Wayne Williams

If you believe StatCounter’s numbers, Windows 10 finally overtook Windows 7 in January. However, if you tend to trust NetMarketShare’s monthly desktop operating system figures more, well, then it didn’t.

According to the analyst firm’s numbers, in January Windows 10 narrowed the gap by a fair margin, but Windows 7 is still some way in the lead.

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Every month, StatCounter reports on the state of the desktop operating system market. Since October last year, the analyst company’s figures have shown the gap between Windows 10 and Windows 7 narrowing. It looked as if the newer OS would overtake the older one in November, but that didn’t happen, and it didn’t happen in December either.

However, in January, according to StatCounter, Windows 10 finally claimed the top spot.

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Performance matters. Technology may allow us to "go bigger", but maybe not necessarily be better when it comes to performance. Servers and Internet connections are getting more sophisticated, and as a result, we feel the need to keep filling them. However, this isn’t the time to become lazy. This is the time to utilize the amazing tools that are available for making websites faster, and to learn how to improve user experience and satisfaction.

Front-End Performance is a practical collection of tutorials on front-end website performance for web developers. It’s packed with useful, real world hints and tips that you can use on your sites today.

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Satirical Netflix anthology series Black Mirror (named after the reflection you see when staring at a phone with the screen off) presents a nightmarish vision of modern society and new technologies.

In each standalone episode, writer Charlie Brooker focuses on near-future technological innovations, like an immersive dating app that tells you when your relationship will end, a synthetic replica of a deceased loved one, and a virtual reality world for dead people. If you’ve ever watched the show and thought, 'I’d use that!' about a particular piece of future tech, you’re not alone.

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I usually have at least two Gmail windows open in my browser. One for my BetaNews email, and one for my personal account. There’s never been an easy way of knowing which is which in a tab-filled browser without clicking on one of the tabs, but this has now changed.

The icon on regular Gmail accounts is still red, but the icon for corporate Gmail accounts (G Suite), or Gmail with a custom domain, has turned blue.

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If you want to keep your personal data safe and secure, then a hardware encrypted drive is your best bet. Secure drives, like the Apricorn Aegis Secure Key 3z, require you to enter a PIN into the integrated keypad to unlock the drive. These also come with a variety of security measures to make sure they can’t be brute forced.

If you prefer a different way of securing your data -- one that doesn’t require remembering a long PIN -- then you might prefer a biometric solution like the Aegis Bio 3.0. This a USB drive with a built-in finger reader. Unlocking the drive, and therefore your data, just involves swiping your finger down the AuthenTec TouchStrip sensor.

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The Windows 10 Creators Update rollout was a bit of a mess. Shortly after it launched, Microsoft warned people not to install it, and a quarter of Windows 10 users still didn’t have it by the time its successor, the Fall Creators Update, arrived last October.

Microsoft has definitely learned its lessons this time around however, as the Fall Creators Update is being installed at a much faster rate. According to AdDuplex, last month (a mere two months after it launched), the Fall Creators Update was already on half of all Windows 10 PCs in use, and in January, that figure has increased to nearly three quarters.

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Windows Insiders have got used to Fast ring releases arriving at a slower pace lately, but it looks as if Microsoft might be stepping on the gas once more, as Build 17083 arrives a mere fortnight after 17074.

The latest build comes with lots of new features and improvements, including the additional privacy options announced earlier.

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When Microsoft first launched Windows 10 back in 2015, one of the big complaints people had about the new operating system was that it spied on users. Really spied on them.

Following the inevitable backlash, the software giant has reigned in this snooping with each new feature update, and the next big release -- codenamed Redstone 4 -- will take things further when it arrives in a few months' time.

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If you have important data that you need to have easy access to at all times, carrying it around on a USB flash drive makes sense. Unfortunately, these tiny storage devices are easily lost, and software encryption methods may not be 100 percent reliable.

If you want to guarantee that your personal data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands in the event of the loss -- or theft -- of your drive, the best solution is a hardware encrypted memory stick like the new USB 3.1 Aegis Secure Key 3z from Apricorn.

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React -- Tools & Resources is a collection of in-depth guides to some of the tools and resources most used with React, such as Jest and React Router, a look at Preact, and much more.

It usually retails for $29, but BetaNews readers can get it entirely free for a limited time.

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Apple has announced plans to make further investment in the US economy, spending some $350 billion over the course of the next 5 years. This figure does not include Apple's ongoing tax payments, tax revenues generated from employees' wages, or the sale of Apple products.

The tech giant promises to add 20,000 more American jobs (Apple already employs 84,000 people across all 50 states), and create a new campus -- to house technical support for customers -- at an as-yet unannounced location.

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Every few years or so, news breaks about a new bug that can cause iPhones and Macs to crash.

In 2013, it was discovered a string of Arabic characters could kill applications in OS X 10.8 and iOS 6, and then in 2015, the "Effective Power" bug allowed anyone to remotely reboot iPhones -- again by using a special sequence of characters.

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ProtonVPN’s free VPN service got off to a very rocky start when it launched 7 months ago. Demand was such that free users got put on to a waitlist, where they languished for months before even seeing an invite. The company did sort things eventually, and today it expands ProtonVPN further, by bringing the service to Android.

If you’re concerned about using a free VPN, the company says you shouldn’t be. The free service is funded by paid subscribers and subsidized by ProtonMail, meaning there are no ads and user data won't be sold to pay for it.

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Depending on which analyst firm you believe, Windows 10 will either finally overtake Windows 7 this month, or it won’t. Either way, the newest OS is narrowing the gap.

However, according to the Firefox Hardware Report, a public weekly survey of the hardware and software used by everyone running the release channel desktop build of Mozilla's web browser, Windows 10 still has a long way to go until it catches up to Windows 7.

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