Tech News Archives - Page 80 of 135

Important: Back up your PC’s hard drive before installing the Windows 10 Creator’s Update!

Posted on April 10, 2017

If you’re using Windows 10 you should know that Microsoft is planning to release a major update for your Windows installation.

This important update is called Windows 10 Creator’s Update and they plan to start rolling it out tomorrow (April 11).

As a participant in Microsoft’s Windows Insider Program I had early access to the Creator’s Update, and I believe it’s a very worthy upgrade for the price (it’s free!).

But that being said, I installed the update on four different computers and had issues with two of them. That’s a 50% failure rate with my limited test, and that doesn’t bode well for the general roll-out of this update. [Read more…]

Yet another security flaw found in LastPass password manager

Posted on April 5, 2017

I’ve written before about the dangers of trusting a password manager to keep your passwords and the online accounts they correspond with secure.

Well, here’s yet another example that illustrates why I believe password managers are inherently risky.

One of the researchers with Google’s Project Zero has discovered and reported a very serious security flaw in one of the browser extensions that supports the popular LastPass password manager service.

According to the Google researcher, this flaw could potentially allow a hacker to insert malicious code into the flawed browser extension and steal your passwords – the very thing a password manager is supposed to prevent. [Read more…]

Why you shouldn’t believe that new study claiming manufacturers fib about their laptops’ battery lives

Posted on April 5, 2017

The folks at Which? claim that a new study they conducted shows that most manufacturers overstate the battery life of their laptops by huge margins (by hours instead of minutes).

I don’t believe that to be accurate, and I’ll explain why.

Which? says they tested a slew of laptop models by several major manufacturers by using them to continually access the Internet over Wi-Fi or watching videos until the battery goes from fully charged to completely empty.

The conclusion they drew from the results of those tests is that most manufacturers are overstating their laptops’ battery lives by as much as 50%. In other words, they are basically saying the manufacturers are fibbing to their customers.

I believe that conclusion is flawed because the study was apparently conducted under the assumption that most laptop owners use their machines in one of those two ways. Well, most users don’t. [Read more…]

Heads up: Microsoft will end support for Windows Vista on April 11

Posted on March 17, 2017

As you probably know, Microsoft continues to provide security updates for older versions of Windows for several years after the next version is released.

Unfortunately, they have to stop supporting those old Windows versions at some point in order to better focus their resources on developing and supporting newer versions of the operating system.

You might recall that Microsoft officially ended support for Windows XP back in April 2014. Well, now it’s Vista’s turn.

The final security patches for Windows Vista will be released on April 11, after which there will be no more of them coming down the pike. That means Vista will essentially become an orphan on that date with Microsoft cutting it loose to survive in the wild on its own.

As always happens when Microsoft stops supporting an older version of Windows, it won’t take long for the hackers and scammers of the world to find and exploit previously undiscovered and unpatched security holes in the Vista framework.

What does all this mean? [Read more…]

Great news: You can now connect an external hard drive to your PlayStation 4!

Posted on March 10, 2017

Do you own a Sony PlayStation 4 game console?

If so, chances are you can’t install any more games because your PS4’s hard drive has run out of space.

It has always been possible to upgrade the hard drive in a PS4 with a little “minor surgery”, but now you don’t have to bother with replacing the internal drive at all.

Sony has just released a firmware update that adds external USB hard drive support to the PlayStation 4. [Read more…]