Starting with tab groups, you can now drag a tab into an existing group, even if the group is collapsed. Mozilla says this has been "a top request" from the community, and Firefox 144.0 finally brings it. Speaking of groups, the tab strip now only displays your current tab in a group, keeping things less cluttered.

The next major change is profile management. At long last, Mozilla users can create profiles to keep browsing data separate. School, work, entertainment, vacation, you name it. You can customize each profile with an avatar and a color theme for easier recognition. As for data, tabs, browsing history, bookmarks, and the rest will be separate in each profile.

Firefox 144 also introduces Visual Search powered by Google Lens. You can right-click a picture and select "Search Image with Google Lens" to quickly find similar products, places, or objects and copy, translate, or search text from images. Note that this feature is only available on desktop, and it requires setting Google as your default search engine.

Speaking of search engines, Firefox now includes Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine that answers your search requests in a conversational manner.

Other changes in Firefox 144 include three more languages for translation (Azerbaijani, Bangla, and Icelandic) and improvements in the quality of translation in a bunch of already supported languages. Also, on Windows, when opening a link from another application, Firefox will only use a window on the current virtual desktop or open a new window if needed. Picture-in-Picture can now be closed without pausing the video (Shift + Click on the close button or Shift + Esc), and logins stored in the Firefox Password Manager are now encrypted with AES-256-CBC instead of the old 3DES-CBC.

You can update to Firefox 144 by heading to Menu > Help > About Firefox. Alternatively, download it from the official website, Microsoft Store (Windows 10 or 11). Full release notes are available here.

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Posted Wednesday 15 October 2025 at 4:46 am AEST (my time).

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As spotted by The Register, Mozilla is soliciting beta testers for a built-in VPN in Firefox. Although it is still in early stages of development, the functionality is expected to be placed next to the search bar. This will be a separate product from the existing Mozilla VPN, with the key differentiator being that the built-in VPN service will be free.

If you're thinking that the built-in VPN kills the purpose of the existing standalone VPN, that's not the case because the former will be tied to the browser, while the latter can be used on up to five devices.

Mozilla's development approach is incremental, where it wants to start with a basic version of the VPN and then slowly add new features to it while gauging feedback. It is expected to land on desktop, followed by a mobile counterpart.

The interesting part about this is that your VPN will default to the server that has the best performance, which means that you might not be able to use it for regional masking in some cases, at least in the initial state.

Mozilla will show pop-ups to random Firefox users, inviting them to beta test the software, but customers will have the option to dismiss the invite or even remove the VPN from the toolbar after accepting the invite.

Of course, given that this is a beta test, Mozilla will be collecting some logs to monitor the performance of the VPN. However, it has assured users that it will only collect necessary data, aggregate it to anonymize users, and delete it after three months.

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Posted Wednesday 15 October 2025 at 4:45 am AEST (my time).

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Here are the gaming bugs that driver 581.57 fixes:

• Steam overlay may cause game stability issues
• Hell is Us: Random red/green visual glitches during gameplay
• Black Myth: Wukong: Minor graphical glitch may randomly appear during gameplay after updating to R580 drivers
• Madden 26: Stability issues after updating to R580 drivers
• Games may crash if the installed game directory contains Chinese characters while Smooth Motion is enabled
• Total War: Warhammer III: Graphics corruption
• Delta Force: game stability issues when Smooth Motion is enabled
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33: Display artifacts and stability issues when starting a game after waking PC from sleep

And here is the list of general bugs that have been fixed:

• Black screen on Alienware AW2524H monitor after changing display settings
• DxO Photolab 9: Stability issues when using the AI masks

Known bugs and issues include the following:

• Counter-Strike 2: Text may appear slightly distorted when in-game resolution is lower than the native resolution of the display
• Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth: Light flickering after driver update on some system configurations

Nvidia 581.57 WHQL is available on 64-bit systems with Windows 10 and 11 and the following graphics cards:

You can download driver 581.57 WHQL from the official Nvidia website or the Nvidia app. Release notes are available here (PDF).

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Posted Wednesday 15 October 2025 at 4:43 am AEST (my time).

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The headliner here is undoubtedly the ability to search your calendar through Microsoft 365 Copilot. This can be particularly beneficial if your schedule is overloaded with meetings and you find it difficult to recall what topic you're discussing with which people on a specific day. You can simply leverage Copilot to ask natural language questions like "next quarterly planning session", and Copilot will show you the full context of that particular meeting. It doesn't matter if the meeting happened previously or is yet to take place; you'll get the full details, thanks to Copilot. On the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, this feature has been tagged with the ID 501454, with a preview expected this month and general availability scheduled for next month.

Another nifty update coming to Copilot in December 2025 is the extensibility of Copilot Connectors, which will soon sport integration with Zendesk Help Center, Freshservice, Egnyte, and AWS S3.

There are a couple more enhancements landing soon, too, designed to boost productivity further. Copilot Chat will be able to utilize meeting recordings to generate notes and pair them with short snippets from the meeting to give you a recap of what transpired during meetings. Similarly, Copilot Notebooks will gain the ability to generate videos that will summarize your notebook content, too. Both these capabilities are arriving in November 2025.

Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what's coming next to Microsoft 365 and Copilot. You can head over to the dedicated Microsoft 365 Roadmap here to find out more.

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Posted Wednesday 15 October 2025 at 4:42 am AEST (my time).

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It's no surprise that Zorin Group decided to drop version 18 on the very day that the world says goodbye to Windows 10 as it reaches its end of life. Zorin Group claims that Microsoft's decision will abandon "240 million computers" that do not meet the strict hardware requirements for Windows 11.

In Zorin OS 18, the desktop has been redesigned while retaining the "best parts of Zorin OS's aesthetics". The default theme now has a more rounded appearance and uses a lighter color palette. The panel has a "floating, rounded style" by default to match the new look.

Window tiling has now been improved with a new manager. When you drag a window to the top of the screen, a pop-up appears with predefined layouts. The implementation looks quite similar to the Snap Layouts feature on Windows 11. But unlike Microsoft's OS, Zorin OS 18 lets you create your own custom tiling layouts, something Windows does not let you do without a utility like PowerToys FancyZones.

In the Pro edition, there are three new desktop layouts. You get a Linux Mint-like layout with a start menu that lets you navigate categories by hovering. Another is a compact panel layout designed to maximize screen space. And the last one might remind you of macOS, but Zorin Group refers to it as "elementary OS-like" for a minimalist style.

Other goodies you'd find in the Pro edition include 11 new pre-installed apps listed below:

• Deskflow: Lets you share your mouse, keyboard, and clipboard across computers on your network.
• Warp: A tool for securely sending files across your local network or the internet using a code.
• Valot: A simple time tracking application for professionals to monitor project hours and earnings.
• Easy Effects: An advanced audio manipulation tool with features like an equalizer and compressor.

If you grab the Education edition, you'll get 4 new apps, including:

• Gradebook: An app for students to keep track of their grades across different courses.
• Spedread: A speed-reading application that flashes one word at a time.
• TurboWarp: A Scratch-based programming tool for kids that includes a compiler for faster project execution.

There's now a new Web Apps tool that lets you turn any website into a desktop application. These PWAs sit in the start menu just like their native counterparts and can integrate with any popular web browser as a back-end.

If you're migrating to the OS from Windows 10, you'll appreciate the fact that the built-in database has been expanded to support over 170 apps. It can detect when you try to run a Windows installer and recommend the best way to use that application on the OS, whether that's a web app or a native Linux version.

Other changes Zorin OS 18 brings include an updated WINE version 10 for better Windows software support, remote login with RDP, and the inclusion of the PipeWire audio server for better sound quality. The Files app now has a button to search for files globally across all locations. New windows also now open in the center of the screen by default.

Zorin Group says Zorin OS 18 will be supported with security patches and software updates until "at least June 2029". If you're on Zorin OS 17, you can grab the new update from the Software Updater. The Zorin OS 18 ISOs are available for download here.

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Posted Wednesday 15 October 2025 at 4:39 am AEST (my time).

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Copilot version 1.25095.161 is now rolling out to Windows Insiders across all channels via the Microsoft Store (the rollout is gradual; it might take some time to reach your device). After updating the app, you can ask Copilot something about your PC and its settings. For example, tell him that the screen is too dim, and in return, Copilot will show you a direct link to display settings.

Here is what Microsoft says in the announcement post:

Direct Settings Access: Now, if Copilot on Windows users ask a question related to their PC settings, Copilot will provide a direct link to the relevant Windows Settings. Just ask ‘Make my screen easier to read’ or ‘Help me focus by reducing distractions,’ and Copilot will guide you to the Windows settings page.

Note that Copilot cannot take action for you—it only shows where to start and what to do. However, on Copilot+ PCs, Windows 11 has the so-called settings agent, which can adjust settings on your behalf. But for this feature to work, you need an eligible device with a capable neural processing unit or NPU. Still, even without the ability to change settings for you, the latest Copilot update is a useful addition, especially for those who are discovering Windows 11 for the first time after switching from Windows 10, whose end of support is happening today.

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Posted Wednesday 15 October 2025 at 4:37 am AEST (my time).

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As covered last month, Firefox is ending 32-bit Linux support with the Firefox 144 series being the last to support Linux 32-bit or Firefox 140 for the ESR series.

With Firefox 145 Beta now available, 32-bit Linux is no longer supported with their new releases moving forward. Mozilla is encouraging users to install a 64-bit version of Firefox.

Aside from ending 32-bit Linux support, Firefox 145 Beta isn't too exciting but does make horizontal tabs now slightly more round, a few JavaScript additions, and then Firefox finally enabling Matroska support for commonly used codecs. The Matroska support covers the AVC, HEVC, VP8, VP9, AV1, AAC, Opus, and Vorbis codecs. 

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Thankfully various third-party apps exist, including popular ones like Rufus, that help users bypass these restrictions. Another such app is Flyoobe, which has recently gained popularity due to its ease of usage and lightweight nature, as well as the frequent updates that the app receives as the author keeps introducing new and useful features at fairly regular intervals.

The app has received its latest update today, and with this, it has acquired the ability to manage app packages. In the release notes for the new update, the app author Belim writes: "The OOBE installer has been improved and expanded. It’s now possible to manually search and install app packages directly from the Winget manifest using the new “Install custom Winget package” option. The feature is a bit more barebones than UnigetUI, but intentionally lightweight to keep Flyoobe fast and efficient as it covers everything essential."

Thus while Flyoobe will not quite be as comprehensive as something like UniGetUI, - which is another very useful third-party Windows wrapper tool that allows managing various CLI (command line interface) package managers with its GUI, - the new option can certainly be useful for users.

Besides that, there are also improvements to the app's UI as the new update promises overall better performance across several aspects. The changelog notes the following improvements:

• Leveled up the Apps OOBE page (Debloater) and upgraded both the backend and UI for easier navigation, lightning-fast app removal, and smarter batch operations

• The navigation system introduced in version 1.30 has been refined, especially the way menus expand, collapse, and guide the user through the interface.

• The OOBE “Personalization” page has been visually polished for a cleaner and more consistent look.

• A new log and activity manager has been added, accessible from the “More (⋯)” menu in the top-right corner. It allows you to monitor all Flyoobe operations and notifications in one place. Next to it, the Settings and About App buttons are now separated into their own dedicated menus

• Cleaned up the Experience OOBE page and removed the "Issues" section, since it's now partially covered by the Extensions and Installer OOBE

   

To try the new Flyoobe update, version 1.31, head over to its official GitHub repo here to download it.

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Posted Tuesday 14 October 2025 at 6:17 pm AEST (my time).

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For those unaware, hotpatch updates are referred to as "B" releases. They serve as an extension of Windows Update and require deployment via Autopatch. The main benefit of hotpatch updates is that they're extremely small in size since they only contain security fixes, which is very different from the approach that cumulative updates take on Patch Tuesday each month.

The smaller size of hotpatch updates ensures that bandwidth utilization is minimal, installation is faster, and compliance is achieved more efficiently. What's more is that hotpatch installations don't require a device restart since only "in-memory code changes" are delivered to plug security holes. Microsoft says that, in some cases, hotpatch updates are 10x smaller than regular cumulative updates.

Cumulative updates tend to be relatively bigger because they contain fixes and features from previous releases too, which means that if a device installs the latest update, it receives all the previous changes too. In contrast, hotpatch releases only contain security fixes that are applied incrementally on the baseline update, which is rolled out incrementally.

The baseline update is similar to the cumulative update and is released four times a year (January, April, July, October). Meanwhile, hotpatch releases are deployed in the two months between each baseline update. If you're eager to leverage hotpatch installations, make sure to check out the guide here. The next baseline update, which requires a device restart, is landing tomorrow, while the subsequent two monthly updates will be hotpatches that won't mandate a device restart.

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Posted Tuesday 14 October 2025 at 6:15 pm AEST (my time).

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While the company has yet to share which regions are currently affected by this ongoing issue, it has been tagged as an incident in the admin center, a designation typically used for service issues with noticeable user impact.

According to a service alert seen by BleepingComputer, Redmond is currently reviewing telemetry data to discover the root cause and develop a fix.

"Some users may be unable to access Microsoft 365 applications. Impact is specific to some users who are served through the affected infrastructure, attempting to access Microsoft 365 apps," the company said when first acknowledging the outage on Monday morning, at 05:06 AM UTC.

"We're continuing to analyze service telemetry alongside recent changes made to the service, to help identify the root cause and define a clear path to resolution," it added at 9:00 AM, almost four hours into the incident.

This follows two other major incidents that impacted Microsoft 365 last week, blocking customers' access to multiple services and platforms.

On Wednesday, Microsoft mitigated an outage preventing users worldwide from accessing Microsoft Teams, Exchange Online, and the admin center via Microsoft Entra single sign-on (SSO) authentication due to Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) issues.

One day later, the company resolved another incident that took down some Microsoft 365 services for customers across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East due to an Azure Front Door content delivery network (CDN) issue.

In September, an Exchange Online outage also affected customers worldwide, blocking access to emails and calendars due to a coding bug that caused repeated database dismounts and failovers, leading to increased CPU utilization.

This is a developing story ...

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Posted Tuesday 14 October 2025 at 3:11 am AEST (my time).

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For example, early this year it shared a pointers list, and detailed how having a feature like TPM immensely helps. Microsoft has also pointed out the performance benefits, busted "myths and misconceptions", and highlighted the many cool gaming features and enhancements.

Besides those, an advert titled "Start Fresh Without Starting Over with Windows 11" was also published which is meant to suggest that users are in for a very familiar experience on Windows 11, despite it being better than Windows 10.

In a way, this behavior sort of matches how Microsoft heavily promotes the use of a Microsoft Account during Windows 11 installation and has now started blocking more bypasses. Right now, only one simple official bypass remains.

Ironically for Microsoft, the company's official bootable ISO creation utility called Media Creation Tool (MCT) has broken as it no longer seems to work correctly on Windows 10. The company has confirmed this issue stating that "the Windows 11 media creation tool version 26100.6584, released September 29, 2025, might not work as expected when used on Windows 10 devices. The media creation tool might close unexpectedly, displaying no error message."

As a refresher, Microsoft published this version of MCT right around the Windows 11 version 25H2 release time-frame. The tech giant says that it is investigating the issue as it notes that it is "working on a resolution for this issue, and it will be released in a future update to the Windows 11 media creation tool."

Thus affected users will have to use third-party apps like Rufus.

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Posted Monday 13 October 2025 at 5:43 pm AEST (my time).

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While there had been bypasses to allow the installation of Windows 11 without an internet and Microsoft Account (MSA), the Redmond giant has begun plugging those holes.

It started earlier this year, with KB5053658, when the company blocked the famous BYPASSNRO OOBE MSA skip when you are online (still works without an internet). And now with one of the recent Windows 11 25H2 insider builds, Microsoft has blocked the "start ms-cxh:localonly" bypass too which allowed users to quickly create a local account using the command.

The company claimed it removed it so that users do not "inadvertently skip critical setup screens" as Microsoft wrote:

Local-only commands removal: We are removing known mechanisms for creating a local account in the Windows Setup experience (OOBE). While these mechanisms were often used to bypass Microsoft account setup, they also inadvertently skip critical setup screens, potentially causing users to exit OOBE with a device that is not fully configured for use. Users will need to complete OOBE with internet and a Microsoft account, to ensure device is setup correctly.

Interestingly, there is still an official way to bypass the requirement for an internet connection and creation of a Microsoft Account. As YouTuber ThioJoe recently highlighted, during the Windows 11 installation users can still use the "Set up for work or school" option instead of the "Set up for personal use" to skip the check.

After that, you need to select "Domain join instead" by going into the "Sign-in options" as shown in the images below:

If you are looking to install Windows 11 Pro edition, this method should work. However, Home edition does not have it and thus you are probably out of luck in that case.

You can also check out our guide on ways to install Windows 11 offline.

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Posted Monday 13 October 2025 at 11:46 am AEST (my time).

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Why install Windows 11 in offline mode? You can skip several screens of ads, get to the desktop faster, and make sure you decide what driver versions are installed, not Windows Update. Also, it helps those who do not want to sign in with a Microsoft Account on their PCs.

Option 1 - Without third-party tools

The most important part is not to connect to the internet. If you have an internet cable attached, disconnect it. Also, do not connect to a Wi-Fi network when prompted. Instead, do the following:

1. When setting up Windows 11 during OOBE, make sure your system is disconnected from the internet.
2. Press Shift + F10 to launch Command Prompt.
3. Type oobe\bypassnro and press Enter. You may have heard that Microsoft removed that command from Windows 11, but the truth is that the bypassnro command still works, as long as you are disconnected from the internet. Other commands do the same, but the bypassnro is the shortest and easiest to remember or execute.
4. Once your PC restarts, proceed with its initial setup. Remember not to connect to the internet until you get to the desktop. This will force Windows 11 to create a local account and skip all the upsells and ads during OOBE (out-of-box experience).

That's it. This method works in Windows 11 version 24H2 and version 25H2.

Tip: Once on the desktop, go to Settings > System > Notifications > Additional settings and untick all three options. These will make sure you do not get full-screen prompts with Microsoft's ads next time you turn on your computer.

Option 2 - With a third-party app

If you want to clean-install Windows 11, say the latest release, version 25H2, you can use the Rufus app to create a bootable Windows 11 media that can automatically skip the Microsoft Account and internet requirements.

1. Go to the official Windows 11 website and download a Windows 11 image (directly or via the Media Creation Tool app).
2. Go to the official Rufus website and download the app (installer or portable).
3. Open Rufus and connect your USB drive.
4. Select the drive from the list of available devices and specify your ISO. Leave the rest as-is.
5. Click Start. Rufus will show a small window with a few additional options. Tick the "Remove requirement for an online Microsoft account." Additionally, you can speed things up by ticking the "Create a local account with username" option and specifying your local profile name. Feel free to select additional options if necessary.

   

    

6. Click Ok.
7. Once everything is done, clean-install Windows 11 as usual. Make sure to disconnect from the internet during the initial setup.

That's it. Now you can use Windows 11 without a mandatory Microsoft Account.

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Posted Monday 13 October 2025 at 11:44 am AEST (my time).

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On October 14, 2025, Microsoft is expected to begin deploying the Patch Tuesday update for the tenth month of the year for Windows 11, which introduces several new features as well as security fixes and improvements.

In this release, the software giant is introducing new AI integrations in File Explorer, along with visual changes for the Windows Share experience. In addition, this update rolls out new features, such as Administrator Protection, and rolls out changes to the Settings app with a new Advanced page, the ability to change the position of the hardware indicators, support for third-party providers for passkeys, and ports more legacy features from the Control Panel.

In this guide, I'll highlight the most interesting changes rolling out with the October 2025 update for Windows 11 version 25H2 and 24H2, since both operating systems are exactly the same.

Windows 11 new features coming in October 2025

Microsoft takes a gradual approach to rolling out new improvements, meaning it may take some time before you see these features and changes.

In addition, some enhancements require specific hardware, while others may only be available in certain markets.

1. Desktop indicator relocation option

As part of the October 2025 Security Update, Microsoft is adding a new feature to change the position of the hardware indicators (such as volume, brightness, and airplane mode).

But now, AI is shaking up the browser market, with companies beginning to incorporate new generative and agentic AI capabilities directly into the web navigation tool. That in turn is sparking a fierce new war for users, with Google Chrome, now enhanced with Google’s AI model Gemini, fighting upstarts like Perplexity, with its Comet AI browser, and battered veterans of past browser fights, like Opera, trying to get their mojo back with AI enhancements too.

For nearly two decades, the basic browsing experience, aside from a few minor improvements, remained largely unchanged. Users typed a url in the navigation bar, or typed a search query in that same space—a feature that Opera first pioneered but which was soon copied by Google—and the browser takes the user to that web address or a search results page, which displays a list of links. Click on a link and the browser takes you to that web page.

Now, tech companies are betting that users want a new kind of experience: a browser that can answer questions, not just provide a list of links, and that can do far more than just navigate a user to a web page—one that can perform tasks for the user on that page, such as booking travel or completing a purchase.

“This is probably the biggest shift since we’ve seen the browser itself become the gateway to the internet. For 30 years, the browser was about navigation. Type, click, explore. Now, with AI, it’s changing the model completely. It’s moving from browsing to delegating,” George Chalhoub, assistant professor at UCL Interaction Centre, told Fortune.

Tech companies, including Perplexity and Opera, have already launched agentic AI browsers that can perform tasks on behalf of users. Perplexity’s Comet combines a web browser with a built-in AI agent that can read pages, summarize information, and even perform multi-step actions, such as booking appointments or sending emails. Similarly, Opera’s Neon introduces features like “Do,” which can carry out actions on a user’s behalf, and “Cards,” which store custom workflows and prompts for repeated use.

“The browser wars are starting and the competition is heating up because browsers today are the operating system of your applications,” Krystian Kolondra, EVP Browsers at Opera, told Fortune. “The browser world is extremely important because it is more aware than the operating system itself about what’s happening on your pages.”

The vision for AI-powered browsing reframes the traditional browser as not just a tool for access, but as the primary interface through which AI agents operate.

“The whole notion of search changed. It’s not to point to the place where you can find your answer or do your thing, but to give you that answer and do that thing,” Himanshu Tyagi, co-founder of the open-source AI company Sentent, said. “We are moving to sort of a dark internet, in the sense that it’s not meant for just humans. It’s meant for bots to consume and process information. Bots do things and give humans the final thing.”

If the third round of browser wars is already underway, the battlefield looks very different from the days when the main axes of competition were things like speed and tab management. This time, it’s about which company can deliver the most seamless AI-powered experience while navigating heightened privacy issues and convincing users to change long-established habits. While major players like Google still dominate, nimble newcomers are testing the limits of what a browser can do.

The third browser wars

The second round of browser wars concluded with Google Chrome’s dominance, mostly due to its speed and integration with the wider Google ecosystem. Most browsers are now also underpinned by Chromium, a free and open-source web browser project, which was primarily developed and maintained by Google. Chromium is essentially a back-end system that determines how a browser goes out to find a particular web address, using an index of web pages Google maintains, and how it renders that web page.

While Google still dominates the search market and has taken steps to integrate AI into the search experience, its market share has been slipping. According to analysts at Third Bridge, in July, Google’s global search market share dropped below 90% for the first time in 10 years.

This could be due to the increased popularity of AI search engines like Perplexity or competition from AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which launched its own Search tool in October last year. In a survey from brokerage firm Evercore ISI conducted last year, ChatGPT respondents saying ChatGPT was their top search provider increased to 5% from 1% four months prior.

That said, the popularity of Chome as a browser has not noticeably declined. While people may be sending their search queries to ChatGPT or Perplexity, when they use those services on desktop, they are mostly still using a tab in Chrome to do so.

And given the technical complexity and cost of building a browser from scratch, most AI companies are unlikely to develop their own back-end web indexing. Nearly every “AI browser” on the market today, including Perplexity’s Comet, is built on Chromium.

Building a browser entirely from scratch is complex and resource-heavy. To do so, a company would have to recreate everything from how web pages are rendered and memory is managed, to encryption systems, sandboxing, video playback, and constant security patching. Even Microsoft, once Google’s fiercest rival in the browser space, eventually abandoned its own engine and rebuilt Edge on Chromium.

“It’s literally reinventing the wheel,” Chalhoub said. “I don’t see any company building its browser from scratch.”

A unified interface

But why are AI companies so keen to have a browser of their own? Perplexity, for example, raised eyebrows earlier this year when it made an unsolicited cash offer of $34.5 billion for Google Chrome.

“The browser is what we live in during the day on our desktop devices,” Dmitry Shevelenko, Chief Business Officer of Perplexity, told Fortune earlier this year. “It’s just an incredibly powerful canvas, and in terms of being able to create value for users, it gives us a much bigger surface area… it requires us to know more about you and have more context.”

The real prize for these companies isn’t web navigation; it’s control of the gateway to the rest of users’ digital lives, including a lot of other web-based software applications. Most companies are betting that the true value of AI will be unlocked when AI agents have access to a user’s entire ecosystem—emails, calendar, messages, and documents—and can perform tasks across them seamlessly.

“There’s this myth of the ‘everything app,’” Tyagi said. “AI is only magical when it’s everywhere with you in a single, unified interface. If you have to use one app for your glasses, another on your phone, and another on your laptop, that’s not a complete experience. The magic is when there’s one interface that goes with you everywhere and is always engaging with your context.”

Most AI companies are working on autonomous assistants with the aim of getting them moving fluidly between a user’s various applications. But they are pursuing varying approaches to accomplish this.

OpenAI appears to be trying to position ChatGPT as a version of this universal interface, not through a browser, but by integrating third-party apps directly into the chatbot so users can search, shop, plan travel, and manage files without ever leaving the conversation.

But changing user habits is never easy, and the idea of browsing the web is deeply ingrained in users.

“Changing user habits takes time, especially when it comes to something as fundamental as how we explore the web,” Chalhoub said. “For most people, the browser is the oldest and most familiar tool we use online. In terms of physical experience, we trust it so much because it’s stable and predictable.”

However, Chalhoub noted that it’s often small conveniences that drive major behavioral shifts. “If an AI browser can slowly start saving me time, booking travel automatically, or summarizing articles, I think people will adapt much faster than we expect.”

In many ways, AI-enabled browsers, such as Comet or Gemini in Chrome, are a hybrid, or half-way house, between the idea of chatbots as the universal interface, where a human user has no direct access to the web at all, and the traditional, human-driven web browsing experience. The advantage of an AI browser is that it lets both the human and AI model access the web in exactly the same way—even at the same time, with the agent able to work alongside a person, or work on one process in one tab while the human user works on a different task in another. With the web browser, there’s no need to create an entirely new protocol through which the AI model interacts with the content and data of third-parties, such as Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), which is being used to power a lot of “agentic” experiences in chatbots.

The privacy problem

Agentic AI browsers have access to much more user data than traditional search engines, which brings about a host of privacy concerns. By design, these tools see far more of what users do online, and can even infer why a user is acting in certain ways.

“Browsers have always been powerful data collection tools, and when you add AI to the mix, that power multiplies,” Chalhoub said. “An AI-powered browser doesn’t just observe your behavior; it can infer your intentions, habits, and even your mood. Every prompt or summary becomes a data point about you, so the information has to be handled responsibly and not used for advertising or profiling.”

Chalhoub also warned that with AI in the loop, it makes it much harder for users to know where their data goes. “It’s definitely a privacy risk, not because AI is inherently bad, but it has more context and intention in one place. So companies really have to be responsible in this regard,” he said.

It’s already unclear how far a user’s conversations with AI chatbots are confidential. For example, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently warned that users currently have no legal protection over their ChatGPT conversations if subpoenaed. Letting an AI agent crawl through emails, texts, and other highly sensitive data could risk exposing deeply personal information if not handled carefully, raising serious questions about how much control users really have over their own data.

Tech companies, for their part, are aware of the new risks around privacy introduced by AI agents. Kolondra said that Opera’s Neon only processes data when users ask it to, like when summarizing a page, and all requests are end-to-end encrypted. “We don’t use that data to train our models,” he added. 

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First some assurance. Yes, you need to opt into Microsoft’s free extended support program before October 14 to ensure your security updates are seamless and there’s no period when you’re off support. But you should already have October’s update, and so this probably won’t impact you for a month, albeit losing support is a risk to avoid.

Second, some clarity. Yes, you should act before October 14, but you can opt into that ESU program at any time until it expires on October 14, 2026. Be warned, though, you won’t receive security updates from October 14, 2025, until you do opt in. Once you do, all updates you have missed will be installed on your Windows 10 PC.

There are some suggestions that if you miss the deadline you can’t opt into the program. That’s not the case, but Microsoft does warn “devices will be more vulnerable and susceptible to viruses and malware before enrollment.”

Enrolling in that ESU does not stop you upgrading your PC to Windows 11 if you change your mind. As long as the PC is eligible, of course. But on this, the security and privacy experts at Kaspersky have some interesting new advice.

“Microsoft’s recent updates to restrict workarounds for local account creation in Windows 11 raise implications for user privacy,” the team told me, “even if the intent is to improve security through features such as automatic updates.”

“Requiring a Microsoft account during setup integrates the device into Microsoft’s ecosystem, which can result in the transmission of data, including activity logs, application usage patterns, location information (if activated).”

By contrast, “Windows 10 does not mandate a Microsoft account for installation. Users can create a local account by disconnecting from the internet during setup, which directs the setup to an offline mode and bypasses the account prompt.”

It’s increasingly unlikely that we’ll see any further u-turns from Microsoft before October 14. The ESU is already (essentially) free for a year and some of the requirements have been lessened further in Europe. Now it’s critical that all Windows 10 users don’t forget to opt in, albeit a Windows 11 upgrade is still safer.

PIRG warns that “nearly 40% of Windows computers still run Windows 10. Many of these PCs are fully functional, with only one flaw – they aren’t on Windows 11’s strict compatibility list.” This it says risks creating a new digital divide, between those that can afford a new computer and those that cannot.

At least that risk should now be a year away, with plenty of time for other concessions before we start issuing warnings about October 14, 2026.

Source

The official Windows Health Dashboard website for Windows 11 version 23H2 contains a new message about the end of support in 30 days. On November 11, 2025, Windows 11 version 23H2 will reach the end of servicing, but only for its consumer editions: Home and Professional. The November 2025 update will be the final Patch Tuesday update for these Windows 11 versions, while commercial editions will continue receiving updates for one more year.

Microsoft strongly recommends Windows 11 version 23H2 users upgrade to a more recent Windows 11 release, which is either version 24H2 or 25H2. Since these two belong to a new servicing branch, upgrading will take some time, but in return, you will get more features and more support. Windows 11 version 25H2 is now rolling out gradually to seekers, but you do not have to switch to 25H2 to get all the good stuff. Windows 11 version 24H2 has the same updates and changes, just like version 23H2 is technically identical to version 22H2 feature-wise, generally speaking.

Microsoft usually auto-updates Windows 11 users once their current version gets closer to the end of support, but if you are still on version 23H2, it is time to pay a visit to Settings > Windows Update. Alternatively, you can also check out our "How to upgrade to Windows 11 version 25H2" guide (there is one for those with unsupported systems as well).

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Posted Saturday 11 October 2025 at 3:16 pm AEST (my time).

News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of September): 4,533

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We reported a Microsoft 365 outage on October 9, affecting the Office.com portal and related services. It took the tech giant only about an hour to fix it, because it was simply a case of misconfiguration on the network infrastructure for North America, but the impact was fairly significant.

Just prior to this, Microsoft 365 experienced downtime on October 8, too, affecting those leveraging Entra to sign in to Office services through multi-factor authentication (MFA). Redmond was able to patch this particular problem in roughly four hours as well, but it was yet again a nuisance for customers, especially those on the enterprise side.

To me, the recent outages have just highlighted the growing inconsistency in the quality of Microsoft 365 services in the past year. The two instances highlighted above aren't isolated incidents; there has been a trend of outages in 2025. While there seems to be no definitive public dashboard to track the operational status of Microsoft 365 services this year and compare it against previous years, I went through Neowin's "Published News" section available to staff to find out how many times we reported on Microsoft 365 outages, as an indicator of overall quality.

Looking through that section, I realized that there were at least 11 outages in 2025, starting from March 2 and going up until October 9. That's 11 outages spread across seven months, averaging more than one outage a month. That's a lot.

I compared that with our data from 2024 and discovered that we only reported on five outages across the whole year. That's less than half the outages reported today, and there are still over two months to go until 2025 ends. Now, I'm not saying that our news coverage is the definitive way to chart the trend for Microsoft 365 outages, but since we do report on the operational status of the service frequently, it's definitely a good indicator.

Credit where credit is due, though; Microsoft treats Microsoft 365 outages as high-priority incidents and manages to resolve them in a matter of a few hours usually. This is critical because downtime for these cloud services impacts businesses directly, resulting in disruptions to business continuity and lost revenue overall.

However, it's clear that there has been a downward trend in the operational quality of Microsoft 365 this year, which is unfortunate considering that it is a pretty decent package overall that is highly used in both enterprise environments and personal scenarios.

When a service is as widely used as Microsoft 365 is, there is a higher expectation for the standard of quality, too. I went through Microsoft's service level agreements (SLAs) for online services, and as expected, the Redmond tech giant commits to 99.9% of uptime across most of its core technologies, including Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 apps, Office Online, and more.

I highly doubt that the outages this year have caused the uptime number to dip below 99.9% since most issues are patched fairly quickly, but perhaps the company should also begin tracking and incorporating the frequency of downtime instances in its SLAs. A long downtime is a big issue, but so are frequent, smaller downtimes. It's clear that this is something that Microsoft needs to improve upon going into 2026.

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Posted Saturday 11 October 2025 at 3:15 pm AEST (my time).

News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of September): 4,533

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This past summer, we saw the launch of Windows Edit, a new version of MS-DOS Editor which runs in the command line and offers support for Unicode. The 300 KB file limit has been removed, which means you can now handle gigabyte-sized files with Edit if desired.

The latest news is that Edit will soon be the default text editor in the Windows 11 Command Prompt, as noted by Windows Latest. If you want to try Edit now, you can download the program via GitHub.

Edit is open source software and written in the Rust programming language. You don’t have to be running Windows to use the text editor; it works just as well on macOS and Linux.

Source

According to the Windows Insider Blog, the latest version of the Copilot app on Windows can now connect to Google personal services to scan their contents. A Google account connected can let Copilot search through and analyze (at least) Gmail, Drive, Calendar, and Contacts. You can also use this third-party connection to let it access other Microsoft accounts beyond your primary one, so it can get into OneDrive and Outlook on another account too.

The main idea here is natural language search and analysis. For example, you can ask, “What’s the email address for Sarah,” assuming you only know one Sarah and that Copilot understands the context. But if you’re inclined to do that and you need information that’s in your Google account and not your Microsoft account… why wouldn’t you just use Gemini, which is Google’s flavor of the same thing? It’s available right in the browser, no extra legwork required.

Possibly more useful (and less alarming) is a new document creation tool. The Windows Copilot app can now adapt a conversation into a Word document, Excel spreadsheet, PowerPoint slide deck, or PDF, and export it. Both features are available via the Insider channel on the Microsoft Store, though they might not be turned on right away for all users.

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The end is nigh. In less than a week, Microsoft is poised to cut support for Windows 10. The tech giant has doubled down on its campaigned designed to urge users to upgrade to Windows 11. And as it seems, the strategy might be working, as Windows 11 surpassed Windows 10 as the most dominant desktop operating system in the world in July, with 50.88% of the Windows market share.

Users have cited Microsoft's stringent hardware system requirements and flawed design elements as the main issues preventing them from upgrading to Windows 11. While the operating system has seemingly gained some traction, Windows 7 gained almost 10% market share in the last month as Windows 10's end-of-life approaches.

This might just be an anomaly, but the timing is impeccable and could be a subtle hint that users would rather give Windows 7 another try, despite Microsoft ending support for the operating system, including ESU updates, than upgrade to Windows 11

While the chances of Microsoft reconsidering its decision to cut support Windows 10 seems highly unlikely, the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) isn't letting up. It is doubling down in its efforts on its petition, urging Microsoft to extend support for Windows 10 beyond October 14, 2025.

The group claims Microsoft's "End of 10" move could render up to 400 million PCs obsolete, leading to a huge spike in electronic waste coupled with increased cybersecurity threats.

Until now, Windows 10 users have had a limited number of options to consider once Microsoft ends support for the operating system. They can enroll in Microsoft's Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for free by syncing their PC settings to the cloud via a Microsoft Account, or pay $30 or 1,000 Microsoft Reward points.

However, it's worth noting that the software giant backtracked the move for users in the European Economic Area. But as PIRG puts it, "Some customers will bite the bullet, and purchase new computers to replace devices that lose support (as Microsoft recommends)."

But what happens if you can't afford a new device that supports Windows 11?

Windows 10's EOL (end of life) EOS (end of support) will widen the digital divide

Google is introducing a new Chrome browser feature for Android and desktop users that automatically turns off notifications for websites that you’re already ignoring. Chrome’s Safety Check feature already provides similar functionality for camera access and location tracking permissions.

This new auto-revocation feature builds on a similar Android feature that already makes it easier for Chrome users to unsubscribe from website notifications they don’t care about with a single tap. The feature doesn’t revoke notifications for any web apps installed on the device, and permissions will only be disabled for sites that send a lot of notifications that users rarely engage with. Less than one percent of all web notifications in Chrome currently receive any interaction from users, according to Google, often making them more distracting than helpful.

“We’ve already been testing this feature. Our test results show a significant reduction in notification overload with only a minimal change in total notification clicks,” Google said in its announcement. “Our experiments also indicate that websites that send a lower volume of notifications are actually seeing an increase in clicks.”

Chrome will notify Android users when they have been automatically unsubscribed from certain website notifications.

Image: Google

Chrome users can choose to turn off the auto-revocation feature entirely, or can preserve specific site notifications by either visiting the website to enable them again or re-granting permissions via the Safety Check feature. We have asked Google to confirm when this feature will be rolling out.

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Posted Saturday 11 October 2025 at 3:55 am AEST (my time).

News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of September): 4,533

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There are a few UI (user interface) related improvements in this new build. The Run dialog box for example is finally available in a dark theme. The Drag tray has also been updated.

The biggest highlight of the new releases is related to Settings. The company is promising a faster and better experience in the case of both Recommended settings as well as the Search option in Settings.

There are many more changes in the new builds and you can view the full list below:

New features gradually being rolled out to the Beta Channel with toggle on*

[Agent in Settings]

The following changes and improvements are rolling out for agent in Settings on Copilot+ PCs:

We’re introducing new experiences to make it easier to modify settings in both search and recommended settings.

Recommend Settings: Now allows for faster changes by showing an inline agent action for recently modified settings.

Search: We now show more available results in the search fly out to discover what you’re looking for and to allow you to quickly modify those settings. In cases where the settings can’t be adjusted further, a dialog lets you know why and provides an option to modify the settings as needed.

[Drag Tray]

• Drag Tray now supports multi-file sharing, intelligently surfaces more relevant apps, and enables seamless file movement to a chosen folder.

 

Drag Tray UI shows options to share to apps like WhatsApp, Paint, Snapchat, and movement to other folders.

 

Changes and Improvements gradually being rolled out to the Beta Channel with toggle on*

 

[Click to Do (Preview)]

 

The following changes and improvements are rolling out for Click to Do on Copilot+ PCs:

 

• We’re making it easier to act on what matters. Visual cues now make key entities, such as emails, tables, and more, light up on your screen as you launch Click to Do. Click on these entities to discover powerful actions that help you work faster and smarter.

 

[Administrator Protection]

 

• The ability to enable Administrator Protection via Windows Security under Account protection is now available again.

 

[OneDrive]

 

• We are rolling out the new OneDrive icon in Accounts and Homepages in Settings.

 

[Run]

 

• Dark Mode: We continue to make improvements to the dark more experience in Windows 11. This week we are updating the Run dialog.

Fixes gradually being rolled out to the Beta Channel with toggle on*

[Click to Do (Preview)]

 

The following fixes are rolling out for Click to Do on Copilot+ PCs:

 

• Fixed an issue where launching Click to Do on your primary display via right-edge gesture would result in the swipe visuals appearing on the incorrect display.

 

[Taskbar & System Tray]

 

• Fixed an issue where pressing WIN + repeatedly wasn’t cycling through the windows of an app as expected.

 

[File Explorer]

 

• Fixed an issue in the previous flight which was causing File Explorer to crash a lot for some Insiders.

 

[Start menu]

 

• Fixed an issue which was causing Start menu to unexpectedly scroll to the top when interacting with it.
• Fixed an issue where the context menu in Start wouldn’t open with touch (just immediately dismissed).

 

[Search]

 

• Fixed an issue where searches might show unexpected text instead of the expected results and images.

 

[Other]

 

• If you were experiencing a large number of apps (including browsers) crashing in the previous flight, that should no longer repro with this update.

 

Known issues

 

[Taskbar & System Tray]

 

• Our new animations on taskbar previews have been turned off temporarily because they were interfering with the ability to share a window from its preview, we will note when they’re brought back.

 

[File Explorer]

 

• Copy progress might flash when clicking more or less details in dark mode version of the copy dialog.
• Scrollbar and footer are missing and showing a white block instead when text is scaled in dark mode version of the copy dialog.

 

[Search]

 

• Some Insiders are experiencing an issue where using their Xbox Controller via Bluetooth is causing their PC to bugcheck. Here is how to resolve the issue. Open Device Manager by searching for it via the search box on your taskbar. Once Device Manager is open, click on “View” and then “Devices by Driver”. Find the driver named “oemXXX.inf (XboxGameControllerDriver.inf)” where the “XXX” will be a specific number on your PC. Right-click on that driver and click “Uninstall”.

 

You can view the original blog post here (Dev / Beta) on Microsoft's site.

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Posted Saturday 11 October 2025 at 3:53 am AEST (my time).

News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of September): 4,533

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Note that the drive is non-WHQL, which means it could be less stable than WHQL-certified updates.

AMD Radeon Software 25.10.1 preview is available on 64-bit Windows 10 (build 19044 and newer) and Windows 11 (version 21H2 and newer) with the following Radeon products:

The driver contains the following:

• AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 25.10.1 Battlefield 6 Preview Driver Version 25.10.25.25 for Windows 10 and Windows 11 (Windows Driver Store Version 32.0.21025.25005).
• Ryzen AI NPU MCDM Driver version 32.00.0203.297

You can download driver 25.10.1 preview from the official website. Release notes are available on the same page, although you will not find anything but support for Battlefield 6.

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Posted Saturday 11 October 2025 at 3:51 am AEST (my time).

News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of September): 4,533

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The biggest change in Microsoft Edge 141.0.3537.71 is the redesigned profile flyout. According to Microsoft, the new version offers users a cleaner look that makes it easier to understand which profile is personal and which is for work. Here is how Microsoft describes it:

A Refreshed Profile Flyout Experience for Better Clarity and Actionability. The Microsoft Edge profile flyout is updated to deliver a cleaner, more intuitive experience. The refreshed design makes it easier to distinguish between work and personal profiles, manage credentials, and quickly access key settings—all within a polished interface that supports modern browsing needs. With streamlined sign-in, clearer profile types, and organization branding preserved, this update enables a more efficient and trustworthy experience for customers.

Here is what was fixed:

• Fixed an issue that caused Microsoft Loop and Planner workflows to crash when accessibility APIs were enabled.
• Fixed a browser crash that occurred when the BrowsingDataLifetime policy was enabled.

As for security fixes, Edge 141.0.3537.71 includes patches for two vulnerabilities:

• CVE-2025-11460 Use after free in Storage

• CVE-2025-11458 Heap buffer overflow in Sync

   

Edge 141.0.3537.71 arrived one week after Microsoft released Edge 141 to the general public. The latest major browser update introduced some notable changes, such as a new PDF viewer, a dedicated media control center, real-time video translation on compatible PCs, and changes to the feature that purges your browsing data each time you close the browser. In addition to new features and changes to existing ones, Microsoft is migrating its browser to WebUI 2.0, which enables significant performance improvements in page rendering, particularly in Edge's settings section.

You can update to the latest Microsoft Edge version by heading to edge://settings/help.

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Posted Saturday 11 October 2025 at 3:49 am AEST (my time).

News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of September): 4,533

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