Windows, Security & Privacy, Open Source and more
If you share a Windows PC with others, you may have noticed that users may appear as signed in after you log in to the operating system. A click on the Start button and another click on the user profile icon may reveal this. Should not Windows sign out users when the system is shut…
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…
All modern web browsers support so-called push notifications. Websites may request permission to send notifications. When users accept, they may push notifications to the user’s system. Ideally, these are useful to the user. Maybe about a new post on the site, an auction running out, or about item availability in online stores. Most of the…
All hard drives have a limited lifespan. It does not really matter if you use Solid State Drives or platter-based drives. Eventually, they will fail. It is therefore important to keep an eye on the status of hard drives. This gives you enough time to migrate the data to a new hard drive to avoid…
Microsoft continues to enhance Notepad, the plain text editor of the Windows operating system. After adding features such as tabs, auto saves, or text formatting to Notepad, it is now testing spellchecking support. The latest version of Notepad, version 11.2402.18.0, includes the functionality. It is available in the Canary and Dev development channels only. Not…
Microsoft released the Windows 11 update KB5035942 earlier this week. The update for the Windows 11 Release Preview channel includes several new features. One of them is that widgets may now be displayed on the lock screen. Wait a minute, was not this just introduced already? Yes and no. The Windows 10 update KB5035941 for…
It has been just a few days since the release of Firefox 124.0, but here is Firefox 124.0.1 already. Usually, when this happens, it is either a security update or a bug fix update that address major issues. It is a security update in the case of Firefox 124.0.1. The official release notes include just…
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…
Inplace Upgrade Helper is an open source tool designed to help Windows users move between different Windows 10 and 11 editions. The Windows edition, e.g., Home or Pro, determines whether certain features are available or not. A common example is that Home editions lack access to the Group Policy Editor. Windows includes options to switch…
Barely a week goes by with Microsoft making yet another announcement about Copilot AI or launching a new development build of Windows 11 with Copilot added to something. This time, Microsoft added Copilot functionality to the default file manager of Windows, File Explorer. This particular implementation does not add Copilot directly to File Explorer though….