As noted by a Reddit user and confirmed by Ars Technica, Microsoft's xCloud game streaming looks noticeable worse when running on Linux than Windows. From the report: With the Linux User-Agent, edges are generally less sharp and colors are a little more washed out. The difference is even more apparent if you zoom in on the Forza logo and menu text, which shows a significant reduction in clarity. Interestingly, the dip in quality seems to go away if you enable "Clarity Boost, an Edge-exclusive feature that "provid[es] the optimal look and feel while playing Xbox games from the cloud," according to Microsoft. That's great for Linux users who switched over to Microsoft Edge when it launched on Linux last November. But Linux users who stick with Firefox, Chrome, or other browsers are currently stuck with apparently reduced streaming quality.

That Linux quality dip has led some to speculate that Microsoft is trying to reserve the best xCloud streaming performance for Windows machines in an attempt to attract more users to its own operating system. But using a Macintosh User-Agent string provides streaming performance similar to that on Windows, which would seem to be a big omission if that theory were true. Microsoft also hasn't published any kind of "best on Windows"-style marketing in promoting xCloud streaming, which would seemingly be a key component of trying to attract new Windows users. (The quality difference could be a roundabout attempt to get Linux users to switch to the Edge browser, where Clarity Boost offers the best possible quality. But that still wouldn't fully explain why Windows users on other browsers, without Clarity Boost, also get better streaming quality than their Linux brethren.)

Others have suggested that the downgrade could simply be a bug caused by Microsoft's naive parsing of the User-Agent strings. That's because the User-Agent strings for Android browsers generally identify themselves as some version of Linux ("Linux; Android 11; HD1905," for example). Microsoft's xCloud code might simply see the "Linux" in that string, assume the user is running Android, then automatically throttle the streaming quality to account for the (presumably) reduced screen size of an Android phone or tablet.

"Microsoft says that a recently spotted Windows worm has been found on the networks of hundreds of organizations from various industry sectors," reports BleepingComputer.

The "Raspberry Robin" malware (first spotted in September) spreads through USB devices with a malicious .LNK file Although Microsoft observed the malware connecting to addresses on the Tor network, the threat actors are yet to exploit the access they gained to their victims' networks. This is in spite of the fact that they could easily escalate their attacks given that the malware can bypass User Account Control (UAC) on infected systems using legitimate Windows tools. Microsoft shared this info in a private threat intelligence advisory sent to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint subscribers and seen by BleepingComputer....

Once the USB device is attached and the user clicks the link, the worm spawns a msiexec process using cmd .exe to launch a malicious file stored on the infected drive. It infects new Windows devices, communicates with its command and control servers (C2), and executes malicious payloads...

Microsoft has tagged this campaign as high-risk, given that the attackers could download and deploy additional malware within the victims' networks and escalate their privileges at any time.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), a non-profit focused on free and open source software (FOSS), said it has stopped using Microsoft's GitHub for project hosting -- and is urging other software developers to do the same. In a blog post on Thursday, Denver Gingerich, SFC FOSS license compliance engineer, and Bradley M. Kuhn, SFC policy fellow, said GitHub has over the past decade come to play a dominant role in FOSS development by building an interface and social features around Git, the widely used open source version control software. In so doing, they claim, the company has convinced FOSS developers to contribute to the development of a proprietary service that exploits FOSS. "We are ending all our own uses of GitHub, and announcing a long-term plan to assist FOSS projects to migrate away from GitHub," said Gingerich and Kuhn.

The SFC mostly uses self-hosted Git repositories, they say, but the organization did use GitHub to mirror its repos. The SFC has added a Give Up on GitHub section to its website and is asking FOSS developers to voluntarily switch to a different code hosting service. "While we will not mandate our existing member projects to move at this time, we will no longer accept new member projects that do not have a long-term plan to migrate away from GitHub," said Gingerich and Kuhn. "We will provide resources to support any of our member projects that choose to migrate, and help them however we can."

For the SFC, the break with GitHub was precipitated by the general availability of GitHub Copilot, an AI coding assistant tool. GitHub's decision to release a for-profit product derived from FOSS code, the SFC said, is "too much to bear." Copilot, based on OpenAI's Codex, suggests code and functions to developers as they're working. It's able to do so because it was trained "on natural language text and source code from publicly available sources, including code in public repositories on GitHub," according to GitHub. Gingerich and Kuhn see that as a problem because Microsoft and GitHub have failed to provide answers about the copyright ramifications of training its AI system on public code, about why Copilot was trained on FOSS code but not copyrighted Windows code, and whether the company can specify all the software licenses and copyright holders attached to code used in the training data set. "We don't believe Amazon, Atlassian, GitLab, or any other for-profit hoster are perfect actors," said Gingerich and Kuhn. "However, a relative comparison of GitHub's behavior to those of its peers shows that GitHub's behavior is much worse. GitHub also has a record of ignoring, dismissing and/or belittling community complaints on so many issues, that we must urge all FOSS developers to leave GitHub as soon as they can."

Nkwe writes: Russians are searching for pirated Microsoft software online after the US tech giant halted sales in the country over its invasion of Ukraine, the Kommersant newspaper reported earlier this week. Russia-based web searches for pirated Microsoft software have surged by as much as 250% after the company suspended new sales on March 4, according to Kommersant. In June so far, there's been a 650% surge in searches for Excel downloads, the media outlet added. Microsoft said earlier this month it's significantly scaling down business in Russia, joining a long list of companies winding down businesses in the country amid sweeping sanctions over the war in Ukraine. The move hits Russia hard because the country relies on foreign software to power many of its manufacturing and engineering tech systems, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Russian government agencies, too, are switching from Microsoft's Windows to the Linux operating system, the Moscow Times reported last Friday. Developers of Russian systems based on the Linux open source operating system are also seeing more demand, Kommersant reported. Not all sectors are able to swap out their systems easily.

An unusually advanced hacking group has spent almost two years infecting a wide range of routers in North America and Europe with malware that takes full control of connected devices running Windows, macOS, and Linux, researchers reported on Tuesday. From a report: So far, researchers from Lumen Technologies' Black Lotus Labs say they've identified at least 80 targets infected by the stealthy malware, infecting routers made by Cisco, Netgear, Asus, and DrayTek. Dubbed ZuoRAT, the remote access Trojan is part of a broader hacking campaign that has existed since at least the fourth quarter of 2020 and continues to operate. The discovery of custom-built malware written for the MIPS architecture and compiled for small office and home office routers is significant, particularly given its range of capabilities. Its ability to enumerate all devices connected to an infected router and collect the DNS lookups and network traffic they send and receive and remain undetected is the hallmark of a highly sophisticated threat actor.

The Windows 11 22H2 update is working its way through Microsoft's Windows Insider testing channels, and we'd expect it to begin rolling out to Windows 11 PCs at some point in the next few weeks or months. But Microsoft has had almost nothing to say about the next major update to Windows 10 beyond the fact that the operating system will keep getting yearly updates for the foreseeable future. From a report: And the Windows 10 22H2 update is actually already out there for those who know how to install it. Neowin has published a list of commands that can be typed into the Command Prompt or Windows Terminal to turn a fully updated Windows 10 21H2 install into a 22H2 install. The commands use Microsoft's Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool to make tweaks to your Windows install and require the optional KB5014666 update for Windows 10 to be installed first. The catch is that enabling Windows 10 22H2 doesn't actually seem to do much beyond incrementing the version number on the "About Windows" screen.

williamyf writes: Today, Mozilla released Firefox 102.
New features include:
* Tired of too many windows crowding your screen? You can now disable automatic opening of the download panel every time a new download starts. Read more.
* Firefox now mitigates query parameter tracking when navigating sites in ETP strict mode.
* Subtitles and captions for Picture-in-Picture (PiP) are now available at HBO Max, Funimation, Dailymotion, Tubi, Disney+ Hotstar, and SonyLIV. This allows you to view video in a small window pinned to a corner of the screen while navigating between apps or browsing content on the main screen.

But do not get fooled, the most important feature is that this release is an ESR, this is super-important of a host of reasons:

* Firefox ESR is the basis for KaiOS (an evolution of BootToGecko), an OS for Semi-Smart Phones very popular in India (100milion+), SE Asia + Africa (~60Milion), so, whatever made the cut in 102 will define the base capabilities for KaiOS for the next year.

* Firefox ESR is the basis for Thunderbird, so, if you use Thunderbird or a derivative, whatever made the cut in 102 will underpin Thunderbird for the next year.

* Many popular Linux distros (like Debian or Kali) use Firefox ESR as the default browser.

* Many companies and organizations use Firefox ESR as their default browser, and many SW development companies certify Firefox ESR as an alowed browser for their SW.

So, 102 is a very important release, becuase it brings a year of advances to ESR.

Today I learned Turkey's Scientific and Technological Research Council has a subsidiary developing a GNU/Linux distro called Pardus, "redesigned to be used in accordance with the practices and habits of users in Turkey."

And this week the Free Software Foundation published a post from the proud project leader of Pardus, explaining exactly why open source was chosen in the district of Eyüpsultan (on the European side of Istanbul) and how they got it implemented: After the municipal elections held in 2014, the new administration realized (through internal financial analysis reports) that a large amount of money was being spent on licensing proprietary software. Looking to cut costs, management asked for a study to be carried out for solutions. As the Eyüpsultan municipality's IT department, we recommended to replace Microsoft Windows with Pardus GNU/Linux instead. We described our preference to transition to free software as "the desire to be independent from a company as well as the savings to be gained from cutting hefty license fees."

Additionally, we spoke about how the four freedoms would improve things outside of the budget. For example, we told the administration that users, when using free software, can fully benefit from the rights they have over the programs running on their computers. We also informed everyone that, when the software they run is proprietary, it means that a company claims rights over the user, and that such a claim of ownership can place restrictions on users in how they may or may not use the software. We told them that this is unacceptable. Arguments such as these were among the deciding factors that influenced our transition to free software.

The plan was presented to the municipal administration and widely accepted.

The municipal administration approved the project, and in January, 2015, the Eyüpsultan municipality started using free software applications such as LibreOffice (e.g. Writer, Calc, Impress, etc.). Prior to the implementations, basic user training on LibreOffice software was provided to the personnel of the institution. Over time, users were gradually and steadily directed to free systems, and, notably, without receiving backlash from users.... Training was an important item in the transition to Pardus GNU/Linux.
Besides an online support forum, they've also set up a live call center to answer questions. "I think we may be the only distribution that helps with issues via a call center."

So how do they feel now about that transition, eight years later? Free software has many advantages, including flexibility, high performance, major cost savings from licensing fees, independence from any particular company, and compliance with interoperability standards. Therefore, the transition of Eyüpsultan municipality to free software has resulted in benefits that were both strategic and practical. We believe, in the near future, more organizations will need to understand the philosophy of free software and the opportunities that free software provides.

The municipal budget has freed up money as a result of the moving from proprietary software to free software. The savings from the "proprietary software licenses" line of the budget was applied to the district in the form of new projects. The money goes now to, among other things, increasing the number of new parks and gardens, bicycle paths, and security cameras in the parks. Additionally, by increasing the number of classes we provide technical training, we started to provide classes in robotics and computation to young people. The Eyüpsultan municipality is now increasing the opportunities for students to further develop their personalities, abilities, goals, and self-discovery. It introduces young people to technology and encourages them to produce new technologies.
One final effect of using free software? It encourages others to do the same: As a result of this brave decision, many of the Istanbul district municipalities have started working to switch or have already made the switch to the Pardus GNU/Linux operating system. Institutions in other cities of the country have also expressed growing interest by asking questions about the Pardus operating system and free software.

Long-time Slashdot reader Artem S. Tashkinov shares a blog post from indie game programmer who complains "The special upload tool I had to use today was a total of 230MB of client files, and involved 2,700 different files to manage this process." Oh and BTW it gives error messages and right now, it doesn't work. sigh.

I've seen coders do this. I know how this happens. It happens because not only are the coders not doing low-level, efficient code to achieve their goal, they have never even SEEN low level, efficient, well written code. How can we expect them to do anything better when they do not even understand that it is possible...? It's what they learned. They have no idea what high performance or constraint-based development is....

Computers are so fast these days that you should be able to consider them absolute magic. Everything that you could possibly imagine should happen between the 60ths of a second of the refresh rate. And yet, when I click the volume icon on my microsoft surface laptop (pretty new), there is a VISIBLE DELAY as the machine gradually builds up a new user interface element, and eventually works out what icons to draw and has them pop-in and they go live. It takes ACTUAL TIME. I suspect a half second, which in CPU time, is like a billion fucking years....

All I'm doing is typing this blog post. Windows has 102 background processes running. My nvidia graphics card currently has 6 of them, and some of those have sub tasks. To do what? I'm not running a game right now, I'm using about the same feature set from a video card driver as I would have done TWENTY years ago, but 6 processes are required. Microsoft edge web view has 6 processes too, as does Microsoft edge too. I don't even use Microsoft edge. I think I opened an SVG file in it yesterday, and here we are, another 12 useless pieces of code wasting memory, and probably polling the cpu as well.

This is utter, utter madness. Its why nothing seems to work, why everything is slow, why you need a new phone every year, and a new TV to load those bloated streaming apps, that also must be running code this bad. I honestly think its only going to get worse, because the big dumb, useless tech companies like facebook, twitter, reddit, etc are the worst possible examples of this trend....

There was a golden age of programming, back when you had actual limitations on memory and CPU. Now we just live in an ultra-wasteful pit of inefficiency. Its just sad.
Long-time Slashdot reader Z00L00K left a comment arguing that "All this is because everyone today programs on huge frameworks that have everything including two full size kitchen sinks, one for right handed people and one for left handed." But in another comment Slashdot reader youn blames code generators, cut-and-paste programming, and the need to support multiple platforms.

But youn adds that even with that said, "In the old days, there was a lot more blue screens of death... Sure it still happens but how often do you restart your computer these days." And they also submitted this list arguing "There's a lot more functionality than before."

• Some software has been around a long time. Even though the /. crowd likes to bash Windows, you got to admit backward compatibility is outstanding
• A lot of things like security were not taken in consideration
• It's a different computing environment.... multi tasking, internet, GPUs
• In the old days, there was one task running all the time. Today, a lot of error handling, soft failures if the app is put to sleep
• A lot of code is due to to software interacting one with another, compatibility with standards
• Shiny technology like microservices allow scaling, heterogenous integration

So who's right and who's wrong? Leave your own best answers in the comments.

And are today's programmers leaving too much code bloat?

For Stack Overflow's annual survey, "Over 73,000 developers from 180 countries each spent roughly 15 minutes answering our questions," a blog post announces: The top five languages for professional developers haven't changed: JavaScript is still the most used, and Rust is the most loved for a seventh year. The big surprise came in the most loved web framework category. Showing how fast web technologies change, newcomer Phoenix took the most loved spot from Svelte, itself a new entry last year.... Check out the full results from this year's Developer Survey here.
In fact, 87% of Rust developers said that they want to continue using Rust, notes SD Times' summary of the results: Rust also tied with Python as the most wanted technology in this year's report, with TypeScript and Go following closely behind. The distinction between most loved and most wanted is that most wanted includes only developers who are not currently developing with the language, but have an interest in developing with it.
Slashdot reader logankilpatrick writes, "It should come as no surprise to those following the growth and expansion of the Julia Programming Language ecosystem that in this year's Stack Overflow developer survey, Julia ranked in the top 5 for the most loved languages (above Python — 6th, MatLab — Last, and R — 33rd)."

And the Register shares more highlights: Also notable in the 71,547 responses regarding programming languages was a switch again between Python and SQL. In 2021, Python pushed out SQL to be the third most commonly used language. This year SQL regained third place, just behind second placed HTML /CSS.

And the most hated...

Unsurprisingly, developers still dread that tap on the shoulder from the finance department for a tweak to that bit of code upon which the entire company depends. Visual Basic for Applications and COBOL still lurk within the top three most dreaded technologies.

The operating system rankings were little changed: Windows won out for personal and professional use, although for professional use Linux passed macOS to take second place with 40 percent of responses compared to Apple's 33 percent. Most notable was the growth of Windows Subsystem for Linux, which now accounts for 14 percent of personal use compared with a barely registering 3 percent in 2021.
But SD Times noted what may be the most interesting statistic: Only 15% of developers work on-site full time. Forty-three percent are fully remote and 42% are hybrid. Smaller organizations with 2-19 employees are more likely to be in-person, while large organizations with over 10k employees are more likely to be hybrid, according to the survey.
InfoWorld delves into what this means: "The world has made the decision to go hybrid and remote, I have a lot of confidence given the data I have seen that that is a one-way train that has left the station," Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO of Stack Overflow told InfoWorld.

Chandrasekar says that flexibility and the tech stack developers get to work with are the most important contributors to overall happiness at work. "Many developers drop out of the hiring process because of the tech stack they will be working with," he said... Organizational culture is also shifting, and cloud-native techniques have taken hold among Stack Overflow survey respondents. Most professional developers (70%) now use some form of CI/CD and 60% have a dedicated devops function....

Lastly, Web3 still has software developers torn, with 32% of respondents favorable, 31% unfavorable, and 26% indifferent. Web3 refers to the emerging idea of a decentralized web where data and content are registered on blockchains, tokenized, or managed and accessed on peer-to-peer distributed networks.

Engineers at the European Space Agency (ESA) are getting ready for a Windows 98 upgrade on an orbiter circling Mars. The Verge reports: The Mars Express spacecraft has been operating for more than 19 years, and the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) instrument onboard has been using software built using Windows 98. Thankfully for humanity and the Red Planet's sake, the ESA isn't upgrading its systems to Windows ME. The MARSIS instrument on ESA's Mars Express was key to the discovery of a huge underground aquifer of liquid water on the Red Planet in 2018. This major new software upgrade "will allow it to see beneath the surfaces of Mars and its moon Phobos in more detail than ever before," according to the ESA. The agency originally launched the Mars Express into space in 2003 as its first mission to the Red Planet, and it has spent nearly two decades exploring the planet's surface.

MARSIS uses low-frequency radio waves that bounce off the surface of Mars to search for water and study the Red Planet's atmosphere. The instrument's 130-foot antenna is capable of searching around three miles below the surface of Mars, and the software upgrades will enhance the signal reception and onboard data processing to improve the quality of data that's sent back to Earth. "We faced a number of challenges to improve the performance of MARSIS," explains Carlo Nenna, a software engineer at Enginium who is helping ESA with the upgrade. "Not least because the MARSIS software was originally designed over 20 years ago, using a development environment based on Microsoft Windows 98!"

Microsoft is preparing to send reminders to Windows 8.1 users that support will end on January 10th 2023. The software giant will start sending notifications to existing Windows 8.1 devices next month, as a first reminder leading up to the January 2023 support cutoff. From a report: The notifications will be similar to ones Microsoft has used in the past to remind Windows 7 users about end of support dates. Microsoft originally sunset Windows 8 support in 2016, but the Windows 8.1 update will cease support fully in January 2023. Microsoft will not be offering an Extended Security Update (ESU) program for Windows 8.1, so businesses won't be able to pay for additional security patches and will have to upgrade or accept the risk of running software without security updates.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: The National Security Agency (NSA) and cybersecurity partner agencies issued an advisory today recommending system administrators to use PowerShell to prevent and detect malicious activity on Windows machines. PowerShell is frequently used in cyberattacks, leveraged mostly in the post-exploitation stage, but the security capabilities embedded in Microsoft's automation and configuration tool can also benefit defenders in their forensics efforts, improve incident response, and to automate repetitive tasks. The NSA and cyber security centers in the U.S. (CISA), New Zealand (NZ NCSC), and the U.K. (NCSC-UK) have created a set of recommendations for using PowerShell to mitigate cyber threats instead of removing or disabling it, which would lower defensive capabilities.

Reducing the risk of threat actors abusing PowerShell requires leveraging capabilities in the framework such as PowerShell remoting, which does not expose plain-text credentials when executing commands remotely on Windows hosts. Administrators should be aware that enabling this feature on private networks automatically adds a new rule in Windows Firewall that permits all connections. Customizing Windows Firewall to allow connections only from trusted endpoints and networks helps reduce an attacker's chance for successful lateral movement. For remote connections, the agencies advise using the Secure Shell protocol (SSH), supported in PowerShell 7, to add the convenience and security of public-key authentication:

- remote connections don't need HTTPS with SSL certificates
- no need for Trusted Hosts, as required when remoting over WinRM outside a domain
- secure remote management over SSH without a password for all commands and connections
- PowerShell remoting between Windows and Linux hosts

Another recommendation is to reduce PowerShell operations with the help of AppLocker or Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC) to set the tool to function in Constrained Language Mode (CLM), thus denying operations outside the policies defined by the administrator. Recording PowerShell activity and monitoring the logs are two recommendations that could help administrators find signs of potential abuse. The NSA and its partners propose turning on features like Deep Script Block Logging (DSBL), Module Logging, and Over-the-Shoulder transcription (OTS). The first two enable building a comprehensive database of logs that can be used to look for suspicious or malicious PowerShell activity, including hidden action and the commands and scripts used in the process. With OTS, administrators get records of every PowerShell input or output, which could help determine an attacker's intentions in the environment. The full document, titled "Keeping PowerShell: Security Measures to Use and Embrace" is available here (PDF).

"While silicon-based solar cells dominate the photovoltaics market, silicon is far from the only material that can effectively harvest electricity from sunlight," notes Ars Technica: Thin-film solar cells using cadmium and telluride are common in utility-scale solar deployments, and in space, we use high-efficiency cells that rely on three distinct materials to harvest different parts of the spectrum. Another class of materials, which we're currently not using, has been the subject of extensive research: perovskites. These materials are cheap and incredibly easy to process into a functional solar cell. The reason they're not used is that they tend to degrade when placed in sunlight, limiting their utility to a few years. That has drawn the attention of the research community, which has been experimenting with ways to keep them stable for longer.

In Thursday's edition of Science, a research team from Princeton described how they've structured a perovskite material to limit the main mechanism by which it decays, resulting in a solar cell with a lifetime similar to that of silicon. While the perovskite cell isn't as efficient as what is currently on the market, a similar structure might work to preserve related materials that have higher efficiencies.
Their research involved a capping layer that's just a few atoms thick, according to an announcement from Princeton University, calling the resulting solar cell "a major milestone for an emerging class of renewable energy technology... the first of its kind to rival the performance of silicon-based cells, which have dominated the market since their introduction in 1954..."

"The team projects their device can perform above industry standards for around 30 years, far more than the 20 years used as a threshold for viability for solar cells." Perovskites can be manufactured at room temperature, using much less energy than silicon, making them cheaper and more sustainable to produce. And whereas silicon is stiff and opaque, perovskites can be made flexible and transparent, extending solar power well beyond the iconic panels that populate hillsides and rooftops across America....

[Engineering professor/team lead] Loo said it's not that perovskite solar cells will replace silicon devices so much that the new technology will complement the old, making solar panels even cheaper, more efficient and more durable than they are now, and expanding solar energy into untold new areas of modern life. For example, Loo's group recently demonstrated a completely transparent perovskite film (having different chemistry) that can turn windows into energy producing devices without changing their appearance. Other groups have found ways to print photovoltaic inks using perovskites, allowing formfactors scientists are only now dreaming up.

Slashdot reader wiredmikey writes: Microsoft has dismissed reports about June 14 being the last Patch Tuesday, as the rollout of the Windows Autopatch service seems to be causing some confusion. Several major cybersecurity companies and prominent security news publications caused confusion this week when they reported that June 14 was the final Patch Tuesday, describing it as "the last ever Patch Tuesday," "the end of Patch Tuesday" and "the end of an era."

That is not accurate. The rollout of Windows Autopatch does not mean there will no longer be Patch Tuesday updates, and Microsoft told SecurityWeek that the company will continue releasing security updates on the second Tuesday of the month.

Microsoft updated the Microsoft Store policies yesterday to prohibit publishers from charging fees for software that is open source or generally available for free. They're also no longer allowed to set irrationally high price tags for their products. gHacks reports: If you have been to the Microsoft Store in the past couple of years, you may have noticed that it is home to more and more open source and free products. While that would be a good thing if the original developer would have uploaded the apps and games to the store, it is not, because the uploads have been made by third-parties. Even worse is the fact that many of these programs are not freely available, but available as paid applications. In other words: Microsoft customers have to pay money to buy a Store version of an app that is freely available elsewhere. Sometimes, free and paid versions exist side by side in the Store. Having to pay for a free application is bad enough, but this is not the only issue that users may experience when they make the purchase. Updates may be of concern as well, as the copycat programs may not be updated as often or as quickly as the source applications.

Open source and free products may not be sold anymore on the Microsoft Store, if generally available for free, and publishers are not allowed to set irrationally high price tags for their products anymore. The developers of open source and free applications may charge for their products on the Microsoft Store, the developer of Paint.net does that, for example. If Microsoft enforces the policies, numerous applications will be removed from the Store. Developers could report applications to Microsoft before, but the new policies give Microsoft control over application listings and submissions directly.

Mozilla: Starting today, Firefox is rolling out Total Cookie Protection by default to all Firefox users worldwide, making Firefox the most private and secure major browser available across Windows and Mac. Total Cookie Protection is Firefox's strongest privacy protection to date, confining cookies to the site where they were created, thus preventing tracking companies from using these cookies to track your browsing from site to site. Whether it's applying for a student loan, seeking treatment or advice through a health site, or browsing an online dating app, massive amounts of your personal information is online -- and this data is leaking all over the web.

The hyper-specific-to-you ads you so often see online are made possible by cookies that are used to track your behavior across sites and build an extremely sophisticated profile of who you are. Recent stories (including an excellent Last Week Tonight episode) have shown how robust, yet under-the-radar, the data selling economy is and how easy it is for anyone to buy your data, combine it with more data about you and use it for a variety of purposes, even beyond advertising. It's an alarming reality -- the possibility that your every move online is being watched, tracked and shared -- and one that's antithetical to the open web we at Mozilla have strived to build. That's why we developed Total Cookie Protection to help keep you safe online.

Total Cookie Protection works by creating a separate "cookie jar" for each website you visit. Instead of allowing trackers to link up your behavior on multiple sites, they just get to see behavior on individual sites. Any time a website, or third-party content embedded in a website, deposits a cookie in your browser, that cookie is confined to the cookie jar assigned to only that website. No other websites can reach into the cookie jars that don't belong to them and find out what the other websites' cookies know about you -- giving you freedom from invasive ads and reducing the amount of information companies gather about you. This approach strikes the balance between eliminating the worst privacy properties of third-party cookies -- in particular the ability to track you -- and allowing those cookies to fulfill their less invasive use cases (e.g. to provide accurate analytics). With Total Cookie Protection in Firefox, people can enjoy better privacy and have the great browsing experience they've come to expect.

It's finally happening. Microsoft will be ending support for most versions of its Internet Explorer (IE) 11 browser on June 15. ZDNet: Microsoft announced more than a year ago that IE would be removed from most versions of Windows 10 this year and has spent months encouraging customers to get ready by proactively retiring the browser from their organizations. IE 11 will be retired for Windows 10 client SKUs (version 20H2 and later) and Windows 10 IoT (version 20H2 and later). Products not affected by this retirement include IE Mode in Edge; IE 11 desktop on Windows 8.1, Windows 7 (with Extended Security Updates), Windows Server LTSC (all versions), Windows Server 2022, Windows 10 client LTSC (all versions), Windows 10 IoT LTSC (all versions). The IE 11 desktop app is not available on Windows 11, as Edge is the default browser for Windows 11. IE Mode in Microsoft Edge will be supported through at least 2029 to give web developers eight years to modernize legacy apps and eventually remove the need for IE mode, officials have said. According to Net Applications, a web monitoring tool, Internet Explorer still has a market share of 5.21% on desktops and laptops, far behind Chrome at over 69%, to be sure, but still ahead of Apple's Safari, which commands 3.73% market share.

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from an opinion piece via The Register, written by longtime technology reporter and Linux enthusiast Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Recently, The Register's Liam Proven wrote tongue in cheek about the most annoying desktop Linux distros. He inspired me to do another take. Proven pointed out that Distrowatch currently lists 270 -- count 'em -- Linux distros. Of course, no one can look at all of those. But, having covered the Linux desktop since the big interface debate was between Bash and zsh rather than GNOME vs KDE, and being the editor-in-chief of a now-departed publication called Linux Desktop, I think I've used more of them than anyone else who also has a life beyond the PC. In short, I love the Linux desktop. Many Linux desktop distros are great. I've been a big Linux Mint fan for years now. I'm also fond, in no particular order, of Fedora, openSUSE, Ubuntu, and MX Linux. But you know what? That's a problem right there. We have many excellent Linux desktop distros, which means none of them can gain enough market share to make any real dent in the overall market.
[...]
Besides over 200 distros, there are 21 different desktop interfaces and over half-a-dozen different major ways to install software such as the Debian Package Management System (DPKG), Red Hat Package Manager (RPM), Pacman, Zypper, and all too many others. Then there are all the newer containerized ways to install programs including Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage. I can barely keep them all straight and that's part of my job! How can you expect ordinary users to make sense of it all? You can't. None of the major Linux distributors -- Canonical, Red Hat, and SUSE -- really care about the Linux desktop. Sure, they have them. They're also major desktop influencers. But their cash comes from servers, containers, the cloud, and the Internet of Things (IoT). The desktop? Please. We should just be glad they spend as many resources as they do on them.

Now, all this said, I don't want you to get the impression that I don't think the conventional Linux desktop is important. I do. In fact, I think it's critical. Microsoft, you see, is abandoning the traditional PC-based desktop. In its crystal ball, Microsoft sees Azure-based Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) as its future. [...] That means that the future of a true desktop operating system will lie in the hands of Apple with macOS and us with Linux. As someone who remembers the transition from centrally controlled mainframes and minicomputers to individually empowered PCs, I do not want to return to a world where all power belongs to Microsoft or any other company. "The Linux desktop will never be as big as Windows once was," writes Vaughan-Nichols in closing. "Between DaaS's rise and the fall of the desktop to smartphones, it can't be. But it may yet, by default, become the most popular true conventional desktop."

A recent executive brief from data storage industry analyst firm Trendfocus reports that OEMs have disclosed that Microsoft is pushing them to drop HDDs as the primary storage device in pre-built Windows 11 PCs and use SSDs instead, with the current deadlines for the switchover set for 2023. Tom's Hardware reports: Interestingly, these actions from Microsoft come without any firm SSD requirement listed for Windows 11 PCs, and OEMs have pushed back on the deadlines. [...] Microsoft's most current(opens in new tab) list of hardware requirements calls for a '64 GB or larger storage device' for Windows 11, so an SSD isn't a minimum requirement for a standard install. However, Microsoft stipulates that two features, DirectStorage and the Windows Subsystem for Android(opens in new tab), require an SSD, but you don't have to use those features. It is unclear whether or not Microsoft plans to change the minimum specifications for Windows 11 PCs after the 2023 switchover to SSDs for pre-built systems.

As always, the issue with switching all systems to SSDs boils down to cost: Trendfocus Vice President John Chen tells us that replacing a 1TB HDD requires stepping down to a low-cost 256 GB SSD, which OEMs don't consider to be enough capacity for most users. Conversely, stepping up to a 512 GB SSD would 'break the budget' for lower-end machines with a strict price limit. "The original cut-in date based on our discussions with OEMs was to be this year, but it has been pushed out to sometime next year (the second half, I believe, but not clear on the firm date)," Chen told Tom's Hardware. "OEMs are trying to negotiate some level of push out (emerging market transition in 2024, or desktop transition in 2024), but things are still in flux."

The majority of PCs in developed markets have already transitioned to SSDs for boot drives, but there are exceptions. Chen notes that it is possible that Microsoft could make some exceptions, but the firm predicts that dual-drive desktop PCs and gaming laptops with both an SSD for the boot drive and an HDD for bulk storage will be the only mass-market PCs with an HDD. [...] It's unclear what measures, if any, Microsoft would take with OEMs if they don't comply with its wishes, and the company has decided not to comment on the matter. Trendfocus says the switchover will have implications for HDD demand next year.