What's New

You are asked to enter an account password on most Windows 10 machines before you get access to the operating system.

Windows 10 users may choose a variety of authentication options: from traditional passwords to a Pin or biometric authentication options called Windows Hello.

Most Windows 10 users are probably signing in to accounts using passwords though.

Firefox Hello, the messaging then screen sharing / video chat feature of Firefox will be removed from Firefox 49 if things go as planned.

Mozilla integrated Firefox Hello in version 34 of the browser. The organization did so natively back in 2014 which meant that Hello was part of the Firefox browser.

Unbranded Firefox versions are created specifically for developers to test their add-ons in without having to get development versions signed.

Mozilla introduced add-on signing some time ago and will make it a requirement without override in Stable and Beta starting with Firefox 48.

Microsoft's offer to upgrade to Windows 10 from devices running eligible copies of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 expires today on July 29, 2016.

The company announced previously that it won't end the offer for customers who use assistive technologies. Microsoft did not reveal back then if and which requirements had to be met to take Microsoft up on the free upgrade offer after July 29, 2016.

Wikipedia announced today that it has updated the official application of the service for Android with new features and a redesigned home screen.

When you open the latest version of the Wikipedia application for Android, the new home screen is the first thing you see.

You may still run a search directly from it as the search function is available right at the top of the page. What more, you may tap on the microphone icon to run a voice search there as well.

Vopt, a once commercial program that allows you to defragment storage devices connected to Windows, and to run clean up operations, is now freeware.

The announcement is overshadowed by the death of the author of Vopt, Howard Barry Emerson. Emerson declared in his will that Vopt should become available for all users in the event of his death.

Vopt is offered as a free download on the developer website. There you find listed the registration file for the software program which you need to copy to the program folder on Windows to make it fully functional.

Professional editions of Windows 10 ship with the Group Policy Editor that enables users and administrators to make changes to the default configuration of the operating system.

Up until now, policy availability was more or less identical for all professional versions of Windows 10. Turns out, this is no longer the case when the Windows 10 Anniversary Update is released.

Microsoft announced recently that the upcoming version 1607 of Windows 10, known as the Anniversary Update, will only load kernel mode drivers that are digitally signed by Microsoft.

Compact OS is a new command line tool that Microsoft introduced in the Windows 10 operating system in an effort to reduce the system's disk footprint.

Probably the biggest change to previous versions of Windows in this regard is that Windows 10 does not need recovery images anymore, as the operating system will use existing files for that instead.

Compact OS is a new compression mechanism which takes files of the operating system and puts them in a (hidden) compressed container.

Pin Patrol is a free browser extension for the Firefox web browser that lists the HSTS and HPKP log the browser maintains.

We talked about HTTP Strict Transport (HSTS) and HTTP Public Key Pinning (HPKP) before here on Ghacks.

The two security features that are part of Firefox improve how Firefox handles secure connections. Without going into too many details. HSTS blocks insecure connections to sites if a web server instructed Firefox on first connect to do so.

LastPass has a bunch of critical problems of which at least one allows attackers to compromise the password manager remotely according to Google researcher Tavis Ormandy.

Opera announced yesterday that the company has been experimenting with a new memory Heap compaction feature in the Dev and Beta versions of Opera for some time.

The new feature promises better memory usage in Opera 39 and newer by adding a heap compaction phase to the browser's memory management functionality.

So-called Software Giveaway Sites, or software freebies sites, offer one or more commercial programs for free each day to their visitors.

All you need to do to grab a free license is to grab the program on that specific day. These versions are often limited, for instance by not including update rights in the license. While that may be an issue for some programs, it does not really matter for others.

Surprise, surprise. If things remain as they are, Windows 10 users who upgrade to the Anniversary Update won't be able to turn off Cortana anymore using the Cortana settings.

Microsoft announced two new tools, Researcher and Editor, for Word 2016 today that introduce better research integration and writing assistance.

Word 2016 is the newest version of the popular word editing software that is available to Office 365 users and customers who purchased a standalone copy of Office 2016.

The update is available today to all Office 365 subscribers who are using Word 2016 on the Windows desktop according to Microsoft.