Articles about Developer

If you've used Firefox, Chrome or numerous other browsers, you'll be used to the extensions you install synchronizing between device. This simple but wonderfully handy feature is something that has been sadly lacking from Microsoft Edge, but now this is changing.

Microsoft has promised extension syncing for a little while, and the company is finally starting to roll it out to users. But not everyone is going to get the feature right now.

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There are numerous technology companies that have agreed to offer their services for free as the world tries to tackle the coronavirus crisis, and others who have taken steps to reduce their strain on the internet. Tomorrow, #BuildforCOVID19 Global Online Hackathon kicks off, with many of the big names from the world of tech coming together to tackle some of the problems COVID-19 presents.

There are also numerous partners from the health community, including the World Health Organization, and the aim is to come up with software solutions that can be used to improve health and hygiene, help with social isolation, assist in education, and help businesses stay afloat.

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It won't be until November that we see the general release of .NET 5, but ahead of this Microsoft has released .NET 5 Preview 1 for developers to try out.

With .NET 5, Microsoft is continuing to unify .NET into a single platform; it will include ASP.NET Core, Entity Framework Core, WinForms, WPF, Xamarin and ML.NET. Key changes here are significant improvements to the Regex engine, which Microsoft says brings throughput improvements of  between 3x and 6x.

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Microsoft has announced plans to acquire npm Inc, the company behind popular JavaScript package manager npm.

No details of the amount of money involved have been revealed, nor the timing of the acquisition, but Microsoft says that it plans to integrate npm into GitHub. Both companies feels that acquisition will help the open source community in general, but the JavaScript community in particular.

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As coronavirus (COVID-19) makes it way around the world, governments are scrambling to contain the spread within their respective countries. Technology company are also reacting to the crisis, taking steps to clamp down on scams and misinformation.

Having already announced that all stores outside of Greater China will be closed for two weeks, Apple has now revealed strict limits on coronavirus-related apps in its App Store. The company say this is a move to try to ensure the credibility of health and safety information.

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Microsoft has released a new tool that will please anyone who has been frustrated by the behavior of Visual Studio and its tendency to leave behind old versions of .NET Core SDKs and runtimes after an upgrade.

The company has launched the .NET Core Uninstall Tool for Windows and macOS -- Linux users miss out for the time being -- which enables developers to free up disk space by tidying up the mess of leftover SDKs and runtimes.

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Since switching to the Chromium engine, Microsoft Edge just became a whole lot more interesting -- and development has sped up dramatically.

As well as speeding up Edge, Microsoft has been busy adding new features such as a Potentially Unwanted Apps blocker, support for Chrome extensions and more. One of the latest changes does nothing to add new features, but it is important for anyone concerned with aesthetics; there is now support for Chrome themes to change the look of the browser.

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Push notifications could be about to become rather more irritating for iPhone and iPad users. Apple has updated its App Store Review Guidelines, giving developers permission to use push notifications for advertising purposes.

There is something of a silver lining to this dark cloud, however. App-makers are not being given carte blanche to bombard people with an endless stream of ads; Apple says ads are only permitted when "customers have explicitly opted in to receive them". Nonetheless, it marks a major policy change for Apple.

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Now in its third year, the Call for Code Global Challenge encourages and fosters the creation of practical applications built on open source software. The goal is to employ technology in new ways that can make an immediate and lasting humanitarian impact in communities around the world.

For the 2020 challenge IBM is joining forces with key UN agencies and world leaders to help tackle climate change.

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Microsoft has started the roll out of changes to Windows Update that give Windows 10 users more control over the process of updating. There has been a spate of problematic updates from Microsoft recently, and the change that is rolling out now introduces a new "Optional updates" section to Windows Update.

An important aspect of the new Windows Update user experience is that driver updating has been dramatically improved. Microsoft says that the changes will help users to get hold of the "highest quality, and most reliable drivers faster and with less friction".

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Turning it all the way up to 11, Google today launched the Developer Preview of Android 11 -- or Android R, if you prefer. For now, the preview build is only compatible with Pixel devices (no surprises there), but what can you expect to see?

Google has chosen to put privacy and security front and center in Android 11, giving users more control and transparency. The company also says that it has added things such as enhancements for foldables and 5G, call-screening APIs, new media and camera capabilities, and machine learning.

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Microsoft has released Windows Terminal Preview v0.9 with a glut of new features and options. The company says that this update is the last release that will include new features before v1 launches.

In terms of what's new, there's a lot to explore. The latest version of Windows Terminal will now detect any version of PowerShell and automatically create a profile for you, and the wt execution alias now supports command line arguments.

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You're very likely still waiting for Android 10 to make its way to your handset, but Google is already working away on Android 11.

The company accidentally (probably) published the Android 11 Developer Preview page online, leading to speculation that a developer build might be in the offing. But it seems that there is no cause to get excited just yet...

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Windows 10X is the upcoming operating system from Microsoft, designed for dual-screen devices such as the Surface Duo and Neo. If you thought you would have to wait ages, or spend a fortune on a new device to try it out... think again.

Today, Microsoft releases a Windows 10X emulator, giving anyone who wants a glimpse of the future the chance to take the OS for a test drive. In reality, the Windows 10X emulator is designed with developers in mind, but there's nothing to stop anyone who is curious from trying it out.

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If the recent Chrome Dev Summit was evidence of what Google thinks is hot in web development, then frameworks were one of the clear winners. More specifically, client-side frameworks and libraries like Angular, Vue and React, and larger web frameworks like Next.js.

We spoke to Tim Neutkens, lead developer of Next.js -- which Google mentioned in its talk on Advancing the Web Framework Ecosystem -- to learn more about the rise of front-end frameworks and their general promise to get web developers out of the infrastructure weeds and focus more on building websites and apps.

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