Tech News Weekly: Issue 28
Windows and browser security updates, a new Winamp, Chrome redesign, and more
News
Operating Systems
Microsoft released security updates for Windows yesterday. They address lots of issues, including one zero-day and several critical vulnerabilities, in all client and server versions of Windows. Check out my monthly overview here.
Just a quick reminder the Windows 10 version 21H2 will reach end of support in June 2023 for the consumer versions (Home and Pro). Windows 10 version 22H2 is the newest version of Windows 10, and the majority of machines should have no trouble updating to the new version.
Tapping on Print on Windows 11 may soon launch the Snipping Tool instead of copying a screenshot of the desktop to the Clipboard. The classic option may be restored, but it requires that users become active to do so.
Windows 11 development continued in March. You can check out my overview of the important changes in all March 2023 builds here. Microsoft is still expected to launch one or two Moments updates in 2023 and a feature update for Windows 10 and 11 later this year.
Mobile
Google launched a new feature for Android called auto-archive. Android users who attempt to install apps from Google Play on devices without sufficient storage will receive a prompt to enable auto archive. This feature deletes app data but retains personal data. The app stays on the device, and a tap on the apps’ icon downloads the required files again from Google Play to start it.
Browser
Microsoft Edge Workspaces is a new feature of the browser to manage sets of tabs. Unlike Vivaldi Browser’s feature of the same name, Microsoft Edge’s Workspaces feature is designed for collaboration. Users may invite up to 5 others during the preview phase, and all may work on the set of tabs in real-time.
There are some limitations, such as a restriction on public places. Any page that requires a login can’t be shared. Check out this guide for disabling the feature.
Mozilla released Firefox 112 and Firefox 102.10 ESR on Tuesday. The browser’s update security issues and introduce a small number of other changes, including improved video performance for Intel GPUs on Windows, a new reveal password option when right-clicking on password fields, and more tracking parameter stripping in Enhanced Tracking Protection’s strict mode.
Firefox users may also see an uptick in performance on Windows, as Microsoft fixed a Windows Defender issue that affected Firefox performance in the past 5 years.
Google has postponed the end of Manifest V2 extensions in Chrome once again.
Google is working on a design refresh for Chrome. This is a work in progress, but will likely launch later in 2023. You can enable some of it already:
Load chrome://flags/#chrome-refresh-2023 and set it to Enabled.
Load chrome://flags/#omnibox-cr23-expanded-state-height and set the feature to Enabled.
Load chrome://flags/#omnibox-cr23-expanded-state-shape and set the feature to Enabled.
Load chrome://flags/#omnibox-cr23-steady-state-icons and set the feature to Enabled.
Brave Browser for Android blocks annoying “open in apps” prompts now in its latest version. This is powered by a filter list, which Brave enables by default in the latest mobile version.
Microsoft is rolling out Image Creator for Edge currently, which allows users, who are signed-in to a Microsoft Account, to generate images from Edge’s sidebar using AI. There is also Microsoft Edge 112, which addresses several security issues in the browser, but is light on features otherwise.
Privacy and Security
DoNotSpy11 1.1 is now available. The privacy tweaker for Windows 10 and 11 supports the latest operating system versions now, and includes several dozens of new tweaks for Office, Edge and the system in general.
Kodi confirmed that its user forum has suffered a data breach in February. The attacker downloaded databases, and all forum users should consider their passwords burned. Once the forum comes back online, Kodi plans to reset all passwords, but users are advised to pay attention to phishing emails and also change the password on other sites, if it was reused.
Software Updates
Microsoft added a Registry Preview tool to its open source PowerToys collection. It visualizes .reg Registry files and acts as an editor as well. Some may find it useful to display all the changes in a Registry file, but it lacks options such as syntax checking.
Gaming
Other
A new version of Winamp will be released tomorrow. The makers published a few preview screenshots, and it looks totally different from the classic player. One of its core features allows content creators, musicians and podcasts, to create subscription plans, and users to subscribe to those.
Article(s)
Grep is an interesting, new search engine, with one disadvantage
There has been no shortage of new search engines in the past couple of years. While search is still dominated by Google Search, there has been an increase in startups that try to change the game by ditching the advertisement-driven system of the old and establishing commercial search engines.
Users pay a monthly subscription fee to the makers of Neeva or Kagi, and get the promise of ad-free and tracking-free search experiences. These search engines may also have other useful features in addition.
Grep is a new search engine that is also promising “no ads, no spam, no AI-content” to its users. It just launched as a preview, but the main thing that differentiates Grep from its competition is that it building a personal index for users based on a handful of websites that they select.
Grep uses the initial selection to build a 4-degree connection using the initial batch of sites and the websites that this initial batch links to. It follows links from the handful of user-picked sites, and creates an index of at least 70,000 websites using it.
Users may then run searches, and Grep will search the personal index to return results to the user.
Grep requires an account and the initial list of supported sites is somewhat limited. While you find the world’s most popular sites there, lots of sites that a user may be interested in may not be available as the starting selection.
Grep displays results like other search engines, but it reveals the path of sites that it followed to come up with it. A search for “Windows 11 install” returns Microsoft’s main Windows 11 site as the first result.
Each of the sites that Grep followed are displayed as links, which users may follow.
While Grep offers an interesting experience, there is one caveat that users need to be aware of. It is not the rather small number of sites that users can pick for index creation, but that only 10 searches per months are free.
10 searches is not a lot. There is a Grep Pro plan, which is available for $15 per month, and it increases the monthly searches to 800. The limit may be enough for many users, but it seems quite expensive from the outside.
Still, Grep is in preview and things may change. An option to add a custom site to the index would certainly be appreciated by many users.
Using email aliases to protect your main email addresses
Whenever you share an email address, there is a chance that you will receive a constant barrage of spam or malicious emails. Some companies may sell your email when you provide it, others may use it to send you emails, and there may be data breaches or leaks, and lots of other scenarios where you will end up receiving spam, phishing emails or malware.
There are a few options available to prevent this from happening. One of the best options is to use email aliases. Not the basic aliases that Gmail and other mail services support, where you add a +something string to the email address, but real aliases that do not provide any information about the “real” email address.
An email alias works like an email forwarding service. It sits between the real email address and the other party, so that the other party only communicates with the email alias.
Some email alias services support sending emails directly from the alias, others support receiving only.
All have in common that it is easy to shut down an email alias, so that no spam or other unwanted emails reach the user’s inbox.
Here is what you may want in an email alias service:
Create as many email aliases as needed.
Ability to turn the aliases on or off.
A trustworthy service that has been around for long and/or is operated by a trustworthy company or organization.
Strong privacy protections
Optional: reply options directly from email aliases.
Optional: use a custom domain name for the aliases
Free services are usually limited.
Firefox Relay, for instance, fits several of the requirements, but the free version limits email aliases to just 5. It may be okay for testing email aliases, but if you use one alias per service that you share emails with, you quickly come to a roadstop.
The paid version lifts the limit and it includes options to reply from alias domains and use a unique domain name. It is available for $0.99 per month.
Firefox Relay is not the only service with a high level of trust. Proton Mail acquired SimpleLogin in 2022 and has integrated the service. It is still available as a standalone service. The free version supports 10 aliases, the paid version removes the limit, adds unlimited custom domains, catch-all domains, and more to the service. It is available for $30 per year.
Once set up, using aliases is quite easy. There is a manual option, to create a new alias and start using it, but many services have browser extensions that make things even easier.
In any event, it is advised to use one alias per account, and to not re-use aliases. One benefit of this approach is that you know exactly which site or organization is responsible for leaking your email.
Links
Intel Foundry and Arm Announce Multigeneration Collaboration on Leading-Edge SoC Design
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