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Windows 11 is a controversial operating system that sparked a lot of heat among users due to questionable changes and weird feature regressions. As it usually goes, third-party developers do the lord's work and fix what Microsoft cannot or does not want to fix. Not so long ago, we published an article about 11 great apps for Windows 11 users. Now we want to focus on applications that aim at improving or replacing existing features with much better alternatives. All ten apps from this article are available in the Microsoft Store at no cost or with free trials.

Microsoft has released the Patch Tuesday updates for Windows 11 22H2 (KB5025239) and 21H2 (KB5025224). Both of the updates come with a number of improvements and roll in updates that were pushed out as part of separate updates at the end of March. Below, you’ll see the release notes for both versions of Windows 11, with the new features from the end of March updates included too.

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 April 2023 on Windows Server 20H2, and Windows 10 for the latest versions, 21H1, 21H2, and 22H2. The new updates are being distributed under KB5025221, bumping up the builds to 19042.2846, 19044.2846, and 19045.2846.

Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'Shazam! Fury of the Gods' tops the chart, followed by '65'. ‘Avatar: The Way of Water' completes the top three.
 
The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.
 
These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

Windows 11 was announced back in 2021 and has had its fair share of praises and criticisms directed at it for the various changes it introduced (particularly controversial hardware restrictions introduced due to security reasons). I should know, I have extensively written about lots of Windows 11 features that I hate and those that I love, along with several Closer Look pieces that dived into the implementation and UX of specific capabilities present in the OS.
 
However, for the past year or so, rumors about Windows "12" have surfaced, claiming that Microsoft is going back to its three-year release cycle and plans on releasing its next major OS in late 2024, which isn't really that far away. In the past few weeks alone, we have seen multiple indications of what changes this purported version of Windows could feature, including tighter Cloud PC integration, stronger focus on AI-powered capabilities, and an emphasis on modularity.

It's the end of another week of 2023 and it's time yet again to recap everything important that happened in the world of Microsoft in the past few days. This time around, we have lots of AI-related news items, stories about Windows 11 Insider Preview updates, and upgrades to various Microsoft software and utilities. Without further ado, let's dive into our weekly digest for April 2 - April 7!

Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'Avatar: The Way of Water' tops the chart, followed by 'Creed III'. ‘Tetris' completes the top three.
 
The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.
 
These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

Valve releases a monthly hardware and software statistics update on its Steam platform. The stats include information about the most used operating systems, processors, video cards, and other hardware stats.
 
Ever since its introduction, Windows has been the dominating platform on Steam. While Valve has spend resources on improving gaming on Linux, for instance by improving Proton, which makes many Windows games playable on Linux devices, it has not threatened Windows' dominance on the platform.
 
The March 2023 Steam Hardware & Software Survey highlight this better than ever before. According to the stats, 97.75% of Steam users are using Windows. While it is remarkable that Windows usage is increasing, by 1.73% over February 2023, it is the huge drop of Microsoft's newest operating system Windows 11 and the equally huge increase of Windows 10 that is remarkable.

It's the end of yet another week as well as the start of the new month, which means that it is time to discuss all the important things that happened in the Microsoft-verse in the past few days. This time around, we have news items related to Windows 12, some potential upcoming Windows 11 features, and support for Windows 7 in a browser.

Have you given any thought as to what would happen if you lost your phone? What if your laptop was infected with ransomware? Have you analyzed and figured out what data is important and, more importantly, how to keep it protected? It's the goal of World Backup Day, "celebrated" on March 31st every year, to bring attention to the idea that many people don't think about their data until it's too late.

If you use a stable Windows 11 release and do not mind installing a cumulative update a little earlier than others, here is a new release from Microsoft for you. KB5023778 (build 22621.1485) is now available with several notable changes and non-security fixes.
 
As a reminder, Microsoft is changing how it delivers preview versions of its cumulative updates. Beginning April 2023, the company will ship optional non-security updates every fourth Tuesday of the month. In other words, users now have two Patch Tuesdays—one mandatory and one optional.

Although Microsoft's Next Valley (which is casually referred to as Windows 12), according to estimates and reports, is still about a year away from general availability, we may already have a pretty good idea of what the next-gen Windows version will look like.
 
Last year, around October, Microsoft, perhaps accidentally, had revealed a new Windows 11 UI but with a floating taskbar and the notification area on top. While it wasn't as clear with the first leaked image, an updated, enhanced version distinctly showed the texts "Next Valley Protoype Design".

Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'Avatar: The Way of Water' tops the chart, followed by 'Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre'. ‘Cocaine Bear' completes the top three.
 
The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.
 
These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

Firefox is a popular browser that has multiple features. I remember using Firefox while I was still in high school and it was one of the fastest browsers ever. It’s a good thing to see older browsers transform and evolve by adding new features. Hardware acceleration helps to improve performance although it can also cause a problem. You can easily solve this by disabling the hardware acceleration in Firefox. I’ll give you a complete guide on how to do this.

While we still have at least a couple of Windows 11 Moment updates left in store (Moment 3 and Moment 4), Microsoft is already making some steady progress toward next-gen Windows 12, which isn't the official name yet as it is apparently referred to as "Next Valley". Senior exec Panos Panay explained that the next-gen Windows 11 and Windows 12 will be a blend of cloud-powered and AI-driven experiences, and Microsoft is slowly making some progress toward it. In aspects of security too, the company is killing off legacy components like MSDT, as well as VBScript, which has been exploited in the past.

In the latest Windows 11 Canary build, Microsoft announced a few improvements for Windows Widgets: animated icons and a better-organized board with widgets separated from the news. However, those are not the only widget-related changes. Build 25324 also lets you move widgets from one corner to another, making the taskbar a little more Windows 10-like.
 
In Windows 10, the News and Interests feature, the spiritual predecessor to what we have in Windows 11, sits at the right side of the taskbar next to the notification area. In Windows 11, the weather widget and its periodical notifications remain the left corner all the time. Microsoft wants to change that—the company experiments with moving widgets to the right when users switch to the traditional left-aligned taskbar.

Update March 25, 2023: We have updated the article to include a more convenient single-click solution, which is now available to all users in the Stable Channel.
 
The recently released Microsoft Edge version 111 has brought a new Bing button to the browser. It sits where the main menu used to be and opens Bing Chat whenever you hover the cursor over it. Not everyone likes such behavior, so here is how to disable the Bing button in Microsoft Edge 111 and higher.

Another week has gone by and it is time yet again to recap important events that occurred in the world of Microsoft in the past seven days. This time around, we have news items related to Microsoft 365 apps and services, some nifty new Windows features, and improvements to Microsoft's various AI initiatives. Without further ado, let's dive into our latest weekly digest covering March 19 - March 24!

This malicious browser extension gives hackers full access to your Gmail account
 
Gmail accounts are under attack from a malicious browser extension spread via phishing emails that targets Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and other Chromium-based browsers.
 
Once installed in your browser, this malicious extension is able to steal the contents of your Gmail messages and even infect the best Android phones with malware but more on that later.

Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'Cocaine Bear' tops the chart, followed by 'Everything Everywhere All at Once'. ‘Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre' completes the top three.
 
The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.
 
These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

Microsoft announced in February 2023 that it would replace the internal PDF viewer of its Microsoft Edge web browser with Adobe's PDF viewer. The change would roll out to home and non-managed Windows 10 and 11 devices automatically in March 2023.
 
Microsoft highlighted the advantages of the change in the announcement. Adobe's solution offers "higher fidelity for more accurate colours and graphics, improved performance, strong security for PDF handling, and greater accessibility -- including better text selection and read-aloud narration" according to Microsoft.
 
Along with these improvements comes a button to buy an Acrobat subscription to access advanced features. The new Try Acrobat button is placed in the rightmost location of the main PDF viewer toolbar in Edge.

We are at the end of yet another week and it is time again to recap everything important that happened in the world of Microsoft in the past few days. This time around, we have news about Microsoft handing out free USB drives to Insiders, Bing integration in Microsoft Edge, and items about pirated Windows copies being endorsed by Microsoft, kind of. Without further ado, let's dive into our weekly digest covering March 12 - March 17!

Rufus, a popular tool for creating Windows (or other OS) install media, has received a new preview update. Version 3.22 is now available for download from GitHub with several notable changes and improvements.
 
Rufus 3.22 introduces the ability to disable automatic BitLocker encryption in the Windows User Experience dialog. This feature joins several existing options that let you personalize your Windows 11 install media, such as removing the requirement for 4GB of RAM, Secure Boot, TPM, and an online Microsoft account.

Microsoft is now bringing the desktop search bar to Windows 10 as well. Spotted by Deskmodder, the latest Edge 111 stable release, which went live today has added the feature. The option is called "Launch search bar" and is available under "More Tools" in the three-dot menu toolbar on the Edge 's top left corner. Hence, to enable this, click on three-dot menu (or press Alt +F) > More Tools > Launch search bar.

In an unexpected twist, a Microsoft support engineer resorted to running an unofficial 'crack' on a customer's Windows PC after a genuine copy of the operating system failed to activate normally.
 
It seems, this isn't the first time either that support professionals have employed such workarounds when under pressure to timely close out support tickets.