Firefox ESR versions are maintained for a longer period compared to stable releases. One core difference is that they are released with a specific feature set that is not changed during the lifetime. Security updates and bug fixes are released, but features are not added usually until the next ESR version is released.

The last Firefox ESR version, Firefox 78 ESR, was released in June 2020, and it replaced Firefox 68 ESR in September 2020.

Two Firefox ESR branches are released side-by-side for a period of two or three releases usually, before the older one is not updated anymore; this gives organizations and home users enough testing and migration time.

Firefox 91 ESR won't replace Firefox 78 ESR right away. The latter will see two additional releases, Firefox 78.14 ESR and Firefox 78.15 ESR before it will be discontinued; this will happen in October 2021.

Firefox 91 ESR marks the beginning of a new base for extended support releases. The version will be supported for about a year.

Organizations and home users who are running the current ESR version may update their installations to the new version. The upgrade is a major one, considering that Firefox 91 includes all the functionality that Mozilla introduced since the release of Firefox 78 ESR.

Major changes include the new interface design that Mozilla rolled out recently, improved privacy protections, removed Adobe Flash support, support for new operating system versions, e.g. Mac OS Big Sur, and a lot more.

Here is a short list of changes that will be introduced in Firefox 91 ESR:

• Firefox 90 does not support the FTP protocol anymore.
• Mozilla introduced a new interface in Firefox 89.
• Windows background updates are supported.
• Firefox 87 introduces support for SmartBlock feature.
• Firefox 86 introduces a new privacy feature called Total Cookie Protection.
• Flash support was removed.
• A new printing interface was introduced in Firefox 81.
• Improved network partitioning support in Firefox 85.
• JavaScript is supported in PDF documents.

Firefox ESR is also the base of the Tor Browser. The developers of the Tor browser will update the browser to the new ESR version as well, eventually.

Firefox ESR users may want to test the new version before they upgrade existing installations and profiles. You could download and run the portable version of Firefox ESR from Portable Apps for testing; it does not interfere with the active installation, as it is portable, and you could import the Firefox profile from the installed version to the portable version to test it.  Firefox ESR versions are not upgraded automatically to a new base version, this begins with the second release after the release of the new base version.

Closing Words

The new Firefox 91 base for ESR releases introduces significant changes to various features of the browser. Some features are removed, e.g. Flash support is gone for good and the interface redesign has removed some options, but there are also new features, such as improved privacy protections. Organizations who rely on these features lose another option, and need to look elsewhere, e.g. Pale Moon, for support.

Firefox ESR 91: new ESR version will be released tomorrow

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:90.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/90.0

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/92.0.4515.131 Safari/537.36

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; rv:100.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/100.0

Mozilla tests if 'Firefox/100.0' user agent breaks websites

New data shows the web browser industry has found itself in a position of stalemate, despite the ongoing efforts of Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox to outdo one another in key battlegrounds.

As per the latest figures from Statcounter, no major browser has experienced a rise or fall in market share of more than 1.74% since the start of the year.

In spite of the bounty of new features pushed out by smaller rivals, the most significant growth was achieved by market leader Google Chrome, which has expanded its share from 63.38% to 65.12% since January. 

Further down the rankings, change in market share has been even less pronounced: Safari has experienced a drop of 0.6% and Firefox of 0.32%, while Edge has grown its user base by the equivalent amount.

Stalemate in the browser industry (Image credit: Statcounter)

Firefox vs. Edge

Arguably the most fascinating rivalry in the browser industry is between Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge, two services fighting for the honor of third largest browser (behind Chrome and Safari).

Since its re-release in January 2020, Microsoft Edge has gone from strength to strength and now holds 3.4% of the market. In May, Edge even overtook Firefox in the rankings for the first time.

The growth of Microsoft’s new flagship can be attributed to a range of factors, including renewed marketing efforts and a commitment to making improvements that bring the experience in line with other modern browsers.

However, despite the company’s best efforts, the growth of Edge has stalled since the turn of the year, in part due to the pool of Internet Explorer and Edge Legacy users running dry, many of whom have now already made the transition. Although the Edge market share is up on the 3.08% held in January, there has been only a 0.1% change in the last six months.

Mozilla, meanwhile, has found it difficult to pull Firefox out of a downward spiral that now extends back a number of years. According to Statcounter, the browser has either lost or maintained market share in ten of the last twelve months.

The fact Firefox managed to retake third position from Edge last month (with a share of 3.45%) is a victory of sorts, but will be cold comfort for anyone who remembers a time in which Mozilla enjoyed a whopping 30% of the market, behind only Internet Explorer.

Perhaps sensing it cannot compete with Microsoft and Google when it comes to features, Mozilla’s favored battleground is now data privacy. On top of privacy-centric features for Firefox, the company has rolled out a range of new privacy products, including a VPN service. It has also been vocal about its disapproval of reform to online advertising proposed by Google, which it sees as equally invasive as third-party cookies.

No browser is positioned to challenge the lead of Google Chrome in the near future, short of regulatory reform that blocks Google from drawing advantage from its positions in the search, collaboration and OS markets.

However, the battle between Firefox and Edge further down the rankings is delicately poised. The pair have been neck and neck all year, but this sort of equilibrium rarely lasts for long.

Source

Windows 11: The top most requested features and changes

Moreover, the new Office build also includes fixes for issues found in Excel and Word. You can read the full official changelog below to know more.

Changelog

Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook

Add WebP images to Office creations

WebP is a modern image format that offers better compression for publishing images to the web. We’ve now added support in Office apps for WebP images! To add a WebP image to your creation in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Outlook, just go to the Insert tab, select Pictures > This Device, choose your image, and click Insert.

Learn more >

Excel

Notable Fixes

• We fixed an issue with switching separators after a Selection.Parent.Copy call.
• We fixed an issue where Excel was clearing out the value for HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Common\UserInfo\Company in non-MSI installs of Office.

Word

Notable Fixes

• We fixed an issue with the Document.Save command.

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

Windows Office Insider Preview Build 14329.20000 adds WebP image format support

[Version in article title corrected. Site shows wrong version 14326.20004.]

As reported by MSpoweruser and first spotted by Leo Verla, a new option is coming to Edge's settings menu that will enable users to add “Save as PDF” to the browser's Context Menu.

While the content of webpages can change frequently, saving them as PDF files can be a great way to keep a copy of an article or blog post for research purposes.

Save as PDF

In a recent post on Reddit, Leo Verla showed some screenshots of Edge's new “Save as PDF” feature and explained that Microsoft has also brought back the “mini-menu and the built-in dictionary” to insider versions of its browser.

Being able to right click to save web pages as a PDF will likely save Edge users a lot of time as they previously had to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + P to bring up the browser's print menu and choose “Microsoft Print to PDF” to do so.

While this new feature is currently available in Edge Canary Build 94.0.974.0 as part of a controlled feature rollout, it should arrive in stable versions of Microsoft's browser in the next several months.

Source

One major differentiating factor between Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome is the former's support for vertical tabs. Introduced in Microsoft Edge in late 2020, vertical tabs move the tab bar from its horizontal position right above the address bar to a sidebar on the left.

Microsoft added new features to vertical tabs in recent time, first support for resizing tabs, then support for Tab Groups. Tab Groups, which Microsoft will introduce in Edge 93 as well, group tabs together. While this works fine if tabs are displayed horizontally, it works even better when vertical tabs are displayed.

Core reason for that is that vertical tabs displayed more tabs on the screen without scrolling; this in turn makes operations such as drag and drop, or locating tabs or groups easier.

Up until now, vertical tabs did not offer that much of a space saving effect as Edge displays a titlebar if vertical tabs are enabled.  Work on an option to hide the titlebar began in March in development versions of Edge.

Starting in Edge 93 Stable, all users get the option to hide the titlebar if vertical tabs are displayed in Edge.

The design, when enabled, mimics that of Edge's default layout, but without the tabs bar included. The window minimize, maximize and close buttons are displayed in the upper right corner in a very thin bar that is right above the address bar of the browser.

Tabs are displayed vertically, and there is no title bar to display the title of the active page. You may move the mouse cursor over the sidebar to display all titles.

Here is how you enable the feature in Edge 93 and newer:

1. Load edge://settings/appearance in the browser's address bar.
2. Scroll down to the "Customize Toolbar" section.
3. Toggle Hide title bar while in vertical tabs.
   1. It is turned on when the dot is on the right side.
   2. It is turned off if the dot is on the left side.

The feature is enabled on the screenshot above.

Closing Words

Edge's sidebar tabs feature works really well. I have switched to sidebar tabs in all Edge instances on my devices and have not looked back. Some users criticized the feature up until now because it did not save them any pixels because of the inclusion of the title bar in that mode. The new option adds the missing option to hide the title bar to save some pixels in vertical tabs mode.

Microsoft Edge 93: hide the titlebar in vertical tab mode

Moreover, Microsoft has also added Modern comments to Word. As described by Microsoft, the new Modern comments feature creates a consistent commenting experience across Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and enables notifications that allow users to respond to comments directly from email notifications. In Outlook you can now use voice commands such as “add [name] to email” or “at mention [name]” to speed up the email dictation. Another useful feature is the new LAMBDA function for Excel, offering users the power of custom functions without writing code. You read the full official changelog below.

Changelog

Word, Excel, PowerPoint

Application Guard for Office supports saving in alternative file types

Application Guard is an Office feature that protects you from files that may contain harmful data, such as viruses or malware. The functionality enables you to open untrusted files in a secure container, isolated from the rest of your data. Now Application Guard allows you to use Save As to change the file type to a wide variety of options.

Excel

Powerful New Lambda Function Released

Do you make repeated use of custom formulas or calculations in Excel, and wish you could define and reuse them? Now you can, with LAMBDA, a new feature that offers users the power of custom functions without writing code. Once you have written your function using the LAMBDA syntax, you can store it by clicking the Formulas tab, selecting Name Manager, clicking New, and entering the required information.

Learn more >

Improved scrolling in sheets with large cells

When you are using a sheet with very large cells, sometimes the “snap to grid” functionality in Excel can make it harder to view the data you want. We’ve fixed this issue by making the scrolling much smoother—no more snapping to rows and columns. You’re now able to stop scrolling partially through a row or column, and Excel will not force the sheet to snap to the edges.

Word

Better collaboration with modern comments

Enjoy richer collaboration in Word with the new modern comments. Users can now @mention people in comments, and post them without worrying that co-authors will see the comments before they are completed. Modern comments creates a consistent commenting experience across Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and enables notifications that allow users to respond to comments directly from email notifications.

Learn more >

Outlook

Use voice commands to speed up email dictation

In our increasingly busy world, dictating your emails in Outlook has become a very popular way to improve your efficiency. We’ve now made this feature even more powerful by adding specific voice commands, enabling you to add people to an email, mention (@name) someone in a message, and send the mail—all using only your voice. To use this feature, click the Dictate button on the Message tab for an email. Then dictate your message and try out a voice command, such as “add [name] to email” or “at mention [name],” and observe the results.

Learn more >

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

New Windows Office Insider Build 14326.20046(Current Channel) will save you from files that contain harmful data

Microsoft has announced that the July 2021 update of its Visual Studio Code editor has been made available. Each new version of Visual Studio Code is released each month with several new features and this month is no different. Some of the changes include improvements to the extensions view no matter how big your display is and built-in support for Jupyter notebooks .ipynb files which means you’ll no longer need to grab the plug-in.

Other features available in this update give you the option to customise multiple colour themes at once and move terminals across windows to editor and panel areas. Furthermore, VS Code gained a command line interface for working with development containers, you can view disassembled C++ code with the Debug Disassembly view, the built-in Test Explorer supports running tests natively in the editor, and you can find editing errors for object-based settings using the settings editor validation tool.

Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code team said it will be holding a live stream next Tuesday (August 10) at 8 a.m. PST to show off all the new features in this update. If you want to ask the team any questions about the changes in this update, there will be the opportunity to do so.

You can use the following links to download the latest update:

Windows: User Installer, System Installer, ARM

Mac: Universal, 64-bit, Arm64

Linux: snap, deb, rpm, tarball, ARM

If you want to try new features before they’re released to everyone, you can use the Visual Studio Code Insiders builds which are released daily.

Visual Studio Code July 2021 update (1.59) now available, this is what's new

Torvalds seems bullish on getting Paragon's project across the line eventually.

 

In March of last year, proprietary filesystem vendor Paragon Software unleashed a stream of anti-open source FUD about a Samsung-derived exFAT implementation headed into the Linux kernel. Several months later, Paragon seemed to have seen the error of its ways and began the arduous process of getting its own implementation of Microsoft's NTFS (the default filesystem for all Windows machines) into the kernel as well.

 

Although Paragon is still clearly struggling to get its processes and practices aligned to open source-friendly ones, Linux kernel BDFL Linus Torvalds seems to have taken a personal interest in the process. After nearly a year of effort by Paragon, Torvalds continues to gently nudge both it and skeptical Linux devs in order to keep the project moving forward.

Why Paragon?

To those familiar with daily Linux use, the utility of Paragon's version of NTFS might not be immediately obvious. The Linux kernel already has one implementation of NTFS, and most distributions make it incredibly easy to install and use another FUSE-based implementation (ntfs-3g) beyond that.

 

Both existing implementations have problems, however. The in-kernel implementation of NTFS is extremely old, poorly maintained, and should only be used read-only. As a result, most people who actually need to mount NTFS filesystems on Linux use the ntfs-3g driver instead.

 

Ntfs-3g is in reasonably good shape—it's much newer than the in-kernel ntfs implementation, and as Linux filesystem guru Ted Ts'o points out, it actually passes more automated filesystem tests than Paragon's own ntfs3 does.

 

Unfortunately, due to operating in userspace rather than in-kernel, ntfs-3g's performance is abysmal. In Ts'o's testing, Paragon's ntfs3 completed automated testing in 8,106 seconds—but the FUSE-based ntfs-3g required a whopping 34,783 seconds.

 

Bugs and performance aside, ongoing maintenance is a key aspect to Paragon's ntfs3 making it in-kernel. Torvalds opined that "Paragon should just make a pull request for [ntfs3]"—but he did so after noting that the code should get OKs from current maintainers and that Paragon itself should maintain the code going forward. (Paragon developer Konstantin Komarov quickly replied that the company intended to continue maintaining the code, once accepted.)

Why not Paragon?

Although Torvalds himself seems positive about getting Paragon's ntfs3 driver mainlined, as do several other users and developers, there are still some concerns about getting Paragon and its workflow properly integrated into the kernel dev community and up to that community's standards.

 

Ted Ts'o—core maintainer of Linux's ext3/ext4 filesystems, and the e2fsprogs userspace utilities used to manage them—seems to be the most critical. In addition to the slightly higher number of failed automated tests he found in Paragon's code, he notes other issues such as whole-system deadlocks that pop up if ntfs3 is stressed too hard. (This is an issue that we have heard over the years from people who've purchased Paragon's ntfs3, as well.)

 

Ts'o also raises questions about maintenance and communication, saying, "I'd feel better if *someone* at Paragon Software responded to Darrick [Wong] and my queries about their quality assurance, and/or made commitments that they would at least *try* to fix the problems that about 5 minutes of testing using fstests turned up trivially."

 

Fellow developer Darrick Wong added that he wants to make sure Paragon was invested in maintenance moving forward, so that ntfs3 wouldn't "become one of the shabby Linux filesystem drivers, like [the current in-kernel ntfs]."

The path forward

Despite skepticism from Ts'o and Wong, we broadly expect that inclusion of Paragon's ntfs3 will happen eventually. The company has worked for a year so far to take its code from 27,000 lines tossed over the wall into a Linux-ready patch set—and although primary developer Komarov may not have always replied as quickly or thoroughly as Ts'o and Wong prefer, he does continue to respond.

 

For his own part, Torvalds seems determined to find a performant, modern, maintainable replacement for the ancient (2001-era) and seldom-used ntfs implementation in the kernel now. As long as Paragon remains willing to keep playing, it seems likely to get there eventually—perhaps even in time for the 5.15 kernel.

Paragon is working to get its ntfs3 filesystem into the Linux kernel

Reddit user nixcraft noticed in Mozilla's own Public data Report that Firefox has lost 46 million users over the last three years. As PC Gamer reports, Firefox is still sitting pretty with 198 million active monthly users, but this number was much higher at the end of 2018 at around 244 million.

The internet is an ever-evolving beast of course, so while Firefox accounted for around 30% of all browser usage back in 2008 (trailing behind Internet Explorer's impressive 60%), Mozilla's once-popular browser now sits at under 3%. We currently have Firefox ranked in first place on our list of the best web browsers, but if it's so much better than the competition, why are people moving away from it?

Out-muscled by Google

There are a few reasons why the migration is happening, and why Chrome is mostly benefitting. Many websites are best optimized for Google's web browser, with faster loading times and allows for easier access to other products within its ecosystem such as Google Sheets and Google Meet.

Many businesses use G Suite too, which makes downloading Chrome preferable over other available browsers. Chrome also has the advantage of being the default browser across Android devices, and of course Google is happy to nag you to download Chrome if it catches you using its services on another browser like Edge. 

Speaking of which, Edge is now based on Chromium and offers more compelling benefits than Microsoft's now-retired Internet Explorer, with instant web compatibility and support for Chrome extensions.

Firefox has its own Add-ons of course and long-time users will often reference its advantage in privacy protection, but recent updates have felt a tad lackluster and it's noticeably slower than Chromium-based browsers. Many users will also take the path of least resistance, and given Google and Microsoft's annoying ad campaigns that push you towards using their products it's understandable that folk will eventually concede to get some peace.

The anti-competitive approach that Google has over browsers is cause for concern, but Firefox isn't going to disappear overnight, even with it being strangled by rivals based on Chromium. ItsFoss, who originally reported on nixcraft's Reddit thread recommends downloading Firefox for use as a secondary browser in a bid to try and fight back against Google's quest for domination, and it's hard to argue against but we doubt that this will work in practice.

Mozilla needs to improve its performance to match that of Chromium if it wants to remain a viable alternative because all the enhanced security and customization in the world won't help if it takes forever to load your favorite websites. 

Source

You can check out the demo of Windows 11’s Focus Sessions feature below.

Source: Microsoft

Microsoft’s Windows 11 will come with a brand-new feature called Focus Sessions

This is the second build to be rolled out to the Beta channel, letting users enrolled in that channel test out the same Windows 11 builds that are heading to the Dev channel. This might indicate that the OS is nearing relative stability, with further builds like to be focused on bug fixes, readying it for general availability. Eventually, the Dev channel will move to newer development builds that are aimed at release next year.

In addition to the long list of fixes and improvements, there are also a bunch of known issues that users must be aware of. Some issues are specific to the Beta channel, where those upgrading from Windows 10 might not see the Taskbar or Start menu. The firm has listed a workaround for the issue.

Here is the complete list of known issues in this build:

• [REMINDER] When upgrading to Windows 11 from Windows 10 or when installing an update to Windows 11, some features may be deprecated or removed. See details here.
• We’re investigating an issue where on some devices, when going to Settings > Windows Update > Windows Insider Program, only the “Stop getting preview builds” option is visible. This prevents Insiders from selecting a channel. We have posted a workaround on Answers.
• [BETA CHANNEL] 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.
• 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.
  • When you hover your mouse over the Search icon on the Taskbar, recent searches may not be displayed. To work around the issue, restart your PC.
  • 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.
  • Launching links from the widgets board may not invoke apps to the foreground.
  • 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.
  • [Family widget] Some users may see a ‘connect a device to see screen time activity’ message even with screen time settings enable.
  • [Family widget] Location information may not be available for some users on iOS.
• Store:
  • We are working to improve search relevance in the Store including resolving an issue where in some cases the ordering of search results is inaccurate.
  • The install button might not be functional yet in some limited scenarios.
  • Rating and reviews are not available for some apps.
• Windows Sandbox
  • The Taskbar will crash continuously in Windows Sandbox. The team is investigating a fix.
• Localization
  • There is an issue where some Insiders may be some missing translations from their user experience for a small subset of languages running the latest Insider Preview builds. To confirm if you have been impacted, please visit this Answers forum post and follow the steps for remediation.

Microsoft is expected to begin rolling out Windows 11 to select users later this year. There however are still uncertainties about the exact hardware requirements needed for devices to qualify for the updates, which will hopefully be finalized leading to general availability. As for the OS itself, the underlying bits are mostly complete, which is why these releases are cumulative updates and not entirely new builds.

Here are the known issues in Windows 11 build 22000.120

Beta channel builds, however, will eventually be promoted to the Release Preview channel, before they finally make it to general availability, which hints suggest will be sometime in October this year. This is also the best time to hop off the Dev channel to more stable releases in the Beta channel if you wish to, without having to perform a clean install. You can check out the steps to follow to switch builds in our quick guide here.

As for what’s new, there isn’t much in the way of major features since the builds are still being prepped for release, and the underlying bits of the OS are almost complete. There are a bunch of improvements based on user feedback, along with the usual crop of bug fixes, which is to be expected in this stage of the development. What is still missing is the ability to run Android apps, which the firm promised will arrive in future builds.

Build 22000.120 brings a new Family widget that shows information about users' family groups connected to their Microsoft accounts. The firm is also adding the ability to notification badges for the chat icon on the taskbar, something that will not be available to many users. Additionally, File Explorer context menus are also being tweaked to make them compact, which is suited for use with a mouse pointer. There are also some UI tweaks for the taskbar.

Here is the full list of the changes:

• We are introducing a new Family widget for MSA accounts! It is available in all Windows languages and regions. It allows you to see recent activity from members of your Microsoft family group.

• We are beginning to rollout notification badging for the Chat icon on the Taskbar. Not everyone will see it right away at first.
• Made some adjustments to improve how the close button looks like in the Taskbar preview windows.
• When changing backgrounds for Desktops, even if Settings is already open, using Choose Background via Task View will now force Settings to move to whichever Desktop you’re actually on.
• Moved the Identify button in Display Settings to be right under the control for arranging your monitors (when you have multiple monitors connected) so it’s easier to find.
• We’ve updated File Explorer’s context menu to be a little more compact for mouse users.
• Updated the “New” button in the File Explorer’s command bar to use a dropdown menu style with all options in one list instead of a nested list.
• We’ve made some adjustments to improve the use of space and thumbnail sizes within ALT + Tab, Task View and snap assist.

In addition to these, the firm is also rolling out an update to the Microsoft Store for Dev channel users with a bunch of improvements. These include a new auto-scrolling feature for the spotlight apps on the main page, a refreshed design for the gaming section, and improvements to the ratings and review form. These changes are expected to make it to Beta channel users if there are "no blocking issues", the company adds.

As usual, there is a list of bug fixes and other improvements that the firm has detailed. With these builds heading towards general release, there are a ton of fixes, which is always a good thing. These are welcome for those running Beta builds as well, as a level of stability is expected from those users, unlike those in the Dev channel. Here is the complete changelog for what's fixed:

• Taskbar:
  • The virtual touchpad is now available again to be enabled in Taskbar Settings.
  • The Task View flyout will no longer dismiss when you start typing when attempting to rename your Desktops.
  • The Task View flyout should now display in the correct direction for Insiders using the Arabic or Hebrew display language.
  • When Cortana is set up for voice activation, hovering over the microphone icon in the Taskbar corner will now say “Your assistant is ready to respond” instead of “Host process for Windows Services”.
  • DPI changes should no longer cause icon duplication and overlapping in the Taskbar corner.
  • Adjusted the calendar flyout header spacing to give a bit more room in response to feedback that the days of the week were wrapping in some languages.
  • Fixed an issue where if you updated your preferred first day of the week, it wouldn’t be reflected in the calendar flyout until you signed out and back in.
  • Your preferred calendar flyout state (expanded or collapsed) should now persist reboot.
  • Fixed a race condition for Insiders will multiple monitors related to the Taskbar that was causing Start menu to fly up into the corner of the screen, and explorer.exe to crash when you tried hovering over the Task View button on secondary monitors.
  • Mitigated an issue that could trigger an explorer.exe crash loop for Insiders running Windows with multiple monitors.
  • Based on our analysis of the previous flight, we believe the explorer.exe crash loop for Turkish Insiders when their laptops were at 100% charge has been addressed and we are removing this from the known issues list.
  • Clicking the widgets icon on your secondary monitor should now open widgets on that monitor instead of your primary one.
  • Right-clicking on the Taskbar with a pen should no longer cause a crash.
  • Addressed an issue that was making app icons in the Taskbar blurry for some Insiders.
  • We’ve done some work to address an issue where app icons in the Taskbar could become stuck in a blank state when loading.
  • Fixed an issue that was making explorer.exe crash when clicking the Task View button.
  • Fixed an issue where the Chat window was getting stuck on the screen.
  • Clicking Chat on a secondary monitor should now launch it in the correct position and DPI.
  • We’ve done some work to address an issue where the Taskbar preview windows were getting stuck on the screen and not dismissing when you clicked something else.
  • To address an issue where pressing F7 with focus set to the Taskbar would lock up the taskbar, we’ve made a change so that the caret browsing prompt will no longer appear if F7 is pressed somewhere where a text block is not present.
  • If you press WIN + B followed by the arrow keys, you will now be able to navigate to all the elements in the taskbar corner without needing to press Tab first.
  • Badges on the app icons on secondary monitors should now be in sync with what’s showing on the primary monitor.
• Settings:
  • Settings will no longer crash when clicking “Facial recognition (Windows Hello)” under Sign-in Settings when Windows Hello is already set up.
  • We fixed an issue where in navigating to Settings > Network & Internet > Ethernet could unexpectedly change the network profile type. If you are an ethernet user, please check your settings after upgrading to this build to ensure your desired network profile type is selected and change it if it isn’t.
  • Fixed an issue where setting your IP address in Network Settings wasn’t working in certain cases.
  • Editing your VPN proxy details in Settings should no longer cause Settings to crash.
  • Fixed another issue causing Power & Battery Settings to crash.
  • Also fixed an issue that could make Settings crash specifically if you went to look at the 7-day battery usage graph in Power & Battery Settings.
  • The progress bars in Settings are now properly accent colored.
  • Saving custom themes in Personalization Settings should now work.
  • Hooked up some Get Help links that stopped pointing to specific guidance after the Settings updates introduced in Windows 11.
  • Hovering over the toggle switches in Settings will no longer make them disappear.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause search in Settings to be in a permanently broken state, saying “No result” for every search.
  • Did some work to help address an issue where you would see a big solid accent color area while resizing the Settings window.
  • Settings should no longer flash green on launch.
  • We’ve done some work to fix an issue that was causing random crashes on Settings pages with lists, as well as an issue causing random crashes on Settings pages with radio buttons.
  • Links to specific Settings pages will now properly navigate to the correct page in Settings when Settings isn’t already open.
  • Your profile picture in Settings should no longer have an unexpected square backplate when transparency is enabled.
  • Added in the missing progress bar when uninstalling apps under Apps & Features in Settings.
  • Icons in the volume mixer in Sound Settings should no longer become overlapped.
  • In-bound Bluetooth PIN pairing in Settings should work again now.
  • If you click “Advanced Options” at the top of the page while navigating through Windows Update Settings, it should now actually open Advanced Options.
  • Made another fix for the volume and brightness sliders becoming unexpectedly tiny if all other settings were removed from Quick Settings.
  • Going from one of the subpages of Quick Settings over to the input flyout should no longer cause a crash.
  • If you use the Accessibility section of Quick Settings, the toggles should now show the correct state of each feature.
  • If you press WIN + P to go directly to Project within Quick Settings, the arrow keys now work to navigate up and down the list.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing some thumbnails to be randomly squished in the media control above Quick Settings.
  • Made another fix to address Focus Assist turning on unexpectedly when viewing the desktop.
• File Explorer:
  • Fixed an issue resulting in File Explorer unexpectedly not showing an updated scroll bar when in dark mode.
  • Addressed a GDI handle leak related to context menu usage resulting in sluggishness across File Explorer after prolonged usage.
  • Made a change to address a memory leak which was impacting File Explorer, increasing each time more File Explorer windows were opened.
  • Also made a change related to the command bar in File Explorer that was resulting an increased thread count every time a new File Explorer window was opened that would continually grow, consuming resources.
  • Fixed a high hitting explorer.exe crash related to the use of Acrylic in File Explorer’s context menus.
  • Fixed an issue making the focus rectangle unexpectedly appear when using mouse to interact with File Explorer’s command bar.
  • The context menu shouldn’t flicker anymore if you hover over it when Contrast themes are enabled.
  • The context menu should no longer unexpectedly get clipped on the side, not rendering completely.
  • Right clicking the bottom corner of the desktop show no longer causes the context menu to open at the top of the screen.
  • We addressed an underlying issue that we believe is the root cause for a scrollbar appearing in the context menu and explorer.exe crashing when you tried to interact with it.
  • Made a change to help make the radio buttons in File Explorer’s File Options a little more obvious when they’re in the selected state.
  • Clicking the rename button in the command bar should no longer randomly show the Open With dialog sometimes.
  • Fixed an issue that was making some of the file operation dialogs have unreadable button text in dark mode (for example, “File in Use” and “Destination Folder Access Denied”).
• Start menu:
  • Rapidly pressing the Windows key multiple times should no longer crash Start.
  • Made a change to help improve Start menu launch performance.
  • Fixed an issue where if you clicked on one of the files in Recommended, it was opening the file in an unexpected app in some cases.
  • Made a change to address an issue where Search was sometimes randomly flashing on top of Start when opening Start.
• Search:
  • Hovering over the Search icon should no longer cause a crash when the recent searches have been updated.
  • When hovering over the Search icon the window should no longer become clipped.
• Windowing:
  • Connecting and disconnecting to a PC over Remote Desktop, and switching users, should no longer make all your open apps unexpectedly minimize.
  • Addressed a high hitting explorer.exe crash when snapping certain apps on system with mixed DPI monitors.
  • When the snap layouts window is visible after hovering on the maximize button of an app it should now dismiss more reliably now when you move your mouse away.
  • Fixed an issue that was making explorer.exe crash sometimes if you docked or undocked your PC with snapped windows.
  • Window frames should no longer get stuck on the screen when closing windows.
  • Fixed an issue that was making windows unexpectedly open on the wrong Desktop when they shouldn’t.
  • We’ve turned off the animation when switching Desktops using the keyboard shortcuts as it was leading to flashes and hangs.
  • When maximizing certain windows, like File Explorer, the border should no longer low over to secondary monitors.
  • Addressed an issue that was causing screen readers to unexpectedly say “DesktopWindowXamlSource” when using ALT + Tab.
  • We’ve done some work to improve the sensitivity when using the touchpad gesture to invoke ALT + Tab and switch apps.
  • If you were experiencing issues with snap ssist not appearing on the previous flight, we believe this should be resolved after upgrading to this one.
• Windows Security and logging in:
  • Windows Hello Face should be working again now after upgrading.
  • The button text in the UAC dialog should now correctly say Yes and No again for Insiders not using EN-US.
  • Fixed an issue that was making the UAC dialog launch in the background for apps pinned to the Taskbar in certain scenarios.
  • A Windows Defender fix to address the issue where “Automatic sample submission” was unexpectedly turned off when you restarted your PC is rolling out.
  • We mitigated an issue resulting in some Insiders seeing a repeated logonui.exe crash.
  • We also mitigated a deadlock that could result in your PC getting stuck at a black screen when unlocking your PC, and a separate crash that was making some Insiders see a black screen for a few seconds after logging in.
  • Fixed an issue that was making explorer.exe crash for some Insiders when logging in for the first time after booting their PC.
  • Improved visibility of login screen elements when using high contrast.
  • Logging in or locking your PC should no longer cause full screen white or accent colored flashes.
• Input:
  • Fixed an issue related to tooltips that was making clicks happen in the wrong place across the system, for example when interacting with icons on the desktop.
  • The touch keyboard should no longer get clipped after rotating the screen orientation when docked.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing explorer.exe to crash sometimes when changing focus between apps while using a third-party IME.
  • Mitigated an issue that is believed to be causing certain hardware keys and buttons to not work on some devices, including the function keys.
  • Mitigated a race condition that could result in certain devices unexpectedly waking from sleep if the touchpad was used to click the Sleep option in Start.
• Other:
  • Fixed an issue that could lead to PCs bug checking while sleeping.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing stuttering if you tried to play a game while the Xbox Game Bar performance monitor was pinned on the screen.
  • Mitigated an issue that could result in stutter or fps drop for Insiders when moving the mouse in certain games. Thank you Insiders who have taken the time to share feedback about gaming performance with us – if you continue experiencing issues after upgrading, please check our guidance on logging actionable feedback on this subject.
  • Fixed an issue where the boot menu wasn’t identifying Windows 11 correctly.
  • Addressed an issue believed to be causing a number of unexpected UI issues in the previous flight, including semi-transparent and unreadable dialogs, z-ordering issues, large, shadowed areas getting stuck on the screen. and backwards text in context menus for Arabic and Hebrew Insiders.
  • Addressed an issue where windows created while transparency was disabled would become stuck in a solid color instead of becoming acrylic when transparency was enabled.
  • We’ve done some work to remove the unexpected white artifacts in the corners of windows when using dark mode.
  • Right clicking multiple times in certain apps like Task Manager will no longer make the context menu frame change from rounded to square.
  • Fixed a focus issue that was making the window immediately dismiss after pressing ALT + F4 on the desktop.
  • Mitigated an issue that was resulting in unexpectedly needing to re-pair certain connected devices after rebooting.
  • Mitigated an explorer.exe deadlock that could happen when reordering your Desktops.
  • Addressed an issue that was resulting in Microsoft Store appearing to download app updates that were already installed on the PC.
  • Fixed an issue that was resulting in some Insiders experiencing bugchecks, in particular when playing games.

The update should be available for users running Beta and Dev channel builds from Windows Update. However, if you have been moved from the Beta channel to Release Preview owing to the lack of supported hardware, you will not be receiving this update, since those users are testing Windows 10 version 21H2.

As for developers, the company announced the release of the first Windows 11 SDK preview build, so developers can begin submitting apps for Windows 11. The company also says that it will continue releasing SDK preview builds along with Dev channel builds.

Windows 11 build 22000.120 out for the Dev and Beta channels, adds a new Family widget

Microsoft has now announced that it will unify both the apps to create a single OneNote app that will deliver great note taking experience on Windows. As a result, the current OneNote for Windows 10 app will be retired in the future. The OneNote app which is part of Office suite will get a visual refresh, the latest Microsoft pen and ink improvements and a new navigational UI layout option.

• The OneNote app will get new features and key existing features currently unique to OneNote for Windows 10.
• OneNote for Windows 10 users will get an in-app invitation to update to the OneNote app. We anticipate invitations to start in the second half of 2022. We will have a future announcement dedicated to IT pros that will detail the available controls over the timing and experience of updating users to the OneNote app.

If you are using OneNote for Windows 10 app today, you will be able to migrate to the updated OneNote app in the future. All notebooks you have today in OneNote and OneNote for Windows 10 will continue to work in the updated app.

Source: Microsoft

Microsoft to retire OneNote for Windows 10 app

Google has temporarily reversed Chrome's removal of browser alert windows and other prompts created via cross-origin iframes after a rocky rollout over the past two weeks broke web apps and alarmed developers.

An iframe, or Inline Frame, is a portion of a web page embedded in another web page. When it includes resources from a different origin or domain, it's a cross-origin iframe.

Since March, 2020, the team behind Chromium, the open-source engine of Chrome, has been planning to limit the capabilities of cross-origin iframes because they're a security liability. Specifically, they allow an embedded resource like an ad to present a prompt as if it were the host domain.

"The current user experience is confusing, and has previously led to spoofs where sites pretend the message comes from Chrome or a different website," a Google engineer explained in the company's initial Intent to Remove notice last year.

"Removing support for cross origin iframes’ ability to trigger the UI will not only prevent this kind of spoofing, but will also unblock further efforts to make the dialog more recognizable as part of the website rather than the browser."

Google's answer to spoofing has been to prevent JavaScript code in cross-origin iframes from calling the alert, prompt, and confirm methods on the browser's window object – which web developers use to show dialog boxes for user notifications and interaction.

By doing so, Google has broken more than a few web apps. And eventually, Google plans to remove these prompt mechanisms completely (from same-origin contexts as well as cross-origin ones), again to prevent potential abuse.

The deprecation of window.alert, window.prompt, and window.confirm from cross-origin iframes took effect with the release of Chrome 92.0.4515.107 on July 20. Since then, applications like social dev environment Codepen and Microsoft's Azure Cosmos DB have encountered problems because they present users with alerts, notifications, and confirmation windows via cross-origin iframes.

In the Chromium issue where the removal is being tracked, developers have been chiming in to express their dismay at the way this change has been forced upon the web community.

"This change has created quite a difficulty for us because we use a paid third party service embedded via iframe in our web app and I pass a small amount of limited custom JavaScript to that third party app when I instantiate their tool (to trigger some actions and customize part of the tool to the user)," wrote one developer last week." ...With this change I am scrambling to implement an ugly window.parent.postMessage workaround because chunks of our web app are now broken for our tens of thousands of users."

"I'm an engineer for a large ERP company and work on a product where hundreds of large customers (hundreds of thousands of users) are no longer able to use the product due to the removal of cross origin dialogs," wrote another developer.

"These customers generally choose to host the product themselves, which means signing up for the origin would fall on each of them individually. That isn't feasible for us or their IT departments. We internally are not even able to get it to work. We are also getting pushback on asking them to push out registry settings."

"My team is working around the clock and weekends trying to rewrite our product around this change and simply need more time.

This type of change should have been documented and warned about ahead of time in my opinion."

The outcry has proven voluble enough that Microsoft Edge last week reverted the changes in its upstream Chromium code to restore dialogs in cross-origin iframes. Shortly thereafter, a Google engineer said Chrome has disabled its deprecation until August 15 to provide developers with more time to rewrite their apps.

Google has even implemented a four-month opt-in "reverse origin trial" that temporarily revives cross-origin prompts for Chrome users and gives developers retrofitting large web apps more time to find replacements for the exiled API methods.

"This is peak Chrome; what seems to be a reasonably good idea that's hampered because it was pushed out thoughtlessly without putting any serious effort into notifying the people affected or making sure that nothing else breaks, or making sure that it thoroughly solves the problem," wrote developer Daniel Shumway in a post to Hacker News.

"The product owners at Chrome are smart, but they're careless and constantly break the web because they don't seem to have enough of a sense of gravitas or caution about what they're doing." ®

Source

Overly heavy-handed moderation tends to cause more problems than it solves.

Microsoft’s Windows 11 outreach efforts aren’t going very well

As for today’s build, the company is adding a second row of sites to the Top Sites view on the New Tab page. The small yet useful addition allows users to set up more sites for quick access on the new tab page. The build also bring a new spellcheck experience for Mac users. Apart from these, there are a bunch of policy additions and a few other minor features. Here is the complete list of new features:

• Added a second row of Top Sites on the New Tab Page.
• Enabled the new Spellcheck experience on Mac.
• Added management policies (note that updates to documentation and administrative templates may not have happened yet):
  • To control if WAM Auth on versions Below Win 10 RS3 is Enabled.
  • To control the Primary Password Setting, which controls if device authentication is required before autofilling a password in a webpage.
  • To control if the Password Generator is Enabled.
  • To control if Transparent Ad Providers are Enabled, which controls the blocking of certain trackers with Tracking Prevention.
  • To control if the setting to Open Microsoft Links In Edge is Enabled.
• Improved the sign-in dialog when signing into the browser.
• Added support for full-page screenshots and InPrivate authentication via Face ID on iOS.

As is always the case with such builds, there are a few bug fixes. The firm categorized them between fixes to improve reliability and changes that address reliability issues. The list is comparatively short this time owing to the release being the first build for a major version. Here are the fixes that are aimed at improving the reliability of the browser:

• Fixed a crash on launch.
• Fixed an issue where PWAs or websites installed as apps sometimes crash after an OS upgrade.
• Fixed an issue on Mac where a webpage crash can sometimes also cause a browser crash.
• Fixed an issue where interacting with PDFs sometimes causes the browser to freeze or crash.
• Fixed a crash when playing videos.

And here are the fixes that address changed behavior:

• Fixed an issue where pinned tabs are sometimes duplicated after restoring the previous session.
• Fixed an issue where the Import Browser Data popup in Settings sometimes doesn’t appear or work.
• Fixed an issue where themes sometimes become broken or uninstalled after the browser updates.
• Fixed an issue where printing a PDF multiple times sometimes fails.
• Fixed an issue where Office files sometimes fail to download with a SERVER_FORBIDDEN error.
• Fixed an issue where some passwords in Password Settings don’t have an option to change them.
• Fixed an issue where WebView2 applications fail to open on Windows 11.
• Fixed an issue where WebView2 applications sometimes fail to authenticate with an ERR_SSL_CLIENT_AUTH_CERT_NEEDED error.
• Fixed an issue with vertical tabs where all tabs sometimes become invisible.
• Fixed an issue where Favorites in Application Guard windows sometimes are corrupted.
• Fixed an issue where User Initiated Autofill doesn’t work in multi-line text boxes.
• Fixed an issue where MHT files sometimes don’t open properly.
• Fixed an issue where spellcheck suggestions sometimes don’t appear.
• Fixed an issue on Linux where SmartCopy doesn’t appear to work because the buttons that appear to copy captured content don’t work.

And lastly, there is the list of known issues that the firm maintains. You might find some that have been on the list for a number of versions now, with some of them having workaround listed. The list, however, has become shorter, with problems with Microsoft Editor now seemingly fixed. Here is the complete list of known issues:

• Users of certain ad blocking extensions may experience playback errors on Youtube. As a workaround, temporarily disabling the extension should allow playback to proceed. See this help article for more details.
• Some users are still running into an issue where all tabs and extensions immediately crash with a STATUS_INVALID_IMAGE_HASH error. The most common cause of this error is outdated security or antivirus software from vendors like Symantec, and in those cases, updating that software will fix it.
• Users of the Kaspersky Internet Suite who have the associated extension installed may sometimes see webpages like Gmail fail to load. This failure is due to the main Kaspersky software being out of date, and is thus fixed by making sure the latest version is installed.
• Some users are still seeing favorites get duplicated. This issue should be reduced now that automatic deduplication has been introduced into Insider channels, but we’re still rolling that out in Stable. We’ve also seen duplication happen when running the manual deduplicator on multiple machines before either machine has a chance to fully sync its changes, so make sure to leave plenty of time in between runs of the deduplicator.
• Some users are seeing “wobbling” behavior when scrolling using trackpad gestures or touchscreens, where scrolling in one dimension also causes the page to subtly scroll back and forth in the other. Note that this only affects certain websites and seems to be worse on certain devices. This is most likely related to our ongoing work to bring scrolling back to parity with Edge Legacy’s behavior, so if this behavior is undesirable, you can temporarily turn it off by disabling the edge://flags/#edge-experimental-scrolling flag.

Users can head to the About Microsoft Edge settings page to check for updates and pull the update if it is available. However, since these releases are staggered, not all users will be able to see the update at once, but it will be made available sooner rather than later.

Microsoft releases the first Edge 94 build for the Dev channel with a few new features

Microsoft’s Chief Product Officer Panos Panay today revealed that Windows 11 will come with an updated Snipping Tool. The current Snip & Sketch tool available in Windows 10 will be updated with a new experience in Windows 11. In the embed below, you can check out a short demo of this new Snipping Tool experience coming with Windows 11.

Microsoft will ship an updated Snipping Tool with Windows 11

Microsoft has released Edge version 93 to the Beta channel, bringing a bunch of new features for those running Edge Beta builds. The build number that is being served to users is 93.0.961.11. While the firm began rolling out the version late yesterday, it should now be available to all users. The company has also posted detailed release notes, including details about the new and deprecated policies, along with the list of major features.

The features might not be a huge surprise for those following the firm's Edge Insider builds, since these have been in testing for a while in the Dev channel. Additionally, as it stands as of now, the Beta channel is running a build that is newer than the one that was last released to Dev channel users. However, that is to change soon as the firm might release the first Edge Dev 94 build, bumping up the version to a newer one.

As for what’s new in Edge 93, the firm is bringing tab groups, a feature that has been in testing for a while, to the Beta channel. This allows users to group similar tabs manually into groups to better manage them and access them easily. What is yet to be added – that is currently hidden behind a flag – is the ability for the browser to automatically create groups based on the number of tabs opened for the same domain.

Another addition is the ability to hide the title bar when using vertical tabs, a small yet welcome change that allows users to adopt a cleaner browser UI. With the tabs aligned vertically, the feature integrates the minimize, maximize, and close icons from the title bar into the header of the browser, providing slightly more real-estate for the webpage being viewed.

Along with these, macOS users will begin seeing a new toolbar option to easily jump into Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode when they hover over videos. The Redmond firm is working to roll out the feature to users on Windows, but it is not clear when the rollout will commence or if the feature is still in development.

There are also a bunch of management and IE mode features being added with Edge 93. The firm is making deploying Edge in enterprise setups easier with the addition of Initial Preferences. The browser will also support the ‘nomerge’ behavior for IE mode to bring it in line with Internet Explorer that let users open ‘nomerge’ sessions. The company also announced that Edge 93 will drop support for 3DES in TLS, which comes courtesy of changes to Chromium, which Edge is based on. You can read more about the changes here.

Those that haven’t received the update yet can head to the About Microsoft Edge settings page and check for updates to pull the update. Versions 93 will stay in this channel for a few more weeks as it is expected to be released to the stable channel in the first week of September.

Edge 93 rolls out to the Beta channel with tab groups, vertical tabs improvements, more

What’s new Microsoft Edge 93 beta:

• Initial Preferences in Microsoft Edge. Deploying Microsoft Edge to your enterprise will become easier starting in version 93, with the addition of Initial Preferences.
• IE mode on Microsoft Edge will support “nomerge” behavior. Starting in Edge 93, IE mode on Microsoft Edge will support nomerge. For an end-user, when a new browser window is launched from an IE mode application, it will be in a separate session, similar to the nomerge behavior in IE11. You will need to adjust your site list to configure sites that need to prevent session sharing as “nomerge”. Behind the scenes, for each window of Microsoft Edge, the first time an IE mode tab is visited within that window, if it is one of the designated “nomerge” sites, that window is locked into a different “nomerge” IE session from all other Microsoft Edge windows at least until the last IE mode tab is closed in that window. This follows previous behavior where users could launch IE with nomerge and could also launch Microsoft Edge without nomerge via other mechanisms.
• Tab Groups. The ability to categorize tabs into user-defined groups helps you more effectively find, switch and manage tabs across multiple workstreams. To enable this, we are turning on tab grouping beginning with Microsoft Edge version 93.
• Hide the title bar while using Vertical Tabs. Get the extra few pixels back by hiding the browser’s title bar, while in Vertical Tabs. Starting with Microsoft Edge version 93, you can go to edge://settings/appearance and under the Customize Toolbar section select the option to hide the title bar while in Vertical Tab mode.
• Video Picture in Picture (PiP) from hover toolbar. Beginning in Edge version 93, it will become even easier to enter Picture in Picture (PiP) mode. When you hover over a supported video, a toolbar will appear that allows you to view that video in a PiP window. Please note: this is currently available for Microsoft Edge users on macOS. Please check back shortly as we continue our rollout to Windows users.
• Removal of 3DES in TLS. Starting with Edge v93, support for the TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA cipher suite will be removed. This change is happening in the Chromium project, on which Microsoft Edge is based. For more information, navigate to the Chrome Platform Status entry. Additionally, in Edge v93, the TripleDESEnabled policy will be available to support scenarios that need to preserve compatibility with outdated servers. This compatibility policy will become obsolete and stop working in Edge v95. Ensure that you update affected servers before then.

Source: Microsoft

Microsoft Edge beta version 93.0.961.11 is now available (change log)

Some users have however noticed that the option to switch is not available, however.

If you wish to switch and are seeing the above screen under  Settings > Windows Update > Windows Insider Program Microsoft has offered the following steps below to restore the missing options:

1. Click on Start

2. In the search box, type cmd

3. In the lower right of the search results, under Command Prompt, click Run as Administrator

4. On the UAC prompt, click OK

5. At the elevated command prompt, type: bcdedit /set flightsigning on

6. Press Enter

7. At the elevated command prompt, type: bcdedit /set {bootmgr} flightsigning on

8. Press Enter

9. Reboot the device

You should now see the missing options:

Microsoft recommends if performing these steps did not resolve your issue, to file a new feedback item in Feedback Hub, so the company can investigate.

via techdows

Microsoft offers fix for missing Windows 11 Beta channel option

Microsoft notes, as with the past few releases: "Our goals for the v0.43 release cycle primarily centered around stability updates and optimizations, installer updates, general bug fixes, and accessibility improvements." The changelog for 0.43 can be viewed below, and it's a long one:

Change log

• Changed tooltip text for systray icon to be on a single line for Windows 11 compatibility.
• Fixed escape behavior on Color Picker so that only the fly-out is closed if active.
• Changed URI PowerToys Run plugin to launch HTTPS by default instead of HTTP. Thanks @chrisharris333!
• Added confirmation dialog when system commands are executed from PowerToys Run. Thanks @chrisharris333!

General

• New UI for sizes list view in Image Resizer settings. Thanks @niels9001!
• Fixed FileInUse errors during install/update scenarios.
• Fixed toggle switches on PowerToys run settings to display correctly.
• Fixed header text not updating when theme color is changed. Thanks @niels9001!
• Added Name/Alt text to GIF image
• Expanded the Report Bug tool to collect more robust diagnostic information.
• Fixed screen reader functionality to stop announcing hidden text in settings.
• Added Name and alt text properties to GIF images in Welcome to PowerToys window

Awake

• Fixed bug when right-clicking menu of Awake app icon. Thanks @dend!
• Fixed high CPU usage for timed keep awake. Thanks @dend!
• Fixed Awake icon spamming notification tray. Thanks @dend!
• Added telemetry to collect Awake settings and logs.

Color Picker

• Removed private Unicode Chars in element Name properties.
• No Class names in Name properties.
• Added non-null bounding rectangle property.
• Fixed color shade numbering for screen reader.
• Fixed focusable elements to have non-null name property.
• Distingushed name property and LocalizedControlType from elements and their parent.
• ControlType and LocalizedControlType are no longer both set to Custom.
• Fixed screen reader incorrectly naming Color Picker when launched.
• Fixed screen reader not announcing colors when navigating.

FancyZones

• Fixed bug causing multi-monitor spanning errors.
• Added minimum zone size limit to the settings.
• Fixed issue where re-opened windows don't appear in previously assigned zone.
• Fixed excluded apps setting to save on text change instead of when leaving focus.
• Fixed corrupt/outdated plugins load crash.
• Fixed issue with FancyZones not working after computer goes to sleep.
• Added screen reader confirmation to canvas editor when new zones are added.

Keyboard Manager

• Fixed screen reader usage bugs to increase intuitiveness.

PowerToys Run

• Fixed crashing bug due to missing image file app.dark.png.
• Fixed URI plugin bug with handling numeric input. Thanks @davidegiacometti!
• Improved launch performance of PowerToys run on first call. Thanks @davidegiacometti!

PowerToys boasts nine "toys" which can be seen above. All in all, version 0.43 contains a lot of fixes, as well as thanks for community contributions for those bug fixes, so we recommend upgrading to it.

If you are using PowerToys, you can open the app and click on "Check for updates" under the updates section on the General tab. Those who would like to try PowerToys for the first time can grab the version 0.43 installer from the app's GitHub page.

PowerToys 0.43 out with loads of bug fixes including one for Awake high CPU usage

Opening on the other hand saved the file into the temporary folder of the system; this does not affect the initial opening of the file, say a torrent file in qBittorrent, a video in the default media player, or an image in an image viewer. Files are deleted automatically when the session ends and that led to problems for users who wanted to open the downloaded file again.

Starting in Firefox 91, Firefox uses a different logic when it comes to the opening of file downloads. We reviewed part of the ne behavior in June, namely that Firefox will save all files to the downloads folder regardless of whether users select the save option or the open option.

One consequence of the new behavior is that downloads that are opened are not deleted anymore automatically. It is necessary now to clear these downloads manually.

That is not the only change though. Firefox 91 will introduce functionality to open files from the download panel. The download panel displays all downloads, active, failed or completed, of the session. If you run Firefox 90 or earlier, you may have noticed that you cannot click on a download that is in progress to get the file opened as soon as the download completes.

Firefox 91 introduces that option: just click on the download and Firefox will display the remaining time before the file is opened on the system.

Enable or disable Firefox's new downloading behavior

Many features can be customized in Firefox. If you dislike the new downloading behavior, e.g. when you want files that get opened to be deleted automatically once the session closes, then you may configure Firefox to do so.

Here is how that is done:

1. Load about:config in the Firefox address bar.
2. Confirm that you will be careful on the warning page.
3. Search for browser.download.improvements_to_download_panel.
   1. Set the value to TRUE to enable the new download behavior.
   2. Set the value to FALSE to disable the new download behavior.

It is possible that the preference may be removed at one point in time. For now, it is available and you may use it to configure the behavior in the web browser.

Closing Words

The change brings Firefox's downloading behavior in line with that of the Chromium browsers. Firefox users who prefer the classic option may restore it once the change lands in the browser.

A close look at Firefox 91's new file download opening behavior

Mozilla’s Firefox is the only popular alternative to Chromium-based browsers.

It has been the default choice for Linux users and privacy-conscious users across every platform.

However, even with all benefits as one of the best web browsers around, it is losing its grip for the past few years.

To be honest, we do not even need a stat to say that, many of us have switched over to Chromium-based browsers or Chromium itself instead of Firefox or Google Chrome.

However, I came across a Reddit thread by u/nixcraft, which highlighted more details on the decline in the userbase of Firefox since 2018.

And surprisingly, the original source for this information is Firefox’s Public Data Report.

As per the official stats, the reported number of active (monthly) users was about 244 million at the end of 2018.

And, it seems to have declined to 198 million at the end of Q2 2021.

So, that makes it a whopping ~46 million decline in the userbase.

Firefox’s Decline is Concerning But Obvious

Considering 2021 is the year when privacy-focused tools saw a big boost in their userbase, Mozilla’s Firefox is looking at a constant decline.

Especially when Firefox manages to introduce some industry-first privacy practices. Quite the irony, eh?

In case you have never used Firefox or have moved away for a long time, a comparison between Brave and Firefox highlights that it is still a solid web browser choice to date.

So, why are users moving away to Chromium-based web browsers or Chrome in particular?

There are a few things that I can think of right off the bat:

• Google Chrome being the default web browser on Android
• Microsoft Edge as the default web browser for Windows (which naturally has a huge marketshare)
• Google.com (the biggest search engine) recommending users to install Google Chrome (which is potentially an anti-competitive behaviour)
• Some web services are exclusive to Chrome-based browsers

In addition to that, there are also a few things that Firefox may have done wrong:

• Constantly breaking the user experience with major overhauls
• Lack of significant performance improvements in the recent years

Of course, no web browser is perfect but is this something to worry about? Well, I think, yes.

Here’s Why You Should be Worried

Mozilla’s Firefox is the only viable competitor to Chromium-based browsers. If Firefox disappears, users won’t have a choice to select a different browser engine.

I’m sure you will agree that monopoly is bad; hence, we need something to survive as an alternative to Google’s chrome engine.

In fact, a significant number of websites optimize the user experience by keeping chrome-based browsers in mind.

So, eventually, if the declining trend continues, users like us may just be forced to switch to other browsers by adapting to new workflows.

Even if we ignore the dominant control of Google’s chrome engine on the web by arguing that it is technically better, Firefox is still something precious. Because it provides way more customizations and constantly improves its privacy practices unlike any other.

In other words, we will be losing out on a lot of good things (forcefully) just because all the competition prefers using Chromium as its base or engage in anti-competitive activities.

Maybe, you’re frustrated with Firefox now and move away to something else. That’s completely your choice.

But, how would you feel if you won’t have an alternative when Firefox ceases to exist because of all the factors affecting its decline?

Hence, to keep things balanced, I think we should constantly oppose the anti-competitive behavior by tech giants and start using Mozilla Firefox (in whatever capacity, even as a secondary browser).

Of course, Mozilla needs to give this situation some serious attention as well.

While they are busy introducing VPN services, email relays, and other service integrations, they are not succeeding with the user experience improvements.

At least, that is what I think. I’ve used Firefox as my primary browser for years now but I end up switching to other browsers once in a while, especially, after every major UI overhaul.

What Do You Think?

I’d love to know what you think about this and what seems to be affecting Firefox’s decline in the userbase.

What do you prefer to use as your primary web browser? Let me know all of it in the comments down below!

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