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Gmail may have solved one of its most annoying flaws
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Being plagued with annoying Gmail notifications could soon be a thing of the past if a new feature being tested by Google comes to fruition.

9to5Google has spotted a new addition to Google's email service that allows users to pause mobile notifications while the Gmail desktop client is being actively used.

This should mean that users won't get pinged for every new email message they receive if they have Gmail running on a desktop PC somewhere.

Gmail silence

The site reported seeing the feature on a test account, where it was advertised in a pop-up alert.

The feature would allow your browser to “detect if you're active or away”, meaning Gmail would be able to identify when a user is actively using the service.

9to5Google notes that it doesn't appear that the service can be enabled or disabled through Gmail settings, but instead has to be accessed through the Google Chrome settings menu itself, potentially meaning it is a closely-linked tool between the company's browser and email platforms.

The tool doesn't appear to be rolling out publicly as of yet, with no sign in the Google support pages, so it may be part of a beta test ahead of a wider launch later this year.

The news comes as Google is in the midst of rolling out a major overhaul for Gmail which brings together Google Chat, Spaces and Meet into a new, integrated view to provide users with a one-stop shop for all their communication needs.

Read more

> Gmail on mobile just hit a massive milestone

> Exclusive: Most people use Gmail but don't know how full their inbox is

> Google Workspace is getting a major upgrade to rival Microsoft 365

As well as this integrated view, the new Gmail will allow users to view specific app menus in a collapsible panel, and get alerts for new Chat and Space messages through notification bubbles. 

Going forward, all Google apps in Gmail will be situated in a single menu on the left of the screen. Users can switch between them by clicking on an app's menu, or point to an icon to see a preview, with the new collapsible panel able to be hidden or displayed with a click at any time.

Google also notes that individual and group chat messages can be accessed from the Chat tab, including opening into a small pop-up window at the bottom of your screen.

Google is currently rolling out the updated Gmail to select users now, with a wider rollout taking place over the next few weeks. Scheduled Release domains will reportedly begin receiving the new look from February 28.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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Mozilla has shut down its most pointless Firefox browser
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Mozilla has revealed it is shutting down its virtual reality (VR) browser, Firefox Reality, after four years.

Launched in 2018 as “an open source browser that respects your privacy”, Firefox Reality had been available for Oculus, Vive and HoloLens headsets, offering a mixture of consumer-based and business-focused VR apps and experiences.

The browser allowed users to get onto the internet using a VR headset, with tasks such as typing URLs, performing searches and browsing both the 2D and 3D internet carried out with VR hand controllers instead of a mouse.

Firefox Reality closure

However it seems that the browser didn't quite have the impact Mozilla had hoped for, and will be withdrawn from service.

“Mozilla’s mission is to make sure the internet remains open and accessible to all,” the company wrote in a blog post.

“We’ve been at the forefront of developing new technologies, like WebVR and WebAR, and in some instances, Mozilla continues to remain the host and incubator of those new technologies, as with Hubs. With other technologies, we find communities and organizations where our projects can continue to grow and contribute to the web like WebAssembly, Rust and Servo.”

The technology behind the browser will still live on, however, with the platform being handed over to Igalia, which will use the Firefox Reality source code to build its own browser, Wolvic.

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> This futuristic VR tech could be a game-changer for virtual reality headsets

“On mobile or desktop, the web is woven into everything. It’s how we communicate, get information, entertain ourselves, and so much more. In the last few years, XR has really matured. The increase of devices shipping with an immersive OS is incredible. As such, now is an especially critical time to ensure that we establish the web on them in a healthy way,” said Brian Kardell, Developer Advocate at Igalia. 

“The Firefox Reality project was created with similar aims, to give users some choice and ensure that open and unlimited access to the web remains strong on these devices. These ideas are core to what we do at Igalia, so we’re thrilled to be able to carry the torch forward in leveraging that work to create a new browser, Wolvic. Together, we will help to ensure that the web ecosystem remains healthy.”

Firefox Reality will be removed from stores in the coming weeks, with Wolvic available in its place.

“Since its launch, Firefox Reality offered users a unique browser in the mixed reality space,” Mozilla added. “It was the first cross-platform browser built by a trusted company, Mozilla, and quickly adopted by companies for use in their hardware devices.”

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Microsoft is offering a new version of its most underappreciated productivity tool for free
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Microsoft wants to help us all feel a little more organized and ready for the day ahead, and it's offering a free experience of one of its least well-known productivity apps to do so.

The company has revealed users with a Microsoft account (MSA) can now try a new lightweight version of its Microsoft Lists app at no charge, to see just how it can help them.

Microsoft Lists is designed for small business and individual use, and the new preview version of the app looks to help provide a clear and straightforward view of all your important tasks in one single place.

Microsoft Lists preview

“It’s time to liberate yourself from coordination chaos,” Microsoft wrote in a blog post announcing the news. “Time to clear your brain space and get organized. In short, it’s time to try the Microsoft Lists – MSA Preview.”

Previously only available as part of a paid Microsoft 365 subscription, the company says the new preview app is designed around the core of the existing service, but also adds in a few new tools, including tabbed views, sharing from within a Person column, add images inline and more.

It believes Microsoft Lists can be helpful across a huge range of tasks, from business-focused tasks such as internal events planning, job applications and employee onboarding, to more home-oriented activities such as vacation planning or even recipe collecting.

The app allows users to share all their plans with co-workers, family or friends, and can be customized in a wide range of formats to give users exactly the view or approach they need.

Read more

> Microsoft Teams gets useful new Lists app

> Some special Microsoft 365 accounts will now receive stronger protection than the rest

> Microsoft 365 update will make sure no one is at a disadvantage

The company is offering 200,000 free trial accounts on a first-come, first-served basis, and you'll need a Microsoft account to sign up. During preview, users can try up to 50 lists, with up to 2,000 items/list, although there is also a 200MB limit for files, video, and image storage per list.

Customers planning to use Microsoft Lists with a business account and personal Microsoft account will need to switch between accounts to see each set of lists.

“We’re excited to see what sorts of information tracking goodness you create during preview, and how you share it all,” the company added.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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Exclusive: Most people use Gmail but don’t know how full their inbox is
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As the year begins to end and people focus on taking a well-earned break over the Christmas holidays, it's a good time to take stock of life, work, and love. We're only focused on the second of those three today and specifically email usage. 

TechRadar Pro has commissioned an exclusive poll of 500 respondents from OnePulse showing which email services people use and some details about how. 

Surprise, surprise Gmail comes out on top. 

Close up of a person touching an email icon.

(Image credit: Geralt / Pixabay)

A lot of people absolutely hate email, and with good reason. Clients, especially default clients like Apple Mail, are often slow and geared towards casual users, not power users at work. 

On top of that, Slack and Teams, plus a bunch of others, have sprouted up to fulfil work-specific chat needs – even Meta has got in on the action with Workplace. 

To email or not to email 

So, let's break down the results. 

According to our survey, the dominant email service is Gmail – and it's not even close. A full 59% of respondents use Google's email offerings, followed by Outlook (19.7%), Yahoo (13%), iCloud (2.9%), and others (5%). 

But what about power users? Well, they're in the minority too. Most people (75.6%) have between one and 10,000 emails in their inbox, followed by 16.75% who have between 10,001 and 100,000, and then a rarified 7.59% have over 100,001 or more. 

The story is similar for email storage: just over half (50.2%) either don't know or don't care how full their inbox is. The rest have up to 5GB filled (32.8%) or over 5GB (17%). 

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The most popular Firefox extensions of 2021 were both adblockers
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Customizing Mozilla's browser with add-ons can give you a whole new experience when browsing the web though only one-third of Firefox users have installed an extension or theme.

Among the 100m+ users that did install an extension this year, adblockers were the most popular with Adblock Plus taking the top spot followed by uBlock Origin. Across the span of 2021, Adblock Plus had an average of over 6.1m daily users while uBlock Origin averaged just over 5m+ daily users over the course of the year.

While Adblock Plus led the charge at the beginning of the year, uBlock Origin was able to close the gap and if current usage trends among Firefox users continue, it may take the top spot in early 2022 according to a new blog post from Mozilla.

One of the reasons users choose Firefox as their preferred browser is to further protect their privacy online. While adblockers can stop ads from following you around the web, other popular extensions this year that protect against invasive tracking include Mozilla's own Facebook Container with 1.7m daily active users and Ghostery with 1.1m daily active users.

In addition to putting out a list of the most popular extensions each year, the Firefox Recommended Extensions program is a curated list of third party extensions that meet Mozilla's highest standards of security, utility and user experience.

For those who often find themselves drowning in a sea of open browser tabs, Tab Stash may be the perfect extension as it adds a toolbar button that when clicked, saves all of your open tabs as temporary bookmarks. If you're using Firefox Sync, the service will automatically show your Tab Stash bookmarks synced to other devices.

Another interesting extension highlighted by Mozilla is Stylebot. This extension gives you the power to dramatically alter the way any website looks from font sizes to color schemes to content layout. Perhaps you're intrigued by vertical tabs in Microsoft Edge? Then the Sideberry extension can be used to organize your open tabs in a cascading “tree” tucked away to the side of your browser.

While web browsers have certainly come a long way, extensions allow you to further customize their look and fell as well as their functionality which can help you be more productive or just have a better browsing experience overall.

We've also rounded up the best browser, best VPN and best proxy services

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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Windows 11 is getting one of Windows 10’s most divisive features
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Windows 11 has a new preview build which reintroduces the weather widget to the taskbar, plus it adds new voice features on the accessibility front.

Windows 10 users are familiar with the ‘News and interests’ widget, which shows the local weather (and temperature) on the taskbar, and by default when hovered over, highlights a full weather report, breaking news, sports and other miscellany which can be customized (or you can turn it off).

This was ditched from the taskbar with Windows 11, but now with the latest preview build 22518, Microsoft has brought back a weather widget, which is billed as a new ‘entry point’ for widgets on the taskbar.

It sits on the far-left of the default taskbar, and displays the weather just as with ‘News and interests’, and when hovered over pops up the widgets board, complete with whatever widgets you’ve loaded up, plus the headline news panel underneath.

This replaces the old (default) scheme of things with Windows 11, whereby the widget board had a normal-sized icon grouped with the Start button in the middle of the taskbar. Shifting it to the left to sit on its own, and giving it a full weather display, makes it far more prominent as was the case with Windows 10.

Other changes brought in with build 22518 include voice access, a feature that allows for control of core elements of Windows 11 using just your voice. So you can give voice commands to open/close or switch apps, to search via your web browser, plus they can be used to interact with buttons or menus, or to control the mouse, or dictate text.

There’s a lot of functionality here, and Microsoft has provided a full list of voice controls you can peruse. Note that this is only available to testers with Windows display language set to English-US.

Finally, Microsoft has brought the Spotlight collection to the desktop, so those enticing pics you get on the Lock Screen can appear as your background, and these will be switched for other “beautiful new desktop pictures from around the world” every day.

Analysis: Unnecessary clutter returns… But voice features are great

The ‘News and interests’ widget proved pretty controversial on Windows 10, and not popular with some folks, so there will likely be a number of Windows 11 testers grimacing to see its effective return to the taskbar. While it’s tucked away on the left, it’s quite a large presence on the taskbar, and sometimes an annoying one when you accidentally brush the mouse over it, and the panel pops up briefly.

Of course, it’s still only in testing, and might not make the cut for release based on feedback – we shall have to see. And you can still hide the widgets icon if you prefer, so there are options to deal with it, as ever. (It reverts back to a small icon if you’re using a left-aligned taskbar, sitting next to the Task view icon, by the way, as it would obviously be way too jarring for it to displace the Start button in that layout).

While the weather widget may remain divisive, implementing a whole new level of voice control with Windows 11 is great to see. Many of the controls here, incidentally, appear to have been brought over from Nuance’s Dragon speech recognition package; if you recall, Microsoft bought Nuance back in April 2021. This looks like the start of Microsoft really ramping up voice controls with Windows 11.

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Windows 11 could finally solve one of the most common video call problems
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Microsoft is looking to solve a major annoyance for video conferencing users with a new preview update for Windows 11.

The Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22494, which was released to the Dev Channel in early November, is getting a new way to mute and unmute the microphone, straight from the taskbar. 

The feature will initally be limited to Microsoft Teams, the company's online collaboration app, but the company is expecting developers to pick it up and add the functionality to other applications, as well.

Microsoft Teams muting

“We are beginning to roll this experience out to a subset of Windows Insiders with Microsoft Teams for work or school installed and ramp it up over time,” Microsoft said in its announcement. “This means not everyone will see this right away with their Teams calls.”

As soon as a user enters a Teams call, Windows 11 will add a microphone icon to the bottom right part of the screen, next to the volume, battery and Wi-Fi icons. By simply tapping/clicking the icon, the user can quickly toggle between mute and unmute states. The capability only applies to the current call, the company added. 

Right now, the feature is limited to Microsoft Teams, but the company’s plan is to bring it to Chat from Microsoft Teams (Microsoft Teams for home) as well. It also said other communications applications can add this capability, meaning it’s up to individual companies or users to see if adding it makes sense.

“You can see your call audio status, what app is accessing your microphone, and quickly mute and unmute your call at any time,” Microsoft further explained.

There is also a keyboard shortcut to mute/unmute the microphone: Win + Alt + K. This, too, works only in Microsoft Teams, for the time being.

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