PCWorld October 2023

Despite the proliferation of tools to keep you safe, the web isn’t actually getting any safer. To counter rising threats, Google has redesigned the Chrome browser’s built-in protection scheme with the revamped Safe Browsing. This new version of the distributed defense system actively monitors the URLs your browser visits, popping up a warning screen the second you stray into a part of the internet Google has determined is threatening. The update, which comes with a bigger set of Chrome feature additions, should be live for everyone shortly. Phishing is a particular focus of the new Safe Browsing features, as the threat is actively evolving. According to Google’s blog post, 60 percent of the domains used in these attempts to steal user data and compromise personal computers and smart devices are…

WordPad, a Windows rich editing app that has been a mainstay of the platform since Windows 95, is on its way out. Microsoft has marked it for deprecation, a death knell that signals it will be removed in a future version of Windows. BleepingComputer noted the change, which has been made official in Microsoft’s list of deprecated Windows features. “WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows,” Microsoft said. “We recommend Microsoft Word for rich text documents like .doc and .rtf and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like .txt.” According to Wikipedia, Microsoft Wordpad was first introduced in Windows 95, replacing Microsoft Write. It’s not hard see why Wordpad was picked to head to the chopping block, however: While Microsoft has…

New Chromebooks will now ship with ten years’ worth of security patches and updates, Google said Thursday, helping ease a persistent problem: the limited lifespan of Chromebook hardware. Google will also support Chromebooks that were released in 2019 or later by an additional two years, also giving them ten years of patches and updates, Google said. Windows PCs don’t last forever, but Microsoft traditionally has never placed an end-of-life date on a Windows PC until 2021, when it restricted some older PCs from upgrading to Windows 11. One of the differences between laptops and Chromebooks is that Google actually tells you when it will stop supporting Chromebooks. A Chromebook once exited support in just five years; in 2019, Google extended the Chromebook support window to eight years instead. (Google oddly hides this…

If you’ve been feeling constrained by Excel’s methods for manipulating data, you’re in luck—you can now use Python within your spreadsheets. The inclusion of the popular programming language went live this past August, with the feature available as a public preview. According to Microsoft, this integration is completely native within Excel; you won’t need to run any setup for it to work. (However, you will need to be part of the Microsoft 365 Insider program to access preview features in Office apps.) You type Python code directly into cells using the new =PY() function, which then gets executed in the cloud. The results are displayed in the worksheet. In the examples shown by Microsoft, common actions like creating pivot tables and charts will be possible using Python. Microsoft’s partnership with Anaconda,…

So far, 2023 has been a bad year for Western Digital. Last spring, a major security breach occurred that locked customers out of their cloud-connected storage devices. Now the manufacturer is under fire for SSDs that unexpectedly disconnect and erase users’ data. Ars Technica has summarized the situation and notes that three different lawsuits have now been filed against Western Digital after months of complaints by customers. They mainly concern a number of models in the SanDisk Extreme series of SSDs, but the 4-terabyte version of WD My Passport is said to have the same problem. One member of the Ars Technica editorial team—and another at The Verge—reportedly experienced the sudden loss of data. Western Digital released an update in May, intended to solve problems with SSDs suddenly disconnecting from the computer.…

Several months ago, I wrote about my irritation with Windows ads—how I hate having Microsoft push services and products within a piece of software I paid for. Sadly, the situation hasn’t improved since then. Instead, it’s getting worse. When I last complained about this in April, the ads were set to come to the Windows 11 Start menu, as well as badger people using local accounts. But then they spread to the Settings app in Windows 11. After that, they showed up in pop-ups that appeared when an update completed. Now, not only is Microsoft nagging Windows 10 users to upgrade, but as The Verge documents, new Microsoft ads are springing up on the Windows 11 taskbar while you’re active in apps and games. Look, I’m not in marketing, but if…