PCWorld December 2023

Mere days after Microsoft released the Moment 4 Update for Windows 11 users, adding numerous new features and improvements to Windows 11 version 22H2, the company also unleashed the huge annual Windows 11 2023 Update (also known as Windows 11 version 23H2). “Because Windows 11, version 23H2 shares the same code base and servicing branch as Windows 11, version 22H2, this feature update will be delivered via Windows Update (as with the monthly update process) to enable a quick installation,” Microsoft explained. WINDOWS 11 22H2 MOMENT 4 UPDATE VERSUS WINDOWS 11 23H2 Somewhat confusingly, Windows 11 users will receive most of the new features of Windows 11 version 23H2 with the Moment 4 Update for Windows 11 version 22H2, which is already available as a preview update via KB5031455. To…

Clicking on a Google ad can be like gambling, except that there are no winners in the game. Land on a legitimate website, and you’ve fed the algorithm info about what ads to keep serving you. End up on a malicious webpage, and—well, you may have exposed your PC to danger…especially if you downloaded software from the phony site. We’ve issued this warning before, like when owners of AMD Radeon graphics cards were targets. Or when the crosshairs moved over to Bitwarden users. Now Malwarebytes, a well-known maker of anti-malware software, is reminding us to keep avoiding ads in search results. As reported by Bleeping Computer, the company has discovered a new trend—using unicode characters to make fake web addresses look real. Called homograph attacks, this tactic has been around for…

Qualcomm and its Snapdragon chips are officially back inside the PC. Today, Qualcomm formally launched the Snapdragon X Elite, the flagship platform of its Snapdragon X family that leverages its Oryon CPU core, and promises to double the performance of some of the most popular 13th-gen Core chips from AMD and Intel. Sound familiar? It should. Qualcomm promised the same with its earlier Snapdragon 8-series chips, and really didn’t deliver. But after buying chip designer Nuvia in 2021, Qualcomm is trying again, hoping that its superpowered Arm chips can once again make Windows on Arm PCs a competitor to conventional X86 PCs when they launch in mid-2024. And it’s talking up some big numbers to prove it. Qualcomm sees Oryon first going into PCs (as the engine of the Snapdragon…

We may not know how Microsoft will redesign Windows 12, but we do know how Microsoft is thinking about it: The company is putting AI first, to the point where Windows Copilot could be the new Start button. During the announcement of the rather shocking performance claims surrounding Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite and its Oryon CPU, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon sat down for a pre-recorded video chat with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The two have worked closely together to enable Windows on Arm to run on Snapdragon-powered PCs, and now to spur the creation of software that takes advantage of the integration of neural processing units (NPUs) into modern computers. For Nadella and Microsoft, the centerpiece of AI is Copilot, which either runs on Windows or in various apps like…

AMD’s powerhouse Threadripper chips are back for desktop PCs! Despite declaring the end of consumer Threadripper chips last generation, AMD has announced three new Ryzen Threadripper 7000-series chips, with up to 64 cores and 128 threads—and the option of installing a Pro-class Threadripper 700 WX series for a massive 96 cores and 192 threads, too. Take a deep breath, though. The underlying message is the same as when AMD released the Threadripper 3970X back in 2019: These chips are for those who live and breathe video editing and content creation, and are optimized for such. Nevertheless, they almost certainly represent the most powerful CPU you can buy on a desktop, and they’ll cost a ton. The key differences between the older workstation-class Threadripper 5000 series and these new 7000-class processors are…

YouTube has declared war on ad blockers, and the internet is in an uproar. On one side, Reddit’s edgelords declare that if you can’t watch YouTube without adverts, they will never use YouTube again. On the other side, the corporate apologists are screaming that nothing is free and that if you want to avoid advertising, you should just pay for a premium plan. In the middle, I sit anxiously, and only want to watch cat videos without ads that are longer than the clips themselves. I fully understand why people want to use ad blockers to watch YouTube. Have you tried it without them? It’s absolutely unbearable. Watching ads before and during clips that are only a few minutes long is terrible. But I also understand that YouTube cannot be run…