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Microsoft is finally making Edge a much more secure place to surf the web
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Keeping safe online is about to get a lot easier for Edge users thanks to a major security update from Microsoft.

The software giant has revealed it is working on an upgrade for its web browser that will bring “enhanced security” as a default for users everywhere.

This includes adding additional operating system and hardware protections for Edge that the company says, when combined, will help provide “defense in depth”, making it more difficult than ever before for a malicious site to use an unpatched vulnerability to write to executable memory and attack an end user.

Edge enhanced security

Going forward, users will now see an additional banner with the words “added security” in the URL navigation bar in Edge, instantly letting you know you have extra protection for that specific site.

“Microsoft Edge is adding enhanced security protections to provide an extra layer of protection when browsing the web and visiting unfamiliar sites,” the company wrote in a blog post announcing the news.

“The web platform is designed to give you a rich browsing experience using powerful technologies like JavaScript. On the other hand, that power can translate to more exposure when you visit a malicious site. With enhanced security mode, Microsoft Edge helps reduce the risk of an attack by automatically applying more conservative security settings on unfamiliar sites and adapts over time as you continue to browse.”

More security for Edge

Users will be able to create exceptions for certain trusted websites, where enhanced security can either be disabled or enabled permanently. Enterprise admins can also configure for certain websites to be blocked or allowed, 

In its entry on the official Microsoft 365 roadmap, the company noted enhanced security mode is being turned on by default to “Balanced” mode for x64 Windows, x64 macOS, x64 Linux, and ARM64 systems.

The update is still listed as being “in development” for the time being, but has a scheduled rollout start date of July 2023, when users across the globe will be able to access it.

Recent Statcounter figures show that Microsoft's ongoing efforts to push users towards Edge may not be having the desired effect. Its most recent report found that Edge had lost its second place in the global browser market to Apple's Safari offering, which now claims 11.87% of users, compared to Edge's 11% – although both trail far behind runaway leader Google Chrome (66.13%).

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Xbox App for Windows is making PC gaming more accessible
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Microsoft has just powered up the Xbox App for Windows in a new update that brings in a lot of useful changes, on the accessibility front for starters, and also with game cards, better filtering for your games library to find what you want, and more.

Windows Central reports that the May update for the Xbox App on PC is now out, reworking accessibility settings to make them more, well, accessible, bringing all these options together in a new menu.

Xbox App for Windows Accessibility Menu

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Essentially, this acts as a one-stop-shop hub where you can access accessibility settings for the Xbox app – for example, disabling animations or background images (those are actually two new features designed to remove what might be unnecessary distractions for some folks). Also, the menu offers convenient shortcuts to other accessibility options (for Windows in general, for instance, or the Xbox Game Bar).

Another significant change has been introduced for game cards, which offer up more info. So you can now see at a glance how long a game takes to finish (typically), details on pricing, and relevant info on when the title is coming to Game Pass (or indeed being dropped).

Xbox App for Windows Filters

(Image credit: Microsoft)

There are also new options to filter your game library, so for example, it’s possible to look for games you can beat in a few hours (under five) if you just want a quick fix for your next venture into PC gaming. It’s also possible to sort games via accessibility features, too.

Microsoft has implemented tweaks on the social side for the Xbox App, too, allowing you to pop out your friends list (or a chat) into a separate window. If you have two desktops going, you can have a game running full-screen in one, and your social stuff popped onto the other.

Xbox App for Windows Social

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Analysis: Impressive steps forward

There’s some very useful stuff added here, with the extra details on game cards, and additional filter options likely to prove very handy (especially the idea of looking for quick fix games, or indeed the opposite end of the spectrum – games that will consume your life for the next month or three, perhaps). Note that the estimations of game lengths are drawn from a website (HowLongToBeat.com).

Furthermore, Microsoft continues to put its best foot forward with further efforts on the accessibility front. We’ve seen a lot of such work in Windows 11 at a broader level – with lots of progress with Voice Access in particular of late (courtesy of the Moment 3 update) – and it’s great to see this happening on the gaming side of the equation in the OS, too.

As a final note, one thing PC gamers might have missed is that Windows 11’s live captions work in games, too – and the feature does a pretty good job for those titles which don’t have native captions.

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A big WhatsApp Desktop update comes to Windows 11, making the web version pointless
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While 2021 brought the WhatsApp Desktop app to Windows 11, alongside a new look in January, there's new features about to appear in the beta version.

The new update of the beta version, that’s been available on the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 and Windows 11 since November, showcases message reactions and the ability to permanently archive chats.

These are two features that users had been long-requesting, and while they arrived in the iOS and Android versions, they were yet to arrive for Windows 11, until recently.

However, with video calling in the desktop app, and GIFs having just arrived after the web version has had the ability for the last year, it makes us wonder if there's any point in using WhatsApp in our web browsers anymore. 

Analysis: Time to move on from WhatsApp Web

Using WhatsApp on the web on your PC or Mac has been the norm for years now. Using a tab in your web browser to quickly reply to messages, instead of reaching for your phone, is very useful.

However, there's times when you can discover its limits, such as missing reactions and video calling.

This is where the desktop app has already superseded the web version on Windows and Mac. Calling your contacts through audio or video will be a big benefit to many, and while GIFS are already on the web version, they feel faster and display in a higher quality compared to how they show on the web browser.

It's at the point where we're already making sure that the app starts up alongside Steam, Chrome, and more when we switch on our PCs.

Reactions and the method to keep archived chats, archived, are only going to spur users to move away from the web version as well, and as far as we're concerned, any way to reduce the tabs in our web browser is a benefit regardless to make them more manageable.

Via WindowsLatest

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A big WhatsApp Desktop update comes to Windows 11, making the web version pointless
  • No Comments

While 2021 brought the WhatsApp Desktop app to Windows 11, alongside a new look in January, there's new features about to appear in the beta version.

The new update of the beta version, that’s been available on the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 and Windows 11 since November, showcases message reactions and the ability to permanently archive chats.

These are two features that users had been long-requesting, and while they arrived in the iOS and Android versions, they were yet to arrive for Windows 11, until recently.

However, with video calling in the desktop app, and GIFs having just arrived after the web version has had the ability for the last year, it makes us wonder if there's any point in using WhatsApp in our web browsers anymore. 

Analysis: Time to move on from WhatsApp Web

Using WhatsApp on the web on your PC or Mac has been the norm for years now. Using a tab in your web browser to quickly reply to messages, instead of reaching for your phone, is very useful.

However, there's times when you can discover its limits, such as missing reactions and video calling.

This is where the desktop app has already superseded the web version on Windows and Mac. Calling your contacts through audio or video will be a big benefit to many, and while GIFS are already on the web version, they feel faster and display in a higher quality compared to how they show on the web browser.

It's at the point where we're already making sure that the app starts up alongside Steam, Chrome, and more when we switch on our PCs.

Reactions and the method to keep archived chats, archived, are only going to spur users to move away from the web version as well, and as far as we're concerned, any way to reduce the tabs in our web browser is a benefit regardless to make them more manageable.

Via WindowsLatest

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Microsoft is making video calls creepier in Windows 11
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Windows 11 is getting a new AI-powered eye contact feature for video calls, but rather than making these calls feel more natural, it actually looks pretty creepy.

Announced at its recent event on the future of hybrid work, this new feature aims to use artificial intelligence to make it look like your eyes are looking directly at the person you’re video calling.

Most webcams, including ones built into laptops, sit above the screen, but when we’re on video calls, we’re usually looking at the video of the person we’re talking to, instead of looking directly at the camera. This leads to callers appearing to look down when talking, rather than making eye contact, as most of us would when talking to people in person.

Microsoft’s attempt to fix this by adjusting the video caller’s pupils so they face the screen, in a bid to make video calls, as Windows chief Panos Panay claims, “more human,” is certainly interesting, but from the results we’ve seen so far, the effect appears more unnerving than the company intends.

GIF video showing the eye tracking feature

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Analysis: AI has its limits – and this is one of them

In the video clip Microsoft showed, a woman speaks on a video call, and her pupils do indeed make it appear that she’s looking at the screen. However, there are slight glitches that even when subtle, make it clear that something isn’t quite right.

It’s a classic example of the ‘uncanny valley’, where an attempt to synthesise an artificial human causes a sense of uneasiness in real humans, often because of imperfections which tell us that what we’re looking at is fake.

In fact, the uncanny valley can be more pronounced in more realistic attempts, as we subconsciously pick up more minor details, which then increases the impact of the effect, and that’s something that appears to have happened here.

By trying to make video calls in Windows 11 “more human,” Microsoft has actually done the opposite, and when you notice the little issues and glitches, you’re unable to see past the artificiality of it all. Ironically, it seems that this new feature is actually more distracting then if a caller was not looking at the camera.

Thankfully this feature will likely be optional, and there may be future updates that make it look more realistic, but at the moment we can’t imagine many people using it, and it shows that while AI has many fantastic uses, it also has its limits.

  • Check out our pick of the best laptops that you can use for remote video calls

Via TechCrunch

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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Microsoft is making video calls creepier in Windows 11
  • No Comments

Windows 11 is getting a new AI-powered eye contact feature for video calls, but rather than making these calls feel more natural, it actually looks pretty creepy.

Announced at its recent event on the future of hybrid work, this new feature aims to use artificial intelligence to make it look like your eyes are looking directly at the person you’re video calling.

Most webcams, including ones built into laptops, sit above the screen, but when we’re on video calls, we’re usually looking at the video of the person we’re talking to, instead of looking directly at the camera. This leads to callers appearing to look down when talking, rather than making eye contact, as most of us would when talking to people in person.

Microsoft’s attempt to fix this by adjusting the video caller’s pupils so they face the screen, in a bid to make video calls, as Windows chief Panos Panay claims, “more human,” is certainly interesting, but from the results we’ve seen so far, the effect appears more unnerving than the company intends.

GIF video showing the eye tracking feature

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Analysis: AI has its limits – and this is one of them

In the video clip Microsoft showed, a woman speaks on a video call, and her pupils do indeed make it appear that she’s looking at the screen. However, there are slight glitches that even when subtle, make it clear that something isn’t quite right.

It’s a classic example of the ‘uncanny valley’, where an attempt to synthesise an artificial human causes a sense of uneasiness in real humans, often because of imperfections which tell us that what we’re looking at is fake.

In fact, the uncanny valley can be more pronounced in more realistic attempts, as we subconsciously pick up more minor details, which then increases the impact of the effect, and that’s something that appears to have happened here.

By trying to make video calls in Windows 11 “more human,” Microsoft has actually done the opposite, and when you notice the little issues and glitches, you’re unable to see past the artificiality of it all. Ironically, it seems that this new feature is actually more distracting then if a caller was not looking at the camera.

Thankfully this feature will likely be optional, and there may be future updates that make it look more realistic, but at the moment we can’t imagine many people using it, and it shows that while AI has many fantastic uses, it also has its limits.

  • Check out our pick of the best laptops that you can use for remote video calls

Via TechCrunch

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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Microsoft Edge update will stop you making an embarrassing blunder
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Embarrassing spelling and grammar mistakes will soon be a thing of the past in Microsoft Edge as Microsoft is now rolling out a built-in grammar editor for its browser.

Microsoft Editor is the software giant’s Grammarly competitor and while it’s normally accessed via a browser extension, the company has now decided to directly integrate it into Edge.

Just like with other writing software, Microsoft Editor provides users with both grammar and punctuation corrections and suggestions as they write. In Edge, Editor will be available in over 20 languages but the writing tool will only provide feedback on the main language used in the browser.

In addition to its existing features, Microsoft has said that it will soon begin rolling out text predictions in English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese in Editor in order to help users not only write better but also faster.

Web Select

Besides its new Microsoft Editor integration, Microsoft is also bringing another new feature to Edge called web select though it was initially known as smart copy when it was first announced two years ago.

Web select makes it easier to select formatted content like tables, images and text on the web. The feature allows users to quickly select entire paragraphs in their original formatting or copy only the cells they want to in a table. From here, you can then paste content with its original formatting into a Word document or into OneNote to reference later.

Read more

> Microsoft's Grammarly rival is coming to Word for Mac

> Google Docs will now practically write your documents for you

> This Microsoft Edge update is a dream for all you clumsy typists

While web select will likely be a useful feature for Edge users, it has certainly taken quite a while to arrive in Microsoft’s browser. The company first began testing the feature all the way back in November of 2020.

It’s worth noting that web select isn’t the same as web capture which allows users to take screenshots of webpages and annotate them before sharing or saving them.

In order to try out Microsoft Editor and web select in Microsoft Edge, you first need to make sure you're running the latest version of Microsoft’s browser. To check if you are, you can click on the three-dot menu in the top right corner of the browser and choose Help & feedback and then About Microsoft Edge.

Via XDA

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This long-lost Microsoft Edge feature may be making a comeback
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Keeping control of all your most-needed tabs and windows in Microsoft Edge could soon be a whole lot easier.

Spotted by Redditor Leopeva64-2, one of the most recent Edge Canary builds saw a mention of Workspaces, a feature allowing users to group together their tabs and windows within the browser.

The finding was particularly curious as the feature was previously thought to be dead in the water, with no mention of Workspaces in Microsoft Edge since its initial reveal back in April 2021.

Microsoft Edge Workspaces

The Edge Canary build included the option to create and edit new and existing Workspaces as part of the browser's Appearance settings. Although the button to toggle these features didn't appear to be available, its presence suggests the tool will be arriving soon.

Workspaces looked to operate alongside Microsoft's existing Collections tool, but instead of the latter's ability to save individual tabs, the new addition would let users name certain tabs or windows, as well as customizing them with a certain color to categorize.

It would also allow users to keep groups of work and personal browser tabs separate, with each Workspace containing multiple tabs, meaning that even if you close an Edge window without deleting a workspace, it will remain available the next time you launch the browser.

For now, the feature seems limited to Canary builds, but given the progress, could possibly appear in a new version of Microsoft Edge soon.

Read more

> Microsoft Edge is about to give you an excellent new way to procrastinate

> Browser wars: Microsoft Edge is beginning to steal users from Google Chrome

> Microsoft Edge will let you embrace multiple identities at once

The launch would be the latest in a long line of features aimed at making Microsoft Edge easier to use for customers everywhere. Recently, Microsoft announced its Task Manager tool will now be able to display exactly what Microsoft Edge processes are using what amount of memory on your device – displaying a list of processes under the browser, including specific tabs, extensions and subframes – and will now be able to select any of these to close individually.

Edge is also set to soon get a new Performance Detector feature which will help browser users debug performance issues caused by common problems such as running multiple windows or tabs, as well as any issues caused by unnecessary tabs or the use of extensions that may be hogging bandwidth.

Via OnMSFT

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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This long-lost Microsoft Edge feature may be making a comeback
  • No Comments

Keeping control of all your most-needed tabs and windows in Microsoft Edge could soon be a whole lot easier.

Spotted by Redditor Leopeva64-2, one of the most recent Edge Canary builds saw a mention of Workspaces, a feature allowing users to group together their tabs and windows within the browser.

The finding was particularly curious as the feature was previously thought to be dead in the water, with no mention of Workspaces in Microsoft Edge since its initial reveal back in April 2021.

Microsoft Edge Workspaces

The Edge Canary build included the option to create and edit new and existing Workspaces as part of the browser's Appearance settings. Although the button to toggle these features didn't appear to be available, its presence suggests the tool will be arriving soon.

Workspaces looked to operate alongside Microsoft's existing Collections tool, but instead of the latter's ability to save individual tabs, the new addition would let users name certain tabs or windows, as well as customizing them with a certain color to categorize.

It would also allow users to keep groups of work and personal browser tabs separate, with each Workspace containing multiple tabs, meaning that even if you close an Edge window without deleting a workspace, it will remain available the next time you launch the browser.

For now, the feature seems limited to Canary builds, but given the progress, could possibly appear in a new version of Microsoft Edge soon.

Read more

> Microsoft Edge is about to give you an excellent new way to procrastinate

> Browser wars: Microsoft Edge is beginning to steal users from Google Chrome

> Microsoft Edge will let you embrace multiple identities at once

The launch would be the latest in a long line of features aimed at making Microsoft Edge easier to use for customers everywhere. Recently, Microsoft announced its Task Manager tool will now be able to display exactly what Microsoft Edge processes are using what amount of memory on your device – displaying a list of processes under the browser, including specific tabs, extensions and subframes – and will now be able to select any of these to close individually.

Edge is also set to soon get a new Performance Detector feature which will help browser users debug performance issues caused by common problems such as running multiple windows or tabs, as well as any issues caused by unnecessary tabs or the use of extensions that may be hogging bandwidth.

Via OnMSFT

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Meta is making Messenger a lot more like Slack
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Meta has announced that Slack-like shortcuts are coming to Messenger to make it easier to get the attention of an entire group chat.

Just like in Google Workspace and many other online services today, typing “@” and a person's name will tag that specific person in a group chat or document. Now though with the new @everyone shortcut, Messenger users on iOS and Android will be able to ensure that everyone in a chat sees what they have to say.

When you start a message with @everyone in Messenger, all of the participants in the chat will be notified which is perfect for group reminders, impromptu get-togethers or when you need everyone's help to answer a specific question.

In addition to the new @everyone shortcut, Meta is rolling out its new /silent shortcut for those times when you want to say something in a group chat but don't want to wake up others with a notification or disturb those who live in different time zones. This shortcut is also available on Instagram though on the service it is written as “@silent” instead.

Messenger shortcuts

Meta's new @everyone and /silent shortcuts are just the beginning though as Facebook's parent company plans to add even more shortcuts to Messenger going forward according to a new blog post.

Messenger users in the US will soon be able to use the /pay shortcut to make it easier to send and receive money directly from their one-one-one chats. To use the shortcut, simply type /pay to send or request money securely without fees.

Read more

> Meta is building WhatsApp into its workplace collaboration platform

> Meta is getting serious about its bug bounty program

> Slack is getting a major overhaul for the hybrid working future

GIFs are another way that users like to express themselves which is why Meta plans to add its new /gif shortcut to Messenger on iOS. Typing /gif followed by a topic at the beginning of a message will pull up a row of GIFs that users can choose from to insert into their chats.

Likewise on Messenger for iOS, Meta plans to roll out its /shrug and /tableflip shortcuts so that users don't have to type out the old-school text based tableflip “(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻” and shrug “¯\_(ツ)_/¯” emoticons.

While @everyone, /silent and /gif could be quite useful for Messenger users, /shrug and /tableflip are more of a throwback to a simpler time before emoji became what they are today.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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