What's New

One of Google Chrome's big usability issues, at least if you ask me, is that you cannot hide extension icons anymore completely in the browser.

Extension icons are either shown directly in the browser's main -- and only -- toolbar, or in the menu. There is no option to hide an icon completely, even if it does nothing at all.

Whenever you upload a photo to Facebook or one of the company's other services -- more than 2 billion each day -- tags are added to these photos.

One reason for this is that tags help visually impaired users understand photos posted on Facebook. This in turn highlights how far Facebook's image recognition algorithm has come.

Facebook may use the tagging eventually to improve existing services, think search or making sure images don't violate policies, or use it to power entirely new services.

Stylish is a cross-browser add-on available for Firefox and Chrome, and browsers based on those, that allows you to install so-called userstyles in the browser.

These userstyles change the style of websites, e.g. the color scheme, interface elements, and anything else that can be done manipulating CSS more or less.

The year 2017 will be an interesting one for the Firefox web browser, Mozilla, and users of the browser. 2017 will see new technology being integrated in Firefox, and also some removed.

The following guide lists those changes. It needs to be noted though that some may or may not happen. I mention that explicitly if that is the case so that you know that a change is not a done deal but something that could happen.

The results of DonationCoder's NANY 2017 -- New Apps for the New Year -- annual event have just been posted on the official website.

The event, a tradition started in 2007, is a friendly get-together of coders from around the world celebrating the new year with a bunch of program, app and services releases.

All items released as part of the event are provided for free by their developers. This year saw the release of plenty of apps for Android, and a good chunk of Windows desktop programs as well.

Tab Auto Close is a new browser extension for Google Chrome that will close open tabs automatically on inactivity.

The developer of the extension created it as a browser equivalent to websites logging users out automatically after a set period of time or on inactivity.

The product has a couple of use cases that may be interesting to some users. It can be used to keep open tabs tidy, automatically close tabs after you have signed out of services, or make sure browser tabs get closed when you walk away from a computer.

System Ninja 3.1.6 is the latest version of the temporary file cleaning and maintenance tool for Microsoft Windows devices.

The tool flies a bit under the radar thanks to the dominating CCleaner. The author of System Ninja is the creator of CCEnhancer, a tool that adds support for more than 1000 programs to CCleaner and other programs supporting CCleaner's definition syntax.

The private search engine Startpage is my search engine of choice. If you are a long-time reader, you know that I made the switch from using Google first to DuckDuckGo, and then to Startpage, back when news about Prism and other government surveillance and privacy-invading activities hit the world.

APKUpdater is a free application for Google Android devices that you can utilize to keep sideloaded apps up to date on the device.

Rainmeter 4.0 has been released on January 1, 2017. The new version of the popular desktop customization suite ships with new features and options, but also some changes that will affect part of the program's user base.

First, the bad news; Rainmeter 4.0 is no longer compatible with Windows XP or Windows Vista. The Rainmeter team asks users who work with the now-unsupported operating systems to stick to the previous release Rainmeter 3.3.2 instead.

Additionally, Windows 7 systems need to have the Service Pack 1 and the Platform Update installed to run Rainmeter 4.0.

2016 was an interesting year for Microsoft and its Windows 10 operating system. The company ended the free for all buffet in the first half of 2016, but not before pushing the free offer way to aggressively to the PCs of its customers.

Task Manager DeLuxe is a free portable task manager alternative for Microsoft Windows that gives you more information and addition system controls.

The Windows Task Manager is not necessarily a bad program, but it lacks options and information that users may find useful at times.

It is great for quickly killing a process and other basic tasks, but once you need to dive deeper, for instance by analyzing process dependencies, it reaches the end of its usefulness.

Now that we have made it successfully into 2017, even with that leap second scare and all, it seems like a good time to run maintenance related tasks on your PC to cut excess fat, free up storage, make it faster, and just make sure everything is in working order.

While many of you have probably a good understanding of the tools and processes involved in giving a Windows PC a thorough maintenance job, knowing something and doing it are not necessarily the same things.

Support for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system will end on April 11, 2017; Microsoft won't publish public security patches anymore for Windows Vista after the Patch Tuesday in April 2017.

Windows Vista is currently in the so-called extended support phase. Microsoft divides the support period of its operating systems into mainstream and extended support phases.

Network Meter is a free portable software program for devices running Microsoft Windows that displays network statistics in its interface.

The program is designed as a basic tool to monitor network traffic. While it does offer a history function, it is not a full blown network monitor as it keeps to the basics.

The program opens with a near-blank screen which can be quite confusing on first start. You need to select one of the available network adapters under the Monitor menu to start monitoring traffic.