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Posts tagged "most"

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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

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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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