Notes

Evernote makes 14 premium features available to free users, but there is a catch

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Long-standing note taking service Evernote announced today that it is giving free users access to 14 premium features. These features were only available to personal or professional subscribers previously. Now, they are available to all Evernote users.

Note that personal subscribers benefit from this change as well. Six of the features were limited to professional subscribers.

Evernote

Evernote’s premium features that are now free

Here is the list of features that are now free:

  • Note history and restore — option to view and restore old versions of notes.
  • Offline notes and notebooks — access notes while offline. Updates are synced the moment Internet connectivity is restored.
  • PDF annotation and export — annotate PDF documents, e.g., use highlight, reactions or anonymize content, and export notes or entire notebooks as PDF documents.
  • Business card scanning — scan business cards to add the information to notes.
  • Spreadsheet preview — view spreadsheets added to notes in Evernote.
  • Boolean, geographic, document & image search — use new search options to find content. This includes finding text in PDF and Word documents, images or scanned documents.
  • Email notes and share notes via email — options to use email to add notes to Evernote and to share notes via email.
  • Customize global shortcut keys and the create button on mobile.
  • Create custom templates.

The elephant in the room

While it is great to see that Evernote is pushing previously paid features to free and personal users, there is still one issue: free users are limited to one notebook and fifty notes. Evernote imposed the restriction at end of 2023.

While 50 notes may be sufficient for some users of the service, many may run into the limit quickly, if they use Evernote regularly. One option to deal with it is to delete old notes regularly. May work for some users, but one of the great features of note taking services is that you can keep a history of notes, if you want to.

Considering that Evernote charges $14.99 per month for its cheapest plan, many users may prefer to use an unrestricted service. I mentioned alternatives in the linked article above. If you want a recommendation, try the open source Joplin app. You can import Evernote notes into it and never look back.

This was not the first time that Evernote reduced functionality for free users of the service. Back in 2016, Evernote restricted free user access to 2 devices from unlimited.

It is also interesting to note that the cheapest plan cost $29.99 per year back then, a sharp contrast to the current pricing.

Closing Words

Note taking apps are useful, there is no doubt about it. While the good old system of using paper notes won’t die anytime soon, digital notes offer several advantages. Search, the option to look up previous versions, and the ability to store thousands of notes need to be mentioned.

Now You: do you use a note taking app?

Google Chrome

Google says it has optimized Safe Browsing in Chrome

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Safe Browsing is a core security feature of Google’s Chrome web browser. The technology is also used by other browsers, often indirectly to improve privacy.

Google revealed in a new post on the Chromium blog that it has optimized Safe Browsing checks in the Chrome web browser.

The changes bring a performance boost to Safe Browsing checks thanks to the use of asynchronous checks. Some checks are also reduced to reduce their impact on the page loading time.

Safe Browsing: Asynchronous checks

Safe Browsing checks block pages from loading. This is a security precaution to ensure that malicious content is blocked before it can be loaded by the Chrome browser.

This is usually not a problem for local checks according to Google. Checks on Internet websites, on the other hand, add latency to the loading of the page.

Google Chrome 122 enables asynchronous Safe Browsing checks. This allows sites to load content during checks. Google says that this will reduce page load times in Chrome and improve the overall user experience.

Chrome continues to show a warning page if Safe Browsing determines that a page or one of its resources is problematic.

There is also potential for improving new artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms “to detect and block more phishing and social engineering attacks” according to Google. These experiments could affect the page loading time further in the past.

Risks associated with the change

Since pages may load while Safe Browsing checks take place, there is a chance of attacks.

Google says that it has evaluated two common attack types and concluded that sufficient mitigations are in place:

  • Phishing and social engineering attacks — Phishing sites may load while checks are still ongoing. Google believes that it is unlikely that users will have the time to interact with the site in a way that would impact security. Selecting a password field and typing the password, for instance, should take longer than the Safe Browsing check.
  • Browser exploits — Chrome has a local list of sites that attack using browser exploits. Checks continue to be made asynchronously and Google recommends keeping Chrome up to date to block most attacks from being effective.

Sub-resource and PDF checks

Two additional checks are listed by Google that are impacted by the optimizations.

  • Sub-resource checks — attacks using sub-resources are declining, according to Google. New protections, including intelligence gathering, threat detection, and Safe Browsing APIs, protect users in real-time without specifically needing to check sub-resources. As a consequence, Google Chrome will no “longer check the URLs of sub-resources with Safe Browsing”.
  • PDF download checks — Google reduced the frequency of PDF download checks. PDF documents were used for attacks in the past, but widespread attacks are rare thanks to improvements to Chrome’s PDF viewer. Google notes that most PDF files use links for attacks. These link may open in Chrome, which gives Safe Browsing a chance to block the attack.

Closing Words

Chrome Safe Browsing

Google benefits from the reduction in changes. PDF checks alone reduce Safe Browsing checks “billions of times” each week. The removal of checks may push certain forms of attacks again. Sub-resource attacks may see a revival as malicious actors find new ways to exploit the change.

Chrome users may check the browser’s Safe Browsing preferences under chrome://settings/security. There they find the two main options — standard and enhanced protection — as well as an option to turn off the security feature entirely.

Resolutions

Super Resolution promises better game graphics on Windows 11

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Automatic Super Resolution is a new Windows graphics feature that is currently in development. The main idea behind it is to use artificial intelligence to “play games more smoothly with enhanced details” according to Microsoft.

Modern PC games may tax a system’s hardware. If the system is older, users may notice slowdowns or reduced graphics details. One way of dealing with this is to reduce the resolution of the game or its graphics details.

While that may improve frames per seconds, it also reduces the visual quality of the game.

Super Resolution

Automatic Super Resolution

Automatic Super Resolution is a new feature that is in testing right now. The experimental feature was spotted by Twitter user PhantomOcean3.

The support page returns a 404 error at the moment, which is why we know little about the actual functionality of the feature. What we know is that Windows may use AI to improve the performance and visual quality of games.

It is unclear if this is marketing-speak for upscaling, a technology that has been around for a long time.

A second screenshot shows some of the available options. Besides on and off toggles, Super Resolution supports enabling the feature while keeping the display resolution and configuring the feature for individual games and apps.

Super Resolution preferences

Super Resolutions everywhere

Several companies announced similar features in the past. Qualcomm announced Game Super Resolution back in April 2023, which, as Qualcomm put it, promises “increased battery life, higher resolutions and improved frame rates on mobile devices”.

Qualcomm’s solution uses upscaling to achieve this; the company avoided the term AI entirely during the announcement.

NVIDIA’s RTX Super Resolution technology is designed specifically for videos. It upscales videos up to 4K, but requires modern NVIDIA video cards for that.

Microsoft introduced Turing Image Super Resolution back in 2022 in Microsoft Edge. The company cut the “Turing Image” part of the name later that year. It too promises to upscale low resolution images to higher resolutions.

Closing Words

Playing games smoothly at higher resolutions is something that most gamers will be interested in. The main question is how effective Microsoft’s solution is. Another, if it requires certain hardware features to work.

While it is not possible to upscale games beyond the supported resolution of the monitor, Super Resolution could help gamers on older devices especially. If, and that is a big if, the feature does not require specific hardware.

The functionality may also be of interest for classic computer games. Older games may support resolutions of 800×600 or even lower only. These do not look good on modern displays with 1080p or 4k resolutions, usually.

If Microsoft gets this right, it could give certain older PC games a much needed visual boost.

As for when Super Resolution lands. The most likely target is the 2024 feature update for Windows 11.

Now You: would you use the feature to play games on your devices?

Amazon Prime Video Ad Free

Amazon removes Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision support for regular Prime Video subscriptions

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Amazon introduced advertisement in Prime Video in the beginning of February 2024 for all Prime subscribers. All Prime subscribers who watch Prime Video content get ads by default when they do so.

While Amazon did show trailers, another form of promotion, before shows and movies, it did not show ads on top of that up until now.

Amazon introduced an Ad Free add-on option to Prime subscribers. Available for an extra $2.99 per month, Ad Free promises do remove advertisement from the Prime Video experience. This add-on removes the “new” ads, but not trailers from Amazon Prime Video.

The introduction of video ads on Prime Video is not the only change, apparently. Prime Video subscribers who use Dolby Vision or Dolby Atmos cannot use the functionality anymore by default according to reports.

In other words: only customers who pay the extra $2.99 per month get support for Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos. Amazon appears to have removed support silently and without notice.

Amazon is silent

All Amazon Prime and Prime Video subscribers are subscribed to an ad-powered plan by default now. Up until now, it appeared that this was the only change that Amazon implemented.

Amazon has received criticism for how it introduced the ad-powered plan to its service. Unlike Netflix, Disney and others, it did not introduce a new ad-powered plan that customers could subscribe to.

Instead, Amazon added ads to the regular subscription. This is a hidden price increase and users got an inferior product compared to the previous offering.

Consumer organizations in several countries are suing Amazon over this already.

If that is not bad enough, Amazon has now also removed support for Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos for all regular subscribers. Want access to the features again? That is $2.99 per month extra then, thank you very much.

Regular Prime Video subscribers are limited to a resolution of 4K, HDR10 and Dolby Digital 5.1. Those who select the Ad Free add-on will notice that they gain support for Dolby Vision HDR und Dolby Atmos 3D-Sound.

I confirmed the change on a TV at home. The German 4K Filme website noticed the change as well and verified it on three different setups.

Amazon makes no mention of the removed functionality. The Ad Free add-on reveals no information that it is required to use Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision. The missing functionality is not mentioned by Amazon in any official communication either.

Closing Words

If you needed another reason to consider cancelling your Amazon Prime subscription, this may be it. In the worst case, you not only getting ads while watching content on Amazon Prime, you are also getting an inferior product to before.

elevate

What you need to know about Sudo for Windows

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

The latest Windows 11 build introduces the sudo command to the operating system. Sudo plays an essential role on BSD, Linux, and other Unix-like systems as it allows users to run commands as another user. The most common application of sudo is to run programs as the superuser.

Microsoft describes its implementation of Sudo for Windows in a single sentence:

Sudo for Windows provides a new, yet familiar way to elevate processes directly from the command-line.

This is actually all you need to know about Microsoft’s implantation. In other words, you use sudo to elevate command line instructions.

A detailed article on the Windows Command Line Dev Blog provides additional information on Sudo for Windows.

Sudo for Windows: the details

Sudo for Windows is only available in the latest Windows 11 Insider Preview build 26052. Twitter user Bob Pony discovered that you may use Sudo for Windows on older versions of the operating system already as well. Support goes all the way down to Windows 7.

While not recommended, you may download the Sudo for Windows application from the linked post and add it to the System32 directory.

The feature is not enabled by default. You may enable it by running the command sudo config –enable normal from an elevated command prompt. Replace “normal” with one of the other options below, if you prefer those.

The application supports three states:

  • In a new window (forceNewWindow) — runs the command in a new elevated window.
  • With input disabled (disableInput) — runs the command without input option in the window it was triggered from.
  • Inline (normal) — runs the command from the same window it was triggered from. Most similar to the sudo experience on *nix systems.

You find these options under System > For developers in the Windows Settings. Note that the options are not available if you copied the application manually to the System32 folder.

Tip: use the command sudo -h to display all available commands in the console.

Here is the output at the time of writing:

C:\Users\Martin\Downloads\sudo>sudo -h
Sudo for Windows

Usage: sudo [OPTIONS] [COMMANDLINE]… [COMMAND]

Commands:
run Run a command as admin
config Get current configuration information of sudo
help Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Arguments:
[COMMANDLINE]… Command-line to run

Options:
-E, –copyEnv Pass the current environment variables to the command
–newWindow Use a new window for the command
–disableInput Run in the current terminal, with input to the target application disabled
-h, –help Print help (see more with ‘–help’)
-V, –version Print version

Using Sudo for Windows

Sudo for Windows

Just prepend “sudo” in front of the command to run it elevated. The command sudo wsl.exe –install installs the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Windows would refuse to run it in an unelevated command prompt window.

With sudo, it displays an UAC prompt. Accept the prompt and the command is executed on the system. What happens next depends on the selected configuration.

  • New window — Sudo for Windows launches a new elevated console window and executes the command in that window.
  • Input closed and Inline — Sudo for Windows launches a new elevated sudo.exe process. The original sudo command establishes an RPC connection with that new process.

Closing Words

Sudo for Windows is open source. Microsoft published a new repository on GitHub that interested users may follow.

Droid

F-Droid 1.19.0 released: automatic apps updates

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

A new version of the open source privacy-friendly F-Droid app for Android is now available. F-Droid offers an alternative to Google Play. It features only free and open source software, and includes apps that are not allowed on Google Play due to Google policies.

F-Droid 1.19.0 is the latest version. It introduces a much requested feature: the ability to update apps automatically.

While F-Droid 1.19.0 is already available, it is not pushed to user devices yet. It is necessary to seek the update manually to install it.

To do so, open F-Droid on your Android device. Run a search for F-Droid and select the F-Droid result from the list of search results. Scroll down and expand Versions on the page. There you find version 1.19.0 listed. Expand the version and select the install option to start the upgrade.

F-Droid: apps auto-updates

F-Droid expert mode

The main new feature of F-Droid 1.19.0 is auto updating for installed apps. The feature works only on Android 12 or newer devices.

The team notes:

On Android 12 or later, apps will be autoupdated after the first install or first update, no root, no unlocking, no PrivExt needed.

Some older apps can not be updated automatically. F-Droid continues notify users about these apps so that they may be updated manually.

F-Droid users who prefer the old way — inform about updates, but do not auto-install — may restore the classic functionality.

This is done in the following way:

  • Open the F-Droid application on the Android device.
  • Select Settings.
  • Scroll down to the “Other” section and enable Expert mode there.
  • Scroll all the way down and enable “Force old installer”.

This option disables the new installer and thus also automatic background updates. You may undo the change at any time by toggling the force old installer preference.

Managing other repositories

F-Droid supported using other repos for adding and managing apps for some time. The functionality was limited to adding and removing repositories.

F-Droid 1.19.0 introduces a new option to add repositories. This is done either through the repositories URL or by scanning a QR code. The app fetches repository information and displays the listed apps before the repo is added to the database.

The team writes:

In short, paste repo link or use QR code, see list of apps before adding it, see apps from a single repo, all new features that make repositories a joy to use. Mirrors like to keep things chill and in the background, but they are expanding and getting easier to control, as plain servers, Tor .onion hosted or via IPFS gateways.

Other changes

The new version includes lots of improvements. Lots of apps got updated, and 11 new apps are now available in the main repository.

You may check out the official announcement of the new release here.

Google

A new look is coming soon: Google informs about new sign-in page

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google users who open a sign-in page on the company’s website receive a notification currently. It reads “A new look is coming soon. Google is improving its sign-in page with a more modern look and feel”.

A click on the dismiss button closes the notification on the sign-in page. There is no link or button to get more information on the change.

Google sign-in page

The current sign-in page uses multiple pages for the process of logging in to a Google account. Users need to type or paste the email address or phone number first, and then the account password to sign-in. Other authentication options, including using a Google Titan security key, are also supported.

The reason for the “a new look is coming soon” announcement

The announcement offers barely any details. Google does not reveal when it is going to change the sign-in page nor reveals how it will look like. The only information is that the page will change and that its appearance will change.

You may wonder why Google is making the announcement to users. While Google does not reveal its reason, it seems likely that the company wants users to be prepared.

Many may look critically at a different sign-in page. Some may suspect foul play or a successful attack on Google.

The announcement may help reassure some users and organizations. When the new Google sign-in page lands, users who have seen the notification may use it to log in without worrying too much about the change.

It is likely that Google is going to announce the new sign-in page officially on one of its blogs or websites shortly before or after the new page goes live.

Still, some Google users may use a search engine or interactions with an AI to make sure that the change is legitimate.

Making sure it is Google’s sign-in page

It takes just a few clicks to verify the legitimacy of a webpage. First step is to look at the URL in the address bar. Is it a Google domain? The current sign-in page starts with https://accounts.google.com/, which you may verify quickly.

It may be necessary to click or tap in the address field in some browsers, as some information may be omitted.

Check connection

Next step is to click or tap on the icon on the right of the address. This displays information about the connection. Look for “Connection is secure”, “Connection secure” or a similar message. If you see this, you are on the “real” Google sign-in page.

Now You: do you verify sign-in pages before logging in?

Microsoft confirms Windows 11 version 24H2 as the 2024 feature update

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Last year, rumors began to emerge about a new version of Windows that would focus heavily on AI. Microsoft had just begun its AI push, adding Copilots everywhere. Panos Panay, then leader of Surface and Windows teams, left the company in the same year. Panay was replaced by Yusuf Mehdi.

Windows 12, the name that Microsoft never confirmed officially, was said to focus heavily on AI. This went hand-in-hand with the AI PCs for Windows. One of the requirements of these PCs was an integrated chip, neural processing unit, to speed up AI processing on these devices.

The leadership change and the success of AI products at Microsoft may have played a role in Microsoft’s decision to postpone the release of Windows 12.

The company released a new build to the Insider channel this week. This build introduced a few new features, including sudo.

The release notes include confirmation that the 2024 update for Windows 11 will be Windows 11 version 24H2.

Here is what Microsoft reveals in the release notes:

Starting with Build 26-xx today, Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels will see the versioning updated under Settings > System > About (and winver) to version 24H2. This denotes that Windows 11, version 24H2 will be this year’s annual feature update. As mentioned here, Windows 11 will have an annual feature update cadence that releases in the second half of the calendar year.

While this does not include confirmation that Windows 12 won’t be released this year, there is no indication that Microsoft is preparing another operating system release in 2024. It is possible that Microsoft’s initial plans were to release the functionality of the feature update as Windows 12, but that it changed its mind.

Windows 11 version 24H2

Windows 11 version 24H2 is the feature update for Windows 11 in 2024. It is still assumed that the update will focus heavily on AI, but recent changelogs reveal little about the functionality that Microsoft plans to add.

Rumors suggest that Microsoft could launch an improved version of Copilot on Windows. The current iteration lacks any meaningful Windows-specific functionality, which is why users disable Windows Copilot on their devices. This could change, but Microsoft has not released the updated version for testing yet. For now, Copilot on Windows is more or less identical in functionality to Copilot on the Web.

Microsoft has a few months left before the release in the second half of 2024. It is possible that main AI improvements and tools are tested internally only at this time. Microsoft would have to integrate them into preview versions eventually though. This has to happen in the coming months.

AI PCs may have specific requirements, including an NPU. It seems highly unlikely that Windows 11 version 24H2 will only be available to devices with such a chip. It would block updates for the vast majority of systems and fragment the userbase even further.

More likely is that certain features are limited to devices with a NPU or work a lot better on these PCs.

Closing Words

As it stands, there will be a single major Windows release in 2024. It won’t be Windows 12, but Windows 11 version 24H2. Windows 12 may not be off the table though.

Next year will be interesting. It is the year that support for Windows 10 ends officially. While customers may extend support for several years, for a price, it may also be the perfect year for a Windows 12 release.

After all, with Windows 10 gone, there is only Windows 11 and hundreds of millions of Windows 10 devices that cannot be upgraded to the new operating system.

Now You: what do you expect from Windows 11 version 24H2?

Firefox

First look at Firefox’s new Tab Previews feature

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Tab previews allow you to hover over open tabs in the Firefox web browser to get a preview of the page’s content. Mozilla added the functionality into Firefox Nightly this week. Reason enough to take a look at the feature.

Tab Previews are only available in Firefox Nightly at the time of writing. The feature is disabled by default, but you may enable it.

This is done by setting the preference browser.tabs.cardPreview.enabled to true on about:config. A restart of the Firefox web browser completes the process.

Tip: you may set this feature to off in Firefox Stable later on to turn off tab previews. This restores Firefox’s display of the page title and URL then when you hover over a tab.

How Tab Previews work in Firefox

Hover over any open tab in Firefox and you see a thumbnail of the page after 1 second. The snapshot displays a screenshot of the top of the page. In other words, it ignores the actual position on the page.

It may look cut off as well, as you can see on the screenshot above. Still, hover over any tab and you do get a preview of the page.

Tab previews is a handy feature at times, especially if you have multiple tabs with the same title open. Think ten eBay auctions that have similar titles.

The 1 second delay is set by Mozilla. There is a preference that supposedly changes it, but it does not seem work right now. Check browser.tabs.cardPreview.delayMs on about:config to change the delay.

Comparison to Google Chrome

Firefox is not the only web browser that introduced support for tab previews recently. Google’s Chrome browser displays tab previews as well now in the Stable version.

Hover over any tab in Chrome and you get a screenshot preview of the tab. Google displays the same information as Firefox plus a tab’s memory usage.

There is one difference though. Firefox displays a screenshot of the top of the webpage all the time. Google Chrome, however, displays a screenshot of the actual position on the webpage.

It is possible that Firefox’s tab previews feature will also support this in the future. It is in development and it may change in the future though.

Closing Words

Not every browser user likes tab previews. It should be easy enough to turn these off in Firefox once they land in stable.

Now You: tab previews, yay or nay?

Google Maps

Google Maps shows weather information now on Android

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google is rolling out a new feature on Google Maps that shows weather information on Android. Whether this is going to take away usage from dedicated weather apps remains to be seen.

Google Maps on iOS displays information about the temperature and air quality index already. Google is now rolling out the same feature to Maps on Android.

A small and easy to overlook widget in the left corner of the screen displays the current temperature and air quality index when enabled. An icon depicts the weather condition, e.g., rain, sun or clouded, and the temperature in either Fahrenheit or Celsius. Below that is the air quality index, again with a quality indicator.

A tap on the widget displays additional information. You get the weather forecast for the next hours among other information, including the chance of rain.

A tap on the air quality section displays an overlay on the map that uses colors to highlight the quality of air in the region.

Google Maps: weather information widget

The weather widget is only displayed when nothing is selected. Once you make a selection, e.g., by tapping on a place, you won’t see the information in Google Maps.

Google seems to roll out the feature over time. If it is not available on a device, you may want to see if you have the latest Google Maps version installed. Also, weather information is not displayed if you select anything on Google Maps or have any character in the search field. You need to clear any character in the search field before the weather widget is displayed.

The display of weather information on Google Maps is useful but also limited. It can be useful, even when you check out a place that is nearby. While the actual temperature or air quality index may not be that useful, the forecast may be. You can now check how the weather is going to be in a few hours.

As for places far away, it can be useful as well, but not as much. The main limitation is that the forecast is limited to the next few hours. It does not help much if you want to visit the place tomorrow or next week.

Tip: users from the European Union may allow or disallow the sharing of data between Google services.

Closing Words

The Android version of Google Maps features the same weather widget as the iOS version now. The information is useful, but it is also limited, which makes it less useful than it could be. A forecast for the next one or two days would improve the usability significantly.

The information seems to be pulled from weather.com, at least that is what Google links to when you open the details view.

The web-based version of Google Maps shows weather information as well.

Now You: do you use Google Maps?