Thankfully we can install MSEdgeRedirect to correct this, and I am happy to report it even works with the new Windows 11 Dev Channel build 25120 Search widget on the desktop.

You may wonder how it works, from the Github page, the description is as follows:

This tool filters and passes the command line arguments of Microsoft Edge processes into your default browser instead of hooking into the microsoft-edge: handler, this should provide resiliency against future changes.

This little guide will walk you through installing and configuring it to work on Windows 10 or 11. Before we start, this app is Open Source and available through Github, the developers also stresses that this is a beta software, which is makes sense, because Microsoft keeps moving the goal posts, which is why another popular app, EdgeDeflector, no longer works.

First off download the latest MSEdgeRedirect, which is as of writing 0.6.5.0. You can choose the installer or the portable version, whichever works for you. Run the executable and after carefully reviewing the License, accept it by clicking on Next.

Although Active Mode is recommended, this is beta software and I prefer to have full control over the app so I can adjust the settings and exit it from the system tray icon if needed, so I chose Service Mode, which also does not require Admin privileges, click Next.

Here you can set the app preferences, I chose to start the app with Windows and redirect Windows Store 'Apps' from using Edge, this is important to check off, because the widgets in Windows 10 like the News & Interests panel and widgets in Windows 11 now use Edge if you do not select to redirect Windows Store 'Apps'. If you want, you can also stop Windows using Bing for search results and redirect to your favorite Search engine.

In my case I was also updating from an older version too, click Install or Update, depending on your situation.

Lastly, you can set your preferred options as seen above and click finish.

As pointed out above, this app even opens the default browser choice when using the new Desktop Search widget on Windows 11 build 25120, as well as all widgets and search terms from the Start menu are properly redirected to your default browser.

Ultimately, it's up to you if you want to take back control.

Force widgets in Windows 11 or 10 to use default browser instead of Edge

As of now, the desktop search is available for a limited set of Windows Insiders, which means not everyone can test it right away. Fortunately, there is a way to force-enable the desktop search on any computer updated to Windows 11 build 25120.

Important: Desktop search in Windows 11 25120 is an early experimental feature Microsoft may remove or change in future Windows Insider builds. We will update this article accordingly when necessary.

Enable search on the desktop in Windows 11 build 25120

If you are lucky, the desktop search bar will be available for you right after installing build 25120. Other users need to enable it manually. Here is how to do that.

1. Download ViveTool from its repository on Github.
2. Unpack the downloaded archive to any folder.
3. Open the folder with ViveTool, click the address bar and copy the path.
4. Press Win + R, enter cmd and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to launch Command Prompt as Administrator.
5. In Command Prompt, type CD, then paste the previously copied path and press Enter. Your command should look similar to CD C:\Vive.
6. Type vivetool addconfig 37969115 2 and press Enter.
7. Restart your computer to apply changes.

Note that the search bar completely ignores all your browser-related settings. It will search using Bing and Microsoft Edge only. Fortunately, you can bypass this user-hostile constraint using MSEdgeRedirect.

How to disable the desktop search bar in Windows 11

1. Right-click empty space on your desktop and click Show more Options. Alternatively, press Shift + F10 without opening any menus.

   

2. Find and click the Show search option below Personalize. After that, Windows 11 will remove the desktop search bar.

   

That is how to enable or disable the desktop search bar in Windows 11.

How to enable or disable search on desktop in Windows 11 build 25120

Build 25120 rolled out to the Windows 11 Dev Channel a few hours ago and its highlight is a new search experience that pins a search bar to the center of your desktop. While we're not against the idea of having easier way to browse the web, the usual problem is that this component does not respect your default browser preferences.

This "issue" was highlighted by Rafael Rivera on Twitter:

As can be seen in the screenshot above, even though the default browser is set to Google Chrome, the desktop search UI in Windows 11 forcefully opens Edge.

This kind of practice is not new from Microsoft. Although the company has finally made it slightly easier to switch the default browser in Windows 11, it still does not respect your browser preferences in many Windows components.

It is important to note that Dev Channel features may not end up making their way to a generally available version of Windows at all. That said, if you do like the idea of a new way to browse the web but do not appreciate Microsoft forcing you to use Edge, now might be a good idea to raise this issue in the Feedback Hub.

Windows desktop search in build 25120 forces you to use Microsoft Edge

While Mozilla plans to introduce support for Manifest V3 in Firefox, it won't remove support for APIs that are essential to privacy extensions. Content blockers and other privacy extensions will continue to function in Firefox as before, provided that developers continue to support them.

Manifest V3 defines APIs and the capabilities of browser extensions. Google announced the new version of the manifest in early 2019 and revealed that Chrome extensions would have to be updated eventually to remain available for users of the Chrome browser.

The initial version of the draft was discussed controversially. Developers voiced concern over some of the planned changes, as they would limit privacy-focused extensions such as content blockers from working properly. Google made some concessions to developers but continued its work on introducing the new capabilities and removing the old. The company landed Manifest V3 support in Chrome Canary 80 and in Chrome Beta 88.

Firefox extensions won't be limited by Manifest V3

Mozilla announced in 2019 that it would implement support for Manifest V3 in Firefox but would make adjustments to certain limitations. A new blog post on the Mozilla Add-ons Community blog sheds light on the adoption and the differences between Mozilla's and Google's implementation.

The decision to remove the blocking part of the WebRequest API and to replace it with the limiting declarativeNetRequest API was at the center of the controversy. Mozilla notes that the new API limits "capabilities of certain types of privacy extensions without adequate replacement".

Mozilla will keep the WebRequest API in Firefox to make sure that privacy extensions are not limited in providing the functionality they are designed for. The organization will implement the declarativeNetRequest API for compatibility reasons according to the blog post.

Mozilla will "continue to work with content blockers and other key consumers of this API to identify current and future alternatives where appropriate".

Firefox will also support Event Pages in Manifest V3 and introduce support for Service Workers in future releases.

Developer Preview

Developers may turn on the preview in the following way in current development editions of the browser:

1. Load about:config in the web browser's address bar.
2. Confirm that you will be careful.
3. Search for extensions.manifestV3.enabled and set the preference to TRUE with a click on the toggle.
4. Search for xpinstall.signatures.required and set the preference to FALSE.
5. Restart Firefox.

Extensions may then be installed via about:debugging. Permanent installation of Manifest V3 extensions is possible in Nightly and Developer editions of the Firefox web browser. The implementation is not complete at the time of writing.

Now You: what is your take on Mozilla's decision?

Mozilla expects to launch extensions Manifest V3 support in Firefox in late 2022

Windows Server vNext build 25120 was also released today, possibly indicating that these editions will sync up.

Here are the highlights for build 25120:

• ARM64 devices will be able to update to this build.
• We are releasing ISOs for this build – they can be downloaded here.
• This build includes some general improvements and fixes.

Here is the one change and improvement in this build:

[General]

As described in our in our blog post here, Windows Insiders who use the Dev Channel may get to try out new ideas, longer lead features, and experiences that are intended to help validate concepts. Starting with this preview build, some Insiders will see one of these conceptual features as we begin to explore exposing lightweight interactive content on the Windows desktop. Today, Windows exposes this type of content in the Widgets board. To begin assessing this general idea and interaction model, the first exploration in this area adds a search box displayed on the desktop that enables you to search the web.

If you would like to remove this search box, you can right-click on the desktop, choose “Show more options,” and toggle the “Show search” option.

We are excited to learn your feedback on this interaction model, so please use the Feedback Hub to provide feedback if you receive this experiment.

NOTE: A reboot is required after updating to this build to trigger this experience but please note that not all Windows Insiders will have this experience enabled even after reboot.

Here are all the fixes in build 25115:

[Suggested Actions]

• Suggested actions should appear for more date and time formats now.

   

• Addressed some issues with certain formats when copying a date and/or time.

   

• Improved overall performance and reliability of the feature.

   

[Settings]

• Fixed an issue that could crash Settings when opening and looking at the battery usage graph.

   

• Improved performance of displaying Wi-Fi networks after enabling Wi-Fi from the Wi-Fi section of Quick Settings.

   

[Task Manager]

• Addressed an issue leading to some unreadable text in the Performance page when a contrast theme was enabled.

   

[Other]

• Fixed an issue which could cause Windows Update to stall and roll back updates for WSA users.

   

• Did some work to address a stutter in the progress wheel animation when upgrading to a new build.

   

NOTE: Some fixes noted here in Insider Preview builds from the Dev Channel may make their way into the servicing updates for the released version of Windows 11.

There's only a couple of known issues to be aware of in build 25115:

[General]

• Some games that use Easy Anti-Cheat may crash or cause your PC to bugcheck.

   

[Live captions]

• Certain apps in full screen (e.g., video players) prevent live captions from being visible.

   

• Certain apps positioned near the top of the screen and closed before live captions is run will re-launch behind the live captions window positioned at top. Use the system menu (ALT + Spacebar) while the app has focus to move the app’s window further down.

   

Microsoft noted that Windows Insiders should be aware that features released in Dev builds may never make it to the Beta and stable builds of Windows 11 as the Dev Channel is a place to test features. You can read the full statement below:

The Dev Channel receives builds that represent long lead work from our engineers with features and experiences that may never get released as we try out different concepts and get feedback. It is important to remember that the builds we release to the Dev Channel should not be seen as matched to any specific release of Windows and the features included may change over time, be removed, or replaced in Insider builds or may never be released beyond Windows Insiders to general customers. For more information, please read this blog post about how we plan to use the Dev Channel to incubate new ideas, work on long lead items, and control the states of individual features.

Microsoft also noted that the desktop watermark is back in this build:

The desktop watermark you see at the lower right corner of your desktop is normal for these pre-release builds.

Today's blog post is linked here.

Windows 11 build 25120 released to the Dev channel now supports ARM64 devices

Browser-maker Vivaldi has added Renault to the list of users for the Android Automotive OS version of its eponymous web renderer.

The company had already brought the Chromium-based browser to Polestar 2 electric vehicles at the end of 2021, so its arrival in another Android Automotive OS car was not entirely a surprise.

In this instance it is the big screen of the Megane E-Tech Electric on the receiving end, as well as the Austral and pretty much all future cars featuring the OpenR Link system.

Renault is betting big on OpenR, and described it as "seven times smoother to use than the previous generation."

It isn't only the bet that is big; the system itself (on the Megane E-Tech at least) comprises a vertical 12-inch screen on the center console and horizontal 12.3-inch screen built into the dashboard. With a 267ppi resolution and anti-reflective and anti-smudge coatings, the display should make Vivaldi's browser look pleasant enough.

Although you'll need to be parked if you actually want to use it. Pull away, and streaming content becomes audio only.

Google recently announced a revamp of Android Automotive OS, which included a split screen mode and a boast that the number of compatible vehicles had hit 150m worldwide.

Vivaldi for Android Automotive is, however, available for Polestar 2 and OpenR-enabled Renaults. A Vivaldi spokesperson hinted that more big names are in the pipeline and Renault's partners in the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance must be keeping at least half an eye on proceedings.

The browser is available in France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK and is installed via the MY Renault app.

Being pretty much the full-fat version of Vivaldi (replete with features such as Vivaldi's approach to tab-handling) means the code should receive regular updates alongside the Windows, Linux, macOS and Android versions. Logging into a Vivaldi account will also mean browser data will be synchronized over devices, although one's private data will neither be stored in the car nor be accessible by Renault. ®

Source

Despite making Windows 11 available for broad deployment, Microsoft does not plan to impose it as it did in 2015 by force-updating users to Windows 10. The newest operating system remains optional, and you are free to stay with Windows 10, which will receive three more years of active support.

Microsoft may hold you off Windows 11, even if you try to update a fully compatible computer that meets all the hardware requirements. This happens when a known issue applies to your device. For example, when Microsoft finds a bug in an app or driver, it temporarily flags affected systems as incompatible until a solution is available to prevent user frustration.

As of now, there is only one "upgrade block" affecting computers with a specific Intel SST driver. Windows 10-based PCs with that driver do not receive the offer to install Windows 11. You can learn more about the bug and how to bypass it in the official documentation.

Windows 11 getting the "ready for broad deployment" status comes at an interesting time. Microsoft is about to ship the first feature update that should fix many shortcomings of the initial release. Still, Microsoft thinks Windows 11 is now suitable for all users with qualifying hardware.

Microsoft and regular users often have different views on whether an update is "ready for all." Hence, it is natural to expect a big chunk of Windows 10 customers remaining reluctant to install Windows 11 until it gets more polish and features. According to the latest data from AdDuplex, every fifth Windows PC now runs Windows 11, and the OS is steadily gaining more people on Steam.

If you plan to upgrade from Windows 10 to 11 for the first time, check out the list of temporarily unavailable and removed features that may catch you off-guard after updating. Also, we recommend reading our comprehensive review of Windows 11 22H2 to learn more about what is coming soon.

Microsoft says Windows 11 is now ready for broad deployment

The latest version of Edge Dev is 103.0.1255.0. Microsoft has started testing the Microsoft Edge Secure Network feature with select users with the latest update. The company says it will collect feedback to improve the in-browser privacy experience.

The latest Edge Dev update has so much more than the in-browser privacy experience. It comes with the following new features:

• Features to Support launch some universal links.
• Features for Presentations and Spreadsheets searches.
• Group policy feature for the guided switch.
• Feature to trigger for complete address fill logic.
• Management policy to control if Guided Switch is Enabled.
• Added a .NET API to WebView2 to support multiple profiles.

Moreover, the latest version comes with many improvements and bug fixes. You can check out the fixes and improvements below.

Edge Dev 103.0.1255.0 Improvements

Microsoft Edge Dev 103.0.1255.0 Bug fixes and other changes

If you want to test these new features, You can download Microsoft Edge Dev here from the Official Microsoft Edge Insider website.

Microsoft Edge Dev build 103.0.1255.0 adds several new features

Thunderbird users who speak multiple languages may have had spell checking difficulties in the past. Current versions of the email client support one active language only at a time, and that meant that users either had to switch languages regularly or compose emails without spell checking.

Switching required the selection of Options > Check Spelling, or using the shortcut Ctrl-Shift-P, to open the spell checking window. The language menu listed all available spell checking languages, and the selection of a language switched the spell checker to that language.

Thunderbird includes a single language by default, but users may install new language dictionaries as extensions. The Dictionaries & Language Packs page on the official Thunderbird add-ons website lists all available options. Once a dictionary is installed, it becomes available under language in the spell checking window of the email client.

While the checking of multiple languages is the prime purpose of adding multi active dictionary support to Thunderbird, there are other use cases. Some users may want to add dictionaries with dialects to Thunderbird, or dictionaries that use a distinct vocabulary that may not be found in regular language dictionaries.

Whatever the reason, starting in Thunderbird 102, users of the email client will have the option to use them all at the same time when using the email client.

Thunderbird, which shares code with the Firefox web browser, follows the browser, which introduced support for multiple active spell checking dictionaries in the Firefox 100 release.

Thunderbird users may check out bug 1761221 to learn more about the implementation.

Thunderbird 102 is a major new release that will include several new features and improvements, including improved importing of data from select clients.

The stable version of Thunderbird 102 is expected to be released in late June or early July 2022. Users interested in testing the functionality may check out the Daily versions of the email client, which includes all the changes for testing purposes already.

Now You: have a favorite Thunderbird 102 feature or thing something is missing?

Thunderbird 102: support for multiple active spell checking dictionaries

Whenever possible, I like to use FaceTime Audio or WhatsApp instead of making regular phone calls. The people I’m calling see it like a normal phone call, but the audio quality is leaps and bounds better than a good old-fashioned phone call.

But! It turns out I wasn’t even doing my internet calls the right way. Today, I learned that there’s a newish feature buried in the Control Center that instantly improves the quality of your microphone during calls, whether you’re audio-only or on video.

It’s called Voice Isolation, and it works on most iPhones, iPads and Macs from the last few years as long as you’re running iOS 15 or macOS Monterey. (Anything that supports Spatial Audio seems to also support Voice Isolation.) It’s weirdly hard to find, and you can only access the setting when you’re already in a call: you swipe down from the upper-right corner (or click in the upper-right corner on a Mac) to get to the Control Center, then tap on the button that says “Mic Mode.” By default, it’s set to Standard, but there are two other options: Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum. Wide Spectrum will actually let the other people on your call hear more background noise, which I guess is useful if you’re holding up your phone at a concert but mostly sounds like a horrible thing to do to the other people on the line. But Voice Isolation? Voice Isolation is where the magic happens.

Basically, when you enable Voice Isolation, your device begins to aggressively process the audio coming into your mic in order to remove background noise. When I turned on the setting on my iPhone 12, my dog barking 20 feet away completely disappeared — and so did nearly all of the sounds of traffic. When I turned it on on my MacBook, the sounds of both my laptop fan and my keyboard typing stopped coming through altogether.

In the process of isolating the voice, Apple also seems to bring it closer; there’s much less echo and room tone, so it sounds like you’re holding your phone to your face even when you’re not. The tradeoff is that your voice definitely sounds more processed, but it always sounds processed through apps like FaceTime or Zoom.

In my testing, there was one moment when two cars revved their engines at the same time only a few feet from where I was standing when the AI seemed to get overwhelmed and just output a half-second of total silence. But it’s not like you’d have been able to hear me over the roar anyway, right? And, in general, a little more processing for a lot less background noise is an easy trade to make for most calls.

To turn on Voice Isolation, open up Control Center while you’re on a call. Image: Apple/David Pierce

There are only two problems with Voice Isolation. One, it’s not a universal setting, so you’ll have to enable it in every app you use for calls. Two, it doesn’t work everywhere. Apple makes Voice Isolation available through an API on iOS, iPadOS and macOS, but not every app supports it. On mobile devices, the track record is pretty good: Snapchat, WhatsApp, Slack, Signal, and Instagram all support it, though TikTok doesn’t. Zoom had it on iOS but not the Mac, and there’s no way to turn it on for any in-browser apps as far as I can tell, so that rules out Google Meet and a handful of others.

But the most glaring absence? Regular ol’ phone calls. There are no Mic Modes at all for phone calls even though that’s the place you could probably most use a little bit of improvement. I asked Apple why this is, but the company didn’t comment.

To be fair, even in normal modes, Apple’s doing some noise-cancellation work. If you ever want to test it, hold up a fan to your phone and listen as the device takes a few seconds to identify and suppress it, but it doesn’t go far enough. I’ve now heard Voice Isolation, which means I’ve heard what better can sound like. And I want it everywhere, and I want it on all the time — for my sake and for everyone I talk to.

Apple’s hidden setting instantly makes your video and audio calls sound better

Now, Microsoft has officially started testing the One Outlook client with the public.

The new Outlook app integrates with Microsoft Loop components so you can streamline your workflow across Outlook and Teams. You can also quickly attach documents and files stored in the cloud to emails using the @thenameofthefile syntax.

There are some intelligent features in tow too. Basically, if you forget to respond to an email that Outlook deems important, it will surface this information to you and pin it at the top of your inbox until you dismiss it.

You can also drag and drop emails to My Day in the app, which is basically a To Do list for you to keep track of your activities for the day. Microsoft has revamped the Calendar with a board view too and you can customize it with various components such as To Do, goals, files, and more.

There's a new Outlook RSVP mechanism to cater to the hybrid work environment as well. It allows you to clarify whether you'll be attending a meeting in-person or online. Other smaller capabilities include pinning emails and new automated policies to clean and prioritize emails in your inbox using Sweep.

Since the new Outlook app is currently available in preview only, there are a bunch of known issues, primarily related to lack of features compared to the existing generally available (GA) offering. You can find out more details here.

As it currently stands, the One Outlook for Windows experience is available to Office Insiders in the Beta Channel Beta Channel Version 2205 (Build 15225.20000) or later. There should be a "Try the New Outlook" toggle on the top-right of your Outlook for Windows app to trigger it. You can use the same toggle to revert back to the classic version at any time.

Microsoft has started testing the One Outlook revamp publicly

Almost five months after Google announced that it was going to make G Suite legacy free edition users start paying for their accounts, it seems to finally have a path in place that most people will be happy with. According to 9to5Google, there’s now a no-cost option that’ll let people keep using their G Suite accounts for personal use, and signing up for it won’t involve a song and dance of joining a waitlist or transferring data between accounts.

In January, Google announced that free G Suite users would have to start paying for Google Workspace if they wanted to keep their accounts, after around a decade of keeping the legacy free tier around. The company said that if users didn’t decide which paid Workspace tier they wanted by May 1st, they’d be automatically upgraded based on their use. Later, Google said you’d have the option of transferring to a free account, but that you’d lose some features doing so. Now though, there’s going to be an option to just keep using the service that’s open to people who aren’t using it for business purposes, according to a Google support document.

Google’s explanation of the personal use path. Image: u/AB3DC on Reddit

The no-cost personal use option will let you keep using a custom domain with Gmail, use free Google apps like YouTube, Docs, and Meet, and keep all your data and purchases. Basically, everything’s going to stay the same, as long as you choose the no-cost personal transition path by June 27th. You can find the instructions on how to do so in the Google support document, and Reddit user u/AB3DC has posted screenshots (one of which you can see above) in the GSuiteLegacyMigration subreddit showing what the process will look like. Google does note that “G Suite legacy free edition does not include support,” and that it may “remove certain business functionality” from the plan in the future.

Personally, this “transition path,” as Google calls it, seems like what should’ve been announced in the first place. A lot of people weren’t terribly happy about the previous version of the plan, especially those who weren’t part of a company, and had just been using G Suite free because it was a good option for power users at the time. For a while, it seemed like Google was going to make them pay for business features they absolutely didn’t need.

It didn’t help that, originally, people’s options were either to start paying up or export their data and set up a new standard account. In April Google moved the deadline back, and announced that there would be a tool to let you transfer to a free account, but you had to join a waitlist for that, and you would’ve lost access to the ability to use a custom domain. To put it simply, it was still going to be kind of a pain in the ass (as evidenced by the fact that there’s an entire subreddit dedicated to discussing the transition). Now, it seems like Google has got it sorted: if you’re a business, you’ll pay. If you’re not, you don’t have to.

Google’s finally straightening out its legacy free G Suite mess

Screenshots of the new Designer Preview app are below:

The leakster has also shared how one can access the feature which is available on designer.microsoft.com for those who wish to discover this for themselves.

The term Designer has been used before by Microsoft to denote a product. For those that can't quite recall or are unfamiliar with it, the Redmond company introduced a "Designer" feature in PowerPoint back in 2015 which received significant feature upgrades a year later.

It is difficult to say for sure right now if Designer is in anyway an upgraded version of the PowerPoint feature as details are scarce at the moment. The upcoming app may relate to something else entirely as there are a few other suspects that share aspects with the new Designer app.

For example, Microsoft's Publisher hasn't had any significant UI update in a long time and is long overdue for an overhaul. Designer could also be an upgrade to another old Office application called Sway.

Lastly, Designer could also be Microsoft's in-house solution and competitor for Canva, which is a popular design tool that's available on Windows.

Source and images: WalkingCat (Twitter)

Several images of an unknown Windows 11 app called "Designer" leak out

If you use Windows 10, you can download Teams from the Microsoft Store without any surprises. The company says Teams on Windows 10 works with work, school, and personal accounts. Confusingly, things are slightly different when you download Teams on Windows 11. Because Windows 11 has the built-in Chat app (that thing that sits on the taskbar by default and consumes quite a lot of resources), Teams from the Store supports only work and school accounts.

Microsoft announced Teams in 2016 and released the service in 2017 after a failed attempt to buy Slack. The company managed to make Teams quite a popular piece of corporate software by bundling it with existing Microsoft 365 subscriptions.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, regular consumers are not that excited about Teams, even though Microsoft bundles the app with Windows 11. Most people keep using mainstream messengers and stay away from Teams.

At last, Microsoft brings Teams to the Microsoft Store

iOS 15.5 and macOS 12.4 bring updates to Podcasts, digital payments, and more

As things stand right now, WhatsApp notifies everyone in the group with an auto-generated message when someone leaves the group. With the arrival of the new feature, things will be a bit different because only admins will be notified, and no such auto-generated message will be shown to other group participants.

WABetainfo has posted a screenshot explaining how it will work. When participants choose to leave a group, WhatsApp will tell them that it won’t notify everyone except the group admin.

Image: WABetainfo

The above screenshot is from the desktop client, but that doesn’t mean its Android and iOS client won’t get the feature. WABetainfo claims that the feature will be available on WhatsApp across all platforms. WhatsApp will roll out the capability in the future update. However, we don’t know when it will be available.

The ability to leave the group is in the development stage, meaning users cannot use the feature right now.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp will keep working on new features to make the chat messenger more useful. The instant chat messenger recently introduced several new features, including message reactions, file sharing improvements, the ability to add as many as 512 people in a group,

The Meta-owned company recently announced several new features, including 32-person audio calls, the ability to view status updates in the chat list, the ability to use a single WhatsApp account on multiple devices, and more. These features are in the development phase and will be available for the general public once ready. You can read about them in more detail here.

WhatsApp will soon allow users to leave groups silently

Inkscape 1.2

Inkscape 1.2 is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS devices. The program is free and open source. Windows users may run into SmartScreen warnings when they run the installer; this is a false positive, likely because the executable file is new.

One of the main new features of Inkscape is support for multiple pages. Inkscape users may activate the "new page" icon after selecting the Page Tool in the interface to add pages to the current document.

Each page may have different dimensions; the selected dimension is applied automatically to the new page when the button is activated.

The application's interface has seen several improvements. Context menus display only items that are available at the time. Items that are not available are no longer grayed out, but removed to help users find actions quicker.

The color palette and the Swatches dialog has been overhauled as well in the release. A preview line for the selected color palette is shown now when you switch palettes in the interface. It is now possible to display up to 5 palette rows in the interface.

Tools can be hidden from the toolbar under Edit > Preferences > Interface > Toolbars. Another change allows users to change the width of the toolbar.

Here are other changes in the new Inkscape release:

• Extract images, a command to save images, supports multiple images in Inkscape 1.2.
• Dithering is used when exporting raster images and displaying gradients on canvas; this is done to reduce gradient banding. Inkscape users may turn Dithering off under Preferences > Rendering > Use dithering.
• Extensions installed via the Extensions Manager do not require a restart of Inkscape anymore.
• Panning and Zooming performance improvements, as well as general performance improvements on Mac devices.
• Page shadows look more realistic.
• Default color of pages is white, and the default desk color is light gray. This has been done to make the differentiation between what is on and outside of a page easier.
• Snap bar was replaced with a popover-dialog.
• Two new on-canvas snapping modes added. The new modes make "aligning and distributing objects a very easy drag-and-drop operation".
• Size of guide handles is adjustable.
• The tools pen, pencil, text and tweak tool use the last used style by default.
• Mass value of the Eraser tool has been increased.
• Default font unit for Text is pt.
• Lasso selection has two new features: node deselection and inverted node selection.
• The layers and objects dialog has been merged.
• New Tiling Live Path effect.
• Option to import SVG images from Open Clipart, Wikimedia Commons and other online sources added.

You can check out the entire release notes here.

Closing Words

Inkscape 1.2 adds a massive list of features and improvements to the graphics editor.

Now You: which image editors do you use?

Vector Graphics Editor Inkscape 1.2 is now available

Frontpaged:   Inkscape 1.2

But what if you’re not blown away by any of those? AvdanOS Pro gives us a glimpse of what the future could look like.

Serial concept creator Kamer Kaan Avdan has previously designed updated versions of Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows 7, as well as Apple’s version of Windows 10, and Windows 20. He even showcased his idea for Windows 11 long before Windows 11 was even announced.

Three months ago, the talented designer created a video for his own operating system vision, which he called AvdanOS.

This was very well received, so much so that Avdan introduced some paid membership tiers to give developers access to the wallpapers and icons he created for his concept, and already some people are using these to turn his vision into a working reality.

Now though, Avdan takes his creation a step further, with AvdanOS Pro, and it looks even more amazing.

Describing the differences, Avdan says: "The Pro Mode on AvdanOS allows you to work more organized and more efficient. You can easily manage your workplaces right on the Desktop using the Desktops widget." That’s just for starters though.

The OS shares  many of the design elements of both Windows 11 and macOS, but with a stylish identity all of its own.

The video looks incredible and it’s clear this project is a real labor of love for Avdan.

Take a look at the video below, and let you me know what you think of it in the comments. Would you prefer to use this instead of Windows, macOS, or Linux, if you had the chance?

Hey developers, testers, designers and everybody. Where are you ? Join us for development Remember, we saw a dream together and we will make it true together!. So, come on. 

Thank you

Source AvdanOS Pro

You may be a bit surprised by this announcement as Nvidia had already ended driver support for Kepler. However, this is not the general Game Ready driver which brings support for new graphics cards or optimizations for new game titles. Instead, this is a security update driver meant to patch some of the security issues that have come up. Nvidia had earlier stated that it would provide security updates for Kepler through September 2024, and it looks like the company is keeping true to its word.

As such, the driver changelog does not list any fixed bugs or known issues. The release note only says:

NVIDIA has released a software security update display driver for desktop Kepler-series GeForce GPUs which are no longer supported by Game Ready Drivers. This update addresses issues that may lead to multiple security impacts.

The links to download the new security drivers are provided below:

Download: Windows 10 (en-US): Standard / DCH (473.47)

The driver mitigates the following security vulnerabilities:

• CVE-2022-28181
• CVE-2022-28182
• CVE-2022-28183
• CVE-2022-28184
• CVE-2022-28185
• CVE-2022-28186
• CVE-2022-28187
• CVE-2022-28188
• CVE-2022-28189
• CVE-2022-28190
• CVE-2022-28191
• CVE-2022-28192

You can find more details on these vulnerabilities on Nvidia's security bulletin page here.

Nvidia releases emergency security driver for Kepler GTX 700 and 600 series GPUs

The latest update takes the app version to 4.2217.1 and adds the ability to drag a recipient between To, CC, and BCC fields. However, the update includes no other changes, bug fixes, and improvements.

You can read the complete official changelog below.

Changelog

Microsoft Outlook Version 4.2217.1 changelog

Microsoft Outlook already supports nifty features like Play My emails, FAQ experience in the app, built-in support for iCS attachments, the ability to create an Outlook email account, and more. Microsoft will continue to add useful features like these to Outlook through app updates, thereby making the app better.

Microsoft Outlook gets updated with a new feature

Windows 11 has been crashing recently due to faulty drivers, some of which were essential for the smooth and reliable functioning of antivirus platforms. Cybersecurity company Sophos had recently released two temporary workarounds for fixing the random BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). The company has now released a fix that addresses the issue completely.

The recent Windows 11 Patch Tuesday included KB5013943, which has caused considerable trouble. It seems the buggy update caused many applications to malfunction, generated black screen issues, BSODs, and more.

Cybersecurity company Sophos claims the random Windows 11 crashes, resulting in brief BSOD screens, are due to faulty drivers. Interestingly, some of the drivers that are causing trouble, are necessary for antivirus solutions.

The antivirus company recently published a blog post highlighting two temporary workarounds. However, Sophos has updated the page to confirm it is rolling out a fully-fledged fix that should solve the problem completely. The patch is meant to fix Windows 11 BSOD issues for Sophos customers only.

Several Windows 11 users who received the troubling update from Microsoft, claimed the infamous blue screen appears very briefly. This makes it near impossible to read the error code. Some users, however, have reported seeing the error “APC_INDEX_MISMATCH”. The cryptic nature of the error makes it difficult to troubleshoot the issue.

As the KB5013943 update isn’t optional, it's quite likely that many Windows 11 users could continue struggling with random crashes. Sophos, however, claims that its customers shouldn’t face the same troubles.

Other antivirus companies have yet to come forth with fixes or solutions for the BSOD issue plaguing Windows 11 after installing the KB5013943 update. However, now that Sophos claims it has discovered the root cause, others could follow with their own patches.

Latest Windows 11 BSOD due to faulty drivers needed by antivirus software, claims Sophos

When Windows users press Alt+F4, a shutdown options dialogue box appears. The shutdown box in Windows 11 currently looks identical to the one present in Windows 10. Microsoft has tweaked the appearance of the “Shut Down Windows” option and given it a more modern look.

The shutdown dialogue box includes a drop-down menu giving users the choice to hibernate, shut down, restart or standby their PC. All these options look slightly different in Build 25115. Microsoft is trying a slightly updated interface for the famous Alt+F4 dialog. The revamp replaces the traditional Windows logo with a cleaner look. However, the tweaked shutdown dialogue box in Windows 11 ironically looks similar to the dialog from the Windows 95-era.

With the introduction of Windows 11, Microsoft has been actively adding WinUI elements like Mica to various aspects of the operating system. The Shutdown dialog seemed to have missed the transition, but the latest build activates the new look. Currently, Mica applies to the Windows apps title bar only and Fluent Design is also missing.

Apart from the Shutdown dialog box, Microsoft is also testing WinUI and Fluent Design icons for WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment). Windows 11 still has a Windows 8-era WinRE interface, which appears outdated in the modern OS. Microsoft recently replaced most of the icons in WinRE with new ones.

While these aren't huge changes, they indicate Microsoft is serious about ensuring consistency in various design elements. Although the cosmetic changes in the latest build available in the Dev channel are in line with the rest of the OS, there’s no assurance Microsoft will retain them in Windows 11 23H2.

Microsoft is improving Shut Down and WinRE in Windows 11 with modern look and icons

Kali Linux is a Linux distribution for cybersecurity professionals and ethical hackers to perform penetration testing, security audits, and research against internal and remote networks.

With this release, the Kali Linux Team introduces a variety of new features, including:

•  GNOME 42 - Major release update of the popular desktop environment
• KDE Plasma 5.24 - Version bump with a more polished experience
• Multiple desktop enhancements - Disabled motherboard beep on Xfce, alternative panel layout for ARM, better support for VirtualBox shared folders, and lots more.
• Tweaks for the terminal - Enhanced Zsh syntax-highlighting, inclusion of Python3-pip and Python3-virtualenv by default
• April fools - Hollywood mode - Awesome screensaver
• Kali Unkaputtbar - BTRFS snapshot support for Kali
• Win-KeX 3.1 - sudo support for GUI apps
• New tools - Various new tools added.
• WPS attacks in Kali NetHunter - Added WPS attacks tab to the NetHunter app

 Desktop enhancements

Kali Linux 2022.2 includes an upgrade to Gnome 42, which brings a cleaner feel and adds a built-in screenshot and screen-recording tool.

"The shell theme now includes a more modern look, removing the arrows from the pop-up menus and using more rounded edges. In addition, we've upgraded and tweaked the dash-to-dock extension, making it integrate better with the new look and fixing some bugs," the Kali Team explains in a new blog post.

As part of this version bump, Kali also upgraded their Kali-Dark and Kali-Light themes, with the dark theme shown below.

This version also includes an upgrade to KDE Plasma 5.24, containing an improved design and tweaks to the interface.

Another notable change is that applications will now respect custom icons added by the Kali Team instead of displaying older, and likely more pixelated, icons that come with the apps.

New movie-inspired screensaver

The Kali Team has added a Hollywood-inspired screensaver, which should be immediately recognizable for many of you, created as part of their April Fools Day "Kali 4 Kids" joke.

To launch it immediately, instead of through the screensaver app, you can use the following the commands to launch and activate it:

sudo apt -y install hollywood-activate
hollywood-activate

A video showing the new screensaver can be seen below.

WSL GUI applications can now run as root

For those running Kali Linux under the Windows Subsystem for Linux, the Kali team released Win-KeX to allow you to launch GUI applications using WSL-G.

However, users could not launch GUI applications as 'root' using this tool.

With the release of Kali Linux 2022.2, Win-KeX has been upgraded to version 3.1, and you can now 'sudo' a GUI app and have it launch as expected.

Ten new tools added in Kali Linux 2022.2

New Kali versions bring new tools to play with, and Kali Linux 2022.2 doesn't disappoint.

This release includes ten new tools ranging from network forensics to the PHP post-exploitation framework, Phpsploit.

Below are the ten new tools added in Kali 2022.2:

• BruteShark - Network Forensic Analysis Tool (NFAT)
• Evil-WinRM - Ultimate WinRM shell
• Hakrawler - Web crawler designed for easy, quick discovery of endpoints and assets
• Httpx - Fast and multi-purpose HTTP toolkit
• LAPSDumper - Dumps LAPS passwords
• PhpSploit - Stealth post-exploitation framework
• PEDump - Dump Win32 executable files
• SentryPeer - SIP peer-to-peer honeypot for VoIP
• Sparrow-wifi - Graphical Wi-Fi Analyzer for Linux
• wifipumpkin3 - Powerful framework for rogue access points

Enhanced ARM support

For ARM users, Kali brings a bunch of new enhancements, primarily focusing on installs on Raspberry Pi.

• Bump kernel to 5.10.103
• Bluetooth is fixed, for real this time.
• Wi-Fi firmware now uses 7.45.206 by default instead of 7.45.154, with nexmon patches applied.
• Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is now supported by nexmon
• Improvements to the wpa_supplicant.conf handling
• Kernel has NVME support built in, instead of module, so Raspberry Pi Compute Modules that use NVMe for their root device will work out of the box.
• The Raspberry Pi userland is now packaged up for ARM64 instead of built manually at image creation.

In addition to Raspberry Pi, the Kali team also brought improvements to Pinebrook pro, USB Armory MKII, and Radxa Zero.

How to get Kali Linux 2022.2

To start using Kali Linux 2022.2, you can upgrade your existing installation or download ISO images for new installs and live distributions.

For those updating from a previous version, including installs on the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), you can use the following commands to upgrade to the latest version.

echo "deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main non-free contrib" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo apt update && sudo apt -y full-upgrade

[ -f /var/run/reboot-required ] && sudo reboot -f

Note if you are using Kali on WSL, you should use it with WSL2 for a better experience, including support for GUI apps. You can check what WSL version Kali is installed as by using the 'wsl -l -v' command in a Windows command prompt.

Once you are done upgrading, you can check if the upgrade was successful by using the following command:

grep VERSION /etc/os-release

While we only shared the highlighted improvements in Kali 2022.2, you can view the complete changelog at Kali's website.

Kali Linux 2022.2 released with 10 new tools, WSL improvements, and more

For those unaware, Quick Assist is Microsoft's in-house remote assistance app. Windows administrators are visibly irked by the company's latest move, openly expressing their annoyance in the comments of the announcement post. Here's a gist of those things put forward by Twitter user Matthias Waltniel, who is a Microsoft Endpoint Management Consultant:

Most of the other Windows admins have expressed similar views in the announcement thread too. One of them explained how it can be much more useful to have something like a deployable Group Policy (GPO) instead of this:

Not only does the new version require per-user installation from the Microsoft Store, but the installation requires admin rights. Yikes!

Is there a mechanism for deploying the new version to all users on all machines? A simple GPO deployment would be preferred. Maybe an MSI could be made available? I am a one-man IT department managing roughly 70 Windows PCs and do not have any type of more sophisticated software deployment mechanism in place.

I am hoping that some simple solution is in the works to replace what seemed like an ideal solution that has now been taken away.

Microsoft's Nathan Pfeifer, who penned the announcement article, has responded to one of the comments explaining that an underlying functionality in Quick Assist made it necessary to push it via Microsoft Store. Though, Pfeifer assured that the feedback was being forwarded to Microsoft:

Understand the frustration of pushing a user to download the Store app to get a remote assistance app.

The nature of using remote assistance is that one of the parties is stuck and needs help – so it can be frustrating.

There is some underlying functionality, in how we currently have this set up, that needed to be adjusted that led to this.

That being said, this is time sensitive and sometime in mid-May the old version will no longer be usable.

Thanks for the feedback! It is being passed along, rest assured.

In addition to that, Kapil Tundwal, the Prinical Software Engineering Manager for Quick Assist also clarified that the deployment of Quick Assist via Store is to push out security updates faster.

You can view the official announcement post at this link.

Via: BleepingComputer

Windows admins are so annoyed by Quick Assist moving to Microsoft Store

source: Thunderbird

Thunderbird is part of MZLA Technologies Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation. The entire project receives its funding almost entirely from donations.

Donations rose from $700K in 2017 to now $2.7 million in 2021. In 2021 alone, donations rose by around $500k to the new all time high.

Improved engagement with donors and an updated What's New page with "an improved donation appeal" were the primary drivers for the increased donations in the year. The team plans to increase the engagement with the entire community in the future. Increased activity on social media sites such as Twitter is already noticeable.

Non-donation income makes up less than one percent of the overall revenue. Thunderbird receives payments when users sign up for the email provides Gandi and Mailfence. New revenue opportunities are explored, provided that they align with the mission and values according to the revenue presentation.

As far as spending is concerned, the bulk is spend as payment for employees. A total of 78.1% is spend on personnel. Professional services, including HR, tax services, and "agreements with other Mozilla entities, make up 10.5% of the spending. 5.5% are spend on general & administrative services, and 4.7% on donation transaction fees.

The Thunderbird project spend a total of $1,984 million in 2021, increasing money in the bank to $3.616 million.

The Thunderbird project has a total of 18 employees. The team wants to hire several engineers without spending more money than what is coming in.

The Thunderbird team has big plans for 2022 and beyond. The next major release is Thunderbird 102, which includes major feature improvements and new features, such as an improved import module, new address book, support for Matrix, and more.

The developers are working on the first mobile app for the open source email client next to that. Plans are underway to release Thunderbird mobile for Android. No release date for the first preview version has been mentioned, but many expect it to be released later in 2022.

Closing Words

The financial outlook is good for the entire project. Donation revenue increased in 2021 by 21% over 2020. Almost $800k were added to the project's account as a consequence. The year 2022 is an important one for the project. The next major release is just months away, and the planned Android release will address the limitation to running Thunderbird on desktop systems. A version for iOS is also planned.

Thunderbird users who want to donate to the project can do so here.

Now You: do you use Thunderbird? Are you looking forward to the release of version 102 and the first Android version? (via Sören Hentzschel)

Thunderbird's donation-driven revenue rose 21% in 2021