July 2017

If you follow tech news or my site, you have probably stumbled upon the Firefox uses Google Analytics controversy by now.

Let me refresh your memory if you have not. A user of Firefox discovered that Mozilla Firefox connects to Google Analytics when users of the browser load the Get Add-ons page of about:addons.

That page displays a remote web page on Mozilla's website when loaded, and that's where the Google Analytics connection comes into play.

Pale Moon 27.4 has been released by the team responsible for the web browser, and is now available for direct download and automatic update.

The new version of the browser introduces new features and changes to it; existing users may notice that most of the media streaming issues that some experienced should be fixed in this release  for instance.

Since Pale Moon 27.4 fixes several security issues as well, it is highly recommended to update the browser to the latest version as soon as possible to address those.

Microsoft published a new build of the upcoming Windows 10 Fall Creators Update today to the Fast Ring Insider channel.

While users should not expect major features being integrated into the new version of Windows 10 at this stage in development, new builds do feature gradual improvements over previous ones.

Microsoft is doing it again; the company is giving away (for free) an entire collection of ebooks covering major Microsoft products such as Windows, Windows Server, Microsoft Office, Exchange Server, and a lot more.

RegistryChangesView is a brand new portable application by Nirsoft for Windows that you may use to monitor the Registry for changes.

The program has been designed to take Registry snapshots, and compare these snapshots to list all changes that have been made to the keys and values included in both snapshots.

Google Backup and Sync is a new program by Google that combines Google Photos and Google Drive functionality in a single client application.

The Firefox web browser ships with an add-on management interface that users may load directly by typing about:addons in the browser's address bar, or by using menus of the browser the page is linked from.

The management interface comes with several pages that separate extensions from themes, plugins, services, scripts and other "add-ons" that users may add to Firefox in one way or another.

There is also a Get Add-ons page that lists add-on suggestions to users. It is making the rounds right now connects to Google Analytics when users access it.

It’s been a number of years since I sat down and gave Fedora a spin; I’ve always leaned more towards some of the other distributions out there with features that more suited my style. However, with the release of Fedora 26 I thought perhaps I should give the very popular and powerful distribution it’s due diligence and see how it runs.

Bitdefender released a refresh of the company's Bitdefender product line yesterday that improves it in several key security areas.

Bitdefender Total Security 2018, Bitdefender Internet Security 2018 and Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2018 are all available already on the Bitdefender website.

Existing users may download the new versions from Bitdefender Central to install the new version and replace the old version with it in the process.

Windows creates the folder Windows.old on a PC running Windows when you upgrade the PC to a new version of the operating system.

The Windows.old folder contains files and folders of the old installation of Windows, and the main reason it is there is that it is used to restore the old system if the user wants to go back to it.

This folder may take up a sizeable amount of space, but will get deleted automatically usually by Windows after a set period of time.