There are plenty of internet speed test tools you can access from your browser, but it looks as though Microsoft is playing with the idea of adding one straight into Windows 11.

If the idea of an internet speed test tool being integrated into Windows 11 interests you, you should perhaps keep your expectation low. Early signs are that this is not an integrated speed tester as such, but a shortcut. Still, it is a useful feature, and making speed testing more accessible is very welcome.

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WhatsApp is a near-ubiquitous messaging app used and loved by millions of people globally. Its popularity does not mean, however, that it is perfect – there are many areas in which there is room for improvement.

Thankfully, WhatsApp developers are not inclined to rest on their laurels and add features, make changes and improvements, and respond to feedback with speed and frequency that puts other dev teams to shame. The latest addition is a welcome one: threaded messaging.

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This will all be over soon, we promise you. But for a little while longer you are going to continue hearing about Windows 10. It is something that has been talked about for so long that it would be easy to start to feel numb to any more mentions of the operating system, but the end of support for Windows 10 has reached an important milestone.

Over the weekend, we hit the point of there being only 30 days left. Never one to miss an opportunity to remind users of Windows 10 about the end of support – or, indeed, to suggest upgrading to Windows 11 – Microsoft issued a reminder about the upcoming end of servicing.

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Microsoft is by no means a stranger to nagging its customers in one way or another – usually with the intention of parting people from their money. In a somewhat unusual move, the company has used the latest preview builds of Windows 11 to introduce a way to pester Microsoft 365 (or “Office” to most of us) subscribers.

A full screen “reminder” – or nag screen – has been added in the Dev and Beta builds of Windows 11 released to Windows Insiders. Microsoft, of course, is talking about it in rather different terms.

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Every web browser has a browsing mode designed to be more private; in Chrome, it is Incognito Mode. But while switching to this mode can help with improving privacy at a local level, it is not flawless when it comes to blocking external privacy invasions.

Tackling the problem of websites using invisible images to track visitors who have cookies disabled, Google is currently testing a new method of making Incognito Mode more secure and private.

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Mastodon is to roll out the ability to quote other people’s posts in your own posts on the decentralized social platform. This is something that has been a very long time coming, with Mastodon having talked about it for months.

The reason it has taken so long for post quoting to become a reality is because of the protections that have been built-in. Specifically, users have controls over who is able to quote their posts in order to avoid “dunking” – the phenomenon that sees mass quoting used for negative purposes.

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Microsoft has managed to avoid a hefty fine or other sanctions after the European Commission accepted the company’s proposal for unbundling Teams from Office 365 and Microsoft 365.

 A complaint from Slack a few years ago started the European legal wheels turning as Microsoft was accused of anti-competitive behavior once again. The European Commission agreed that the company had “granti[ed] Teams an undue competitive advantage in terms of distribution”, but now accepts Microsoft’s unbundling proposal.

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Microsoft has announced that it is going to allow app developers to publish to the Microsoft Store without having to pay.

The company says that by removing a friction point of requiring a credit card, it is “creating a more inclusive and accessible platform”. More than just taking away registration fees, Microsoft is also offering free hosting, free signing and automatic updates for MSIX packages.

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Apple’s newly announced, soon to launch, AirPods Pro 3 have been greeted enthusiastically by a crowd prone to enthusiastically greeting Apple products. Even before they are available to buy, praise has been heaped upon the latest incarnation of the iPhone maker’s wireless earbuds – but it is not all good news.

While the proclaimed audio quality is laudable, while the new features sound impressive, there are definitely issues with the AirPods Pro 3. And, no, we’re not talking about the price.

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There are many reasons to love Spotify, and just as many to dislike it. One of its many failings has been the fact that audio quality has been – to be diplomatic – less than perfect.

Now, thanks to the long-awaited arrival of lossless audio, this is finally changing. The ability to hear tracks at the best possible quality is something that will be celebrated by Spotify users... but not everyone.

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The rollout of Windows 11 25H2 is now underway – at least to anyone signed up for the Windows Insider Release Preview channel. When the rollout started, there was disappointment when Microsoft did not have the ISOs for the build ready, saying that they would be coming soon.

But now the company has released the Windows 11 25H2 ISOs which is great news for anyone who likes to keep an offline. It is also extremely useful for people looking to install Windows 11 25H2 on multiple machines – ISOs just make things easier.

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Read receipts in WhatsApp are getting an upgrade. The two-tick system that appears below the sent message is loved and hated; yes, it lets you know that a message is sending, that it has been received, and that it has been read – but why is there no response now you know that it has been read!?

Putting aside concerns about why someone may be ignoring you, themes in WhatsApp which change the color of the messaging app can be problematic. If you’d become used to read receipts having blue check marks, the fact that some themes changed that had the potential for confusion. Now WhatsApp is addressing this.

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Bluesky was one of the social media platforms that enjoyed a surge of interest as people voted with their feet against Elon Musk. Still somewhat in its infancy, Bluesky continues to evolve and is slowly adding features that are common on many of its rivals.

The latest addition is bookmarking, or Saved Posts, a simple way to save a post so you can easily return to it at a later time. Unlike liking a post, bookmarking or saving is not public, so no other user will be aware of what you would like to look at again.

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History appears to be repeating. Plex has announced that it has suffered a security breach, exposing user data. The last time this happened was in 2022, and users are being advised to change passwords as soon as possible.

The company is referring to it as a “security incident that may potentially involve your Plex account information”. While Plex tries to downplay the severity of the breach, the fact that “an unauthorized third party accessed a limited subset of customer data from one of our databases” is concerning – especially when you consider that this is not the first time.

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In an age where there is increased concern about privacy and security, people are embracing messaging platforms such as Signal. While Signal and other apps of its ilk mean enjoying a security boost, such apps are playing catch-up with mainstream messaging platforms in terms of other features and options.

Signal has just announced the availability of secure backups for chats, promising an easy way to restore your messaging history to a new device. This is something that Signal users have been begging for, and now it is here. As you might expect with a platform associated with security and privacy, backups are not a simple matter with Signal.

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