Software & Apps - Page 44

TikTok has been dominating the short-form video content sector of the internet for quite some time, and other platforms such as YouTube and Meta are playing catch up.

Short-form content, clips that are between 0 and 3 minutes long, have become a cornerstone of the internet. These short videos were originally popularized by the now-extinct app Vine and now arguably solidified by ByteDance's TikTok. Social media platforms such as Meta responded to TikTok's popularity by rolling out their own versions, with Instagram Reels, and while Reels was immediately popular, it lacked some features that gave TikTok a unique edge.

However, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri posted that across the US, Instagram users will now be able to download reels that are shared by public accounts. Users can now do this by clicking on the Share icon and selecting the Download option.

The latest Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23481 aims to trim some fat regarding Folder Options in File Explorer. According to Microsoft, "many of these are legacy settings that have been around for ages and are not being regularly used by people on Windows 11." The changes aren't yet official but indicate that these features are part of a future update.

You can check out the list of items being removed below, with Microsoft noting that they aren't disappearing entirely - though they'll only be accessible via modifying registry settings. This means they're gone for most Windows 11 users, even those who might consider themselves advanced users of Microsoft's latest operating system.

One of the removed features is the ability to 'Show drive letters' it has sparked some discussion within the Windows community around these changes dumbing down Windows 11 for no good reason. Streamlining something like File Explorer is a great idea; reducing visual clutter and improving the UI/UX experience is always welcome - though not at the cost of accessing advanced features easily.

Google Chrome is getting some big new features on the iPhone, and they're all free upgrades to the app that's already available in the App Store. Most of the new features are rolling out starting today.

There are four new features in total, and they're all specific to Chrome - none of these Google features will be available on Safari, so you'll have to use Chrome to take advantage of them. Note that you can also use the Chrome app on your iPad and benefit from all of these improvements as well.

At the top of the list is the new ability to see an address in Google Maps right from within Chrome. Now, users will be able to tap and hold on any address that Chrome detects and then see a mini version of Google Maps without switching apps.

The hugely popular instant messaging service WhatsApp has announced that it is bringing two new privacy features to its apps, making it safer and easier for people to use it.

The new features were announced in a blog post by the meta-owned company and they should be rolling out to users starting right now, and they're both well worth taking a proper look at.

At the top of the list is the ability to silence unknown callers. When enabled, this feature will prevent calls from unknown people from coming through as normal. They'll still appear in the call history and you'll still get a notification, but you won't get the usual ring on your phone. You can of course call back if it's important, but this change should help cut down on the number of spam calls people have to deal with.

Downloading pirated software, especially an operating system, is not something you should consider - especially in light of this new report from Doctor Web. They've found multiple pirated copies of Windows 10 Pro feature a hidden trojan app called Trojan.Clipper.231 that steals cryptocurrency by substituting crypto wallet addresses in the clipboard with different addresses.

These unofficial and pirated builds of Windows 10 feature the malicious apps built into the OS, so it's not something you'd be able to spot when doing a clean install. Looking into the issue, Doctor Web quickly found five versions of Windows 10 on torrent tracker sites with the malicious trojan app.

The good news is that they have identified the malicious apps in the system directory.

The iOS 17 update hasn't yet been released to the public, but if you're running the developer beta you might already have discovered that there's a bit of a probe;m in relation to SMSes.

That's because those who are running iOS 17 have started to report an issue that causes their iPhone to report that it was unable to send an SMS. Sending an iMessage continues to work as normal and that's good news for people who are sending messages to iPhone owners. But when it comes to sending them to people with Android, SMS is often the way to go.

However, people have been reporting on social media for the last week that something is amiss. And interestingly, while the iPhone does consistently warn that it was unable to send an SMS and that it wasn't delivered, that isn't the full story. According to posts on Reddit, the SMSses are actually arriving at their destination, no matter what the iPhone says.

Google Maps users in four European cities now have access to the app's Immersive View feature., Google has confirmed.

The new feature is rolling out to users in Amsterdam, Dublin, Florence, and Venice and is already available in cities including New York City, San Francisco, London, Tokyo, and Los Angeles.

The new expansion was announced on Google's The Keyword blog. Alongside the support of four new cities, Google also confirmed that it is expanding it to over 500 iconic landmarks around the world including the Sydney Harbor Bridge and more.

Heavy WhatsApp users could be about to get a feature that they've been crying out for, while those who also administer business accounts will also want to pay attention. Because it seems, finally, that multi-account support is on its way to the instant messaging platform.

While Meta nor WhatsApp have yet officially announced the feature, the beta watchers at WABetaInfo report that they are now seeing signs that multi-account support is on the way. What's more, a screenshot of the account switching screen has also been shared for the first time.

WABetaInfo notes that this screenshot was taken on an Android phone and using the WhatsApp Business app. However, the outfit says that there is no expectation that this feature will be limited to that app, meaning those of us that use the standard WhatsApp should also be able to use it as well.

WhatsApp is already one of the most popular instant messaging platforms in the world and now it's testing a new video message feature with users.

The new feature is reportedly rolling out to some people who are using the latest beta version of the WhatsApp app on their iPhone or Android device, but it could be some time before it's made available to those who have the version available in the App Store and Google Play Store.

The WhatsApp beta watchers at WABetaInfo report that the new feature is expected to be rolled out to more beta testers over the coming weeks, but for now it allows people to record messages of up to 60 seconds before sending them off to their chosen recipient.

If you're someone who receives a lot of Twitter direct message spam you're going to like a change that's coming, but it could break the way some people sue the service.

In a change that owner Elon Musk says will happen this week, Twitter will only allow people to send a direct message to someone that doesn't follow them back if they also happen to pay for Twitter Blue. That means that the only way for people to send a direct message to people they don't know will be to pay to be verified on the platform.

Musk says that this change is to make it more difficult for bots to fill people's inboxes with spam. Currently, allowing people to send direct messages with no controls can mean that people receive a lot of spam messages. However, Musk believes that by making it so those spam bots would also need to pay for Twiter Blue, he'll effectively be cutting them off at the knees.

In a world where building a competitor for Twitter seems to be the thing everyone is trying to do, the idea of Meta and Instagram getting involved shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. Now, that Instagram project has leaked with screenshots shared online.

The leak comes after one of Meta's executives showed employees a preview of what the project looks like in its current state. Dubbed Project 92, the unnamed social network will be based on Instagram but integrate with ActivityPub, the social media protocol that's decentralized in a similar way to Mastodon. As a result, there is a possibility that accounts will work across both platforms which is something that traditional social networks like Twitter and Facebook simply don't allow.

The Verge reports that Meta chief product officer Chris Cox told those in attendance yesterday that the new project is the company's response to Twitter. He went on, saying that creators Meta has spoken to have said that they want a platform that "is sanely run," something that was a clear jibe at Twitter and current owner Elon Musk.

WhatsApp has today announced a new feature called Channels, something that the company says will offer people a reliable and private way to receive updates from people and companies.

The feature puts a direct line to those people and companies into the WhatsApp app, but the conversation is only one way. That means that people who follow a WhatsApp channel from a company won't be able to reply to anything they post, but that might not necessarily be a bad thing.

Channels could have the potential to fill in for the way a lot of people use Twitter - to keep up on updates from their favorite companies or celebrities. A WhatsApp Channel could possibly provide that while making it easier for people to avoid the content they don't want to see. That's something that has become increasingly difficult to do on Twitter since Elon Musk's $44 billion buyout, of course.

WhatsApp has grown to become one of the biggest instant messaging platforms on the planet but it's always had one particular problem - there was no real way to sign into an account on multiple devices at the same time. That's changing thanks to companion mode, and now that mode is rolling out on the iPhone.

Companion mode has been available on other platforms for a little while but this is the first time that we've heard of it starting to be added to some people's accounts who use iPhones. According to a WABetaInfo report, some people are now seeing the feature become available after installing the latest version of WhatsApp from the App Store.

WhatsApp first announced companion mode back in April 2023 and it admitted at the time that it was a feature that was highly requested by users. Companion mode allows users to connect up to four additional devices to an account linked to an iPhone.

Microsoft has been boasting about how it has improved various facets of performance in Windows 11, from core parts of the interface to how smoothly gaming mice run.

This comes courtesy of a Microsoft blog post detailing the 'major strides' taken in the past year to improve performance across a range of fundamentals for Windows 11.

That includes boosting the performance of "frequently used shell interactions like Taskbar, Notifications, and Quick Settings" by up to 15% in some cases.

In this post, we will be going through the process of recovering and rebuilding an Exchange Server setup after a failed migration from Exchange Server 2010 to Exchange Server 2019. We will be using Stellar Repair for Exchange as the recovery tool.

A client had a setup on a physical server with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange Server 2010 (Standard) with three mailbox databases. The client purchased a new server with Windows Server 2022, and Hyper-V with the Active Directory already moved onto a Windows Server 2022 virtual machine. The plan was to also move to Exchange Server 2019 and decommission the old server as the Exchange Server 2010 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are out of support and end of life. Though they had some legacy applications, they were not compatible with the new systems. However, after the re-development of some APIs, this was rectified.

This is a big leap from an all-in-one box with one point of failure to splitting the services and virtualizing the system. This is ideal for the mobility and operability of the system. To do this, they cannot just install the Exchange Server 2019 as it cannot co-exist with Exchange Server 2010. They must first install the Exchange Server 2013 or 2016, move all the data to it, and decommission the Exchange Server 2010. After that, install the Exchange Server 2019, move all the data to it, and then decommission the Exchange Server 2013 or 2016. As they have around 1000 mailboxes, this isn't an easy task. It needs to be planned correctly.

Windows 11's next feature update - Moment 3 - has arrived as an optional upgrade.

In other words, the cumulative update KB5026446 (which is build 22621.1778 for Windows 11 22H2) is still in testing, but you can install the preview if you want to get all those goodies in terms of fresh features.

The more cautious will likely want to wait, though, until next month, when the full release version of Moment 3 will be deployed (on June 13).

Microsoft is opening things up so more Android app developers can get their wares on Windows 11, if they wish.

Android Police spotted this announcement, which was rather buried in a whole flurry of revelations and changes Microsoft detailed in a lengthy blog post about its Build conference.

Those introductions include native support for dealing with RAR files (and other less common archive formats) and the big announcement of the Windows 11 Copilot AI.

Windows 11 now supports a whole new bunch of archive formats, to the relief of many who for years may have been frustrated by the lack of the operating system's ability to cope with the likes of RAR files.

We've all been there. Probably. Somebody sends you a bunch of files compressed in a different way to the standard ZIP archive, and you groan, heading off to try to find a third-party app to gain access to the contents. WinRAR was an old standby in the case of the mentioned RAR format, as many will doubtless recall.

Those hardships are now at an end, though, as at the Build developer conference, Panos Panay, Chief Product Officer and VP Microsoft Devices, announced that Windows 11 is getting support for RAR, TAR, 7-Zip and GZ formats. This will arrive in a new preview build later this week, we're told.

Microsoft has made a big revelation at its Build conference, with the software giant putting an AI assistant front and center in Windows 11.

Copilot is the name of the AI, which can be invoked by clicking its icon on the taskbar, then it pops up in a side panel, ready to assist with whatever it is you happen to be doing.

Or, in the usual style, you can simply ask the AI questions. Such as how you can adjust your system to focus on getting some work done, an example Microsoft gives, in reply to which Copilot suggests using Windows 11's focus timer feature and switching to the operating system's dark theme.

Microsoft has been rolling out Edge's built-in VPN functionality to some users in a 'controlled' manner of late, and we've just seen a hint of how much data allowance it could eventually run with.

As spotted by Leopeva64, a regular leaker on all things Edge, in the Canary (testing) version of the browser, the Settings page now clearly states that you get 5GB of free data per month.

The amount of data Edge has offered previously has been bumped up and down a bit throughout the VPN's existence in testing (and in the limited rollout). It has been as high as 15GB for a time (as a trial), and as low as 1GB (which we witnessed when the VPN started to come to the release version of Microsoft's browser).