News: Software News

Microsoft's Outlook IMAP login issue is affecting several third-party email clients

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 16:32:51 +0000

Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is a standard protocol utilized to read email. After someone siginto to their email account, the client uses an OAuth token to communicate with the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) servers for the exchange of emails. However, it appears that there has recently been an issue where Outlook's IMAP service is rejecting OAuth-based logins.

The issue was brought to the attention of Neowin by Robert Virkus, who is the developer of the third-party email client, Maily. Apparently, many third-party apps such as Maily, eM Client, Aqua Mail, and Fair Email can't communicate to the Outlook service, which means that new accounts can't be added and emails can't be exchanged. Interestingly, the Gmail app on Android is not affected.

Virkus reported the issue to Microsoft on September 24 with some error details, and the company confirmed on September 26 that the problem does exist as stated, and that its teams are working on a fix.

Today, Microsoft offered a temporary workaround where it recommended that if an Outlook account has been added as IMAP, it should be changed to Exchange temporarily. Virkus responded to the Redmond tech giant that for many developers, changing the protocol of an email client is not possible so an official and permanent fix should be provided. The company's latest response is as follows:

We completely understand that switching to a different protocol could not be a best option for you however this is just a workaround if you really want to synchronize your emails again using a third party app.

We're still on the process of investigating and diagnosing the issue fully.

We'll get back to you once we get an updates from our internal teams.

If you're using a third-party email client and are experiencing issues communicating with Outlook servers, this is probably the reason. Microsoft has not yet indicated an ETA for when a fix will be available and it's already been four days since the issue was reported. The company's official responses can be seen here.

Source

As Google sets burial date for legacy Chrome Extensions, fears for ad-blockers grow

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 13:06:09 +0000

From January 2023, add-ons built with Manifest V2 API will fail

Google this month said Chrome browser extensions written under its Manifest V2 specification will stop working in January 2023.

Thereafter, only Manifest V3 extensions will be supported in Chrome, a change that critics fear will hobble the add-ons and make them little more than toys.

"Years in the making, Manifest V3 is more secure, performant, and privacy-preserving than its predecessor," said David Li, product manager for Chrome extensions and the Chrome Web Store, in a blog post. "It is an evolution of the extension platform that takes into consideration both the changing web landscape and the future of browser extensions."

Li said that as of January 17, 2022, new Manifest V2 extensions will no longer be accepted to the Chrome Web Store (though existing V2 extensions can be updated). And in January 2023, Chrome will no longer run Manifest V2 extensions and no updates to V2 extensions will be allowed. Those operating Chrome under enterprise policies have until June 2023 before V2 stops working.

Despite Google's insistence that this is a good thing, doubts about the renovation plan remain. "Our criticism still stands," said Alexei Miagkov, senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The Register. "The reasons they have stated publicly [for this transition] don't fully make sense."

Working on a fix

The Chocolate Factory began work on Manifest V3, a revised set of APIs available to extension developers, in 2018 to address security and performance concerns. The legacy extension spec, Manifest V2, provided powers that while useful to legitimate developers were also easily misused to create malware.

In early 2019, Raymond Hill, developer of the popular uBlock Origin content blocking extension, took note of the planned API change and warned that Manifest V3, as Google described it, would break uBlock Origin. After that, other developers of popular content blocking and privacy extensions realized they would have to revise their extensions to fit Manifest v3 and perhaps rethink functionality that would no longer be available under the new regime.

With Google telling investors that ad blocking represented a potential threat to its revenue, many assumed the company had ulterior motives for developing Manifest V3 – the elimination of content/ad blocking and privacy extensions under the pretense of safety is something Google's publishing partners would clearly endorse.

However, the ad giant, faced with a backlash from developers and organizations like the EFF, attempted to quell discontent in June 2019 by insisting that its goal with Manifest V3 is not to kill ad blockers but to help developers create better ad blockers.

"In fact, this change is meant to give developers a way to create safer and more performant ad blockers," wrote Simeon Vincent, developer advocate for Chrome Extensions, in a blog post at the time.

A 'blunt instrument'

The message didn't go down so well. A month later, in July 2019, Alexei Miagkov, Jeremy Gillula, and Bennett Cyphers published an EFF blog post that challenged Google's claims about the security benefits of Manifest V3, calling it "a blunt instrument that will do little to improve security while severely limiting future innovation".

The EFF makes an extension for blocking online tracking called Privacy Badger that relies on powerful Manifest V2 APIs like the blocking version of webRequest, which allows the interception and alteration of network data prior to its display in the browser.

Miagkov, Gillula, and Cyphers argued that if Google really wants to improve the security of its Chrome Web Store, it should "start properly enforcing existing Chrome Web Store policies."

But that would require Google to invest in staffing and technical resources to support Chrome Web Store, which developers have described as understaffed and underfunded.

Extension developers are trying to adapt to Google's V3 rules, but there's still uncertainty about whether that will be possible for every affected extension. In July, Hill in a GitHub Issues post for uBlock Origin indicated that declarativeNetRequest, V3's replacement for the blocking version of webRequest, still wasn't adequate. "Summary, latest version of declarativeNetRequest, as per documentation, still breaks dynamic filtering in uBO, due to the inability to implement the noop concept," he wrote.

One of his major concerns is that there's not yet a way to update filter lists with new blocking patterns without republishing the entire extension. In other words, marketers will be able to alter their ad presentation to evade extension-based intervention but extensions will not be able to respond immediately. Hill argues, "having the matching algorithm set in stone in the browser will cripple innovations in content blockers."

In the Chromium Extensions developer forum, one concerned developer responded to the V2 sunset timeline by posting a list of what's said to be unresolved technical issues with V3.

There are also longstanding bugs that haven't been fixed. Miagkov pointed to an issue raised in November 2019 where Service Workers, a replacement for background pages under V2, go to sleep and can't be woken. And there are broader technical arguments that Service Workers are fundamentally unsuitable for many legitimate functions.

"Service Worker-based extensions are Event Pages (persistent: false background pages) made mandatory and with additionally degraded capabilities," wrote Miagkov in a GitHub Issues post at the end of July.

"Some extensions fit the non-persistent/ephemeral model well. Many do not. Requiring all extensions to become non-persistent appears to be a fundamentally extension developer and user hostile requirement. It violates 'user-centered,' 'compatibility,' 'performance' and 'maintainability' design principles."

Not all bad news

The situation isn't entirely grim among those pushing Google for additional revisions to its extension spec. With Microsoft, Mozilla, and even Apple now supporting Manifest V3, a W3C WebExtensions Community Group (WECG) was formed in June.

So there's now a more visible forum than the Chrome Extensions Google Group where developers can go to advocate for improving web extensions. But there's no guarantee griping will alter Google's V3 plans.

Li in his blog post noted Google's interest in working with other browser makers through the WECG and promised further enhancements to V3.

"In the coming months, we'll also be launching support for dynamically configurable content scripts and an in-memory storage option, among other new capabilities," he said.

Miagkov said he wished Mozilla would stand up more for users instead of politely supporting Google's proposals, with a few minor variations. Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi have all said they will try to support the blocking webRequest API that Google is replacing.

Pointing to promised but undelivered capabilities and to longstanding bugs, Miagkov wished Google would be more responsive to developer concerns.

"I'm getting really mixed signals," he said. "Are they serious about this push or are they only serious about enabling toy extensions?" ®

Source

Majority of PC users unaware of Windows 11, according to a U.S. sample survey

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 07:19:40 +0000

Microsoft's upcoming Windows 11 OS is publicly arriving in about a week's time on October 5. While a lot of our readers are excited about it, a recent sample survey of the U.S. suggests that the vast majority of people (62%) are unaware of the forthcoming Windows release. The sample survey was carried out by Savings.com among 1,042 adult PC users. The participants were quizzed about several aspects of the new OS like upgrade plans, exciting features, and such.

About ~40% of the participants said they would upgrade while more than that (45%) were unsure of what to do. 14% have also decided against upgrading to the next-gen OS.

For those of you who wish to upgrade or are on the fence, here's a handy guide for that. Be warned however that you'll have to accept this waiver first if you're wanting to do so on an unsupported PC. Such a PC may not even receive important security updates on Windows 11.

Moving on to data for the upcoming exciting features in the next-gen OS, interestingly, out of the 1,042 people surveyed here, more than a third of them (38%) have said that they aren't sure about which feature exactly they find the most interesting.

Of those that have given definite answers, 14% say they are looking forward to running Android apps on Windows via the Amazon Appstore. 13% of the participants are excited about the new gaming-related features like Microsoft DirectStorage, or perhaps support for hybrid architecture like Intel's Alder Lake, among other things.

Curiously, just as many people (13%) have said they're excited about Windows 11's appearance as they might have been somewhat bored by the look and the UI of Windows 10 by now. And while many may find the Windows 11 requirements to be far too strict or annoying, 11% of the respondents here said they are delighted with these new security additions.

Source and images: Savings.com

Majority of PC users unaware of Windows 11, according to a U.S. sample survey

Skype teases "next version", promises all browser support, forgets Firefox icon

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 05:23:17 +0000

Microsoft revealed its future plans for Skype, the communication service that it acquired in 2011 for $8.5 billion. The next version of Skype will be "improved, faster, reliable, and super modern-looking" according to Microsoft.

Skype's Web version will support all browsers, according to Microsoft. Skype for the Web does not support several web browsers currently, including Mozilla Firefox.

When you visit https://web.skype.com/ right now in Firefox or another unsupported browser, you get the the "browser not supported" prompt and the suggestion to either use Microsoft's own Edge browser or use Skype for the desktop.

The new Skype will support "all browsers" according to Microsoft. Skype's team does not mention browsers specifically in the announcement, but it lists four browser icons on the page.

These are Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Safari, and Opera.

At Skype we've always tried to serve our users on whatever device or platform they use. But even though Skype works on a lot of browsers today, we still have some gaps. We are going to change that!

We believe the Skype experience should be seamless, accessible, and reliable no matter what browser or device you are using, so we are adding support for all browsers. We would like to make sure that no matter which device, platform, or browser you're using, Skype will always give you a great experience.

The most notable browser that is missing from the list is Mozilla's Firefox web browser. Will the new Skype support the Firefox web browser? If you take the text at face value, Skype for the Web will support Mozilla's Firefox web browser. The icons on the other hand may indicate that Firefox may not be supported after all.

All Chromium-based browsers are supported by Skype or will be, even if not listed.

The future Skype

Microsoft's announcement on the official Skype blog is a long read. Here are the most important changes coming to the next version of Skype:

Familiar interface with a modernized look. Theme refreshes.
Skype users find themselves on the main view during calls.
All participants will be visible, even if they don't share video.
Performance improvements: 30% on the desktop, 2000% on Android.
Options to disable video stream and to hide audio-only participants in the calling stage.
Upgraded chat headers, group avatars, fluent icons.
Meet Now integration to create and join Skype calls without need to sign-in, create an account or have the Skype app installed.
Previews of join links.
Office Lens functionality on Android and iOS.
TwinCam feature to add other devices as secondary cameras to Skype.
Customization of notification sounds.
In-call reactions redesign and support for "super reactions".

Skype teases "next version", promises all browser support, forgets Firefox icon

Microsoft is working on improved, faster, reliable and modern-looking Skype

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 00:38:18 +0000

Microsoft today revealed that Skype is under active development and you can expect several major improvements in the coming months. With the recent launch of Microsoft Teams for consumers, most people thought Microsoft will retire Skype. Today, Microsoft revealed the future plans for Skype. Microsoft’s goal is to build an improved, faster, reliable, and super modern-looking Skype. You can find the long list of new features coming to Skype below.

The New and Coolest Call Stage in the World

We’re upgrading and modernizing the most important part of Skype, the call stage! This is what we’re known for and we’re about to do some pretty cool magic with it, adding new layouts, beautiful theming, and other ways to help everyone connect more closely on the call. We think with this call stage you’ll get to experience the best video calling in the world. Be sure to give it a try and let us know what you think!

Let there be light!!

We believe we’ve designed the most beautiful call stage in the world. The balance we set with this change is truly a work of art. Now the stage will feel like it’s right at home within Skype no matter what theme you’re rocking.

So, what else have we changed? We wanted to make sure the app still felt familiar while we modernized the look and feel and made the experience more inclusive.

The first person we included was you —now you can find yourself on the main view during a call. We also adjusted the way the video feeds are rendered into a more natural grid, and no one will be left alone on the upper tray again because we bring you all together. Now all participants— even if they aren’t sharing video — will be visible on the calling stage. Before, if someone shared their screen or turned on Together Mode, the video previews in the top bar were too small to be engaging. But now we show larger video feeds in the top bar so you don’t have to compromise anything.

While we love the design changes, we knew they weren’t enough. We needed to focus on performance to make the experience delightful. We improved performance in key scenarios by 30% on desktop, and over 2,000% on Android, and have more coming as we continue to modernize our media stack.

We care about your data and your connection quality, and we know people use Skype in lots of different connectivity environments, so we still give you an option to disable the video stream and hide audio-only participants from the calling stage.

But have you noticed something else in the call stage? Did you see the colorful backgrounds behind the avatars of the audio-only participants? Now we’re bringing audio-only participants fully into the game with their own backgrounds on the call stage. No more grey, dull calling experience. And what’s even cooler, these are the same pictures we use for background replacement in video calls, so we keep you looking familiar whether sharing video or not. If you want to change your background, just switch it up during your call.

And not to forget some of the really cool innovations we already have like animated backgrounds, together mode, call recordings, live subtitles, and much more.

But that’s not it, we’re modernizing the rest of the app as well

We know modern messaging and calling isn’t all about giving you a hundred features that you will never use. It’s about thinking of how we can give our users the most delightful experience every time they use the app.

So we have been researching, scratching our heads, and meeting together (with a lot of coffee) to design these modern and fun improvements. And we couldn’t be happier to share with you what a huge change it has brought to Skype. We’re sure you’ll notice all the small details, but we’ll let these designs speak for themselves, they are that powerful:

Upgraded chat headers with changed layout, added group avatar, and have you seen those button gradients??

The beauty of the left side panel screams art, balance and lightness

Oh, did someone say fluent icons? Yes, we do love them as well

Have we mentioned themes? Everyone loves customisation

Another amazing change we have been cooking up is refreshing our themes with new vibrant colors and the beautiful gradients that come with them.

Say hello to color!

We just couldn’t resist and upgraded your profiles and non-customized chats with gradients. Look how colorful, fun, and bright your app will get! Truly delightful. Now it will be much easier to tell your chats apart, and it will also be a joy to look at these avatars!?

All complementing already great existing features!

This all complements some of the fun features we had brought you earlier this year, like the ability to customize your meetings with a name and any emoji. Which is a feature we codenamed internally “fancy titles”.

Meet Now, right now!

And when you don’t want to bother with annoying requirements like downloading an app, remembering a password, signing up for a new account or keeping your call under 45 minutes, all you need to do is have a quick call on Meet Now.

Meet Now is a powerful tool to create and join Skype calls without the need to log in, create an account nor have the Skype app. With 1 link you can join a call as a guest and connect online.

We are redesigning the Meet Now lobby as well. Now it’s lighter weight, easy to use, and much better looking. We are working hard to make this experience the easiest, fastest, best, and most fun way to meet people online.

And while you might already know what call you have created, we cannot omit people who you share the link with. Thus, bringing in previews of join links filled with your call name and avatar of the call.

And we aren’t just improving the experience for the person who creates the Meet Now call. We also wanted to make the experience more delightful and clear for the people you share the link with. We are adding previews to join links that will show the name and avatar of your call so folks will be more confident when they join that they are in the right place.

Supporting All Browsers

At Skype we’ve always tried to serve our users on whatever device or platform they use. But even though Skype works on a lot of browsers today, we still have some gaps. We are going to change that!

We believe the Skype experience should be seamless, accessible, and reliable no matter what browser or device you are using, so we are adding support for all browsers. We would like to make sure that no matter which device, platform, or browser you’re using, Skype will always give you a great experience.

Skype is a great place to connect with family across the world to create and share memories. To make this even easier, we have improved our camera with Office Lens feature allowing you to capture your memories, create videos or scan documents, whiteboards and business cards in the smartest way.

TwinCam to the rescue

Have you ever wanted to show off your pet to a friend while on a video call on your computer, but you couldn’t get your dog to sit still or your camera to move quickly enough to show them? We’ve made it way easier and more fun to do that with a new feature we call “TwinCam”.

Now if you want to show off your pet’s sleeping habits or need to tutor someone while showing multiple angles, it’s as easy as grabbing your mobile phone or whatever device you have handy and scanning a QR code to add it to the call as another camera! We match you with your video stream and you can impress everyone on the call.??

Customize notification sounds

One of the top feature requests we’ve gotten from all of you was to let people choose their own notification sounds. We listened, and now you can customize your notification sounds! It’s as easy as that. We will keep listening to your feedback and implementing features that you want, so keep letting us know what’s on your mind.

While we do love our own unique Skype sound, it could be a bit repetitive and who wouldn’t want to play around with some cool ring tones, like from the 90’s?

In-call reactions redesign & super reactions

We love reactions and super reactions on Skype. We believe that the Skype meeting experience is one of the best in the world and we want to make it even better. With our new reactions chooser, you’ll be able to choose any emotion and react within two seconds.

With reactions, timing is everything. We didn’t want anyone to “miss the moment” again because it took too long to find the right reaction. So, when we redesigned the reaction chooser, we set a goal of making it so people could react with any emotion within two seconds. We added search, organized the reactions by feeling category, and added pinned items to keep your favorite reactions just a click away. We can’t wait to connect people on the call more closely by giving them the power to express themselves so much better and faster. The fun you will have with these will be priceless!

PSTN Translator

While we love that you have so much fun during your Skype calls, sometimes the time comes when you need an incredibly practical feature to use — Skype Universal Translator.

If you’ve ever seen the television show Star Trek, you might have seen Captain Kirk talking with a being from another planet using a marvelous device called the Universal Translator. You might have thought, “Wow, I wish I could have something like that in real life!” Well now your wish has come true!

With Universal Translator, you can communicate with anyone in any language, on a landline or a video call. Low-cost calls with a real-time translator on top, we love bringing that science fiction from Star Trek to reality!

Source: Microsoft

Microsoft is working on improved, faster, reliable and modern-looking Skype

Canonical Extends Support for Older Ubuntu Linux Distros

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 16:49:00 +0000

Some of us love using the latest and greatest Linux distributions. For example, I’m writing this on a Linux Mint 20.2 desktop. But, others, especially on the servers and clouds prefer to stick with what they know. No one wants to be the first user to discover a show-stopper bug in a new Linux release when it’s running your mission-critical application. So, many people stick with old and tried operating systems. Canonical, Ubuntu Linux‘s parent company, knows this, so they’re extending the lifecycles of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS “Trusty Tahr” and 16.04 LTS “Xenial Xerus.”

This gives each of them an operational life of ten years. So, Ubuntu 14.04 will now be supported until April 2024 and 16.04 will receive support all the way until April 2026. With this change, all long-term support (LTS) versions of Ubuntu now have ten-year support lifespans.

According to Canonical, the company is doing this because “This lifecycle extension enables organizations to balance their infrastructure upgrade costs, by giving them additional time to implement their upgrade plan. The prolonged Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) phase of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and 16.04 LTS enables a secure and low-maintenance infrastructure with security updates and kernel live patches.

Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos, a Canonical Product Manager and security expert, added, “With the prolonged lifecycle of Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 LTS, we’re entering a new page in our commitment to enabling enterprise environments. Each industry sector has its own deployment lifecycle and adopts technology at a different pace. We are bringing an operating system lifecycle that lets organizations manage their infrastructure on their terms.”

Under ESM, Canonical delivers continued security fixes for high and critical common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) for the packages in the Ubuntu ‘main’ and ‘restricted’ archives for x86-64, arm64, and s390x architectures. This enables organizations running workloads on these Ubuntu LTS releases to maintain compliance standards by providing a secure environment.

If you use Ubuntu for business, this extended support doesn’t come for free. You’ll need to pay for standalone servers and virtual machines (VM) through Ubuntu Advantage for Infrastructure. However, you can still use UA-I Essential for free on up to three machines, or 50 systems if you are an official Ubuntu Community member. Community membership is available for free.

On the public cloud, you can use Ubuntu Pro for Amazon Web Services, Azure, and Google Cloud. Ubuntu Pro is a premium version of the operating system designed for enterprise and production use. It provides developers/administrators with a secured DevOps environment. While it’s built on standard Ubuntu components, it comes with additional services. These include:

Patching of high and critical CVEs for Ubuntu’s universe repository, which covers over 30,000 packages, including Node.js, MongoDB, Redis, and Apache Kafka, to name a few.

A 10-year maintenance commitment

Live kernel patching, which offers VM instances increased security and higher uptimes.

Officially certified components to enable operating environments under compliance regimes such as FedRAMP, HIPAA, PCI, GDPR, and ISO.

Features to be available in H2 2021: Certified FIPS 140-2 components; security dashboard for Security Command Center, Managed Apps, and more.

All the standard Ubuntu optimizations and security updates.

So, if you like the Ubuntu you’re using today, there’s no reason you need to change. Eventually, of course, you’ll need to upgrade your operating system. Nothing lasts forever. But at least you can stick with what you already know for a few more years.

Source

Microsoft Outlook will soon give you a new way to compose messages on the fly

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 16:40:09 +0000

Forget typing, how about dictation?

Microsoft is working on an update for its Outlook email service that will give users more options for composing messages on Android devices.

According to a new entry in the company’s product roadmap, Outlook users will soon be able to dictate email messages, as well as calendar appointment and meeting content, instead of relying on their touchscreen keyboard.

Already available for desktop and iOS devices, Outlook speech-to-text functionality is set to be extended to Android by the end of the month.

Speech-to-text in Outlook

Once dictation mode is live, users will be able to activate the feature by tapping on the microphone icon above the keyboard. A large blue version of the same icon indicates the mode is active and the user can begin to dictate.

There are two options for punctuating messages: a command-based system (whereby users say “period”, “colon” etc. out loud) and an auto punctuation feature. While the former method is likely to be more precise, the latter option allows users to dictate freely without interrupting their flow.

Although some might argue dictation is slower and less convenient than typing out a message, especially given the opportunity for inaccuracies, proponents of speech-to-text often say dictation becomes second nature after a while.

And in any case, the availability of speech-to-text functionality across all devices is not just about convenience, it’s also an important accessibility upgrade for users whose dexterity is limited by a medical condition.

In these scenarios, the new feature will ensure that all Outlook users are able to compose email messages effectively, whether at home or on the move.

Source

Microsoft Edge now stops you from downloading dodgy files

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 16:37:12 +0000

Mixed content downloads and more blocked in Edge 94

Downloading files using Microsoft Edge should soon be safer than ever thanks to a new update.

The company has announced that the newest build of its web browser will feature some improved security tools as it looks to ensure users stay safe online.

This includes upgrades for how certain file types are monitored and secured, as Microsoft continues to make Edge a more attractive proposal for users around the world ahead of the release of Windows 11.

Edge protection

Among the new features for Edge 94 is a block on mixed content downloads, hopefully helping secure users from malware or other malicious files lurking online.

The company says that going forward, secure pages will only download files hosted on other secure pages. Downloads hosted on "non-secure" (aka non-HTTPS) pages will be blocked if the user initiates the process from a secure page.

Edge 94 will also restrict private network requests to secure contexts, with access to resources on local (intranet) networks from pages on the internet now requiring that those pages be delivered over HTTPS.

Microsoft says it will also now be offering a new extended Stable option to our managed Enterprise customers. This will be updated every eight weeks, with a biweekly security update included, helping Edge users stay protected from all the latest threats.

Edge 94.0.992.31 is available to download on the Stable channel now, with the release coming shortly after Microsoft announced it has now seen a thousand builds pass through its Dev and Canary Insider channels.

This number is only set to rise as Edge is set to play a central role in Windows 11, set for release very soon.

Edge, which will ship as the pre-installed browser on the platform, could well see its user numbers rise to greater numbers than ever before, with a major makeover scheduled for the launch of Windows 11, with a redesigned interface bringing it into line with the new software's stripped-back design.

Source

Closer Look: Microsoft Teams integration in Windows 11

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 23:49:08 +0000

Windows 11's general release is roughly 10 days away, and while it will not be available to everyone on October 5 due to a staggered rollout strategy, if you're eager to upgrade to the OS as soon as possible, you're also likely interested in what it has to offer. This is exactly what we have been covering in our ongoing Closer Look series over the past few weeks.

So far, we have taken a look at Search, Widgets, the Start menu, Snap Layouts and Snap Groups, the Taskbar, quick settings and notifications, Virtual Desktops, power and battery settings, default apps configurations, File Explorer, and context menus in Windows 11. Today, we'll be taking a look at the deeper integration of Microsoft Teams with Windows 11. While we did discuss it before, that was from a hands-on perspective two months ago, so it's worth discussing it in terms of features and an overall end-user experience.

Unlike previous Closer Look articles where we compared the upcoming OS' capabilities with its predecessor, we'll only be discussing Microsoft Teams' integration with Windows 11 this time. This is because Teams is offered as a standalone app in Windows 10 and isn't installed by default. Windows 11 does not install Skype automatically either. So the two implementations are fairly independent.

For the purpose of this hands-on, we'll be taking a look at Windows 11 build 22000.194 that was released to the Beta Channel a few days ago. As usual, it is important to note that the OS is still under active development so it's possible that some of the features we talk about may change by the time of Windows 11's general availability.

Microsoft has included Teams by default in Windows 11 and has promised deeper integration with the OS. When you boot up the OS for the first time, you'll notice a purple chat bubble icon on your taskbar, representing the capability. If you hover over the icon, you'll notice that it is actually referred to as "Chat", the same branding is present in the Windows Settings app too.

When you click on it to launch it, you will be asked to sign up. The only sign-up method that Microsoft allows right now is with a personal account. If you want to sign in with a work or school account, you have a button at your disposal that will direct you to download the "full" Teams app. As is evident from the "Meet and chat with friends and family" tagline when you launch the app for the first time, Microsoft seems to be positioning this as an online chat app for personal use rather than a hybrid one which combines personal use with work or education as well. I'm not sure if the company plans to expand this offering or maybe have different Teams versions for different SKUs of the OS, but this is at least how it is on Windows 11 Home's Beta channel right now. Provided that you do have an eligible personal account, the sign-in process is fairly straightforward. You'll get the option to sync your contacts from Outlook and Skype, and you'll be up and running in a matter of seconds.

Once you sign-in, you'll first be shown the "full" Teams experience, which is labeled as a "Preview" right now. If you've used the standalone Teams app before, you'll notice a very familiar UI. The chats and contacts are on the left side, with some options like Activity, Chat, and Calendar on the left. You can access settings from the ellipsis menu on the top-right, and it will show you some basic configurations related to auto-start, notifications, appearance, and privacy. Of course, the regular Teams capabilities such as chatting, groups, and Meet Now are also advertised on launch. You can also be notified about interactions via Windows notifications and reply to messages inline, and although Microsoft makes a big fuss about it in its blog post, I think it's a pretty basic feature and I would have been extremely surprised if it wasn't there.

Although Microsoft has talked about how it is shifting Teams' architecture away from Electron and AngularJS to Edge Webview2 and React, which will result in lower memory consumption, "work life scenarios, release predictability, and scale up for the client", I personally have not noticed any significant change in terms of how this translates to actual usage yet. This statement is based only on real-world use, which I think that matters more than benchmarks. I'm tempted to say that the launch experience seems slightly faster but once the app is loaded, performance seems very similar to the standalone app to me right now.

All the capabilities that we have talked about so far are available in the standalone Teams app too. So what deeper integration is Microsoft boasting about? Turns out that clicking on the Teams icon in the taskbar opens up a flyout UI through which you can quickly open pop-up chats, see your recent activity, start Meet Now calls, and search for contacts. If you want to do something else, you can also click on "Open Microsoft Teams" button at the bottom which will open the full Teams app.

While this is certainly an interesting direction in terms of making Teams a more integrated experience with Windows 11, I'm a bit disappointed with the lack of polish, at least in its current state. I'll go through my grievances one by one.

While you can open multiple independent pop-up chats, I was quite disappointed to know that there seems to be no support for Snap Layouts and Snap Groups when you hover over the "window" icon. The capability is probably my favorite in Windows 11 and I find it a bit odd that despite being touted as a native integration with the OS, Teams' pop-chats have to be snapped using the Windows + directional keys or by manually dragging the window. Not a good look from a multitasking perspective.

Secondly, the context menus in the flyout UI are surprisingly lackluster. When I right-click on any of my synced contacts, I get no context menu at all. When I right-click on a recent contact (screenshot above), I only get a couple of options, namely Audio call and Video call. If I want to mute, hide, or delete a chat, I have to open the full Microsoft Teams app.

It's just odd, really. It actually got me wondering that maybe I'm using an outdated version of the app but when I went to the "About Teams" section, I found out that I was using the most up-to-date version. This seems to be another example of Microsoft's "ship first, fix later" mantra. I fully understand that I'm using a preview version of the OS, but hey, Windows 11's general availability is less than 10 days away, and I find it unlikely that the company will fix this and other issues I have talked about so far before then. If it does, kudos to them and I'll update this piece with a note at the end.

Remember I talked about having the ability to delete items only via the full Microsoft Teams app? Turns out even that does not work as expected sometimes. I started a "Meet Now" interaction just for testing and then closed it. I keep trying to delete it and mark it as read but to no avail. It still shows up as an "unread" chat with the annoying notification bubble both in the taskbar and inside the Teams app. You can see a screenshot of this instance above.

I have to emphasize that this is not a widespread issue in the sense that it does not apply to all of my chats, but the fact that it is inexplicably tied to this one chat is a bug that's bugging the hell out of me (pun intended).

Finally, while it's possible to send a message directly to a phone number (or email account), SMS chat is only available in the U.S., UK, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and India. All recipients in other countries get a notification on their phone number, and are asked to download the Teams app. I know I can't entirely blame Microsoft for this because it's likely related to telecom operators as well, but it's again disappointing to see that an OS that is supposed to rollout globally does not support a mode of communication across more countries. I know we live in an increasingly internet-connected world where SMS as a method of message delivery is dying, but if it's supported in a handful of countries, it should be supported in more too. Maybe Microsoft will add more countries with the passage of time, but that's how it is right now.

Overall, while I like the Teams flyout UI in Windows 11, the lack of capabilities in it makes me wonder if it's preferable to just download the Teams standalone app rather than relying on the current integration. I don't have anything against the capability but it's just not a big enough selling point for me personally, at least not in its current state.

It's clear that Microsoft wants to make this the FaceTime for Windows where people use it as a part of their daily personal life, but it's not a unique idea. The company tried and failed at that already with Skype and I don't see a massive value addition right now.

Personally speaking, I just don't see myself calling and chatting with friends and family from a PC when there are more convenient and feature-rich alternatives like WhatsApp, both on phone and PC. The only possible benefit I can actually see right now is the ability to screen-share while on calls, but that's again something that I do regularly in my work environment, not relatives and friends. Even more importantly, given the lack of cross-messaging support using at least SMS, you'd actually have to get all your contacts to sign up to a Microsoft account in Windows 11 for this to even be a viable mode of communication in your circle. Given how well-adjusted people are to (better) alternatives, I don't see this happening in the near future, at the very least.

Teams integration with Windows 11 right now is just not in a state for me where I can consider it a part of my daily life. It will undoubtedly improve with time but I'm yet to find out how it will replace my current modes of online communication. Given the lack of a proper use-case and unpolished experience, the only thing I will do right now is to go to Settings and hide the icon from my taskbar (you can't even unpin it directly from the crippled taskbar). While you can uninstall the app from the "Add or remove programs" settings in Windows, it doesn't hide the Chat icon on the taskbar, and if you launch it after removal, it will download the Teams app again and ask you to sign-in. Hiding it from the taskbar is much more convenient.

All in all, I understand that the Teams integration is currently in preview, it's just not a very good preview right now.

Closer Look: Microsoft Teams integration in Windows 11

New Windows 11 Photos app now rolling out to Insiders in Beta and Release Preview channels

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 23:42:39 +0000

Two weeks after rolling out the new Photos app for Windows 11 Insiders to the Dev channel it appears the app is now rolling out to Insiders in the Beta and Release Preview channel.

The app features new WinUI 2.6 controls, new Mica effects and new photo views. Other improvements include an improved cropping menu and easier access to the Information page.

New Windows 11 Photos app now rolling out to Insiders in Beta and Release Preview channels

Will unsupported Windows 11 devices be bricked by Microsoft?

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 23:38:20 +0000

When Microsoft announced its Windows 11 operating system, it made it very clear that the operating system was designed for devices that meet the operating system's system requirements. The company pulled the released Windows 11 compatibility checker, because it only returned "compatible" or "not compatible" when run, but did not provide explanations.

With the release just a week away, users worldwide are left with uncertainty when it comes to installing Windows 11 on unsupported devices.

Recently, Microsoft added a new prompt to the setup of Windows 11 that acts as a waiver if the device does not meet the minimum system requirements of Microsoft's Windows 11 operating system.

One sentence sticks out in particular:

If you proceed with installing Windows 11, your PC will no longer be supported and won't be entitled to receive updates.

Does it mean that unsupported Windows 11 devices won't receive updates, even security updates? Or is Microsoft playing it safe and merely stating that it can't be held responsible if updates won't install on unsupported devices?

It would be a first for the company if devices that run one of its supported operating systems would be blocked from receiving any updates or at the very least security updates.

The devices would be stuck on the initial install version of Windows 11. Without updates, security issues and other issues would not be patched, and the devices would be vulnerable to attacks and exploits.

Administrators would have little options but to restore an older version of Windows, install an older version of Windows from scratch, or switch to Linux.

Microsoft has never been a company with clear communication. The wording of the "What needs your attention" waiver, which it displays during setup, is another prime example of that.

It seems likely that unsupported Windows 11 devices will receive updates, but that administrators are on their own if issues are encountered during installation of the updates or afterwards. Unsupported means that Microsoft won't help customers if the PC does not meet the minimum system requirements.

Updates could also refer to feature updates, which will be released once per year. Feature updates could include system compatibility checks, and devices not meeting the minimum system requirements could be prevented from installing those; this would end the ride one year after the official release of Windows 11. Admins may be able to install that new Windows 11 version from scratch but it could mean losing access to installed applications or system changes.

Microsoft could provide a simpler explanation, both in regards to updates on devices that don't meet the system requirements and on installation of Windows 11 on unsupported devices, but there is little hope that a company official will go on record about either of these matters.

Windows users who plan to upgrade to Windows 11 on unsupported hardware may want to wait at least a month before they consider starting the upgrade. By that time, the first cumulative update will have been released, and information about the update behavior on unsupported Windows 11 devices will have come to light. It is even possible that the first Windows 11 update will be released on October 12, the Patch Tuesday of the month.

To answer the title's question: Windows 11 devices, that don't meet the minimum system requirements, could indeed be bricked by Microsoft, if the company decides to block these from receiving updates. We will know more in two weeks time, when the first updates for Windows 11 will be released.

Will unsupported Windows 11 devices be bricked by Microsoft?

Hands on with Windows 11's new Settings and File Explorer

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 23:35:36 +0000

In terms of cosmetic improvements, Windows 11 is a big upgrade. It comes with a new Start Menu, Fluent Design elements, new inbox apps, rounded corners and more.

In addition to these design overhauls, Windows 11 also comes with a new File Explorer and Settings app.

File Explorer is getting a new header menu, modern context menu and minor improvements. On the other hand, the Windows Settings app has been completely redesigned with a new layout optimized for all form factors, and it also comes with new customization options.

Settings app

Windows 11 Settings app interface has been updated with a new sidebar on the left side. The sidebar is visible when you navigate between different pages, so you can easily go back to a particular page.

Microsoft has finally enabled breadcrumbs support in the Settings app to help users navigate between different pages of the app.

Windows 11's Settings app features a new personalization page, new network connections, a power usage page, and more.

Additionally, Microsoft is making it difficult to change default apps like your default web browser. The default apps page within the Settings app now requires you to select apps for all file formats.

For example, if you want to switch to Chrome or Firefox from Microsoft Edge, you'll need to manually configure the browser for various URLs, such as HTML and HTM.

File Explorer

Windows 11 doesn't come with a tablet mode, so File Explorer has been optimized for touchscreen devices.

The existing interface has been updated with additional padding and Fluent icons to optimize the File Explorer for both desktop and touch users. These changes include a new context menu that will help users with touchscreen, so they can easily interact with files, select or delete/rename files, as shown in the below screen.

Microsoft is replacing the Windows 8-era ribbon toolbar with a redesigned top menu called "command bar" allowing you quick access to commonly used actions like share, delete, rename, etc.

The new menu uses the Mica effect, which is an opaque, dynamic material that incorporates theme and desktop wallpaper to paint the background of File Explorer. The ... menu now lets you access the advanced configuration options available in Windows 10's File Explorer.

In addition to these design improvements, Microsoft has also enabled support for CTRL + Left / Right arrow when changing the name of the files. This lets you move the cursor between words in the file name, as well as CTRL + Delete and CTRL + Backspace to delete words at a time, like other apps and tools.

Microsoft has also updated the context menu and icons to match the rest of the operating system.

Hands on with Windows 11's new Settings and File Explorer

Microsoft Edge 94 released to the Stable channel (changelog)

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 23:03:44 +0000

Microsoft has released Edge 94.0.992.31 to the Stable channel. This is the first of the new 4 weekly rather than 6 weekly releases to all users and brings the following changes:

Microsoft Edge has completed the move to a 4-week cadence for updates. We have adopted a new 4-week release cycle for major versions. Read more here: https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2021/03/12/new-release-cycles-microsoft-edge-extended-stable/
New Extended stable option being offered. We are offering a new Extended Stable option to our managed Enterprise customers. The Extended Stable option will stay on even numbered revisions and update every 8 weeks. There will be a biweekly security update. Additional information here: https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2021/07/15/opt-in-extended-stable-release-cycle/
Improvements to default behavior of opening MHTML files. MHTML files will continue to open in IE mode if IE mode is enabled, unless the MHTML file was saved from Microsoft Edge (using the Save As or Save Page As options in Microsoft Edge). If the file was saved from Microsoft Edge, it will now open in Microsoft Edge. This change will fix a rendering issue that was observed when opening an MHTML file in IE mode when saved from Microsoft Edge.
Restrict private network requests to secure contexts. Access to resources on local (intranet) networks from pages on the internet requires that those pages be delivered over HTTPS. This change is happening in the Chromium project, on which Microsoft Edge is based. For more information, navigate to the Chrome Platform Status entry. Two compatibility policies are available to support scenarios that need to preserve compatibility with non-secure pages: InsecurePrivateNetworkRequestAllowed and InsecurePrivateNetworkRequestAllowedForUrls.
Block mixed content downloads. Secure pages will only download files hosted on other secure pages, and downloads hosted on non-secure (non-HTTPS) pages will be blocked if initiated from a secure page. This change is happening in the Chromium project, on which Microsoft Edge is based. For more information, navigate to the Google security blog entry.
Enable implicit sign-in for on-premises accounts. By enabling the OnlyOnPremisesImplicitSigninEnabled policy, only on-premises accounts will be enabled for implicit sign-in. Microsoft Edge won’t attempt to implicitly sign in to MSA or AAD accounts. Upgrade from on-premises accounts to AAD accounts will be stopped as well.
New accessibility settings page. We have brought accessibility-related settings together on a single page. You can find the new edge://settings/accessibility page under the main settings list. Here you can find settings to make the web page bigger, show a high visibility outline around the area of focus and other settings that can help improve your web browsing experience. We’ll continue to add new settings here in future versions of Microsoft Edge.

New Policies

ApplicationGuardPassiveModeEnabled Ignore Application Guard site list configuration and browse Edge normally
OnlyOnPremisesImplicitSigninEnabled Only on-premises account enabled for implicit sign-in
WebRtcRespectOsRoutingTableEnabled Enable support for Windows OS routing table rules when making peer to peer connections via WebRTC

Obsoleted Policy

UserAgentClientHintsEnabled Enable the User-Agent Client Hints feature

Users can update by simply restarting their browser.

via Winfuture

Microsoft Edge 94 released to the Stable channel (changelog)

Windows 10 emergency update resolves KB5005565 app freezes, crashes

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 22:59:52 +0000

Microsoft has released an emergency fix for freezing and crashing app issues caused by September's KB5005565 and KB5005101 cumulative updates.

With the release of the Windows 10 KB5005101 preview update and the KB5005565 cumulative update, Microsoft states that users may have experienced app freezes, app crashes, and the inability to launch an application.

These issues only affected users utilizing the Microsoft Exploit Protection Export Address Filtering (EAF) feature, which is used to detect dangerous operations used by malicious code or exploit modules.

"After installing KB5005101 or a later update on devices using Microsoft Exploit Protection Export Address Filtering (EAF), you might have issues with some applications," explained Microsoft.

"You might be experiencing this issue if apps fail to open, fail to open files, or you might receive a white window when attempting to login."

Microsoft has rolled out a fix using the Known Issue Rollback (KIR) feature, distributed to Windows 10 devices using Windows Update.

"This issue is resolved using Known Issue Rollback (KIR). Please note that it might take up to 24 hours for the resolution to propagate automatically to consumer devices and non-managed business devices. Restarting your Windows device might help the resolution apply to your device faster."

For enterprise users or those who wish to receive the update sooner, you can also install various group policies or add Registry keys to install the fix.

Microsoft has released the following group policies, which users can install to apply the fix. It is critical that users only install the group policy associated with a device's version of Windows.

Windows users can also install the fix immediately by running one of the following commands from a Windows 10 elevated command prompt. Like the registry policies, only run the command associated with your version of Windows.

Windows Server 2022:
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Policies\Microsoft\FeatureManagement\Overrides /v 2801335948 /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Windows 10, version 2004, Windows 10, version 20H2 and Windows 10, version 21H1:
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Policies\Microsoft\FeatureManagement\Overrides /v 2767781516 /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Windows 10, version 1909:
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Policies\Microsoft\FeatureManagement\Overrides /v 928713355 /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Windows 10, version 1809, Windows Server 2019:
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Policies\Microsoft\FeatureManagement\Overrides /v 2371422858 /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Resolved using the Known Issue Rollback feature

When Microsoft releases new updates to fix known bugs, the new code may cause further issues in Windows 10.

If Windows telemetry and diagnostics indicate that a large audience of Windows 10 users are affected by a new issue, Microsoft can release a Known Issue Rollback (KIR) fix to disable the new code causing the issues, as illustrated below.

Illustration of how Known Issue Rollout fixes are delivered

In the past, Microsoft has used Known Issue Rollout fixes to resolve printing issues and performance issues while gaming.

While these fixes are distributed via Windows Update, they are not delivered as an actual update. Instead, they are deployed by creating Windows Registry entries that disable changes made in previous updates.

Microsoft says that Known Issue Rollout fixes are usually installed within 24 hours and that restarting the computer may speed up this process.

Windows 10 emergency update resolves KB5005565 app freezes, crashes

How to customize your Windows 11 taskbar

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 23:40:12 +0000

You can tweak your new taskbar — somewhat

Part of The Verge Guide to Windows

If you’ve updated your computer from Windows 10 to Windows 11, you may find that your taskbar isn’t quite as configurable — and perhaps not quite as useful — as it was before. For example, the old, familiar Start menu with its configurable Live Tiles is now gone. The search box is no longer within the taskbar but is accessed by first clicking on the Start menu — an extra step. (Although the fact that Cortana is no longer automatically part of that search box can be considered, by many at least, as a plus.)

Another thing: the taskbar is now permanently affixed to the bottom of the screen — so if you were more comfortable having it on top of the screen, or on either side, you’re out of luck.

As you might imagine, Windows users are already posting fixes for at least some of these issues — as long as you’re comfortable tweaking your Windows Registry. For example, there’s one that purportedly lets you move the taskbar to the top of the screen, and another that lets you change the size of the taskbar.

It’s possible that Microsoft will bring back some of these abilities in future updates of the new OS. For now, let’s concentrate on how you can adjust the current Windows 11 taskbar.

Pin an app to the taskbar

Pinning an app to the taskbar at the bottom can be a little — well, weird. There are several ways to handle it:

If an app is running, its icon will appear in the taskbar with a line underneath to indicate that it is active. If you want its icon to remain in the taskbar even after you’ve closed it, then right-click on the icon and select “Pin to taskbar.”

Right-click on an active icon and select “Pin to taskbar”

If an app isn’t running, but its icon is on your desktop, you can pin it to the Taskbar as well. Right-click on the desktop icon and click on “Show more options.” A longer menu will open up; about two-thirds down, you’ll see “Pin to taskbar.”
You can also click on the Start icon, select the “All apps” button, and then right-click on the app you want. If you don’t see “Pin to taskbar” in the menu that pops up, then select “More” and you’ll see “Pin to taskbar.”

You can also pin an app to your taskbar from the “All apps” menu.

Remove an app from the taskbar

Most apps are simple to remove: just right-click on the icon and select “Unpin from taskbar.”

A few of the icons take a little more effort to remove. The Start menu icon is, as might be expected, unremovable. But there are four other icons that can’t be removed but can be hidden. The easiest way to do that is:

Right click on the taskbar.
Select “Taskbar settings.” (You can also get there by going to “Settings” > “Personalization” > “Taskbar.”)
Toggle off any of the four icons — “Search,” “Task view,” “Widgets,” or “Chat” — that you want to hide.

You can hide four of the standard taskbar icons.

Move your icons to the left

Those of us who having been using Windows 10 (or 7 or earlier iterations) are used to accessing the Start menu from the lower left-hand corner of the screen. If your muscle memory keeps your hand drifting to that corner, you can move the center app icons so they are to your left instead:

Right-click on the taskbar and click on “Taskbar settings.”
Select “Taskbar behaviors.”
Look for “Taskbar alignment” and click on the button on the right where it says “Center.” Select “Left” instead.
Close the settings window, and you’ll see that the app icons in the taskbar have moved to the left, with the Start menu icon in the corner.

You can move the icons from the center to the left of the taskbar.

Incidentally, the “Taskbar behaviors” section of the settings lets you do more than move your icons to the left. It also lets you automatically hide the taskbar (something that’s been a taskbar behavior for a very long time); show a badge on taskbar apps to let you know if, say, you have any unread messages; handle how the taskbar works on multiple displays; and show a clean desktop by clicking on the far right corner of the taskbar.

Taskbar behaviors include hiding the taskbar and showing unread messages.

Taskbar corner icons and overflow

While the taskbar corner icons and the overflow window aren’t new, I never actually knew what they were called before. To tell you the truth, when I first saw the phrase “Taskbar corner overflow,” I pictured a bunch of app icons flowing out of the display like Niagara Falls. Turns out the corner icons are the icons in the right corner of the taskbar — the ones that show the time and date, your battery status, your volume level, and your Wi-Fi status, among other things. The overflow is the little pop-up menu that appears when you select the arrow to the left of those corner icons.

For the most part, the icons in the overflow window are meant to notify you when there is something that needs to be done — messages that have arrived or an update that is needed. This is also handy for apps, like Discord, that tend to run in the background; you can shut them down easily from the overflow by right-clicking on the icon and looking for the “quit” selection.

While most of the corner icons that come with Windows are permanent, some — specifically, the Pen menu, the Touch keyboard, and the Virtual touchpad — can be hidden. They can be found on the same taskbar settings menu that let us move the icons to the left; just click on “Taskbar corner icons” and toggle off the ones you don’t want to see.

The overflow menu lets you handle apps that run in the background.

How to customize your Windows 11 taskbar

Microsoft Edge may replace Collections with Followable Web feature

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 23:35:21 +0000

Microsoft is working on a new feature in Edge 96 Canary which may replace Collections, Microsoft’s pinboard-like feature which can be used to organize and remember research on the web.

The new edge-followable-view flag has the following description:

Try the followable web beta

Your existing collections won’t be migrated, but followable web feature is coming soon and you can switch back at any time. – Mac, Windows, Linux

Unfortunately, the description is not very illuminating, but it may relate to the new Follow feature Chrome is working on.

The Chrome Follow feature lets people follow a website and get the latest updates from that website in the Following tab within Discover in Chrome.

It is not clear if a new RSS reader would be more desirable to readers than a pinboard feature, but it may offer users a greater ability to customise their news feeds than the current MSN feed offers.

We will keep our readers updated on this news as it is clarified over the next few weeks.

via Leo Varela

Microsoft Edge may replace Collections with Followable Web feature

Microsoft is updating the design of the Your Phone app for Windows 11

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 23:32:22 +0000

Microsoft has teased a new design for the Your Phone app for Windows 11.

Spotted by WindowsLatest, the design moved the notifications from its own page into the left sidebar of the app, and the list of pages (messages, photos, apps) to the top.

Users will be able to monitor their notifications more easily, mute some and pin others.

Microsoft will likely roll out the new design to Windows 11 Insiders in the near future.

Microsoft is updating the design of the Your Phone app for Windows 11

Microsoft releases Windows Office Insider Preview Build 14517.20000 for Beta Channel subscribers

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 23:29:51 +0000

Microsoft has released a new Office Insider Preview Build 14517.20000 for Windows users that registered in the Beta Channel of the Office Insider program. The new build adds tons of fixes for issues found in Word, Excel, Office Suite, Project, Outlook, but brings no new features. You can read the full official changelog below to know about what’s been fixed.

Changelog

Word

Notable fixes

We fixed an issue where changes failed to sync and progress was lost in both the synced file and the locally backed up file.
We fixed an issue where Word would become slow to respond while using a high CPU percentage.
We fixed an issue where AutoCorrect was not working in Modern Comments.

Excel

Notable fixes

We fixed an issue where the error ERROR_DISK_FULL would appear before maintenance would begin.
We fixed an issue where Excel’s enclosed numeric characters showed as question marks.

Project

Notable fix

We fixed an issue where the beforetaskchange event would fire twice and included incorrect information when the predecessors field changed.

Outlook

Notable fixes

We fixed an issue where the sensitivity tab was disabled in the frame-control window for some users.
We fixed an issue where search did not include items from an online archive mailbox.

Office Suite

Notable fix

We fixed an issue where a user can’t open an .xls/.ppt/.doc file in a folder that was synced from a SharePoint folder with read permission.

To update to the latest Microsoft Office Insider Preview Build, open any Office program and go to File> Account> Update Options> Update Now.

Microsoft releases Windows Office Insider Preview Build 14517.20000 for Beta Channel subscribers

Google: Manifest V2 Chrome extensions to stop working in 2023

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 05:51:28 +0000

Google has shared the phase-out timeline for Manifest V2 Chrome extensions and its plans to bring Manifest V3 to full feature parity.

Extension capabilities are restricted using a mechanism called extension manifest. Google made available the new version, Manifest V3, when Chrome 88 was announced earlier this year.

Google first revealed the future Manifest V3 changes through a provisional document in 2019, which announced the removal of webRequest API blocking options and requirements for content blockers to switch to declarativeNetRequest.

"Years in the making, Manifest V3 is more secure, performant, and privacy-preserving than its predecessor," said David Li, Product Manager for Chrome Extensions & Chrome Web Store.

"It is an evolution of the extension platform that takes into consideration both the changing web landscape and the future of browser extensions."

As outlined today by Li, Google will focus the Manifest V2 extensions phase out around two specific dates:

January 17, 2022: New Manifest V2 extensions will no longer be accepted by the Chrome Web Store. Developers may still push updates to existing Manifest V2 extensions, but no new Manifest V2 items may be submitted.
January 2023: The Chrome browser will no longer run Manifest V2 extensions. Developers may no longer push updates to existing Manifest V2 extensions.

Manifest V3 transition plans (Google)

Google to keep improving Manifest V3 based on feedback

Until Manifest V2 Chrome extensions are fully deprecated, Google promised to continue bringing the new manifest to full feature parity with the older version and addressing the requests made by developers.

Google says it already added additional mechanisms to the new Scripting API and expanded the Declarative Net Request API to support multiple static rulesets, session-scoped rules, and filtering based on tab ID.

"In the coming months, we'll also be launching support for dynamically configurable content scripts and an in-memory storage option, among other new capabilities," Li added.

"These changes were crafted with community feedback in mind, and we will continue to build more powerful extension API functionality as developers share more information about their migration challenges and business needs."

The company also plans to share additional information on how these incoming changes will affect users and extension developers.

Detailed and up-to-date info on exact dates and milestone details for the Manifest V2 phase-out is available here.

A fully detailed timeline with all expected Chrome Web Store and Chrome browser behavior changes is embedded below.

Date	Chrome Web Store behavior changes	Chrome Browser behavior changes
01/17/22	• Chrome Web Store stops accepting new Manifest V2 extensions with visibility set to “Public" or "Unlisted” • Existing Manifest V2 extensions can no longer be changed from “Private” to "Public" or "Unlisted"	no change
06/01/22	• Chrome Web Store stops accepting new Manifest V2 extensions with visibility set to “Private”	no change
01/01/23	• Chrome Web Store stops accepting updates to existing Manifest V2 extensions	• Chrome stops running Manifest V2 extensions • Enterprise policy can let Manifest V2 extensions run on Chrome deployments within the organization.
06/01/23	no change	• Manifest V2 extensions no longer function in Chrome even with the use of enterprise policy

Controversy behind the transition to Manifest V3

In the initial Manifest V3 version, Google changed webRequest's API so that extensions could only monitor browser connections but not alter any of the content before being displayed.

The new declarativeNetRequest API was also changed to tell the browser, not extensions, to strip content or resources from visited sites. The biggest drawback to these changes was that this API came with a limit of 30,000 rules, drastically limiting ad blockers' functionality.

As uBlock Origin's Raymond Hill said at the time, ad blockers that rely on webRequest API's original functionality need more rules than are available in the declarativeNetRequest API.

As Google told BleepingComputer at the time and confirmed by Li today, "these changes are in the design process," with the company still adding new features and capabilities based on developer and user feedback.

Li also said today that Google continues to work with other browser vendors in the Web Extensions Community Group to build a common cross-browser extension model.

Google: Manifest V2 Chrome extensions to stop working in 2023

Closer Look: Context menus in Windows 11

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 22:51:17 +0000

Windows 11's general availability date is a little over two weeks away. Starting from October 5, the OS will begin to roll out to supported PCs in a staggered manner. Given its nearing release date, we have been taking a look at some of its features and capabilities in more detail in our ongoing Closer Look series.

So far, we have taken a look at Search, Widgets, the Start menu, Snap Layouts and Snap Groups, the Taskbar, quick settings and notifications, Virtual Desktops, power and battery settings, default apps configurations, and File Explorer in Windows 11. Today, we'll be taking a look at a relatively smaller feature, namely the Windows 11 context menus (or "right-click menus", depending upon what you call it).

For the purpose of this hands-on, we'll be taking a look at Windows 11 build 22000.194 that was released to the Beta Channel a week ago versus a publicly available and up-to-date Windows 10 (version 21H1 build 19043.1237). As usual, it is important to note that the OS is still under active development so it's possible that some of the features we talk about may change by the time of Windows 11's general availability.

Context menu for desktop in Windows 10

Starting off with Windows 10, you can essentially open the context menu by right-clicking on items. That essentially displays a menu containing some quick settings and configurations options. For example, in my case (screenshot above), when I right-click on the desktop, I get some basic settings related to desktop customization, some configurations related to display, and another "Open with Code" option because that was an association created when I installed Visual Studio Code on my laptop. Options that are not available are grayed-out, such as "Paste" and "Paste shortcut" in the screenshot above because I have no items on my clipboard to paste.

Sample context menu for a Microsoft Word file in Windows 10

Depending upon the item you right-click on, the context menu will expand to show all the available options to you. For example, when I open the context menu on a Microsoft Word file on my desktop, I get new options and third-party associations with Notepad++ and WinRAR, along with native associations like Microsoft Defender. Some items also have hierarchical or nested menus that you can explore by hovering over the relevant option, as can be seen in the screenshot above. The same behavior is mimicked in File Explorer. Essentially, the context menu offers quick access to some configurations that may be useful for the item that you are interacting with.

Context menu for taskbar in Windows 10

While you would like to think that the design language of the context menus is same across the OS, this is unfortunately not the case. A prominent example of this is the taskbar context menu (screenshot above), which seems to have a completely different UI compared to the ones for desktop and file items.

Context menu for desktop in Windows 11

Coming over to Windows 11, you'll notice that Microsoft has significantly revamped the design. You get brand-new iconography along with the rounded corners that is a staple design pattern in the OS. When you right-click on the desktop, you'll see a somewhat familiar context menu that contains all of the settings from Windows 10. It also adds a "Open in Windows Terminal" option by default.

Legacy context menu for desktop in Windows 11

However, if you'd rather use the legacy context menu, you can press Shift + F10 or just click the "Show more options" item in the context menu to open it. Microsoft has emphasized that it has not removed any Windows 10 context menu functionality completely from the new OS as of yet.

Sample context menu for image file in Windows 11

The difference between the context menus present in Windows 10 versus Windows 11 is a bit more evident when you right-click on a specific item like a file. In the screenshot above, I simply pasted an image file to my desktop and right-clicked on it. The first thing you'll likely notice is that certain Shell verbs or common commands such as Cut, Copy, Rename, Share, and Delete have been moved to a simplified ribbon on top of the context menu, similar to the design of the File Explorer. If you have an item on your clipboard, this ribbon will automatically adapt to show you the Paste icon where relevant. The rest of the options are present in a list along with a default "Copy as path" utility which I think will be quite useful especially when you're writing code and quickly want to copy the path of the file to utilize in your code. The capability is present in Windows 10 too but is accessed in an indirect way.

Sample legacy context menu for image file in Windows 11

However, you'll also notice that other associations such as those for Visual Studio Code (yes, it can open images), WinRAR, and Notepad++ are noticeably absent. While you can still access them by using Shift + F10 or "Show more options" via the legacy context menu (screenshot above), this is very much an intentional design change.

Microsoft argued back in July that the reasons for this UI revamp are that the Windows 10 context menu is overly long, common commands are not grouped together, and it also contains options that are barely used. I'm somewhat inclined to agree. The context menu present in Windows 10 is indeed too cluttered and unless you have developed muscle memory for what option you want to actually use, sifting through the entire list is fairly overwhelming, depending upon all the associations you have linked with first- and third-party apps.

However, this design change also begs the question: Will people always have to click on "Show more options" to utilize the legacy context menu if they don't find the relevant item in the list? The short answer is "no". That's because Microsoft has stated that third-party developers can use app identity and IExplorerCommand to extend the context menu and have their app listed as well. Third-party items will be grouped separately below Shell verbs.

That said, this also means that the onus to have apps properly linked to the context menu for a quick action is solely the responsibility of the developer. As you may be able to discern, not many developers have made effort on this front yet, which can also be attributed to the fact that Windows 11 is not generally available yet. In fact, Microsoft's own "Scan with Defender" option is hidden behind the legacy context menu. Until developers update their software to work natively with Windows 11, the only way to access their verbs will be via the legacy context menu.

The taskbar context menu in Windows 11

And oh, if you were wondering about whether the taskbar context menu is consistent with the other context menus, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that it is consistent, but the bad news is that it's so severely crippled that it contains none of the immediate functionalities that Windows 10 offered. I have discussed this in detail in my dedicated Closer Look piece about the taskbar in Windows 11.

All in all, I like the simplified context menus (except the one associated with the taskbar) as it's aesthetically pleasing to look at, and it's easier to find basic commands. However, I understand that power users will not be happy with some of the changes such as certain verbs behind hidden behind another context menu. That said, I hope the situation will improve once Windows 11 becomes generally available and developers start to update their apps to adapt to the OS.

Closer Look: Context menus in Windows 11

Microsoft Edge gets several new shopping features and tab groups

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 22:44:45 +0000

Microsoft today highlighted the new web experiences available this month in Microsoft Edge browser. Most of the new experiences are focused around shopping except for tab groups and Microsoft Start.

Tab groups in Edge will allow you to organize the tabs by grouping them together. You can add a name and a color to each tab group to help you easily find them or collapse them to make more space for other tabs. Here’s how tab groups work:

To start a tab group, hold down CTRL and use your cursor to select the tabs you want to aggregate.
Then right-click and select Add tabs to new group, and a menu will open with options for customization.
In addition to this, the tab preview will allow you to sneak a peek of the tab when you hover over it.

Microsoft Start is a new personalized news feed available across platforms. You can access Microsoft Start by clicking on content in the New Tab Page of Microsoft Edge or navigating directly to https://www.MicrosoftStart.com.

Shopping features:

Product reviews: You can now easily access online expert reviews and customer ratings for over 5 million products right from the address bar when shopping in Microsoft Edge. To access ratings and reviews, all you need to do is browse for an item at your favorite store and click on the blue tag on the address bar. There, you will find expert online reviews from trusted sources for the product you are viewing. You will also see the average customer star rating across online retailers.
Express Checkout: The new express checkout feature speeds up the guest checkout experience. To use this feature, select guest checkout within the retailer site and then click Try express checkout in the address bar. Review the information for accuracy and then click Try all coupons and autofill details. If you haven’t used express checkout before, fill in your information once, and have Microsoft Edge save it for all your future purchases.
Travel recommendations: Edge now offers recommendations for your travel destination. When you search for flights, you will see a notification appear in the address bar. Click on that to see the recommendations for your destination for restaurants, sightseeing and more, saving you time as you plan your trip. This feature is currently available in the U.S. across the top 10 booking sites. Support for additional sites and markets will be coming soon.
Flights and Hotels search: A new faster way to search for flights and hotels. This feature is designed to save you time by carrying your entries for departure location, destination and number of passengers when looking for flights. When you visit a new booking site, Microsoft Edge will ask if you want to use the same information you entered on a prior travel site, saving you time when planning your travels. Click on Continue to see the changes apply.
Flight search in Bing: You can now enjoy updated flight search experience on Microsoft Bing. Now, you don’t need to go to a flight aggregation site and fill out the intake form. On the Bing search bar, simply type what you’re looking for – such as “Seattle to JFK flights” – and all available results will pop up in an instant for you to explore further.

Source: Microsoft

Microsoft Edge gets several new shopping features and tab groups

Download Windows 11 Build 22000.194 official ISO from Microsoft

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Microsoft has just announced Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22000.194 as an optional update for Windows Insider on an eligible PC in the Release Preview Channel. For those wanting to clean install Build 22000.194, Microsoft has released the ISO image which you can download here from the Windows Insider Preview Downloads page.

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22000.194 includes updates for several in-box apps: Snipping Tool, Calculator, and Clock with Focus Sessions. and tons of fixes. You can read the full official changelog below.

What’s new in Windows 11 Build 22000.194:

FIXES

Addressed an issue where if you enable then disable a contrast theme, it would lead to artifacts in title bars, in some cases making the minimize/maximize/close buttons hard to see and use.

Fixed a crash with certain connected devices that could result in not being able to use Bluetooth.

Mitigated an issue that was resulting in subtitles not appearing when expected in certain apps, particularly Japanese language subtitles.

Fixed an issue that was causing certain PCs to bugcheck during modern standby.

Mitigated an issue when typing with certain 3rd party IMEs into the search box in Settings that could result in the candidate window being rendered elsewhere on-screen (not attached to the search box) and/or characters inserted into the search box not displaying.

We fixed an issue that causes PowerShell to create an infinite number of child directories. This issue occurs when you use the PowerShell Move-Item command to move a directory to one of its children. As a result, the volume fills up and the system stops responding.

This build includes a change that aligns the enforcement of the Windows 11 system requirements on Virtual Machines (VMs) to be the same as it is for physical PCs. Previously created VMs running Insider Preview builds may not update to the latest preview builds. In Hyper-V, VMs need to be created as a Generation 2 VM. Running Windows 11 in VMs in other virtualization products from vendors such as VMware and Oracle will continue to work as long as the hardware requirements are met. For more details on the Windows 11 system requirements – see this blog post here.

KNOWN ISSUES

[General]

We’re investigating reports from Insiders in the Beta Channel where after upgrading to Windows 11, they are not seeing the new Taskbar and the Start menu doesn’t work. To workaround this if you are impacted, please try going to Windows Update > Update history, uninstalling the latest cumulative update for Windows, and the reinstall it by checking for updates.

We’re working on a fix for an issue that is causing some Surface Pro X’s to bugcheck with a WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR.

[Start]

In some cases, you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the Taskbar. If you experience the issue, press WIN + R on the keyboard to launch the Run dialog box, then close it.

System and Windows Terminal is missing when right-clicking on the Start button (WIN + X).

[Taskbar]

The Taskbar will sometimes flicker when switching input methods.

[Search]

After clicking the Search icon on the Taskbar, the Search panel may not open. If this occurs, restart the “Windows Explorer” process, and open the search panel again.

Search panel might appear as black and not display any content below the search box.

[Widgets]

The widgets board may appear empty. To work around the issue, you can sign out and then sign back in again.

Widgets may be displayed in the wrong size on external monitors. If you encounter this, you can launch the widgets via touch or WIN + W shortcut on your actual PC display first and then launch on your secondary monitors.

[Microsoft Store]

We continue to work to improve search relevance in the Store.

[Windows Sandbox]

Within Windows Sandbox, the language input switcher does not launch after clicking the switcher icon on the Taskbar. As a workaround, users can switch their input language via any of the following hardware keyboard shortcuts: Alt + Shift, Ctrl + Shift, or Win + Space (the third option is available only if Sandbox is full-screened).

Within Windows Sandbox, the IME context menu does not launch after clicking the IME icon in the Taskbar. As workarounds, users can access the functionalities of the IME context menu with either of following methods:

Accessing the IME settings via Settings > Time & language > Language & region > (e.g., Japanese) three dots > Language options > (e.g., Microsoft IME) three dots > Keyboard options.

Optionally, you may also enable the IME toolbar, an alternative UI, to quickly invoke specific IME functions. Continuing from above, navigate to Keyboard options > Appearance > Use IME toolbar.

Using the unique set of hardware keyboard shortcuts associated with each IME-supported language. (See: Japanese IME Shortcuts, Traditional Chinese IME Shortcuts).

Download Windows 11 Build 22000.194 official ISO from Microsoft

Windows 11 is now available in the Insider 'Release' channel

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 22:35:42 +0000

Microsoft has moved Windows 11 to the Windows Insider 'Release' channel in anticipation of its upcoming launch on October 5th.

Until today, the Windows Insider Release channel has been offering users Windows 10 21H2 (v19044), which is expected to be released next month.

Starting today, Microsoft is now offering Windows 11 as an optional download within Windows Update for users with compatible hardware, as shown below.

Windows 11 offered via Windows Update to users in the Release channel
Source: Wilderssecurity.com

The Windows 11 build offered in the Release channel is Build 22000.194, which was also released to users in the Beta channel on September 16th.

For the last couple of Windows 11 builds in the Beta channel, Microsoft has only been fixing bugs in preparation for the operating system's launch.

Unfortunately, there are still numerous features missing from Windows 11 that users have grown accustomed to in Windows 10 and are requesting to be added back to Windows 11.

These missing features include the Taskbar context menu, the ability to drag and drop files onto open Taskbar applications, the ability to move the taskbar to the top or sides of the screen, and the ability to ungroup running applications.

While Microsoft is aware of these requests, none of them are likely to make it into the initial release of Windows 111.

If these missing features are critical to you, it may be wise to wait for the next version of Windows 11 before installing the new operating system.

Thx to Opera for the tip!

Windows 11 is now available in the Insider 'Release' channel

How Windows 10 ends up a lot like Windows 7

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 22:33:22 +0000

With the arrival of Windows 11 on Oct. 5, Windows 10 may well end its career much as Windows 7 did — as something of a dead end.

Windows 10, originally pitched as a revolutionary break from Windows' past in how it was serviced, may well end its career in the next few years as a Windows 7 act-alike.

Yes, Windows 7 — the spitting image of "tradition" in Redmond's history of operating systems.

Enter Windows 11

The catalyst for the change to Windows 10 is its successor, Windows 11, slated to debut Oct. 5. Windows 11, which will have its own tweaked servicing model — one feature upgrade annually with 36 months of support due those running the Enterprise or Education SKUs — will replace the older Windows 10 as the repository of the new.

When it introduced Windows 11 in June, Microsoft made a point to tell customers it would still release a Windows 10 feature upgrade — labeled 21H2 — this fall. "We will continue to support you as you use Windows 10," wrote Wangui McKelvey, general manager, Microsoft 365, in a June 24 post to a company blog. The company also told customers that Windows 10 will continue to receive support until October 2025.

Windows 10 21H2 will share attributes of the last two second-half-of-the-year updates Microsoft has issued, in that it will include few new features or functionalities, so few that it will be serviced using the monthly update mechanisms rather than require a full OS replacement.

Beyond these indicators of continuity, Microsoft has been close-mouthed about how it will service Windows 10 for the next four years. Will it limit updates to the monthly security fixes? Will any new features appear in future updates after 21H2? We don't know.

It will have to do something because the remaining support due customers extends beyond the support provided by any released or announced upgrades. Windows 10 21H2 Enterprise will, barring any changes to 10's support policies, retire sometime in May 2024. Windows 10 21H2 Home and 21H2 Pro will run through their support by May 2023. The 18-month (Enterprise) or 30-month (Home & Pro) shortfalls will have to be made up somehow.

Of course, Microsoft can do that with a few strokes on a keyboard. If it doesn't want to release feature updates after this year's 21H2 all it has to do is move the support deadlines for the various SKUs to October 2025. Boom. Done.

Nor is there anything stopping Microsoft from continuing to issue upgrades, even if those upgrades offer only a handful (or less) of new functionalities or features, to close that support gap. If it did so, the final Enterprise/Education upgrade would be 23H1, the last Home/Pro upgrade 24H1, both which would end support in the fall of 2025.

Hello, Windows 7!

But that's not what Computerworld expects Microsoft to do. Frankly, that would go against the company's grain.

When it deprecates a product, Microsoft typically ends development on that product. (Operating systems make poor examples here as until Windows 10, Microsoft developed once and released, rarely to bother developing anew.) When Microsoft launched a new Internet Explorer (IE), for instance, it would continue to patch the prior version(s), but it would not keep adding features to the old, now-sad-sack edition. Customers were expected to upgrade to the newer version.

That's what will almost certainly happen to Windows 10. Why would Microsoft do it any differently? As of Windows 11's summer unveiling, Windows 10 was dead, or at least a dead end. It was as feature-rich as it was ever going to get. Any development effort would be poured into 11, not 10 (even though 11 is, absent the new hardware requirements, mislabeled and should have been cast as 10+ if not just 10 21H2).

For the next four years, Windows 10 will be served with security updates on the second Tuesday of every month. But feature or functionality additions? Highly unlikely. That's exactly the model Windows 7 used during its late-2009 to early-2020 run, that's the historical OS servicing model Microsoft applied until Windows 10's mid-2015 debut.

Ironically, it will be these upcoming years that Windows 10's servicing behavior becomes what some commercial users demanded even before the operating system's launch six years ago. Microsoft gave them what they wanted in the form of the LTSB (Long-term Servicing Branch) edition, later changed to LTSC, with Channel replacing Branch. A few years on, Microsoft snatched LSTB/LTSC away from customers, mostly.

With the launch of Windows 11, Microsoft bent about as far as it can to commercial pressures, by reducing feature upgrade releases to one per year and extending Enterprise/Education support to 36 months so IT admins could retreat to a once-every-two-years upgrade cadence.

For those still dissatisfied with how Windows servicing as worked out, the simple solution will be to stick with Windows 10 and its new Windows 7-esque maintenance through the fall of 2025, and if Microsoft provides extended support, as Computerworld expects it will, until 2028.

There's no telling how Windows 12 will be serviced when that rolls around.

How Windows 10 ends up a lot like Windows 7

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Google tests if 'Chrome/100.0' user agent breaks websites

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 22:30:19 +0000

Google is testing whether changing the Chrome user agent to three-digit 'Chrome/100' will cause loss of functionality on websites that are expecting a two digit version number.

A user agent is a string sent by a web browser to a website to let the site know what browser the visitor is using, its version, and integrated technology.

When a new version of a browser, such as Google Chrome, is released, the developers will increment the version number in a user agent string.

For example, the user agent for Google Chrome version 93 is:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/93.0.4577.82 Safari/537.36

While for the current version, Chrome 94, it is:

"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/94.0.4606.54 Safari/537.36

As you can see, the Chrome version number in the user agent string is incremented to match the browser's version number.

By sending the browser user agent to a website, it allows site developers to change a site or app's functionality to accommodate various browser quirks, features, and abilities.

Testing if Chrome 100 user agent breaks websites

As Google Chrome version numbers are currently two digits, Chrome engineers are investigating whether any site, or its functionality, breaks when Chrome 100 is released in March 2022.

"To avoid any UA string breakage when Chrome ships v100, we should add a flag to chrome://flags which flips the current major version to 100 in the User-Agent string as well as navigator.userAgent," Google Chrome engineer Mike Taylor explains in a bug post first spotted by Techdows.

When conducting the test, Chrome users will have their user agent changed to the following string with the hopes that if anything breaks, they will report it to Google.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/100.0.4651.0 Safari/537.36

A similar test was conducted by Mozilla in August 2021 where the Firefox user agent was changed to "Firefox/100.0" user agent.

For the most part, there have not been too many issues, with only a few sites stating the browser is unsupported or problems with the functionality of the site.

Slack's web interface also showed some problems with popup menu buttons, but was quickly fixed by the Slack developers.

To test the Google Chrome 100 user agent on your own sites or sites you visit, you can enable this test using the following steps:

Open Google Chrome Canary, enter chrome://flags in the address bar, and press enter.
Search for Force major version to 100 in User-Agent in the search field, and when the option appears, enable it as shown below.

Adding the general.useragent.override setting
When prompted to relaunch the browser, please do so.
Once the browser is opened again, you can close the chrome://flags screen.

Now that this setting is enabled, when you visit web page it will send a user agent indicating that the browser is Chrome 100.

To change Chrome's user agent back to its default, simply follow this process and change the flag's setting to Default and relaunch the browser again.

Google tests if 'Chrome/100.0' user agent breaks websites