Martin Brinkmann

Best Windows apps this week

Five-hundred-and-thirty-three in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft released the first build to the newly created Windows 11 Canary Insider channel. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced the creation of the new channel, which takes over the Dev channel's far-in-the-future developments.

Continue reading

It is time to move away from text-based two-factor authentication methods

Two-factor authentication is a solid security feature to protect accounts from unauthorized access. The security feature makes accounts by no means unbreakable, but it is a barrier against many common forms of attacks, including brute force attacks.

The main idea behind two-factor authentication is to require a second authentication code that is generated on the fly. Common options include generation in authentication apps that run on user devices and codes sent as text messages or in emails.

Continue reading

Best Windows apps this week

Five-hundred-and-thirty-two in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft released the second Moments update as a preview update for Windows 11 earlier this week. It brings tabs to Notepad, third-party widgets, new apps, and AI-powered Bing Chat to the operating system. Users who have interface modification tools installed should avoid the update for now, as it may result in startup issues.

Continue reading

Windows 12: What we know and don't know about it, and what could happen

Is Microsoft working on the next version of Windows? Will it be Windows 12? If the answer is yes, how will it look like and differ from Windows 11?

There is quite a bit of uncertainty regarding Windows right now. Microsoft ended support for the popular Windows 7 and the not-so popular Windows 8 operating systems in January 2023, and in less than 3 years, Windows 10 is added to the list of operating systems that are no longer supported. This would leave Windows 11 as the sole version of Windows that is available and supported officially.

Continue reading

Best Windows apps this week

Five-hundred-and-thirty-one in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

The next Moments update for Windows 11 is just around the corner. It is expected to be released in March 2023, and to include new features such as Energy Recommendations, a touch-optimized taskbar mode, and visual changes.

Continue reading

Best Windows apps this week

Five-hundred-and-thirty in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft released an update this week that removed Internet Explorer 11 permanently from most Windows 10 devices. Windows 10 and 11 devices are impacted by a new known issue that affects DirectX.

Continue reading

Meet DAN, ChatGPT's uncensored alter ego

Artificial Intelligence AI

ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. The dialogue-focused language model has reached the 100 million user mark faster than any other product before it. While it has been in the news everywhere, it has become clear to some of its users that the AI has limitations.

Besides the lack of information after the year 2021, it is also artificially restricted by its parent company OpenAI. It is clear that OpenAI wants to avoid accusations of bias, offensive answers and other discussions that make ChatGPT look like the next Hitler.

Continue reading

Best Windows apps this week

Five-hundred-and-twenty-nine in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Windows users who think that Windows 11 is using too many resources may check out tiny11, a custom third-party build of Windows 11 that is said to run on only 8 gigabytes of disk space and 2 gigabytes of RAM.

Continue reading

Windows 7's and 8.1's end of support is a massive chance for underdogs like Mozilla

Last month, Microsoft ended support for its Windows 7 and 8.1 operating systems officially. Windows 7 was kept alive by the company for business and Enterprise customers for the past three years through an Extended Security Updates program, but that ran out on the same day as support for Windows 8.1 ended.

Google and Microsoft announced that their browsers, Chrome and Edge, would not support both operating systems after support end. Chrome 109 and Edge 109, released in January 2023, are the last supported versions. The next stable versions, scheduled for a release in early February 2023, won’t support Windows 7 or 8.1 anymore.

Continue reading

Best Windows apps this week

Five-hundred-and-twenty-eight in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft stopped sales of Windows 10 on its own stores this week. The only client-based Windows operating system that is still available directly from Microsoft is Windows 11. Third-parties continue to sell Windows 10 licenses though.

Continue reading

Whether you like it or not, AI is coming to search engines

AI Search

The public release of ChatGPT has started an AI craze that has taken the online world by storm. ChatGPT, for those unaware is a language model that has been trained for dialogue specifically.

It works similarly to chatbots, but is not as limited to returning information based on certain keywords in requests.

Continue reading

Best Windows apps this week

Five-hundred-and-twenty-seven in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft won't sell its Windows 10 operating system anymore on its website after January 2023. Third-party retailers and OEMs may still sell Windows 10 licenses though.

Continue reading

A world without cookies is still an advertising world

Third-party tracking using cookies is coming to an end. While the death of cookies has been delayed several times already, there is no doubt that cookies won’t play a role anymore in the future when it comes to advertising.

Google, being an advertising company, needs to get it right though, as most of the organization’s revenue depends on advertising. Good news for Google is that it owns Chrome, which more or less determines through an update when cookies are no longer usable.

Continue reading

Windows 11 development: Chaos is the name of the game

When Microsoft announced that it would release a single feature update per year for its new Windows 11 operating system, one could hear a sigh of relief from many system administrators and also Home users.

The previous strategy of releasing two feature updates per year backfired, as it put a lot of strain on Microsoft but also administrators and users. The gain was not worth talking about usually, as the first feature update of the year did not really include many new features or improvements.

Continue reading

Best Windows apps this week

Five-hundred-and-twenty-six in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft released a new Windows 11 Insider build this week with a tabbed Notepad interface and Windows Spotlight improvements. Windows 11 users may run into "this app can't open" error messages on Windows 11 version 22H2 after system restore operations.

Continue reading

© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy.