Category: News

How to stay relevant in a world filled with AI-generated content

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

AI content is on the rise. When you search for something on most search engines, you get AI overviews at the very top of the results. The AI takes that content from other sites and processes it for its responses.

While Google is vehemently rejecting the idea of sites getting less visitors from search engines, site owners seem to have a different view on the matter, for the most part at least.

Clearly, a percentage of search engine users won’t click on links that point to sites, if the search engine provided them with the answer to their request. This means, less visitors and the links that Google and others add do not account for the lost traffic, even if you take only the few sites into account that do get links. Additionally, more and more users use AI chats directly instead of search engines.

I do not really think that this trend is reversible, similarly to how other major changes were. As someone who creates content, you have but a few options left to keep doing what you love, provided that it is not just a hobby for you but a job.

It is all about trust

While you cannot really compete with the speed or reach of AI, or major sites out there that still seem to cover every topic imaginable, you have something that AI can’t replicate: the trust of your readers.

While AI can replicate any topic that you write about and provide answers or information, so that many Internet users do not even have to leave the search engine’s website, there can be a level of trust between human writers and their audience that AI can’t replicate.

Even if AI makers would be able to bring down fake answers — they call it hallucinations — to zero, it would still not be the same.

Take the review of a product. If you trust the review, for instance because you were never disappointed by previous reviews from a reviewer, then you may trust any review going forward, unless trust gets broken. With AI, there is no such level of trust. AI uses different sources for its takes on products and it is clear that the AI itself has never tested them.

Another example. Unless a human has reviewed and posted about a software, AI can’t provide you with its own review. It may copy content from the developer’s press release, if there is one, but it can’t review a software on its own.

While all of that may change in the future, it does not change the trust factor, at least not until AI evolves again to the next level.

What that means for this site

Well, it is quite easy. I do not chase search engine rankings anymore. Why should I. As a new and small site, you barely stand a chance anyway against the behemoths out there. Now with AI added as another roadblock, there is even a slimmer chance for driving much traffic from search engines to your site.

My hope, and this may come falling down on my head in the near future, is to focus on quality relationships. Ignore the masses, build a community of likeminded-people who enjoy my content and trust my writings and opinions. No need to always agree on things, but have a level of trust that AI or major sites can’t replicate.

Clearly, this is only sustainable if I find a way to earn enough money from this site to keep it going. I do not want ads and will shut the site down before I start showing generic ads here on this site or ads that track you. All part of the trust relationship.

My intention is to use a tip-system combined with a few carefully selected products that I get affiliate revenue from.

If this works, it would cut the reliance on search engines or any outside source. Grow by word of mouth or references on other likeminded sites or forums.

Well, that is the idea anyway. Would love to hear what you think of it. Feel free to leave a comment down below. Also, if you have an idea, let me know as well.

You may soon be able to change your Gmail address

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Up until very recently, setting up a Gmail account meant that you’d be stuck with the selected email address. Google did not offer any option to change the address. In fact, the only option available was to create an entirely new account to pick a new email address.

This meant that you would lose access to preferences, emails, data and everything else associated with the account.

This seems to be changing, as Google revealed on a support page that address changing is coming to Gmail.

However, the news needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The help page is in Hindi only, which could mean that Google is making the change exclusive to a subset of users.

There, Google writes the following (auto-translated):

Changing the email address of your Google account

Your Google account email address is the address you use, lets you sign in to Google’s services. This email address lets you and others identify your account. If you prefer, your Google account’s email address whose last part is gmail.com can be changed. It could be replaced with a new email address with gmail.com last.

In other words, Google is rolling out a change that lets users change their Gmail address.

What about the old address then, you may ask? It is retained as well to avoid that someone else snags it up and gains access to your emails.

Google reveals that the process can be used once every 12 months at the most. Once a new email has been set, it, or the old, can be used to sign in to Google services.

When is it coming? The functionality is rolling out gradually, as usual. If this is indeed rolling out worldwide, expect weeks or even months before you see the functionality in your account.

Closing Words

The new process makes it easier to switch to a new email address by Gmail. Since you retain access to the old email, you effectively create a second account that you may use from that moment on, without losing access to the first.

Data seems to be shared though, so that your preferences and data are retained, regardless of the account that you use to sign-in.

Now You: do you have and use a Gmail account? Would you change its address name to a new one, if the feature lands? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Here is what is happening at ghacks.net

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

If you have been to Ghacks lately you may have noticed that something is amiss. In short: Ashwin and I are no longer authors at the site.

The longer picture: Softonic decided to sell Ghacks to another company. We, the authors, have not been approached by the new owner and do not really know who bought the site. It did not help that I was on vacation when all of this happened.

I can’t get into any specifics, because I do not know more than I just told you. However I can tell you that you won’t find new articles by myself or Ashwin on the site going forward.

As far as plans are concerned, I plan to publish the usual articles and some more here on this site going forward. You can expect the usual coverage here, including about Windows security updates, Firefox and other browsers, AI, tweaks and tips, software, and more.

Think of it as the “new Ghacks”, but better 😉

There will be some changes coming in the next weeks. I plan to add a “support” option, which you can use to throw some dimes my way, as this site will remain free of traditional ads and tracking.

I may also promote certain services of products that I can recommend highly and use myself. If that happens, it will be marked clearly.

If things go really well, I have hopes that I could get Ashwin on board again. In the meantime, if you know of a tech site that is looking for a capable writer, feel free to let me know and I pass it on to Ashwin.

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft is moving features into Copilot to extract more money from its customers

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Customers all over the world are used to frequent price increases of subscriptions by now. Many online services that require a subscription increase prices regularly, often once per year or every second year.

That is bad enough, especially if the service does not get any better because of it. While services argue that inflation and rising costs force them to increase the price of their product, it is getting harder and harder for them to convince customers to accept the price increase and continue their payments.

If only there would be something that would make it clearer for customers to pay more. Microsoft may have found a way, or so it believes: how about removing features from products to move them into another product, that costs extra?

As a Microsoft 365 subscriber, you pay Microsoft a monthly or yearly sum for access to the most recent version of Microsoft Office. You may also get some other features on top of that, including cloud storage space or access to Copilot, Microsoft’s AI.

However, some Copilot features are only for subscribers of plans that are more expensive. Home users, for instance, need a Premium subscription to gain access to otherwise restricted Copilot features.

Microsoft changed the tactic for business customers. Instead of limiting Copilot to a specific plan, Microsoft integrated Copilot AI features into the business plans and announced a price increase arguing that customers would get more out of their subscriptions because of that. Most plans increase by up to three Dollars per month because of that from 2026 onward.

To make Copilot look more valuable, Microsoft started to remove features from Office programs.

Martin Geuß, from the Geman website Dr. Windows, highlighted two recent examples on the site recently:

  • PowerPoint: The option to reuse slides is going to be removed from the presentation software. Users may ask Copilot to do that for them.
  • Excel: The function to extract data from images is being removed. Starting in July 2026, this option won’t be offered anymore. Microsoft says that it is working on a better function that will then be powered by Copilot.

There you have it. You just have to be inventive to justify price increases.

Amazon

Amazon may send you ads via WhatsApp: here is how to turn that off

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps out there. One reason why more and more businesses try to establish channels on WhatsApp. Most to reach customers and sell them something.

Amazon is no exception to that. Maybe you have noticed already that you are getting ads from Amazon in WhatsApp.

Even if not, you may want to make sure that you won’t in the future. Good news is that there is an option to turn that off. It appears, however, that the feature is turned on by default. I can’t remember allowing Amazon to use WhatsApp for communication.

Here is what you need to do:

  1. Load the Notifications website on the Amazon website of your choosing: https://www.amazon.com/preferences/cpc/homepage
  2. Check the “Turn on WhatsApp” or “Turn off WhatsApp” button on the page.
  3. Select “Turn off WhatsApp” to disable communication.

Note that the page may look different depending on your locale. In Germany, it was called Communication Preferences Center and it looked different from the page opened on Amazon.com.

There, you an entire section dedicated to WhatsApp Preferences.

As you can see on the screenshot. the account was set up to receive WhatsApp notifications.

To change that here, you have to uncheck one or both of the options listed on the page:

  • Key order updates, shipments, payments, and other account updates.
  • Deals and offers, recommendations, promotional events, and more.

The second option sends ads to your WhatsApp account, while the first seems to be limited to Amazon notifications about orders and such. However, if you disable both, you can check “Do not send me any notifications on WhatsApp.

Don’t forget to hit the update button to save the change.

Now You: did you see the WhatsApp preferences when checking your Amazon account? Were the settings enabled? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Cloudflare Down

Cloudflare is down, and so are lots of websites

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

If your favorite website is not responding right now, it might be because of a major Cloudflare outage. Plenty of sites use Cloudflare, for instance as a CDN or a security layer to prevent attacks or fake traffic.

As it stands right now, Cloudflare states on its Status website that it continues to work on restoring its service for its customers.

The issue started at around 11:48 UTC today when Cloudflare added the first bit of information to the status page revealing that it was experiencing issues. Two hours later, the issue is ongoing.

You can check the link above to find out when the issue is resolved. Or, you can try visiting the affected websites at a later point to find out if it is resolved.

Most websites affected by the issue should show “Internal server error” with error code 500. The image should highlight that the browser and the host is working, but that Cloudflare is having an error.

Hosting a web server on a disposable vape, which makes it a disposable web server of sorts

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Reportedly, someone managed to get a tiny web server running on one of those disposable vapes, electronic cigarettes that you see more and more people consuming, at least where I live.

Unlike regular cigarettes, which consist of non-electronic components, a filter, some paper and tobacco for the most part, vapes contain electronic components.

Our ingenious engineer dissected vapes that he received from friends and family for some time and discovered something peculiar in vapes from a specific brand.

He noticed that they included a micro processor, probably the cheapest micro-controller in existence. Further inspection revealed that it had the following characteristics:

  • 24 MHz Coretext M0+ processor.
  • 24 KiB of Flash Storage.
  • 3 KiB of Static Ram.

He realized that he could use it to run a web server, and that is exactly what he set out to do. You can check out the blog post to find out more about the process. In the end, he managed to get the web server, with a single page, running on the vape.

The post has a link to the website, but I could not get it to run. Not sure if it has been taken down, if it is overloaded, or caused by another issue.

It is a remarkable feat of engineering, very similar to getting Doom running on any device with a display and some form of micro-computer inside.

Google Chrome Split View

Google is rolling out Split View for Chrome Tabs and is late to the party

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google released Chrome 142 to the stable channel recently with just a few changes that it revealed publicly. Noteworthy is a new permission that regulates access to local resources. Basically, users will see a prompt going forward, if a website or application attempts to access a resource on the local network.

It turns out that Google is also rolling out a new tab feature gradually to all users. Split View allows users to display two websites or apps in Chrome side by side in the same browser window.

All you need to do for that is to right-click on the first tab and select the option “move tab into split view”. If you want, you can also select to move it to the left or right location in split view directly.

Google Chrome Split View

Google Chrome then displays the list of other tabs open in the browser, so that you can pick one for the other half.

Tip: You can enable the feature right away in Chrome, if you like. Just load chrome://flags/#side-by-side in the Chrome address bar and change the status of the feature to Enabled. Restart Chrome, and the new context menu option becomes available when you right-click on tabs.

Split View: pros and cons

So what is the advantage of Split View compared to using two browser windows? The main advantage is that both websites are displayed in a single browser. You can display, move, hide, or close them at once, while you would have to juggle with two windows if you’d display the two websites in two Chrome instances. You can be sure also that both windows are always visible, when the browser window is active.

However, there are also some disadvantages. You can only see one of the URLs at the same time in the Chrome window. It changes when you activate the website in the inactive half, but it is still worth considering that you don’t see the address all the time.

Google is late to the party

Split View is not a particularly new feature. Vivaldi, for instance, has supported it for years and even gives users multiple layout options that go beyond displaying two sites side-by-side or split horizontally.

Even Microsoft tested the Split View feature in Edge in 2023 already. Mozilla is also working on integrating a split view feature in its Firefox web browser.

Now You: do you use split view already or do you have no use for the feature? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Chrome error prompt on non-HTTPS sites

Google makes HTTPS the default in Chrome from next year on

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Most web browsers display warning messages when you attempt to load a website that does not use HTTPS, the secure version of the HTTP protocol, or when a site has misconfigured HTTPS.

Starting in October 2026, Chrome will make HTTPS the default for all connections in the browser. Means, whenever you visit a site that does not use it or has configuration issues, you will get a prompt.

“This site doesn’t support a secure connection” is displayed in that case. The prompt includes quite a bit of text explaining why that is bad. However, Chrome displays two options to the user in that case.

The first, “go back” returns to the previous site or the new tab page, depending where you started your request. The second, “continue to site” still allows you to visit the site in question.

The planned change makes the optional feature “always use secure connections” mandatory once it lands next year. Since the feature is available already, albeit as an optional preference, it is possible to enable it right away to see what it does. Ideal for testing purposes.

Here is how you enable it (or disable it again):

The always use secure connection preference in Google Chrome
  1. Load chrome://settings/security in the browser’s address bar. You can also select Menu > Settings > Privacy and Security manually, if you prefer that.
  2. Scroll down to the Secure connections section.
  3. Toggle “Always use secure connections” here to enable or disable the feature.

When you enforce HTTPS, you will receive security prompts whenever something is loaded in Chrome that does not use HTTPS.

Google says that non-HTTPS traffic has dropped significantly, but that HTTPS has plateaued at about 95% of all sites. The main driver for insecure traffic, according to Google, is navigations to private sites that are insecure. While less risky than navigations to insecure public sites, attackers may exploit them either way.

Google predicts that the actual warning volume in Chrome will get lower once it lands the change in the browser and sites start moving towards HTTPS even more than before.

It will certainly make it more difficult for users to access sites that do not use HTTPS and do not plan on migrating, for whatever reason.

Now You: have you visited sites that do not use HTTPS in the recent past, or have all of your sites that you visit switched to HTTPS already? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Microsoft plans to give Outlook an AI infusion, make AI the user’s body double

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

I have to admit that I never really used Outlook as my main email driver. While I do have an Outlook account and used it sporadically, mostly for testing purposes, I stuck to the likes of Eudora and Thunderbird.

Recently, Microsoft has given Outlook an overhaul that was not received too well by many of its users. Basically, Microsoft turned Outlook from a classic desktop app into a web-based version that is pretty much just a wrapper. In some years, Microsoft plans to replace the Office-included version of Outlook with that new version.

According to Tom Warren at The Verge, Microsoft has shuffled leadership around and Outlook’s team appears to be under new leadership now to lead it into the AI era.

The new leader is Gaurav Sareen, corporate vice president of global experiences and platform at Microsoft. In a memo to the team, Sareen shared his vision for the future of Outlook. It should not come as a surprise that AI is at the forefront of everything.

Think of Outlook as your body double, there for you, so work feels less overwhelming and more doable because you are not facing it alone. With Copilot, this body double becomes even more powerful. Copilot turns Outlook from a set of tools into a partner that acts.

In other words, Outlook will introduce AI that reads your emails, helps you organize them, writes email drafts for you, and, Microsoft hopes, will help users spend less time doing tasks that they dislike or think are a waste of time.

The big question is, does the majority of Outlook users want this? Will they use the AI features in Outlook? It probably depends to a large degree on how well they are integrated and how useful they are. Privacy is another topic, which Microsoft fails to address regularly to a degree that answers all the main questions sufficiently:

  • What data may the AI access.
  • How and where does it process the data?
  • Who can access the data?
  • Is the data used for anything other than the user’s personal AI tasks?
  • Can the AI report data to Microsoft?

Microsoft won’t convince most privacy-conscious users to give it a try even, but most probably do not use Outlook to begin with unless required to.

Now you: would you start using AI features in your email client, if it supported them? Which would you like to see, if any?