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Rufus, everyone's favorite app for creating bootable media for installing Windows, Linux, or other operating systems, has been updated to version 4.4. The latest release is now available for download from the official website and its GitHub repository, bringing users several improvements, bug fixes, and compatibility enhancements.

Google is rolling out a change to the Incognito Mode disclaimer of the company's Chrome web browser. It admits in it that it is tracking users even while the mode is active. The company settled a $5 billion privacy lawsuit over tracking in Incognito Mode in December 2023.
 
The lawsuit accused Google of tracking Chrome users across Google and non-Google websites while Incognito Mode was active. Google operates some of the world's largest Internet sites, but these pale when it comes to the company's access to data on non-Google properties. Google ads and analytics are widely used on the Internet.

Back in November, the internet was abuzz with conspiracy theories of Google purposely slowing down YouTube on Mozilla Firefox while its own browser, Chrome, would work fine. However, those rumors were shot down soon after as Google explained that it was not just Firefox that was the subject of "suboptimal viewing" experience and that it was happening irrespective of the browser. Google put the blame on "installed ad blockers."

Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'Napoleon' tops the chart, followed by 'Oppenheimer'. ‘'Lift' completes the top three.
The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.
 
Downloading content without permission is copyright infringement. These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

Adblock and Adblock Plus users report performance issues on YouTube, initially blamed on Google but later determined to be an issue in the popular ad-blocking extension.

Start back up may be displayed in File Explorer on Windows 11 if you open certain folders. The command is displayed in the path field and its placement may irritate some users of the operating system because of that.

Continuing a long-standing annual tradition, today we publish our list of the most popular torrent sites at the start of 2024.

In this episode of Microsoft Weekly, we look at the first Patch Tuesday updates of 2024, a sudden rebirth of Windows 10, a lot of hardware announcements at CES 2024, fresh new Windows 11 preview builds, and a bunch of neat app updates.

The first Windows 11 preview build in 2024 introduced a new weather widget for the operating system's lock screen with richer visuals and the ability to open more weather data from the lock screen (in Microsoft Edge, of course, not the stock Weather app). In a somewhat surprising move, Microsoft decided to port the new widget from Windows 11 to Windows 10.

These are the three easiest ways to check the Windows activation status.

On Windows 11, whether you use the "Home" or "Pro" edition, the setup must go through the activation process before accessing all the features, such as changing the desktop wallpaper. 

Yes, you can now control your RGB devices from within the Windows 11 settings, and here's how.

On Windows 11, "Dynamic Lighting" is a feature available since version 23H2 that allows you to control LED-powered devices, such as mice, keyboards, and other illuminated accessories that connect to your computer. 

Microsoft released the first Windows 10 and 11 Patch Tuesday updates of 2024 earlier yesterday with the January updates KB5034122 and KB5034123 respectively. The updates are meant to address security issues within Windows. The one for 11 also fixes the recent Wi-Fi troubles that led to networks not connecting or the Wi-Fi icon not showing.

Intel has released new Wi-Fi and Bluetooth drivers for Windows 10 and 11 to resolve several network-related issues, such as blue screens of death at heavy network loads, the "No Wi-Fi networks found" message when connecting to Miracast devices, and several other bugs.

Do you want to check the health of your PC's SSD? Here's how on Windows 11.

On Windows 11, you can check the health state of the system (or any other) Solid-State Drive (SSD) installed on your computer, and in this guide, I'll show you how. In the past, you needed to source a third-party tool to check the health of the drives connected to your device, but now, you can check this information from the Settings app. 

Microsoft has released its Patch Tuesday update for Windows 11 23H2 and 22H2 (KB5034123). It's the same KB update for both versions of Windows but depending on which version you have, you'll land on a different Build number, either 22621.3007 or 22631.3007.

It's the second Tuesday of the month, which means it's Patch Tuesday time again. As such, today Microsoft is rolling out the monthly security update (also called "B release") for January 2024 on Windows Server 20H2, and Windows 10 for the latest supported versions, 20H2, 21H2, and 22H2. The new updates are being distributed under KB5034122, bumping up the builds to 19044.3930 and 19045.3930. You can find standalone links to download the new update on the Microsoft Update Catalog at this link here.

Files, a popular third-party File Explorer alternative, has received a new feature update. Version 3.1 is now rolling out to all users via the Microsoft Store, bringing a few improvements and new features. The update is not as big as the recently released version 3.0, but it still packs a few notable and user-requested changes.

Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes' tops the chart, followed by 'Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire'. ‘'Oppenheimer' completes the top three.
 
The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.
 
Downloading content without permission is copyright infringement. These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

2024 will be an interesting year for web browsers. Google will make changes to its dominating Chrome web browser that may affect part of the browser's userbase negatively.
 
There is the move to Manifest V3 for extensions, which may impact content blockers, privacy extensions and some other extensions negatively. There is also Privacy Sandbox and the end of third-party cookie tracking, which bakes tracking into the browser directly to give Google even more control over user data while making it more difficult for others to keep up.

In this episode of Microsoft Weekly, we look at a Copilot hardware button coming to a keyboard near you, Microsoft-branded keyboards rising from the dead, the first Windows 11 preview builds of 2024, a surprising spoiler from Dell about the next Windows 11 feature update, new app releases, and more.

The next feature update for Windows 11 is expected later this spring, only a couple of months before Microsoft ships the next-generation Windows client with a heavy focus on AI. So heavy that the company even made a dedicated hardware key for Copilot. We do not know the exact release date, but Dell might just give us a clue. Of course, if you trust Dell with that kind of information.

By Susan Bradley

It’s time to prepare for the upcoming patching month, and that means it’s time for MS-DEFCON level 2.

Mikhail Parakhin, who was named as Microsoft's new leader of its Windows and Web Experiences team in September, has been responding to online comments and recommendations from users of Windows 11 over the past several days. On Tuesday, he offered an answer to a person's request to make a change to the Windows login screen.
 
The user on X (formerly Twitter) is "ntoslinux". He asked Parakhin if it might be possible to keep the date and time on the screen after users dismiss the Windows login screen. He stated, "This annoys me a lot when I try to wake up my laptop just to check the time(but don't want to login)."

The first week of 2024 has been an interesting one for you if you enjoy a bit of retro Microsoft and Windows news. We covered a cool software utility program dubbed "MSBob" that tries to take inspiration from the failed Microsoft Bob project. The app is still WIP and could become a more polished and useful version later.
 
Aside from that, we also took a small stroll down memory lane all the back to the 1980s as the earliest known version of 86-DOS - the OS that's the forefather to MS-DOS - was unearthed with a photo of the original disk as well.

2023 was a big year for cybersecurity, with significant cyberattacks, data breaches, new threat groups emerging, and, of course, zero-day vulnerabilities.
 
Some stories, though, were more impactful or popular with our 22 million readers than others.
 
Below are fourteen of what BleepingComputer believes are the most impactful cybersecurity stories of 2023, with a summary of each.