An offer you can refuseThe clock is ticking, folks. If you want to upgrade to Windows 10 for free, you only have until July 29, 2016 to do so. And most people should! Windows 10 is the best Windows yet, chock full of handy new features, sleek under-the-hood improvements, and headache-killing extras.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Putting away the carrots and breaking out the sticks appears to be paying off for Microsoft, at least in raw market share.After pushing Windows 10 onto legions of Windows 7 and 8 PCs as a Recommended update, Windows 10 saw its largest-ever surge in month-to-month usage share in May, according to Net Applications. Windows 10’s usage share jumped by 2.09 percent between April and May, to 17.43 percent overall. That may not sound like much, but it’s a huge leap in such a short time. The only other month that even comes close is January, which saw Windows 10 usage spike by 1.89 percent after the holiday season.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft stepped on the gas in its quest to drive Windows 7 and 8 users to Windows 10 over the past couple of weeks, rolling the upgrade out as a Recommended update. Watch out! The only behavior that could deny the Windows 10 upgrade before—closing the pop-up by pressing the X in the upper-right corner—now counts as consent for the upgrade, and worse, the upgrade installation can automatically begin even if you take no action whatsoever.It’s nasty business, and it’s tricking legions of happy Windows 7 and 8 users into Windows 10. Over the past week, I’ve received more contact from readers about this issue than I have about everything else I’ve written over the rest of my career combined. But beyond merely burning bridges with consumers, these forced, non-consensual upgrades could have more insidious consequences.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft’s putting away the carrots and breaking out the sticks in its quest to migrate 1 billion users to Windows 10 over the next couple of years.After pushing out the free upgrade as a Recommended update to Windows 7 and 8 users earlier this year—which means that you downloaded the initial installation bits if you use the default Windows Update, like most people should—Microsoft changed its nagging pop-up prompt in an insidious way over the past week. For the past six months, the “Get Windows 10” pop-up asked permission to start an update, but lacked a “No thanks” option, so the only way to avoid it was to close the window by pressing the X in the upper-right hand corner. Now, the pop-up says “We will upgrade you at this time,” and pressing the X counts as consent. You need to click a small, easily missed link in the pop-up to cancel the upgrade, instead.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This morning, the unthinkable happened: My wife, an avowed PC user who long ago swore to never touch an Apple device, started shopping around for a Mac Mini. And it’s all thanks to Windows 10. Or rather, the nasty new way that Microsoft’s tricking Windows 7 and 8 users into automatically updating to Windows 10.I adore Windows 10, but I’ve long been a vocal critic of the heavy-handed tactics that Microsoft’s been using to force people into the upgrade, all to hit a goal of migrating 1 billion users to an operating system brimming with freemium services and ads. The annoying “Get Windows 10” pop-up began using deceiving malware-like tactics months ago, but it recently received an overhaul that seems purposefully designed to confuse users who have been wearily slogging through the nagging for half a year now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Forget about traditional PC malware: Infecting routers and other Internet-connected devices is the new hotness among malicious actors, given its effectiveness and relative ease. But there’s a new sort of malware swirling across the web—vigilante code that infiltrates your router and Internet of Things devices and then actually hardens them against traditional attacks, leaving helpful messages and homages to free software activist Richard Stallman in its wake.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The start of something gloriousImage by SWNS TVThere’s a common refrain in some corners of the PC enthusiast community: “May our frame rates be high and our temperatures low.” More than a mere utterance, it’s a simple, straightforward embrace of the very best that the PC has to offer. There’s a lot of power in those words—and some people truly take them to heart.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Worth the waitTechnology marches ever onward, becoming smaller, more powerful, and more revolutionary by the day. It’s all too easy to succumb to the madness drowning in the flood of daily tech news. Octa-deca-mega core processors! Cutting-edge displays you have to see to believe! Tech that makes everything from your coffee pot to your doorbell smart!To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The grass isn't always greenerFew can withstand the siren song of the latest and greatest gear, the deep allure of a new and shiny gadget—but that doesn’t mean that tossing your old computer in the trash and picking up a fresh PC is necessarily a smart idea.While gamers and hardcore video editors always stand to gain extra performance out of fresh firepower, more casual users might be better off saving their cash and sticking with the PC you already own. Here’s why.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There’s a reason Apple hasn’t changed the MacBook Air’s core design for years now: It’s basically perfect—the epitome of a thin-and-light laptop, from its luxurious, razor-thin exterior to its majestic glass trackpad. But even perfection can’t coax Apple into sitting on its heels.
On Monday, Apple revealed a new 12-inch MacBook Air, a radical revamp that shakes up the winning MBA design by dumping virtually every conventional port—Thunderbolt, the SD card slot, a power connector, everything—in favor of a pair a single USB Type-C connection and an audio jack. That, paired with numerous other advances, helped the 12-inch MacBook Air become the slimmest, lightest MacBook ever—and it's silent, too.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Lenovo’s been caught going a bit too far in its quest for bloatware money, and the results have put its users at risk. The company has been preloading Superfish, a "visual search" tool that includes adware that fakes the encryption certificates for every HTTPS-protected site you visit, on its PCs since at least the middle of 2014. Essentially, the software conducts a man-in-the-middle attack to fill the websites you visit with ads, and leaves you vulnerable to hackers in its wake.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Free security tools you should try
You can read all the sordid details here. This article is dedicated to helping you discover whether your Lenovo PC is infected with Superfish, and how to eradicate it if you are.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Lenovo’s been caught going a bit too far in its quest for bloatware money, and the results have put its users at risk. The company has been preloading Superfish, a "visual search" tool that includes adware that fakes the encryption certificates for every HTTPS-protected site you visit, on its PCs since at least the middle of 2014. Essentially, the software conducts a man-in-the-middle attack to fill the websites you visit with ads, and leaves you vulnerable to hackers in its wake.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Free security tools you should try
You can read all the sordid details here. This article is dedicated to helping you discover whether your Lenovo PC is infected with Superfish, and how to eradicate it if you are.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
On the surface, the critical “Shellshock” bug revealed this week sounds devastating. By exploiting a bug in the Bash shell command line tool found in Unix-based systems, attackers can run code on your system—essentially giving them access to your system. Bad guys are already developing exploits that use Shellshock to crack your passwords and install DDoS bots on computers. And since Bash shell is borderline ubiquitous, a vast swath of devices are vulnerable to Shellshock: Macs, Linux systems, routers, web servers, “Internet of Things” gizmos, you name it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Brad Chacos