What's New

Netflix is once again increasing the monthly prices of its subscription plans across multiple countries, including the US, Canada, Argentina, and Portugal. The price adjustments are already in effect for new subscribers, and will apply during the next billing cycle for existing customers.

The first update of 2025 for the open source encryption software VeraCrypt is now available. VeraCrypt 1.26.18 is a security update that is also introducing a number of fixes and other changes, including dropped support for 32-bit versions of Windows.

The details:

OpenAI has rolled out some new customization features for ChatGPT, enhancing the way users interact with the AI chatbot. Available in the browser version and on Windows desktop, these updates allow individuals to dictate how ChatGPT responds, making interactions feel more personal and tailored.

Firefox has supported profiles for a very long time. This may come as a surprise to many users, as the visibility of the feature is lacking. Veteran users know that they can run Firefox with the parameter -p to start the profile manager. There is also about:profiles, which can be loaded in Firefox's address bar.

Several methods exist to install Windows 11 on unsupported hardware and to upgrade to a new version of Windows 11 from older versions. Microsoft allows this on one hand, but says it does not offer any kind of support, if the PC does not meet the system requirements.

Microsoft has increased the prices of Microsoft 365 subscriptions. But you get access to Copilot with the subscription.

You may be aware that the company launched a premium plan called Microsoft Copilot Pro, which allowed subscribers to access advanced AI models with higher usage limits.  Microsoft is pushing artificial intelligence more aggressively, by introducing Copilot

Bitwarden is an open source password management solution that we have mentioned and recommended several times here on this site in the past.

Google released a new security update for its Chrome web browser that patches 16 unique security issues in the browser. Several of the vulnerabilities affect other Chromium-based web browsers as well, including Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, or Opera.

The point update for Google Chrome brings the desktop version to 132.0.6834.83 and 132.0.6834.84 for all supported operating systems. The update itself is available for Chrome on Windows, Linux, Mac, ChromeOS, and Android.

Microsoft has confirmed a new bug that is related to BitLocker.  The issue impacts Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices, including the very latest versions.

Windows may unexpectedly display a message about Bitlocker settings

Users may notice a message being displayed in the Control Panel page for BitLocker Encryption on their computer. The message reads as follows: "For your security, some settings are managed by your administrator."

Same procedure as every year. Microsoft released the first batch of security updates of 2025 a moment ago. Security updates are available for all supported client and server versions of Windows and also other company products, including Microsoft Office.

Our overview of the monthly security updates provides users and system administrators with information and actionable advice. It pulls information from various sources, including several official Microsoft websites and official release notes.

Google has announced a change to its advertising policies that will allow advertisers to use digital fingerprinting starting February 16, 2025.

Why it is important: digital fingerprinting uses signals, like the IP address, location, language, used software, or operating system, to identify devices and users on the Internet.

VideoLAN's open-source video player has reached 6 billion downloads. The developers celebrated the milestone by announcing a new feature at CES 2025, AI generated subtitles.

Subtitles are useful when you want to watch a movie or a TV show that is in a foreign language, or if you have troubles hearing. But subtitles may not always be available for the video that you wanted to watch, and sometimes they can be hardcoded or use weird fonts or colors. Additionally, a good chunk of Internet users may not know how to find, download, and integrate subtitles for local media.

Microsoft announced this week that it is going to install the new Outlook application on Windows 10 systems automatically.  Windows users and administrators who do not want the app need to make changes to their systems using the Registry and PowerShell to block the new Outlook client; this can only be done after it has been installed.

The Linux Foundation has launched an initiative called the Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers. Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Opera are members of the group.

While the news comes as a surprise, the list of members who have joined the group is unsurprising to say the least. Brave and Vivaldi, DuckDuckGo are not members, and it is not clear why they are not part of the project, given that their browsers are based on the Chromium open source project.

EditThisCookie is a specialized extension for Google Chrome that you may use to edit cookie data stored by the browser. I mentioned it back in 2015 here on Ghacks.

The extension, with over 3 million users and 11,000 ratings, has been removed from the Chrome Web Store. What Google has not removed is a copycat extension, first called EditThisCookies and now EditThisCookie®, which is malicious.