October 2015

Things have been quite difficult for Reddit on many levels this year. There were several user revolts, closed forums, new policies, employees that had to go and more, and all of this seems to come down to turning the millions that visit Reddit every day into profit.

Reddit has implemented several monetization schemes on the site including Reddit Gold and subreddit advertising.

Microsoft announced several new devices on its Windows 10 Devices event including a new version of the popular Surface Pro line called Surface Pro 4 and the company's first laptop Surface Book.

If you have followed the announcement, or maybe just heard about the two devices, you are probably wondering how these two differ and which one to pick if you want to buy a Microsoft computer running Windows 10.

If you like how Microsoft Edge looks but prefer to use the Firefox browser, then you may be able to get the best of both worlds by installing the third-party Mozilla Edge theme in Firefox.

I don't particularly like the looks of Microsoft Edge as I think it is too minimalist not only in functionality but also in design.

But, tastes differ and there are certainly users out there who prefer Edge's design over that of other browsers.

If you are one of them, you may be able to turn Firefox into a Microsoft Edge copy without sacrificing functionality in the process.

Blocking dangerous, privacy-invasive or unwanted IP addresses is not an entirely new concept.

Programs like PeerBlock or PeerGuardian (which PeerBlock is based on), are standalone applications that block certain IP addresses from connecting to your computer to increase your privacy when your devices are connected to peer to peer networks.

This year's first update for the popular email backup program MailStore Home brings official support for Microsoft's new Windows 10 operating system and email client Outlook 2016.

MailStore Home is my go-to program for mail backups as it is easy to use and highly convenient. 

Mozilla plans to launch better management options for Web Notifications permissions in Firefox 44 and 45 which will provide users with options to list all custom permissions in one central location, and to add or remove sites and applications from the permissions list.

The Notifications API provides web pages or applications with the means to display notifications outside of their own boundaries on a system level. Web applications can utilize this to send notifications to the user if Firefox is running in the background or if the application is idle.

I don't change the DPI scaling on devices I work with normally but if you do, you may have noticed that the feature is somehow making fonts blurry in some parts of the Windows 10 operating system.

This should come as a surprise to users who ran Windows 8 previously as this was not the case in that operating system.

The issue seems to be especially visible in classic programs and menus, for instance in the classic Control Panel and not so much or at all when you run apps on Windows 10.

Your favorite Firefox add-on just stopped working in the browser or refuses to install? If that happens to you it could be because of a new policy over at Mozilla that requires add-ons to be signed before they can be installed or activated in the Firefox web browser.

The policy is not live yet -- Mozilla postponed the enforcement part to Firefox 44 which will come out on January 26, 2016 according to the official Firefox release schedule.

Firefox users have plenty of choices when it comes to improving file downloads in the web browser. From the grand daddy Down Them All to third-party download managers like Free Download Manager.

Shortcut Customizer is a free application for Android that you can make use of to create shortcuts to several different types of data to speed things up while using the device.

Apart from creating shortcuts to applications, it lets you create shortcuts that point to bookmarks, email address, phones numbers, music or other data that is available on the handheld or tablet that you are using.