Windows, Security & Privacy, Open Source and more
Google’s crackdown on ad blockers on YouTube started in early August. The company began tests that informed a small percentage of users with ad blockers that “ad blockers were not allowed on YouTube”. In August, things heated up as Google started to display the prompts aggressively to users with ad blockers. Two months on and…
Netflix users may subscribe to the service for $6.99 per month, but the caveat is that the plan includes ads. The company published One Year Into Netflix Ads this week on the official blog to look back and into the future of ads on the platform. According to the post, Netflix’s Standard with Ads plan…
Streaming services have turned the wrong way in the past couple of years. While ad-powered plans are the big thing currently, there are other developments that many customers may not like. These push more and more customers to other options, including P2P. Netflix started to push its ad-powered plan earlier this year and many streaming…
Microsoft released the 2023 feature update for Windows 11 yesterday to the public. It is already available via Windows Update, but only if the device meets all hardware requirements and has no known issues. Most Windows 11 devices can be upgraded via Windows Update immediately. The situation is different for devices that don’t meet the…
Environment Variables are an essential part of the Windows operating system. The variables are mostly useful for command line usage and also in scripts. As an example: when you type a program name on the command line, e.g., notepad.exe, Windows searches the variables to find the application. System environment variables determine locations for certain folders…
RSS Guard is may RSS reader of choice. I have used quite a few RSS readers in the past decades: from Google Reader and FeedDemon to QuiteRSS, to name just a few major ones. I like QuiteRSS, but development has more or less ceased. RSS Guard is an open source RSS reader that comes with…
YouTube is a popular destination for all things video. It is a Google-owned property and video ads are common on the platform. One of the main issues for many users is that advertisement has become annoying on YouTube lately. Probably the most annoying type is the mid-video ad, as it interrupts the video. There are…
Temporary Cloud Backup is a new service by Samsung. It is rolling out to Samsung Galaxy smartphones and tablets with One UI 6 or later. The backup solution looks like many other cloud-based backup services on first glance. Samsung users may use it to back up data on cloud servers. What makes this different is…
Mozilla’s Firefox web browser maintains its own root certificate store by default. The browser uses these as “trust anchors” and the functionality is essential for making sure that only trusted SSL/TLS certificates are used by the browser. Starting in Firefox 120, Firefox will automatically trust operating sysdtem certificates installed by the user or an administrators….
O&O ShutUp10++ is a free tool for Microsoft’s Windows operating system to improve privacy. Designed initially for Windows 10, the program is now also available for Windows 11. While its main focus is on blocking the operating system’s data hunger, it is also a helpful tool for managing other Windows settings. First, the basics. You…