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The Microsoft Office app has a fresh new look, but not for everyone
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Microsoft has rolled out a fresh version of Office.com and the corresponding Windows application, with a revamped user interface that’s supposed to maximize productivity.

As explained in a Microsoft blog post, the changes will take effect for business and education customers first, with similar updates for personal accounts to follow “in the coming months”.

The company suggests that business customers took priority in this instance because the new functionalities are largely geared towards managing large volumes of files more efficiently, a challenge that professionals are more likely to encounter.

New-look Microsoft Office

First announced at Microsoft Ignite in November 2021, the changes to the Microsoft Office app and web client are designed to make managing and locating files simpler, by fine-tuning menu screens and introducing opportunities for customization.

“We designed Office.com and the parallel Office app for Windows to be the hub for your content – a place where you can get to all your files and documents, understand what needs your attention, and easily start creating content,” wrote Microsoft.

The most significant upgrade is perhaps the new-look home screen, which now features a Quick Access section that helps surface important files and filter options that allow users to organize files by those most recently opened, shared, favorites and various other parameters.

Microsoft Office

The new Office.com home screen. (Image credit: Microsoft)
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There’s also a new My Content pane, which Microsoft says “helps you get to all the work related to you no matter the file type, where it’s stored, or how it was shared with you”. This page also benefits from infinite scroll, which eliminates the hassle of tabbing through multiple results pages to find a specific file.

Lastly, the Create pane lets users create new documents and spreadsheets with a single click, using a variety of templates as the base.

“Just select the type of content you wish to create and you’ll be presented with various template options across multiple apps all at once so you can decide which works best for you,” Microsoft explained.

These updates should take effect for all corporate and education customers by the end of the week.

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Twitter just made a big change to our timelines, and I hate it
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It appears Twitter has just flicked a switch to let you slide between two feeds on iOS, where you can decide between a feed of top tweets or chronological tweets.

However, this feature has been available for a while, thanks to the star icon on the top-right corner of your screen. You could switch between the feeds through here, and one feed would display on the app instead.

But there's now an additional swipe required to go to your profile if you're on the 'Latest Tweets', and none of this makes sense. While it's rolling out to iOS for now, Twitter has said that it's soon coming to Android and the web in the coming weeks, but I'm hoping this change is rolled back and forgotten about as soon as possible.

An additional swipe is an additional annoyance

Twitter is the social platform I use the most. Granted, there's some tweets that are written just to drum up pointless discussion, or as an attempted joke to try and go viral, but in the majority of my time there, I've found it to be a good place, and I've met a lot of great people through it.

Toward the end of 2021, the company brought out a feature to display your top tweets – this meant that any tweets with the most interaction at that time, whether it was likes or replies, would be shown at the top of your feed. But Twitter was adamant that the choice between this and a chronological feed would remain.

Overnight, it looks as though that train of thought has gone off the rails.

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Not only does it add an additional step to decide between two feeds, but I've already found myself to be confused as to which feed I'm looking at.

Not being able to unpin the algorithmic timeline feels backward, and puts the user into a corner, where you have to abide by Twitter's design, whether you like it or not.

The company has been trying different features and refinements in the last 18 months, with Fleets being a great example of something that didn't work, and it was soon scrapped.

I'm hoping the same repeats here, where Twitter will soon realize how irritating this change is, as I don't see how this benefits the user when the choice was already there, and had been designed in a better way for months anyway.

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How to improve your digital front door with WebOps
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Online shopping and ecommerce have become more important over the last two years. According to the Office for National Statistics, Internet sales accounted for 27.1% of all retail activity in the UK at the start of 2022. 

During the first four months of the pandemic, more than 85,000 companies implemented new online stores or joined ecommerce platforms in the UK, based on research by Growth Intelligence. Consumers were pushed to ecommerce, which went up from 81% to 95% in Europe according to a 2020 survey by McKinsey.

All this activity led to more companies building and launching sites to interact with their customers. However, these digital experiences need to be kept up to date over time, which can be harder than getting started in the first place. 

For instance, website updates involve both technical requirements and new content posting. Security updates, changes to site plug-ins and new digital services would all require developer and IT team support, while changing brand assets or adding more content might fall under the remit of the marketing team. However, all those changes will come in at the same time, making the process more complicated.

WebOps and Collaboration

The biggest challenge around managing web operations is the number of potential stakeholders involved. Aside from developers responsible for creating any code that runs those digital services on the site, there are the IT operations staff responsible for running the systems involved. There is the marketing team, responsible for the content and assets on the site, and there is the brand team that looks at the design and delivery side.

Each one of these roles will have a hand in the success of a site over time, and they will be responsible for business goals that the site is used for. However, much of the time, these teams will work in their own silos rather than together.

Website Operations – or WebOps – is about breaking down those boundaries that exist around website management. WebOps establishes joint processes and goals so that marketing, developers and IT operations staff work more effectively. It is based on the principles of DevOps and having more collaboration, rather than stakeholders working to their goals in separate silos. WebOps works by putting all website project work in context of that bigger business goal. 

This can involve getting over some of the pre-conceptions that teams have of each other. For example, marketing departments today are driven by technology rather than solely by advertizing. 

Rather than being solely about creative work like brand and positioning, marketing teams today have to build and track customer journeys, deploy personalization tools, and automate customer relationships. These activities rely on online interactions to track engagement and preferences, which then inform the unique next steps in a customer’s journey with the brand. 

Similarly, content marketing activities involve deploying the right assets to customers depending on their browsing habits and preferences using automation.

On the IT and software sides, solving potential problems around customer actions demands creativity too. New launches for the business will rely on integrating software and creative assets into novel, innovative experiences that perform well and are available under stress. 

Delivering these kinds of projects effectively involves planning ahead and understanding workload across the whole team, rather than looking at individuals or specific departments alone. All of these tasks involve processes and timelines, which can be shared and made more visible to everyone.

This visibility can make a big difference to WebOps teams, as it helps everyone understand their responsibilities and priorities in context. For instance, it can be all too easy to assume that tasks are simple, or can be accomplished in timeframes that are not realistic. 

For example, marketing may assume that updating a website is the same as accepting an update to an application on their desktop, while IT operations teams may think brand refreshes are simply about new logos. The work required on both the IT and the marketing sides is often more involved and more complex than it is given credit for.

All sides in this have more in common than they might think. WebOps approaches can help define the goals that all the stakeholders have around website developments. This involves looking at the overall business goals that the organization has, and then how each team contributes to those aims. 

For instance, IT teams will see how brand updates can make a difference to company performance and customer acquisition goals, while the marketing department will find out exactly how much work goes into updating all the sites that a company may operate for security.

Making it easier to serve content

This recognition of what really goes on across teams or departments is an essential building block for more collaboration. Once teams understand the pressures they are under as part of delivering an overall goal, it is easier to make changes so that everyone pulls in the same direction. This makes work around website projects easier for everyone.

Similarly, you can break down some of the silos that exist around how sites are implemented and maintained. Rather than relying on developers to manage content updates, you can decouple your content management system (CMS) from the web front-end systems. This means that marketing teams can launch new content and iterate on their campaigns as soon as they’re ready. That agility is what drives results, as it allows marketers to quickly respond to market opportunities and serve customers with experiences that resonate. 

Using headless content management systems alongside your website platform like Drupal or WordPress means that marketers can implement their updates faster, rather than having to break into developer workflows to get changes made. This can also make it easier for them to review the effect that those content changes might have, rather than relying on back and forth between different teams, which slows down the whole process.

The aim for WebOps

WebOps is about removing the barriers between teams that exist around website development. Rather than compartmentalising teams and their goals, WebOps ensures everyone involved understands what their work builds towards. It presents a unified approach to how websites are managed across technical, brand and experience parameters.

This understanding is essential to keep up with the demands that customers have for a better digital experience. 

Company websites are the digital front door for more businesses than ever before, so simplifying the process to host, update and manage those sites is essential. With WebOps, all companies can improve their internal processes and deliver results faster.

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Surfshark backpedals on Fake News feature after barrage of criticism
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Following a surge in propaganda coinciding with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the VPN provider Surfshark recently released a new fake news warning feature for its browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox.

At the time, Surfshark CEO Vytautas Kaziukonis explained why the company decided to release the feature in a press release, saying:

“The 21st century has shown that information might be sharper than the sword. It’s evident that today’s disinformation campaigns aim to distract, confuse, manipulate, and sow division, discord, and uncertainty in the community. Keeping in mind the intensifying propaganda, we decided to release a feature that would allow people to identify fake news websites easily.” 

Fake News Warning

(Image credit: Surfshark )

Surfshark's now defunct fake news warning feature would detect specific URLs from a list of untrustworthy websites taken from the site propornot.com reviewed by the the company's security experts. Sites known for spreading fake news were highlighted with a “YYY” symbol in Google and other search engines. While the feature was enabled by default, Surfshark users were able to toggle it off under the “VPN settings” menu in the company's browser extension.

Suspending its fake news feature

Although Surfshark's intentions were good, the company explained in a post on Twitter that “the topic is more nuanced that initially thought” when it announced that it would be temporarily suspending its fake news notification feature only a few days after its launch.

The problem with the feature is that in addition to being overwhelming for some users, it identified far too many sites as being a source of disinformation. Some of the sites that had a “YYY” next to them on Google's search results page included Drudge Report, Ron Paul's website, the alternative video platform BitChute and even WikiLeaks.

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While consumers rely on VPN services to protect their privacy online and to get around geo-blocking, many of the users that responded to a separate post on Twitter by BitChute took issue with Surfshark limiting freedom of expression online. At the same time, BitChute pointed out that several major news stories in the last year were considered 'misinformation' before being revealed to be true.

Despite the fact that Surfshark has said that it would temporarily suspend the feature, its original blog post announcing its fake news notifications has been removed from its site. We'll have to wait and see as to whether or not the company decides to bring it back though based on the criticism the feature faced online, it likely won't be returning anytime soon.

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Bitdefender wants to take a bite out of the password manager market
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Bitdefender has announced the launch of its new password manager which aims to simplify the creation and management of secure passwords across all of a user's online accounts on both desktop and mobile.

While the company is known for its antivirus software, its new Bitdefender Password Manager offering also includes a password generator to create and save unique, highly complex passwords for each online account. These passwords can then be accessed by using a single master password. Bitdefender Password Manager is also backed by strong end-to-end encryption along with simple set-up, easy installation and an intuitive user interface designed to be accessible to all.

According to the recent 2021 Bitdefender Global Report: Cybersecurity and Online Behaviors, half of the over 10,000 consumers surveyed use a single password for all of their online accounts while nearly one-third (32%) reuse just a few passwords across multiple online accounts. 

Vice president of Bitdefender's consumer solutions division, Ciprian Istrate explained why the company decided to create its new password manager in a press release, saying:

“Cybercriminals rely on weak passwords to compromise accounts, steal user identities and profit from selling credentials on the dark web. Despite understanding the importance of strong passwords as a security best practice, the ease of memorizing a few passwords and reusing them everywhere outweighs increased security risk for most. We built Bitdefender Password Manager with this in mind, delivering what we believe is one of the best-in-class password protection without sacrificing user convenience.”

Bitdefender Password Manager

In addition to allowing users to store their passwords, Bitdefender Password Manager can also be used to manage and auto-fill payment data. All of this data is encrypted and decrypted locally and the account holder alone has access to the master password so that no third party has access to their financial information.

While there are mobile apps available for Android and iOS, Bitdefender has also created browser extensions for Windows and macOS that support a wide range of browsers including Chrome, Firefox and Edge with support for Safari launching soon.

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If you already use another password manager like 1Password or LastPass, Bitdefender Password Manager allows you to easily import data and passwords from other platforms including browsers like Chrome and Firefox which have their own built-in password managers.

An annual subscription to Bitdefender Password Manager costs $ 29.99 per year but the company is currently offering an introductory discount where new customers can save 33 percent and pay $ 19.99 for the year or as little as $ 1.66 per month.

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Meta finally adds decent admin features for Facebook Groups
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Meta has announced new features for admins in Facebook Groups to better moderate users' posts while making it easier for users to join in through QR codes.

While social networks have had the mammoth task of tightening up moderation, Meta has tried to improve its practices on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

But it's Facebook Groups that have been bearing the brunt of misinformation in recent times, which is why Meta is stepping up its cause to help out the admins of these groups with more powerful features.

However, it remains to be seen if these will make a big difference in the ever-changing world of 2022.

Analysis: Will new features be enough?

New admin features in Facebook Groups

(Image credit: Facebook)

The blog post states other new features, such as being able to automatically approve or decline new users, based on the answers that they give when applying to be part of a group. There's also another useful new feature that allows admins to suspend users who have already had their recent posts muted, and their new posts still break the guidelines of the group

Meta has stated that it has 1.8 billion people that use Facebook Groups, with over half of all its users being members of five or more active groups, so new features for admins to help moderate these posts will always be welcome.

However, these are the types of features that should have been there years ago. Our US Editor-in-Chief, Lance Ulanoff has been receiving prompts to tighten up his security on Facebook, with a feature called Facebook Protect.

Facebook Protect in iOS

(Image credit: TechRadar)

The consequence of not enabling Facebook Protect is a full-lock-out of your account, restricting you from accessing the social media website.

This looks to be applicable to accounts with blue ticks for now, but there's always a chance that Meta will open this up to all users as an added security feature.

This comes back to Meta's stance on security and moderation. While it's welcome to see these updates for Facebook Groups, its approach to challenging misinformation on Pages statuses, Reels and even photos still has a long way to go to correct the narrative for current news around the world.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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Brave update slams the door on devious ‘bounce tracking’ technique
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Brave Software has rolled out an update for its privacy-centric web browser to combat an invasive tracking technique capable of bypassing existing protections.

As explained in the company’s latest blog post, bounce tracking is a method of circumventing protections by pulling users through intermediate domains as they navigate between web pages, without their knowledge. Over time, this practice could supposedly allow a third-party to build up a detailed profile of someone’s interests.

Although Brave already features a number of mechanisms designed to repel bounce tracking attempts, the company is now bolstering its arsenal with a new feature: Unlinkable Bouncing. Under this system, bounce tracking sites are still able to collect information about the user’s interests, but cannot connect that information with data collected on previous occasions.

The new Unlinkable Bouncing feature is currently available in early-access, but will roll out to all users with Brave version 1.37.

The fight against trackers

Although the objective of services like Brave is to shield against all predatory tracking techniques, doing so is effectively impossible as a result of the ever-changing nature of the landscape.

The relationship between Brave and stakeholders in the web tracking market can be compared to that between threat actors and cybersecurity specialists; advances on one side necessitate innovation on the other.

In a recent conversation with TechRadar Pro, CEO Brendan Eich explained that his team is monitoring constantly for chinks in the armor created by “sneaky” new tracking techniques.

“We’ve got an aggressive ongoing agenda, because privacy has an adversary: the trackers, data brokers and ad tech vendors. And they keep evolving; they are always trying new and sneaky ways to get around what Brave does,” he told us.

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The latest Brave update is an example of this process playing out; the company has identified a method of tracking capable of weaselling through its existing protection and deployed an additional mitigation.

Specifically, Unlinkable Bouncing utilizes a capability called “first-party ephemeral storage”, which prevents websites from re-identifying users that visit on multiple occasions. The feature is said to be comparable to clearing browser storage each time someone exits a site, but more effective.

“Unlikable Bouncing is just the first application of our first-party ephemeral storage plans, and we’re excited to share more features with Brave users soon,” the company explained.

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Windows 11 update brings back Movie Maker as ClipChamp
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Microsoft released a new preview build of Windows 11 on March 9, where it announced a surprise new app called ClipChamp.

This allows you to create videos, edit video clips, and gives you access to plenty of stock photos and videos that you can use for your projects.

ClipChamp is rolling out to users who are on Windows Insider build 22572 and above. If you've not signed up to be a Windows Insider to help test early versions of Windows 11, this app should appear later this year in the upcoming 'Sun Valley 2' update.

It looks as though Microsoft is looking through its back catalog of apps, such as Paint and Windows Media Player, and seeing what could work in 2022. In some ways, ClipChamp is the return of the iconic Movie Maker, and looks to appease casual users who just want to edit clips on the fly, or make their home movies look a little more professional.

Analysis: What's old is new again

Windows Movie Maker on Windows XP

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft has been both reviving its apps for Windows 11, and refreshing others that have not been updated in years, such as Paint and Snipping Tool.

Movie Maker was a useful tool back in the days of Windows XP in 2001, where you could place random transitions and effects over your photos and videos, then share it through MSN Messenger.

It launched with Windows Me in 2000, a short-lived upgrade to Windows 98, and was supported until 2014, but Movie Maker hadn't seen any major new features since 2007. With the increase of other apps and websites that could edit video, alongside being able to do the same features on social media apps on your smartphones, Movie Maker faded into irrelevance.

However, nostalgia is powerful thing, and many of us fondly remember the apps that we used to have as part of our childhoods, and for some, Movie Maker is a big part of this. There are most likely users out there who have videography careers in 2022 thanks to Movie Maker introducing them to video editing when they were younger.

ClipChamp looks to do the same for users in Windows 11, with a modern design that is reminiscent of Movie Maker, all while bringing modern features.

Via Windows Blog

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These were the most popular browser extensions during the pandemic
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The transition to working from home during the pandemic drastically changed the way in which we use technology with the browser becoming one of the most important tools for remote work.

Now as we've reached the two-year mark of the start of the pandemic, Mozilla has published a new blog post taking a closer look at which browser extensions were the most downloaded and used during the early days of the lockdown in Firefox.

As meetings went virtual with employees relying on video conferencing software like Zoom to connect with their teams, the browser extension Zoom Scheduler saw a 1,522 percent increase in installs. This is because it integrates Google Calendar with Zoom so that users can scheduler or start their Zoom meetings directly from their calendar.

Since remote workers also spent more time looking at their work from home monitors, the Dark Background and Light Text extension, which flips the colors of webpages to make them more visible, saw a 351 percent increase in installs at the beginning of the pandemic. Likewise, the Tree Style Tab extension also experienced a 126 percent increase in downloads as it can help users deal with tab overload by opening browser tabs in a cascading “tree” format similar to vertical tabs in Microsoft Edge. 

Protecting our privacy and staying entertained

Cybercrime ran rampant during the beginning of the pandemic so in addition to using a VPN and antivirus software when working remotely, Firefox users also began installing privacy extensions for their browser.

Cookie AutoDelete, which eliminates unused cookies whenever you close a tab in Firefox, saw its install numbers skyrocket by 386 percent and the browser extension also averaged more than 206k installs per month between March and May of 2020.

As remote workers used Facebook's social media platform to stay connected during lockdown, Mozilla's own Facebook Container was another popular browser extension. This extension isolates your Facebook identity into a separate “container” so that the social media giant can't track your moves around the web.

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Blocking trackers was also important to those working from home during the pandemic which is why the Privacy Badger browser extension saw installs jump by 80 percent globally. An interesting thing about this browser extension is that it gets better at blocking trackers the longer you use it since Privacy Badger “learns” more about the hidden trackers you naturally encounter while online.

When it came to staying entertained while in lockdown, Firefox users installed the BetterTTV browser extension to alter the look and feel of Twitch, the Watch2gether extension to have watch parties with friends and colleagues online and YouTube Non-Stop to solve the problem of the video platform's annoying “Video paused. Continue watching?” prompt.

Regardless of which browser you're currently using, browser extensions can help add to your online experience and make the software and services you depend on while working from home even more useful.

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Your Microsoft Outlook calendar is going global
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Your Outlook calendars could soon be more organized than ever thanks to a new update from Microsoft.

The company has revealed an upgrade to its email service that will allow users to display a second calendar type.

In the official entry in the Microsoft 365 roadmap, the company notes that users will have “a variety of global calendars” to choose from. This could mean that the likes of the Chinese lunar calendar, Indian calendar and the Islamic calendar will soon be available as options within Outlook, so certain holidays or observances are not missed.

Outlook calendars

The feature is still listed as “in development” for the time being, but Microsoft has included a preview release for March 2022, and a scheduled general release for May 2022, so users should be able to benefit within the next few weeks.

When it does release, the update will be available to all Outlook Web users across the world.

The news is the latest in a series of recent updates announced for Outlook as Microsoft looks to make the service an ideal partner for hybrid working.

Read more

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This includes the ability to browse and reserve meeting rooms on a work phone, meaning you won't be caught without a space ahead of an important meeting. Previously, Outlook users had to search for available meeting rooms using the desktop app or another alternative system implemented by their company, so this offers a significant upgrade.

A separate update entitled “working hours and location” will allow users to set a notice showing where they are working, whether that be at home, in the office, or anywhere else in particular, giving managers more visibility on where their key employees are.

The company is also planning on adding Microsoft Editor functionality on mobile platforms, signalling an end for embarrassing spelling and grammar mistakes on smartphones, as well as adding text predictions to Outlook for Android and iOS.

And in a bid to add a bit more vibrancy to what can be quite a dull platform, another upgrade will soon let users customize the color of the events in their calendar app, letting them not only liven up the view, but also create better distinction and visibility into their working week.

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