PCWorld March 2024

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 that it will be removed in a future version. BleepingComputer first noted the change, and it was made official in Microsoft’s list of deprecated Windows features in September 2023. And now the ax has started to fall. One of the changes being made in the latest Canary Channel build of Windows 11 is the elimination of WordPad from new Windows 11 builds—perform a clean install and WordPad will no longer be included. While it’s unclear how many users actually pined for (and used) WordPad and its RTF file format, it does rob Windows 11 of a native rich-text editor.…

The internet service industry is no stranger to somewhat nebulous claims of speed and reliability. But even in that context, Comcast’s self-styled “Xfinity 10G network” for its home internet business raised some eyebrows. After months of arguing with the cable industry’s self-regulatory agency the NCTA and the National Advertising Review Board, the company has agreed to drop the potentially misleading moniker. While technically referring to theoretical speeds of 10 gigabits per second on the fiber optic broadband line, it seems likely that the “10G” in Xfinity 10G was carefully crafted to imply that it’s twice as fast as 5G, the current standard mobile wireless technology. Advertisements claiming it’s “next generation,” and a Super Bowl ad featuring the moon landing and boasts about accessing the network at the dentist, surely didn’t…

Microsoft is once again increasing the pressure on Windows 10 users to finally upgrade to Windows 11. Windows Latest reports that Microsoft is now showing some Windows 10 users a full-screen advertisement for Windows 11. This appears to be the case whenever you install an optional update from January 2024 on their Windows 10 PCs. Microsoft is going all out here. You’re not presented with a small pop-up; the advert for Windows 11 upgrade covers the entire screen and, on top of that, there are several sliders to click through. According to Windows Latest, there are a total of four slides users need to click through if they want to stay on Windows 10 (a situation we’ve witnessed ourselves). On the slides, Microsoft tries to make the advantages of Windows 11…

An astronomical 26 billion records of leaked, breach, and sold data has been discovered on the web—and it’s likely your information is caught up in the mix. Discovered by cybersecurity researcher Bob Dyachenko of SecurityDiscovery.com and the team at Cybernews.com, news released Tuesday about this massive collection of users logins and personally identifiable information. The set spans a whopping 12 terabytes of data; Cybernews called it the “mother of all breaches.” Currently, researchers believe that most of the information comes from known sources—but they also suspect new, unpublished data is very likely part of the compilation. Duplicate data is likely mixed in as well. For comparison, Cybernews’ own data leak checker contains 15 billion records. With such a large data set now public (and especially one that contains so much…

Printers are one of the banes of modern computing, expensive and frustrating relics that are nonetheless occasionally necessary. Over the last few years, HP seems to be doing its best to make them even more expensive and frustrating by milking the infamously exploitative ink market until both the literal and metaphorical cartridge runs dry. After enraging customers by blocking third-party ink and bricking printers with dodgy firmware, HP’s CEO recently said the quiet part out loud. A bit of context: In an interview with CNBC last week during the World Economic Forum in Davos, HP CEO Enrique Lores gave a few choice quotes. In response to a recent lawsuit over HP’s software updates that block ink cartridges from non-HP sources, he started by saying, “I think for us it’s important to protect…

Graphics cards are too expensive. I don’t think anyone would seriously disagree with me there—to get the same level of performance relative to where the industry was ten years ago, you’re looking at $100 to $300 more for a GPU. Options are particularly anemic under the $200 level, with Intel and AMD fighting for a market that Nvidia has basically abandoned. Until now. A new, lower-spec variant of the GeForce RTX 3050 is coming to market with a refreshingly approachable price tag. The new 6GB version of the GeForce RTX 3050 was announced today, and there are two things about it that might just turn some heads. One, unlike the original 8GB version of the RTX 3050, it doesn’t require a power connector from the power supply. That makes it a…