Computer News

Firefox 92.0.1
2 small fixes.
Download | Release Notes

Sysinternals Tools Updated
Autoruns v14.02, WinObj v3.12, Tcpview v4.15 and Process Monitor v3.85
Download & Info

EU rules to force USB-C chargers for all phones
“Apple has warned such a move would harm innovation.”

The NFL fantasy league I’m in needs one player to pick up a team where the owner never signed in. The league is run by a TH reader and friend. Well, I dunno how much of a friend he is since he kicked my butt 158.67 to 106.66 last week!
Give me a shout if you’re interested.

Chrome 94
19 security fixes
Download | Release Info | Android and iOS too
v94 has a controversial feature that allows website to detect if your browser is sitting there idle.
Here is how to turn it off:
Go to: chrome://settings/content/idleDetection
or
Chrome Settings > Privacy and Security > Site Settings > Permissions > Additional Permissions > Your device use
enable: Don’t allow sites to know when you’re actively using your device

Internet freedom on the decline in US and globally, study finds
“Domestically, the lack of regulation in the tech industry has allowed companies to grow beyond reproach and misinformation to flourish online. Abroad, authoritarian governments have harnessed their tight control of the internet to subdue free expression.”

Apple, Google raise new concerns by yanking Russian app
“Big Tech companies that operate around the globe have long promised to obey local laws and to protect civil rights while doing business. But when Apple and Google capitulated to Russian demands and removed a political-opposition app from their local app stores, it raised worries that two of the world’s most successful companies are more comfortable bowing to undemocratic edicts — and maintaining a steady flow of profits — than upholding the rights of their users.”

No More Apologies: Inside Facebook’s Push To Defend Its Image
Article paywalled: Bypass Paywalls extension: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bypass+paywalls+extension
“Project Amplify punctuated a series of decisions that Facebook has made this year to aggressively reshape its image. Since that January meeting, the company has begun a multipronged effort to change its narrative by distancing Mr. Zuckerberg from scandals, reducing outsiders’ access to internal data, burying a potentially negative report about its content and increasing its own advertising to showcase its brand.”
A+ Slashdot comments!

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.9.1 OPTIONAL Drivers
Support for: World War Z – Aftermath, Diablo II – Resurrected, New World
Download | Release Notes

Nvidia Geforce Game Ready Drivers 472.12 WHQL
“This new Game Ready Driver provides support for the official launch of Windows 11”
Support for – Diablo II: Resurrected, Far Cry 6, Hot Wheels Unleashed, Industria, New World, and World War Z: Aftermath.
Download | Release Notes

Coleman Battery Guard LED Flashlight
List Price: $39.99
With Deal: $17.19
You Save: $22.80 (57%)

LUMENS: Up to 625
BEAM DISTANCE: Up to 425 meters
RUNTIME: Up to 3 hours (high) and 200 hours (low); 6 AA batteries (sold separately)
STOPS BATTERY DRAIN: BatteryGuard technology automatically disconnects batteries from circuit for up to 25% longer battery life than traditional flashlights
REDUCES CORROSION: Batteries can be stored in flashlight for years (up to their inherent shelf life)
BUILT TO LAST: IPX4 water-resistance rating for reliable use outdoors in the elements; impact-resistant up to 2 meters
LIFETIME LEDS: Never need replacing
3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY

Wise Disk Cleaner 10.6.2
– Fixed 2 bugs in Common Cleaner and Advanced Cleaner.
– Improved the Autoupdate program, supporting high-definition displays.
– Newly supported for cleaning 3D Viewer, Adobe Photoshop CC, Adobe Application Manager, Adobe Acrobat DC.
Download (I use portable) | Release Info

Microsoft announces passwordless future – available across Microsoft Edge and Microsoft 365 apps
“Now you can easily set Microsoft Edge to monitor the passwords you use across the web…1 Password Monitor, password generator and the password health dashboard are available on the latest version of Microsoft Edge. Must be signed into a Microsoft account.”
No and no.

ExpressVPN In The News
ExpressVPN bought for $1bn by Brit biz with an intriguing history in adware
ExpressVPN exec among three facing $1.6 million fine for helping UAE spy
Am I ditching ExpressVPN? No, mainly because I paid $99 for 15 months of service (12+3 free).
You have to ask yourself why you are using a VPN. I’m not doing anything illegal or hiding from the government. I use it away from home to keep my web activity from being intercepted by bad guys. Having said that, I don’t like the…I’ll call it ‘aura’ surrounding ExpressVPN right now. I’ve turned off auto-renew on my account and will be keeping an eye on it.

Facebook aware of Instagram’s harmful effect on teenage girls, leak reveals
“Since at least 2019, staff at the company have been studying the impact of their product on its younger users’ states of mind. Their research has repeatedly found it is harmful for a large proportion, and particularly teenage girls…As recently as March, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, claimed social media was more likely to have positive mental health effects. In May, Adam Mosseri, who is in charge at Instagram, said he had seen research suggesting its effects on teenagers’ mental health was probably “quite small”…“In pursuit of profit these companies are stealing children’s time, self-esteem and mental health, and sometimes tragically their lives … This is an entirely human-made world, largely privately owned, designed to optimise for commercial purposes – it does not have to be like this. It is time to optimise for the safety, rights and wellbeing of kids first – and then, only then – profit.”
[Read more…] about Thursday Random Stuff…

Win10 Updated
“Updates security for your Windows operating system…This update makes quality improvements to the servicing stack”
September 14, 2021—KB5005565 (OS Builds 19041.1237, 19042.1237, and 19043.1237)

Google Chrome Updated
“The Stable channel has been updated to 93.0.4577.82 for Windows, Mac and Linux…This update includes 11 security fixes.”
Download | Release Info

Kali Linux 2021.3 Released
“Kali Linux is an open-source, Debian-based Linux distribution geared towards various information security tasks, such as Penetration Testing, Security Research, Computer Forensics and Reverse Engineering.”
Download | Release Info

AMD Ryzen Chipset Driver 3.09.01.140
Download | Release Notes

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.9.1 OPTIONAL Drivers
Download | Release Notes

Firefox In The News
Mozilla has defeated Microsoft’s default browser protections in Windows
“In version 91 of Firefox, released on August 10th, Mozilla has reverse engineered the way Microsoft sets Edge as default in Windows 10, and enabled Firefox to quickly make itself the default. Before this change, Firefox users would be sent to the Settings part of Windows 10 to then have to select Firefox as a default browser and ignore Microsoft’s plea to keep Edge.”

Ask Slashdot: Why Is Firefox Losing Users?
“This weekend finds some long-time Slashdot readers debating why research shows Firefox losing market share. Long-time Slashdot reader chiguy shares one theory: “Firefox keeps losing users, according to this rant, because it arrogantly refuses to listen to its users.”

Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:

Found this at a random site: Levi’s 505 Men’s Jeans $21 (or less)
Prices vary on color, size, and cut. I have no idea how long this will last. Good luck!

Hear OZZY OSBOURNE Duet With LEMMY On Previously Unreleased Version Of ‘Hellraiser’

Tom Hanks Marks the 20th Anniversary of ‘Band of Brothers’ With a New Podcast
“On Sept. 9, HBO will launch a 12-part podcast that will offer a deep dive into each episode of the landmark series, as the stars of the show revisit their experiences of making “Band of Brothers” and share how the legacy of the program has affected their lives.”

America struggling to keep up with other countries in exercise, general health during pandemic
“Unfortunately, Americans aren’t faring as well. Only a third (32%) say they’re now able to exercise longer without feeling winded, while only 29 percent have gone down a size or a belt notch over the course of the pandemic.
Additionally, 53 percent of global respondents have more energy throughout the day, compared to 29 percent of American respondents.”

Nationwide Survey Results: The Majority of Americans Cannot Do More Than 10 Consecutive Pushups
“The results above indicated that 36.4% of American adults report being able to perform fewer than five consecutive push-ups. An additional 17.4% report being able to perform between six and ten.
In other words, 53.8% of Americans self-report being unable to perform 10 straight pushups, whereas a minority (46.2%) report being able to. Of those unable to perform more than 10 or push-ups, approximately 31% identified as men.”
Try these, been using them for several years:
Perfect Fitness Perfect Pushup Elite

Office Zero-Day
Both “Premium” Paul Thurrott and Neowin has said “Microsoft acknowledges” this vulnerability which Bleeping Computer reminds us:
“However, the attack is thwarted if Microsoft Office runs with the default configuration, where documents from the web are opened in Protected View mode or Application Guard for Office 365.”

ProtonMail removed “we do not keep any IP logs” from its privacy policy
“This weekend, news broke that security/privacy-focused anonymous email service ProtonMail turned over a French climate activist’s IP address and browser fingerprint to Swiss authorities. This move seemingly ran counter to the well-known service’s policies, which as recently as last week stated that “by default, we do not keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account.”
Steve Gibson talks about this: “Internet Anonymity” is an Oxymoron

I Got My Metallica (Remastered) Today
I haven’t had a chance to listen yet. You can get just the CD or the Metallica (Remastered Deluxe Box Set)(5LP)(14CD)(6DVD). Here’s a special treat, Jason Newsted (the bassist that played on the album) does an unboxing.

Firefox 92
A few fixes and improvements. 5 security updates.
Download | Release Notes

Macrium Reflect 8.0.6036
Many fixes and additions.
Download | Release Info

Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:

Bosses turn to ‘tattleware’ to keep tabs on employees working from home
“Every minute or so, the program would capture a live photo of David and his workmates via their company laptop webcams. The ever-changing headshots were splayed across the wall of a digital conference waiting room that everyone on the team could see…These software programs give bosses a mix of options for monitoring workers’ online activity and assessing their productivity: from screenshotting employees’ screens to logging their keystrokes and tracking their browsing. But in the fast-growing bossware market, each platform potentially brings something new to the table. There’s FlexiSpy, which offers call-tapping; Spytech, which is known for mobile device access; and NetVizor, which has a remote takeover feature…Employers are reportedly drawing on in-house IT departments to monitor emails for flagged phrases at an increased rate compared with before the pandemic. By receiving alerts when certain employees are discussing “recruiter” or “salary”, for example, management hopes to know when employees are looking to up sticks for greener pastures.”

How Facebook Undermines Privacy Protections for Its 2 Billion WhatsApp Users
“WhatsApp has more than 1,000 contract workers filling floors of office buildings in Austin, Texas, Dublin and Singapore, where they examine millions of pieces of users’ content. Seated at computers in pods organized by work assignments, these hourly workers use special Facebook software to sift through streams of private messages, images and videos that have been reported by WhatsApp users as improper and then screened by the company’s artificial intelligence systems.”

It’s Time For A Flu Shot. Here’s What You Need To Know
Posted just for FYI. Not to be rude but I don’t care what your opinion is on this topic.

Win10 Updates
KB4023057: Update for Windows 10 Update Service components
“This update includes reliability improvements to Windows Update Service components in all editions of Windows 10”
Optional update: September 1, 2021—KB5005101 (OS Builds 19041.1202, 19042.1202, and 19043.1202) Preview
Many “Addresses an issue” updates. I went ahead and installed it.

PowerToys v0.45.0
A whole lot of fixes.
Download & Info

Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:

Opinion: It’s dangerously stupid to put your state ID in your Apple Wallet
“it’s giving law enforcement a clear and defensible point from which to compel you to unlock your phone. One that will sound good to juries and give prosecutors who like to pretend the Fifth Amendment doesn’t exist a leg to stand on.”

Mob Justice Is Trampling Democratic Discourse – The Atlantic

What should you do if someone tries to kidnap or abduct you?