting the last sentence and asking Brave Leo to extend it resulted in the following three paragraphs of text:

The effectiveness of this method relies heavily on two main factors: the text being analyzed and the specific large language model being utilized. The text itself plays a crucial role, as the more nuanced and well-crafted it is, the better the language model can understand and generate appropriate responses. This, in turn, improves the overall outcome of the process.

However, the text is not the only determinant of success. The large language model chosen for the task also significantly influences the results. Different models have varying strengths and weaknesses, making some more suitable than others for specific tasks. For instance, a language model trained on scientific literature may not perform as well when dealing with colloquial language.

In conclusion, the combination of a well-structured text and a carefully selected language model is essential for achieving optimal results. By focusing on these two aspects, users can expect a more accurate and contextually appropriate response from the language model.

Other changes

The full changelog is long and you may want to check it out on Brave’s website to go through all the changes. Here is a quick overview of changes that are noteworthy:

  • There is a new “Bring all tabs to this window” option in the right-click tab context menu. It moves all tabs of other windows into the active one.
  • There is a new “show scrollbar” option when vertical tabs are enabled. This adds the option to use it for scrolling.
  • Chromium’s storage partitioning is now compatible with Brave’s ephemeral storage implementation.
  • Implemented stream isolation for third-party subresources in Private Windows with Tor to bring it up to par with Tor Browser’s implementation.

Now You: anything that you find interesting? Anything that I missed? Let me know in the comments.

Google is shutting down Keen, a platform you may have never heard of

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

It is not uncommon for Google or Microsoft to shut down services or programs. In fact, there are entire websites dedicated to services and products that these companies shut down.

Google’s latest target is Keen. Keen was developed as a competitor to the incredibly popular Pinterest. As you may know, you can join Pinterest to create collections of “things” that you like. From classic game consoles over your favorite recipes to furniture and holiday destinations.

These collections may be explored by others. Add social features to the mix, and you got a highly addictive foundation.

Keen was not Google’s first rodeo. Remember Google Plus? It was another failed attempt by Google to establish a strong social service foothold.

Keen promised to do things just a tad different when compared to Pinterest. The service allowed users to “curate, collaborate & expand everything” that they were into.

The service was available on the web and on Google Play. Registered users could create so-called “Keens” and add links, text, images, or web searches to them.

Keen shutdown

Keen allowed users to collaborate and Google added machine learning to the mix to power recommendations.

Keen launched with some fanfare in 2020. While it did get an initial push, as anything that Google does to a degree, it seemed to underperform. The platform got fewer and fewer updates, and nothing really happened to it since December 2021.

Keen shutdown

When you open the Keen website today, you get a popup that informs you that it is shutting down on March 24, 2024.

Both the Keen website and Keen application won’t be accessible anymore after that date. Google says in the farewell message that Keen “was always intended as an experiment”. Keen users may use a data export tool to export their date before March 24, 2024.

All data, including posts, uploads, like, follows, and comments, will no longer be available after March 24, 2024.

Closing Words

Keen is the latest product in a long list of products that Google killed over the years. While there were lots of duds among them, some are missed by some users even today. This includes Google Reader, Google Specialized Search, or Picasa.

Now You: do you use any social media sites?

Mozilla reassures users that it won’t kill Manifest V2 support in Firefox

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla confirmed this week that its Firefox web browser will continue to support the extensions Manifest V2 next to the new version Manifest V3.

Google announced several years ago that it would move Chrome’s extensions manifest to a new version. The manifest defines the capabilities of browser extensions. Google’s initial draft drew the ire from users, privacy advocates, and developers alike. The company’s engineers made several adjustments to Manifest V3, which addressed some criticism but not all of it.

It now plans to end support for Manifest V2 extensions later this year in Chrome. Most Chromium-based browsers will share the fate. In fact, the only option to avoid this is to spend engineering time on reintroducing support for Manifest V2 in the browser engine after removal by Google.

Mozilla is in a better position this time. The organization’s Firefox browser uses its own browser engine, which gives it more control over its set of features. While Mozilla has been pushing Firefox towards improved Chromium compatibility in the past, it has made decisions in the past against this if it thought that it would be in the best interest of the organization.

Firefox Extensions

In the case of Manifest V2 and Manifest V3, Mozilla published a statement about the future of Manifest V2 shortly after Google’s announcement regarding the change. Summed it, it confirmed that Mozilla would not follow Google’s implementation to the letter. Firefox would continue to support Manifest V2, and thus all extensions that relied on it, next to Manifest V3.

In other words, Firefox users would get the best of both worlds. Future compatibility with Manifest V3 extensions and also backwards compatibility to make sure that extensions continued to work.

Not all extensions can be ported to Manifest V3. Some may be ported, but with an impact to the functionality. Especially content blockers and other security tools are on the receiving end in this regard.

Mozilla reiterates its stance

With Google’s deadline to end Manifest V2 support in Chrome coming closer and closer, Mozilla published an update on its stance regarding the change. Mozilla confirmed that it has not changed its strategy at all.

While Firefox is supporting Manifest V3 extensions to a degree already, it will continue to support Manifest V2 extensions as well. Firefox continues to “support MV2 extensions for the foreseeable future” according to Mozilla.

Mozilla keeps a back door open, but you cannot really blame the organization for doing so. The organization promises that it will inform developers and users at least 12 months before making a a change in this regard, if it decides to re-revaluate the decision.

Closing Words

Firefox continues to support Manifest V2 extensions for the foreseeable future at the very least. It is too early to say if the decision will have an impact on the browser’s usage numbers. Once Google launches the change in Chrome, users with Manifest V2 extensions installed will notice that they cannot use these anymore.

These have several options, one of them is migrating to a browser that continues to support them. It will be especially interesting to see how content blockers behave after the changes land.

Now You: What is your take on the Manifest V3 push by Google?

Office

Microsoft Office 2024 and Office LTSC 2024 announced

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft announced Microsoft Office 2024 for consumers and Office LTSC 2024 for organizations this week. These will be the latest perpetual Office releases. In other words: customers buy these versions once without any recurring costs.

While that sounds like a good deal, perpetual Office versions are supported for only five years by Microsoft. While they may be used after support ends, it comes with risks as security issues are not fixed anymore by Microsoft.

Another factor plays a role. Whereas Microsoft 365 Office apps get constant feature updates, this is not the case for Office 2024 and any other perpetual version of Office. There is no technical reason for this limitation. Microsoft does so to cut costs and push its subscription-based business.

What we know about Office 2024

Microsoft 365

Microsoft does not reveal much about Microsoft Office 2024 or Microsoft Office LTSC 2024 at this point.

The consumer version will be sold for the same price as Office 2021, the last perpetual version of Office that Microsoft released.

The main edition of Office, Office Home & Student 2024, will therefore retail for $149.99. Microsoft Office Home & Business 2024 will retail for $249.99.

Microsoft 365 Personal is available for $69.99 per year. The business editions of Microsoft 365 start at $6 per month and user, but the cheapest version does not include desktop versions of Office programs. The Microsoft 365 Business Standard plan is available for $12.50 per month and user.

Here is the price overview:

Office 2024 Home & StudentOffice 2024 Home & BusinessMicrosoft 365 HomeMicrosoft 365 Business
1-month$149.99$249.99$69.99$12.50
1-year$149.99$249.99$69.99$150
5-years$149.99$249.99$349.95$750

If you just look at the price, it is cheaper to buy a perpetual version of Office.

The main downside to buying one is that it won’t get any new features after release. Some features are also Microsoft 365 exclusive, especially for business users as Microsoft notes:

While Office LTSC 2024 offers many significant improvements over the previous Office LTSC release, as an on-premises product it will not offer the cloud-based capabilities of Microsoft 365 Apps, like real-time collaboration; AI-driven automation in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; or cloud-backed security and compliance capabilities that give added confidence in a hybrid world

Microsoft plans to increase the price of Office LTSC editions by 10% according to the announcement. Furthermore, Microsoft Publisher will not be included anymore in the bundle, as it is being retired.

Closing Words

It is good that Microsoft is giving customers the choice between the subscription-based Microsoft 365 and the perpetual version Office 2024. It is not as good that Microsoft is limiting functionality and blocking any new features from landing in Office 2024 editions after release.

Price-wise, perpetual licenses are still cheaper, if you compare the retail prices. Discounts may change this one way or the other.

There is also LibreOffice, which is free and works well in many cases, but not in all.

Now You: do you use Office?

translate

Mozilla adds new languages to Firefox Translations

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla’s Firefox web browser supports native language translations since Firefox 118 in desktop and Android versions of the browser. This feature, called Firefox Translations, supports additional languages now.

One of the main distinguishing factors between Mozilla’s implementation of a translate feature in Firefox and that in other browsers is that Firefox’s runs locally.

Translations happen on the local device. All that is required for that is the downloading of a language pack for each language. Google, Microsoft, and other browser makers use cloud-based translation services. The consequence here is that information is submitted to company servers. Google and Microsoft know about the text that gets translated. Not a problem for some, but if you value privacy, you may prefer Mozilla’s implementation.

Firefox Translations improvements

Firefox's translate feature

Firefox Stable supported a good dozen languages up until now. These were Bulgarian, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish and Portuguese.

The Estonian language is added to the list of fully supported languages.

Mozilla added support for additional languages, but these are limited to being translated. In other words, Firefox cannot translate other languages into these languages yet.

The additional languages are Finish, Greek, Hungarian, Russian, Slovenian, Turkish and Ukrainian.

Firefox Translations

Support for these new languages is added remotely to Firefox, an update of the browser is not required. You should see the languages listed already on about:preferences#general under Translations.

Support for additional languages in development

Mozilla is working on adding support for additional languages to Firefox. Users who run development versions of Firefox gain access to additional languages or capabilities.

The focus is on European languages, with Persian (Farsi) being the exception.

Dev users get full access to Czech and Persian (Farsi). Additionally, support for translating Catalan, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk) are also available. Lastly, support for translating languages into Hungarian, Russian, and Ukrainian is also available.

Closing Words

Firefox’s translation feature supports many European languages already. Several are still missing, including Danish, Swedish, and Croatian among others.

Support for non-European languages is lacking severely at this stage. These still require the use of other translation services at the time of writing and the foreseeable future.

Now You: which translation service do you use? (via Sören Hentzschel)

Speedometer 3.0: new browser benchmark released

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Speedometer 3.0 is the latest version of the browser benchmark developed in a joint effort by Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla.

Browser benchmarks were a craze for many years on the Internet, but popularity has gone down significantly in the last years.

When Google launched Chrome, it hammered home the fact that the browser was offering better performance with browser benchmarks. It was true at the time and brilliant marketing.

Mozilla, Microsoft, and other browser makers scrambled, but they had huge troubles closing the gap to Chrome.

Today, browser benchmarks are niche again. Developers and organizations may use them, but they play little role for regular Internet users. One reason for that is that browser makers have stopped using them for marketing for the most part. And the reason for that is that the gap is not as large anymore as it was 15 years ago.

Speedometer 3.0

Speedometer 3.0

Speedometer 3.0 is a browser benchmark by Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla. Visit the benchmark’s website in any browser and hit the “start test” button to run it.

The benchmark runs automatically from that point on. It make take a minute or two to complete the test and a score is displayed in the end. This score depends largely on the performance of the device and the browser that you use.

Speedometer 3.0 replaces the second version of the benchmark. Apple and Google collaborated in 2018 to release it to the public.

The new iteration improves “how Speedometer captures and calculates scores” and it comes with “an even wider variety of workloads”. In essence, the developers of Speedometer have updated the workloads used to test the performance of the browser to take into account changes in the last six years on the Internet.

This means that a different set of frameworks is used in the tests. New browser and JavaScript APIs are tested, and more complex computations are run as well.

You may check out Google’s post on its Chromium blog for the company’s take on the changes. Microsoft published its take on the benchmark update here.

Closing Words

Most web browsers share a common core. This is true for all Chromium-based browsers. Performance, therefore, is nearly identical when it comes to the likes of Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi, or Opera. Mozilla with its Firefox web browser and Apple with its Safari browser use different engines, and results may differ more on the same machine because of that.

Unlike computer benchmarks, which may show tweaking potential, browser benchmarks come with little optimization potential. Apart from installing the latest drivers on the machine, there is little one can do to improve the performance of a browser to get better scores in benchmarks.

With that said, it is still interesting to see how your browser or system performs.

Now You: do you use benchmarks?

Tabs

Exclusive: Mozilla CEO confirms that Tab Groups are coming to Firefox

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

More than eight years after Mozilla decided to remove tab groups from Firefox, the organization confirmed today that tab groups will make a comeback.

When Mozilla launched Firefox’s Panorama feature, which introduced tab groups in Firefox years before Google implemented the feature in Chrome, it was ahead of its time.

Tab groups improve tab manageability by allowing users to put multiple tabs into groups in the tab bar. These groups may be collapsed to free up room on the taskbar.

While Mozilla did introduced Tab Groups before Google, it was Google that made them practicable to use.

Current implementations in Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers are easy to use. It is an elegant solution. Panorama on the other hand showed tabs of the active group only to the user.

Mozilla announced the end of tab groups in Firefox about nine years ago. The organization cited low usage, a lack of quality, and high maintenance costs.

Mozilla CEO confirms Tab Groups

This month, something remarkable happened. Firefox user Belfox published a letter to Mozilla CEO Laura Chambers. In it, they asked Chambers to consider adding a tab grouping feature to the browser.

Firefox lacks proper tab grouping support. All Chromium-based browsers support it, thanks to the shared codebase. Belfox noted that tab groups was the top requested feature on Mozilla’s Connect website.

Nothing happened for about a week, but then, Chambers replied to the user on the Mozilla Discourse website.

She wrote:

Hello! Thanks for reaching out. I have some good news! I checked in with the team, and they have prioritized the work and have a people assigned to work on it.

In other words; Mozilla’s CEO confirmed that a team is working on tab groups and that it is a development priority.

The response is remarkable. Not because of confirming that tab groups will (likely) come to Firefox. It is remarkable because it is the first time in a very long time that Mozilla’s CEO communicates directly with the community.

Not with a letter or blog post, but in a discussion.

Chambers confirmed that Firefox would become a priority at Mozilla again after taking over the reigns from Mitchell Baker. It seems that she is making good on the promise.

This direct interaction with the Firefox base could help bring management, developers, and users closer together again. It gives hopes to a community, of which no small part felt neglected in recent years.

Closing Words

Firefox is getting tab grouping support, which is good news for users of the browser. The CEO partaking in discussions about the browser and responding to user requests is even bigger than that.

Chambers remains CEO for a limited time only. A successor has not been found yet and it remains to be seen if the future Mozilla captain will follow her lead.

Mozilla is also working on bringing tab previews to Firefox.

Now You: do you use tab groups?