Tech News Weekly: Issue 31
Windows 10's final version is out already, Passkeys for Google Accounts, and ads everywhere
News
Operating Systems
Windows 10 version 22H2 is the final Windows 10 version. Check out the article at the end of the newsletter for additional information about that.
Windows 10 and 11 are battling it out on the usage share front. Figures from April 2023, provided by Statcounter and Steam, show an increase of Windows 11, but still a dominating Windows 10. It will be interesting to see when Windows 11 updates will hit the system requirements barrier. Worded differently, how many Windows 10 devices are stuck on the operating system because they can’t be upgraded, without cheating, to Windows 11?
Windows 11 development continued in the meantime. You can check out my full overview of the most important Windows 11 changes in April 2023 here.
Here is the short list of the most important changes:
File Explorer Gallery.
More Microsoft Account advertisement.
Widgets previews before activation.
Presence Sensing API and Preferences.
Windows 11 core code is rewritten in Rust by Microsoft, a memory-safe programming language. First bits of Rust could launch in the coming weeks or months already.
Microsoft is unifying Microsoft 365 apps under the cloud.microsoft domain. This is done to make it easier for customers and also system administrators.
Mobile
Qualcomm unveiled Snapdragon Game Super Resolution, another upscaling technology that promises clearer and better visuals while playing games.
Google customers should not turn on the new cloud sync feature of Google Authenticator, as it transmits secrets openly. Google promised to address this.
The default weather application on Windows will soon get an MSN and ad infusion.
Browser
Microsoft Edge is submitting all visited pages to Bing currently, thanks to the Follow Creator feature. Edge users may want to turn off the feature to avoid leaking their entire browsing history to Microsoft. To do so, load edge://settings/privacy in the browser’s address bar and scroll down to Services.
Toggle “show Collections and follow content creators in Microsoft Edge” to off. You may also want to toggle “show suggestions to follow content creators in Microsoft Edge” to off as well.
Opera launched a preview version of Opera One, a redesigned web browser that will replace the Opera browser later this year. Opera One is still based on Chromium, but it has a modular design that prepares it for an AI-based future. It has a new tab islands feature, tab groups more or less, and Opera promises that the browser’s new multithreaded compositor is giving its interface a boost.
One of the main ideas of Opera One is that AI will be used to display relevant options and actions to users.
Mozilla acquired Fakespot, a service to detect fake reviews on popular shopping sites. Service won’t change, but Mozilla has plans to integrate it in Firefox and add unique features to it.
Google has released Chrome 113. The new version patches 15 different security issues in the web browser. It is also the first version of Chrome with WebGPU support, which allows apps and sites to utilize video cards more, and experimental First-Party Sets functionality, which allows sites to add domains to a Set to share cookies between them.
Google Chrome is getting a new HTTPS lock icon in September 2023, which may confuse users.
Privacy and Security
Google has fixed 52 different security issues in Android on the May 2023 Patch Day. Google Pixel updates are already available, or will become shortly, and other Android manufacturers will also publish updates to address these issues. No critical issue in the update, and the most severe is an issue rated high that can lead to local exploitation without user interaction.
Google has enabled the option to create passkeys for Google Accounts today. Passkeys are device-specific and may be used to authenticate an account without the use of passwords. It is not widely supported yet and Google revealed that business customers (Workspaces) can’t use the feature yet. Additional information about the feature and links to start the set up are available here.
Thunderbird users may install the content blocker uBlock Origin in the email client now. It does not process emails (yet) though, and works only for feeds.
VirusTotal has a new Code Insight feature. It uses AI to analyze code and reveals what it does to the submitter. It works with PowerShell scripts only at the time, but Google plans to improve support in the future.
Software Releases and Updates
NVIDIA Power Management is a handy open source program for Windows to better manage power consumption of NVIDIA graphics adapters. It supports power groups, to which individual apps and games can be assigned to. Applications for it include lowering power consumption for certain activities, to save power and reduce fan noise, or ensuring that maximum power is provided for other activities.
Gaming and Entertainment
Netflix has renamed its Basic with ads plan to Standard with ads to better reflect the features that it offers. It confirms that the ad-powered plan is doing well, and that it is now superior to Netflix’s lowest tier plan without ads, Basic. The only feature that Basic has that Standard with ads does not have is download options.
Valve Software launched an updated Steam overlay in Steam Beta this week. It includes a new note taking component, which some gamers may find handy. Steam is displaying a counter on Windows 7 and 8 devices now that warns users that support will run out on January 1, 2024.
The price of ASUS’ upcoming Rog Ally Windows gaming handheld has leaked. The top model will be sold for $699.99 according to the leak, which is not that much more as Valve’s top of the line Steam Deck. ASUS’ machine has a better screen and faster components though.
Amazon launched Fire TV Channels, a free but ad-supported service for Amazon Fire TV customers.
Other
Microsoft announced the decision to stop producing peripherals under the company’s name. It will continue to produce Surface hardware products, such as keyboards and mice. Existing Microsoft peripherals continue to be sold until stock runs out.
Brave Search no longer relies on Microsoft’s Bing for its search results. It is now fully independent according to Brave Software. Plans are underway to release an API, which apps and third-party services may use in the future.
Microsoft 365 subscribers who open links in Outlook or Teams may notice that links opened in these applications open in Microsoft Edge now, even if it is not the default browser on the system. The news comes weeks after Microsoft pledged to honor defaults on Windows.
Article(s)
Use WingetUI to manage software updates on Windows
WingetUI is an open source application for Windows that started out as a frontend for winget, the Windows Package Manager, but has become more than that.
The team behind it expanded it to include Chocolatey and Scoop repository as well.
One of the great things about winget, and WingetUI as well, is the ability to update software installed on Windows devices.
Updating is still one of the Achilles Heels of the Windows operating system. Some programs come with their own updaters, others update via the Windows Store, and many of apps do not come with updating options at all. Updating is a mess, and users who want to keep their apps up to date need to pay good attention to releases to do so.
WingetUI checks installed programs and their versions against its database, and lists all out of date apps conveniently in the interface. WingetUI lists all installed programs with updates, including the installed version of the program and the latest version that is available.
From there, it is just a matter of selecting one, some or even all, and updated them immediately.
To get started, switch to Software updates. WingetUI displays the list of apps with updates. From there, it is just a matter of selecting one or multiple for updating.
WingetUI can also be used as a bulk uninstaller or bulk installer. It is a handy program for Windows because of these features.
Windows 10 is going to be the most stable version of Windows until October 2025
Microsoft announced this week that it won’t release new feature updates for its Windows 10 operating system anymore. Windows 10 version 22H2, released in late 2022, is therefor the last major version of Windows 10.
The operating system won’t receive new (major) features anymore and Microsoft will focus its engineering energy on Windows 11 and potential successors. It is unclear whether smaller changes will still find their way into the operating system. Many of these, if they happens, may introduce changes that most users may not want.
Think about more ads for using a Microsoft Account or OneDrive, or more MSN News baked into apps. Windows 10 will get monthly cumulative updates, just like before, but these will focus on security fixes.
While some Windows 10 users may find the lack of feature updates disheartening, others may sigh a breath of relief, as updates will become more manageable.
Windows 7 customers too might consider updating to Windows 10, now that their version of Windows has run out of support. In any event, Windows 10 will receive 29 cumulative updates until October 2025, which means that devices are protected against potential threats until the last patch has been released for the Windows 10 operating system.
Windows 10 customers may also delay the upgrade to Windows 11, if their devices meet the system requirements of the operating system. Keeping a relatively stable version of Windows 10 for another two years might sound too good a deal to pass for many users of the operating system.
All in all though, it is almost certain that Windows 10 won’t be plagued by many issues going forward due to the absence of most or all non-security changes.
To be fair, Microsoft did not really put much effort into the operating system after the release of the first feature update of 2021. The feature updates that followed were minor at best. Microsoft still has not revealed the features that it added in the Windows 10 version 22H2 update.
It will be interesting to see what 2025 brings. Will Microsoft have released Windows 12 by then? Will the company launch an ESU, Extended Security Updates, for Windows 10 due to the large percentage of devices still on that version of Windows by 2025?
Links
Chemists tackle the tough challenge of recycling mixed plastics
Microsoft aiming to challenge Apple Silicon with custom ARM chips
Microsoft Broke a Chrome Feature to Promote Its Edge Browser
‘The Godfather of A.I.’ Leaves Google and Warns of Danger Ahead