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Sony has announced a new app called PlayStation Family. It is designed to help parents manage their children’s game time on PS5 and PS4.

While age verification is quickly becoming a menace for adult users in some countries, parental controls on devices are actually good, and a much better way to manage the content your kids have access to.

Gaming can become an addiction if left unchecked, I say that as someone who has been gaming for 30 years or so. That said, gaming is a fantastic way to de-stress, and a form of entertainment. Spending too much time on a digital screen can have other adverse effects like causing eye strain. Besides, video games shouldn't cut into children's study time, outdoor play time, reading etc. It's a good idea to enjoy things in moderation.

Sony is not the first console maker to introduce parental controls, as a matter of fact it's the last of the three major players. Microsoft and Nintendo already have a parental control app for the Xbox and Switch, respectively. Still, it's good to have one. PlayStation Family allows parents to create a child's account quickly, and customize the experience.

You can set the playtime limits for each day of the week. Your child can request you for additional playtime from the console, and you can approve or decline the request from your phone or tablet. The PlayStation Family app also has activity reports that you can check on their daily/weekly playtime and activity. The app also displays real-time notifications to let you know what game your child is playing.

Allowing your child to play games for an hour or two can be a good way to reward their efforts in studies, cleaning their room, helping with chores, etc. It's also a nice way to ease them into the world of gaming, and let them discover what they like. The PlayStation Family app has content filters, which can ensure they only have access to age appropriate games, and they don't accidentally run into games with violent or mature content. There are some presets that you can choose from, to automatically apply recommended settings for different age groups, but you can customize the experience. Sony says that parents can also customize privacy settings of their kids' profiles, and to configure how they connect, play, and access social features.

We've all read about nightmares on Roblox, if this app can keep your children safe, that's great. Another bit of news that often makes the headlines is when parents allow kids to access their credit card, and end up running a massive bill thanks to in-app purchases. Sony's PlayStation Family app allows you to restrict the amount of funds your child has access to, with a monthly spending limit for purchasing content from the PlayStation Store. It also lets you add funds when required, check the balance, etc.

Sony's PlayStation Family app is available for iOS and Android devices around the world. (Requires iOS version 14 and Android 8 or higher.)

Do you set up parental controls on your console?

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Spotify has announced that it is rolling out lossless audio quality to users. The music streaming platform had originally announced CD quality music playback in February 2021.

After a short period of just four years, the feature is finally here. Did you know that users had been requesting for lossless quality streaming on Spotify for a decade? Apple Music has supported lossless for 4 years, so has Amazon Music HD (not in all countries).

Spotify free users, you better look away now. Lossless is only for Premium subscribers. Jokes aside, you shouldn't get too excited even if you are a Premium user. Spotify's announcement says that it is rolling out lossless quality gradually in 50 markets through October. Premium subscribers in the following countries have started to get access to lossless quality: Australia, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, the US, and the UK.

Premium users will be able to stream high-fidelity music in up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC. Once you get a notification that Lossless is available on your account, you will need to enable it from your profile > Settings > Media quality. Set the quality to Lossless, and your network preference for it, WiFi, cellular, downloads. You can start listening to Hi-fi music, the quality will show up as Lossless 16-bit or Lossless 24-bit. And yes, it's only available for music, other content such as music videos, podcasts, audiobooks are not available in Hi-fi. Users can set the quality from the Connect menu too. You will need to switch to Lossless on each device, because the setting uses a large amount of data to download/stream the music. Speaking of downloaded songs, they will play in the quality they were downloaded in. So you will need to clear your offline backup and downloads, and redownload them in lossless quality.

Lossless is supported on Spotify mobile, desktop, and tablet. You can also access it on devices that support Spotify Connect, such as Sony, Bose, Samsung, Sennheiser, etc. Spotify says that it will soon add support for more devices, like those from Sonos and Amazon. Spotify recommends using wired headphones or speakers to listen to Lossless.

Earlier this year, Spotify was said to be working on a Music Pro plan that would introduce Hi-fi music at an additional price. But the real surprise is that Spotify isn't charging extra for lossless quality, yet. Meanwhile, Google is trying to make lyrics on YouTube Music a premium feature.

Which music streaming service do you use?

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Apple has announced the iPhone 17 series. Let's discuss their specs.

Yes, I know I'm a little late about this, but there are quite a few improvements, especially for the base model of the iPhone 17.

All 4 models in the series now have a ProMotion Display, yup, the base version of the iPhone 17 supports 120Hz refresh rate. That's an adaptive refresh rate, which goes from 1Hz up to 120Hz, based on your usage. The screen is a 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR panel, which supports Always-on display and has a peak outdoor brightness of 3000 nits. Apple says that the iPhone 17's Ceramic Shield 2 coating on the screen makes it 3 times more resistant to scratches.

The iPhone 17 is powered by an Apple Silicon A19 chipset, built on a 3nm process. It has 6 cores; 2 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, while the 5-core GPU supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, mesh shading and MetalFX Upscaling. The iPhone 17 has a 16-core Neural Engine, and supports Apple Intelligence. Reports indicate that the iPhone 17 has 8GB of RAM, while the other 3 models have 12GB of RAM. And Apple has upgraded the storage on the base model from 128GB to 256GB

Apple says the iPhone 17's battery offers up to 8+ hours more battery life than its predecessor, the iPhone 16. The product listing says the battery offers up to 30 hours video playback. The device supports up to 50% charge in 20 minutes, with a 40W adapter, but you'll have to buy one separately.

The iPhone 17 has a Dual Fusion camera, which has 2 cameras in one. The first of these is a 48MP Fusion Main Camera with an f/1.6 aperture, and a 12MP telephoto lens that supports 2x zoom. Then you have the 48MP Fusion Ultra Wide camera and a 12MP Macro sensor. The 18MP selfie camera on the iPhone 17 is nearly twice the size of the previous one, and it's square shaped. Here's the thing, this square shaped sensor allows you to take selfies in any orientation, i.e. portrait or landscape, without rotating the phone. Apple calls this the Center Stage Camera.

Next is the iPhone 17 Air, a brand-new model that is just 5.6mm thick. It packs a 6.5-inch display, and has Ceramic Shield 2 on both sides. Apple says the back is 4x more resistant to cracks. The iPhone 17 Air has a titanium frame, unlike the other models which have an aluminium frame. The bump at the top of the rear panel is called a "plateau", it houses a single camera, a 48MP Fusion Camera that also supports 12MP telephoto photography with 2x zoom. It has the same 18MP Center Stage Camera on the front. It is now possible to shoot videos using both the front and rear cameras in Dual Capture mode.

Apple has packed an A19 Pro chip in the iPhone 17 Air. It has 6 cores: 2 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, and a 5-core GPU with 2nd-gen Dynamic Caching. This is the first iPhone to come with Apple's N1 Chip, and supports Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread. The iPhone 17 Air features a C1X modem, an upgraded version of the C1 which debuted in the iPhone 16 SE. Apple says the C1X is twice as fast as the C1, and is 30% more energy-efficient. The iPhone 17 Air is eSIM only, worldwide. You can't use physical SIM cards with it. Both the iPhone 17 Air and the iPhone 17 has a USB Type-C port, but its a USB2.

Coming to the iPhone 17 Pro, it is also equipped with an A19 Pro, ceramic glass on the back and front. However, it has an aluminium frame instead of titanium. Why? Well, Apple says it designed an aerospace-graded aluminium alloy, that has 20 times more thermal conductivity than titanium. The phone has a vapor chamber filled with deionized water, laser welded into the aluminium chassis. This acts as a cooling system to dissipate heat throughout the device, allowing for better performance. Apple says that with the A19 Pro and its superior thermal management system, users can get up to 40% better sustained performance. The iPhone 17 Pro has a dual-tone finish, and a large camera plateau, that houses various sensors including the cameras and antennas, featuring three camera sensors. The Pro Max version has 2TB of storage.

Apple has priced the iPhone 17 at $799, $1129 CAD, €949, £799, A$1399, INR 82900. The iPhone 17 Air $999, $1449 CAD, A$1799, €1,199, £999, INR 119900. The iPhone 17 Pro carries a price tag of $1099, $1599 CAD, A$1,999, £1099, €1299, INR 134000. And the iPhone 17 Pro Max costs $1199, $1749 CAD, A$2199, £1199, €1499 and INR 149900. The iPhone 17 series will be available for pre-order from September 12, and will start shipping on September 19th.

iOS 26 launches on September 15th, and brings new Apple Intelligence features like Visual Intelligence, which is basically Apple's version of Circle to Search. Other new AI features include Live Translation. I'll cover iOS 26 in a later article. But I want to mention a new feature in iOS 26. Apple has introduced a security feature called Memory Integrity Enforcement. This could help prevent mercenary spyware, aka targeted attacks, from compromising an iPhone's security.

The Enhanced Memory Tagging Extension (EMTE) is an always-on memory safety protection that protects key attack surfaces like the kernel and over 70 userland processes. It is supported by secure typed allocators and tag confidentiality protections. Apple says that its mitigation limits the effective reach of Spectre V1 leaks at virtually zero CPU cost. The Cupertino company believes this will make mercenary spyware more expensive and difficult to develop and maintain, and it could disrupt many exploitation techniques used by hackers.

Here are my thoughts about the new iPhone 17 series (as an iPhone 13 user).

If I had to choose one, I'd probably pick the base iPhone 17, it's the most affordable of the lot, and now has almost all the features a user may want, whether as a new buyer or someone looking to upgrade from an older model. My iPhone 13 feels compact, maybe even a bit tiny with its 6.1-inch screen compared to most modern phones. I prefer using a lighter phone, but the iPhone 17's 6.3-inch display may not be too big to feel uncomfortable, plus the weight difference is just 3g more. But the iPhone Air's 6.5-inch screen might could make reaching the top of the screen a little difficult, but the fact that the handset weighs 12g lighter than the base model is crazy. It also means the device has a smaller battery, and that is a compromise that I don't like. My iPhone 13 has 4GB RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 60Hz display, the iPhone 17 has 8GB RAM, 256GB of storage and a 120Hz display. That's literally double the specs, while still maintaining the price tag at $799 (at least in the U.S.).

The Pro models are good for those who want a larger battery, and aren't bothered by the price tag. The iPhone 17 Air is an odd choice, it's only a $100 cheaper, but has a slightly bigger display and a titanium frame. But the fact that it has a single camera on the back, and a single speaker, is a bit of a concern. If you can afford the iPhone Air, I think it's probably worth stretching your budget and go for the Pro. On the other hand, the dual-tone finish on the Pro makes it look less premium. Otherwise, go for the iPhone 17 base model, as it seems to offer the best value for money.

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YouTube Music users who use the free version of Google's music service may soon use the site without the ability to display song lyrics. More or less anyone may visit the main YouTube Music website to play music. You can even do so without an account, but that means that certain features are limited or not available as all.

Users who sign in gain access to playlists that they may create, get personal recommendations, and other features. All users of YouTube Music may display lyrics of the song that is playing on the site. A click on lyrics display them on YouTube Music.

Reports suggest that Google is trialing to move the lyrics feature behind a paywall. A Reddit user published a screenshot of YouTube Music that showed the limitation. It states "you have three views remaining. Unlock lyrics with Premium" in the lyrics tab.

Lyrics won't be displayed anymore when the limit is reached. Google has not published a statement regarding the limitation at this point. We reached out to Google but have not heard back yet.

Our own tests showed no signs of lyrics limits on YouTube Premium. We ran tests with and without accounts, on the web and in the mobile versions. Google is likely running tests or experiments to test the waters. It does so often to test user reactions before rolling out a feature to more users or cancelling the rollout.

Google is not the only company that tried to make lyrics a premium feature. Spotify tried the same, but decided against it after it received heavy criticism. Whether user outcry will be enough to convince Google to do the same remains to be seen.

For now, if you are affected and not signed in to an account, try private browsing mode or a different browser, As a signed in user, your options are limited. You could try signing out and in again, or clearing the entire cache.

You could also switch to a different service. Spotify, for example, does not restrict lyrics on its platform.

Google has started to go after Premium account abuses recently as well.

Now You: do you use a music streaming service? If so, which and why that one?

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Next month, Microsoft is ending support for home editions of its Windows 10 operating system officially. While users may extend support by one year -- business customers get three -- the number of users who will take up Microsoft's offer is unclear. The extension is more or less free, as you get it as a consumer when you enable the backup functionality during the signup process. There is even a tool for that that lets you do all that with a local account and as little interaction as possible.

Recently, Windows 11, the successor of Windows 10, has been gaining traction. While it led the leaderboard of the most popular operating system on Valve's highly influential Steam gaming platform for some time, it passed Windows 10 at Statcounter's monthly OS popularity ranking in July for the first time.

Being newer and with the advantage that its main competitor is on its last months of support, one could predict the trend easily. Windows 10 usage declines naturally, as users start to migrate to Windows 11, if their devices are compatible, upgrade by bypassing compatibility checks, or buy entirely new PCs.

But in August 2025, stats reversed seemingly, at least according to Statcounter. Windows 11 usage dropped by four points from 53 percent to 49 percent. Windows 10's usage jumped three points to 45 percent. Even the out-of-support Windows 7 operating system jumped by 1.5 points to more than three percent usage, according to Statcounter.

Does this mean that users moved back to Windows 10? Reverted the upgrade or even downgraded their machines, where possible? It seems highly unlikely that this is the main cause for the reversal. Statcounter claims to pull the statistics from billions of visits of users each month. While that sounds much, its stats are not a true reflection of the actual market share of each operating system or browser.

There is also the possibility that the calculation was off in a given month. We know more next month. We could see another reversal, Windows 11 climbing again, Windows 10 and falling.

Windows 10's usage share will decline in the coming months. While part of the userbase will extend support by joining the ESU program, another part will upgrade their machines to Windows 11 or buy new PCs entirely. Yes, some may also switch to Linux.

Now You: which version of Windows do you use, and why?

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Mozilla has announced that it will end support for Firefox on 32-bit Linux systems in 2026. This shouldn't affect most users, but still it's something worth mentioning.

It may seem surprising that Mozilla has supported 32-bit Linux for so long, and indeed it has. For reference, Google Chrome ended support for 32-bit Linux in 2016. So in 2026, Mozilla will have supported 32-bit Linux for ten years longer than Chrome did. That's pretty cool.

How many people still use Linux 32 bit? I can't find the exact statistics about it, but I took a look at the Firefox Public Data Report's Hardware section. It appears that, as of August 2025, 86.761% of Firefox users are on 64-bit computers. 4.550% of users have a 64-bit ARM computer, I'm assuming that includes Apple Silicon Macs, and Snapdragon computers. Only 8.689% of Firefox users have a 32-bit computer. It's unclear how many Linux 32-bit users this translates to.

Mozilla's announcement says 32-bit Linux is not supported by many Linux distros, and that maintaining a version of Firefox for the platform has become harder. Most Linux distros like Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora require a 64-bit processor. Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) still supports 32-bit systems. Debian 13 lets you run 32-bit apps, but the distro itself has dropped support for the i386 architecture. Debian 12 is still supported, LTS ends on June 30, 2028. I'm sure there are other distros that support 32-bit, but it's becoming rarer.

Firefox 144 will be the last version to support 32-bit Linux, it's not far away. According to Mozilla's release calendar, Firefox 144 will be released on October 14, 2025. Hey, that's when Windows 10 reaches end of life too. Firefox 145 and above will be 64-bit only. If you are using a 32-bit Linux machine, don't worry just yet. Mozilla says it will continue to support 32-bit Linux in Firefox ESR 140 builds so you can stay on that version until September 2026 to continue receiving security updates.

Support for Firefox ESR 115 has been extended several times to support Windows 7, 8, 8.1, macOS 10.12 to 10.14, so there is a chance that Mozilla may extend the same courtesy for 32-bit Linux users as well.

I can't say I've seen a 32-bit computer since maybe a netbook or two in 2010 or earlier. Looking at the Wikipedia entries for Intel and AMD processors show that both processor manufacturers stopped making 32-bit only CPUs nearly 20 years ago. Unless your computer has a processor that's from the early 2000s or older, you don't have to be worried. That is, unless you are using Linux 32-bit on a system that supports 64-bit for some reason, in which case you just need to switch to a 64-bit version of the distro.

Mozilla is encouraging 32-bit users to move to a 64-bit operating system, to continue using future versions of Firefox.

Are you still using a 32-bit OS?

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OpenAI could be entering the hardware market soon. The San Francisco company is reportedly prepping to launch its own AI-chip in 2026.

This would allow it to reduce its reliance on Nvidia and AMD chips to train and run its large language models, such as GPT, which as you may know powers ChatGPT.  It's not just them, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta are all working on their own AI chips. On the consumer side of things, Neural Processing Units (NPUs) are already a part in many computers. Experts believe that in a few years, most PCs that are sold will be an AI PC.

Now, this is not the first time we have heard about OpenAI's plans about an artificial intelligence chip. Some leaks from last year suggested that OpenAI had chosen Broadcom to co-develop its in-house AI chip. Once the designs were ready, they would be sent to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) for fabrication, i.e., to manufacture OpenAI's AI chips next year. OpenAI had hired former Google TPU engineer, Richard Ho, to lead its hardware division. Ho is spearheading the chip design team, which had been expanded from 20 members to 40 in February this year. This clearly indicated things were speeding up.

The Verge quotes a recent article published by the Financial Times, which said that its sources told it that OpenAI has partnered with Broadcom to produce its chips. These chips would be used internally to power its services, and not sold to customers. A day later, a report by Reuters said that Broadcom landed a $10 billion AI chip order from a new customer. While Broadcom did not name the customer, market analysts believe that it is none other than OpenAI.

OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, recently mentioned on X, that the company would be "doubling our compute fleet over the next 5 months". This was a reference to the growing need for GPUs, as it continues to evolve its data hungry models. I suppose they need more powerful chips to more efficiently milk every last drop of data from users.

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Google's Gemini AI has been around for two years, from the days when it was still called Bard. But Google never really revealed Gemini usage limits for users.

Well, now we know the details. 9to5google spotted an update to a support page that lists the various limits across Gemini apps.

Those without a Google AI Plan, i.e. free users, get up to 5 prompts per day using Gemini 2.5 Pro and a 32,000 context window. Free users can get up to 5 Deep Research reports per month using Gemini 2.5 Flash. Image generation and editing is limited up to 100 images per day for free users. Audio Overviews have a limit count of 20, and this applies to all tiers. All users have access to the 2.5 Flash model. Access to Canvas, Gems, and Storybook vary depending on the selected model.

The first paid tier, Google AI Pro, which costs $19.99 per month, allows up to 100 Gemini 2.5 Pro prompts per day, up to 20 Deep Research posts per day using Gemini 2.5 Pro, and up to 1,000 AI image generations per day. In addition to this, Pro users can generate up to 3 videos per day using the Veo 3 Fast model. Google AI subscribers get priority access to some new features, and have up to 10 active actions.

The Google AI Ultra subscription, which costs $249.99 per month, get up to 500 prompts using Gemini 2.5 Pro, 200 Deep Research reports, and 1,000 image generation prompts per day. Ultra subscribers also get access to 10 Deep Think prompts per day with a 192,000 token context window. They can generate up to 5 videos per day using the Veo 3 model.

As for checking if you're close to a limit, you can't do that manually, Google says Gemini Apps will automatically notify you when you're close to hitting the limit. If you reach your limit, the apps will display a notification that tells you when the limits will be reset.

When I try to visit the support page from India, it doesn't show the exact limits, but some of them seem to be more or less the same. I had to use a VPN to connect to the U.S. or Europe to get the precise details. I'm not sure whether the page is updated on a regional basis. Or is it possible that there could be different limits based on the region?

I just took a quick look at the subscription prices here, Gemini Pro costs INR 1,950 ($22.12), and Gemini Pro Ultra costs INR 24,500 ($277.96). That's more expensive than the pricing in the U.S., for fewer features?

It's also worth mentioning that Google AI subscribers in the U.S. have access to the Gemini 2.5 Pro model and Deep Search in AI Mode, expanded access to AI-powered calling for local business pricing (US only), and Gemini in Chrome (early access).

Do you use Gemini?

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Google has been handed a $3.5 billion fine by the European Commission for breaching antitrust laws. This time, it is related to its advertising technology.

Ad tech is Google's core business, it earns a ton of money by displaying ads on Google Search and other services. Google earned an annual revenue of $350 billion in 2024. In Q2 2024 alone, it made $64 billion from Search, YouTube ads and Google Network. That number went up by a further 7, making it $71 Billion in Q2 2025.

No wonder why the Mountain View company is obsessed with its ad business. It had allowed advertises to use digital fingerprinting to track and identify devices and users, to serve them better ads. YouTube has been aggressively blocking ads, while Premium prices were jacked up. Add Chromium's removal of Manifest V3 into the mix, and it paints a clear picture, get the advertising revenue up at any cost. But it's not just users who were suffering, other advertisers had it rough too.

Back in June 2021, the European Commission began an antitrust investigation into Google's ad tech practices, accusing the American company of abusing its dominant position in the search industry by favoring its own ads ahead of those belonging to competitors. Google had reportedly made $147 Billion in revenue in 2020. As I mentioned earlier, it's making more than that in just 6 months nowadays. Anyway, in mid 2023, the EU had targeted Google's ad monopoly in an antitrust complaint, and wanted it to sell part of its business as an antitrust remedy.

Now, the European Commission once again alleges that Google has abused its dominant position, not just in search, but in different digital markets, and on both sides of the ad tech supply chain, i.e. competitors, advertisers, publishers. The commission pointed out that the company has indulged in illegal practices for over 10 years, and that this has had a negative impact on all European citizens.

Google has been ordered to pay a fine of €2.95 billion (about $3.5 billion), under EU competition rules. €2.95 billion may be chump change for Google, but there are other implications, since this is the third time the company has been hit with a fine.

Recently, A U.S. Federal Court ordered Google to share its search data with its rivals, but rejected the Department of Justice's proposal to force the company to sell Chrome, or separate Android from it. Google may have gotten away with a slap on the wrist in the U.S. But the EU will have none of it.

The European Commission has ordered Google to stop its illegal practices in the ad tech industry.  It has given Google 60 days to inform the Commission how it plans to remedy the situation, failing which could result in an appropriate remedy. EU could hit Google where it hurts. The Commission suggests that Google's only solution could be to sell part of its ad tech business, and that it is necessary and proportionate to end the infringement of the antitrust laws. The EU believes its decision has a worldwide dimension. You can read the EU's full statement on the official website.

Google's vice president and global head of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, told The Verge that the EU's decision was “wrong”, also saying that “It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money.” Google is planning to appeal the decision.

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Google is in the final steps of migrating the extensions system that its Chrome web browser uses. The new Manifest V3 system replaces the decade-old Manifest V2 and becomes the only set of rules for extensions supporting the browser.

While Google says that the new system improves security and performance, critics say that Google is deliberately modifying the capabilities of content blockers and some other types of extensions that threaten the company's main revenue driver: ads.

The world's most popular content blocker uBlock Origin has become the example of that change. It is not compatible with the new Manifest V3 system. While its developer created uBlock Origin Lite, a still fairly capable content blocker that can is compatible, it is less powerful than the full version.

Workarounds exist to still make the extension and others work under Chrome, even the latest Chrome 140 release. While that gives Chrome users another four weeks or so with the extension, it is only a matter of time before the last workaround is removed by Google.

It is then that Chrome users who use the extension need to make a decision. The change, at least until now, has had no impact on Chrome's usage share. Statcounter saw it rise to a usage share of more than 69 percent in August 2025, which is a new height for the browser. While browsers that are privacy-friendly either lose usage share, stagnate, or rise very slowly, Google's browser, which is arguably not the best browser for privacy, is reaching new heights every year.

Not every user runs extensions. There are not official numbers available. According to Wikipedia, uBlock Origin has about 29 million users that use Chrome. That is not even one percentage of the browser's total install base. However, Chrome does not allow extension installs on mobile.

Chrome is an easy to use browser that integrates well into Google's ecosystem of products and services. It is fast, offers good security, and is well maintained. Chrome's biggest downside, that it is operated by a company that makes most of its revenue from ads and knowing as much as possible about its uses, does not seem to keep the bulk of users away.

There are better browsers, at least when you value privacy or customization options. Most even use the same core as Google Chrome, giving users the same level of performance and security as Google's browser.

A switch to Brave Browser, which offers better privacy settings and includes a built-in content blocker, or Vivaldi Browser, a browser with tons of customization options, would improve privacy and customization options at the same time.

There is also the open source Firefox browser. It is bleeding users, has been for years, and Mozilla has lost years developing features and products that did not really help it get any traction. Firefox just recently seems to have switched to delivering features that it was missing, with vertical tabs and tab groups just two of them that launched recently.

Probably the main reason that speaks for Firefox is that it continues to support uBlock Origin. Even better, that version is also more capable than the Chrome-version, even the classic Chrome version of the extension that Google is ending support for.

Another feature that speaks for Firefox is that it supports extensions on mobile. You can install uBlock Origin and thousands other extensions on your mobile as well to improve browsing significantly.

Now You: what is your take on this? Do you use Google Chrome or another browser?

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Life as a Firefox user can be quite difficulty on today's Internet. While it depends largely on the sites you visit in the browser, you may run into "not supported" messages or locked down services. Often, these services or websites are not locked because they do not work in Firefox, but because the developers implement browser sniffing technologies.

They test Chrome compatibility and allow only Chrome or Chromium-based browsers, even if Firefox would display the site just fine as well.

Granted, some sites may not work in Firefox because the browser does not support a specific API or feature, but that is actually very rare in the grander scheme of things.

Firefox users may overcome some of the limitations by faking to be Chrome. This is done usually by changing the browser's user agent. This piece of information reveals information such as the browser engine to the website. By claiming to be Chrome, Firefox would not be blocked from accessing a particular website or service most of the time.

We reviewed several user-agent changers for Firefox in the past. To name just a few: Custom UserAgent String, Chameleon, or UserAgent Switcher.

Chrome Mask is an open source extension for Firefox that changes the user agent on the user's request only. Doing so requires a single click. The extension sets the latest Chrome user agent string automatically and picks the right operating system as well. While that gives you less control over the user agent, it is a convenient option that should work in most cases without any issues.

Last but not least, the extension will shim "a few additional JavaScript attributes" to better pass as the Chrome web browser when sites perform additional browser checks.

To use Chrome Mask, all you need to do is click on the extension icon and then on the toggle that it displays. This enables or disables the user agent spoofing on the active website, depending on the previous state.

Who is the extension for? Firefox users who run into issues loading certain sites on the Internet. A click should give access, provided that Firefox supports all the features that the site uses. This is often the case when a site developer does not test against Firefox and prefers to block the entire browser because of this.

Now You: which browser do you use at the moment? Did you run into any compatibility issues using it lately? What did you do?

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KDE Linux is official. The first alpha version of the new distribution has been released for testing.

For those unaware, KDE Plasma is a popular desktop environment and ships as a part of flavored distros like Kubuntu, Fedora KDE, etc. My experience with KDE is mostly limited to their apps, especially KDE Connect, Okular, Ark, and Kate. I briefly used Fedora KDE recently on a secondary "distro hopping" drive,  Plasma was pretty good. There is also KDE Neon, which is maintained by the KDE Community. But this time KDE Linux is, made by KDE.

(Image courtesy: KDE)

Why another distro? KDE Linux wants to be "the KDE operating system" that offers a user-friendly experience, with a high-quality UX. It is an immutable OS, meaning there will be some restrictions, such as limited access to the system components.

KDE's in-house distro comes with, you guessed it, Plasma and KDE apps. KDE Linux is built using Arch Linux packages, but apparently shouldn't be considered Arch-based. It doesn't have a package manager (no pacman for you), so you will need to install apps using Flatpak, Snap, or AppImages. It does include Distrobox and Toolbox pre-installed. OMG Ubuntu reports that KDE Linux includes the following apps by default: Mozilla Firefox, Haruna, Elisa, Kate, KWrite, Gwenview, etc. That's quite a good starter set up.

The system requirements for KDE Linux are fairly low.

• UEFI firmware (this includes most sold in the last 15 years)
• An AMD or Intel CPU
• 1 GB of memory (more will make the system faster)
• 6 GB of storage space (more than 12 will allow for system rollbacks)

I mean it is Linux, the specs needed are budget-friendly, but look at that. That's lower than Linux Mint's requirements (2GB RAM/ 20GB storage).

Want to try KDE Linux? Head over to https://kde.org/linux/ and download it.

There are some caveats, in its current state KDE Linux does not support NVIDIA GPUs older than the GTX 1630 out of the box, you will need to tinker with it a bit. Secure Boot is not supported at the moment, but it will be in the future. System updates are being delivered as an entire OS image, yes these are atomic upgrades. Check the official wiki for more details.

I have not tested KDE Linux yet, it's way too early to do that. So this is just an FYI article. I wouldn't recommend using an alpha version as your primary OS, but there's no harm trying a Live US, or maybe you can try it in a virtual machine or a secondary system/drive.

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Microsoft Edge 140 has been released. It brings a handful of new features.

Let me very briefly mention the AI features in the update. Edge now supports GPT-5 as an option for Copilot Smart Mode. Users can create a podcast with Copilot in Edge. You can create images and videos by typing your query in the address bar, and Edge will generate the media using DALL-E 3, Open AI's Sora.

With that out the way, let's discuss the more important features. The release notes for Edge 140 says that Microsoft Edge has a new security feature called Scareware blocker. This is an AI powered option, which uses a local model, to protect users from scareware attacks like tech scams that trick victims into believing their computer is damaged, luring them into calling a fake support line, which could then lead to the PC remotely taken over by attackers. If Edge identifies a website as a potential tech scam site, it will display a warning on the screen, block access to the website, and offer an option to close the page, or continue browsing.

Scareware blocker in Edge is not enabled by default. You can manage Scareware blocker from Edge's Settings > Privacy, search, and services / Security. Or use this shortcut to jump to the option directly: edge://settings/privacy/security?form=MT0159

Here's the official feature page for Scareware blocker.

Edge 140 brings another security feature called HTTPS-first mode. Google introduced this feature in Chrome in September 2023. HTTPS-first mode tells Microsoft Edge to automatically upgrade insecure HTTP connections to HTTPS when possible. If a site doesn’t support HTTPS, the browser will display a warning pointing out that it is a security risk. According to Microsoft's announcement, this feature only works for public sites, and not on private ones, or URLs that the user entered manually.

The option is not enabled by default. To manage the feature, head to Settings > Privacy, search, and services / Security > and toggle the option that says "Automatically switch to more secure connections with Automatic HTTPS".

Microsoft Edge now saves tab groups automatically, to allow users to resume browsing quickly. Tab groups that were organized manually are also saved for revisits, after restarting the browser. Admins can manage this feature using the SyncTypesListDisabled policy with the “openTabs” data type.

Reddit user Kotaless says that Edge removed the RTX Video Super Resolution (VSR) flag, which uses AI to enhances the quality of streaming videos on NVIDIA's 40 and 30 Series GPUs. The user said that disabling a setting will allow the feature to work, as it will allow NVIDIA to take over the enhancement work. Go to System and Performance > System > and toggle "Enhance videos".

Edge 140 includes security patches from Chromium, and one Microsoft Edge specific security vulnerability has also been patched. It is tracked under CVE-2025-53791, and has a medium severity rating. The security issue, described as a security feature bypass vulnerability, which could allow an attacker to bypass a security feature over a network. This improper access control in Microsoft Edge involves a hacker to enable Edge Split Screen mode, have a specific configuration, and run multiple pages. The attack vector could lead to the threat actor running scripts to read a token from a web page's iframe, make changes to the javascript in the window. Microsoft has credited Mingi Jung with WebSec for reporting the issue.

The new features are available in Microsoft Edge 140.0.3485.54.

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College students in the U.S. can avail a free one-year Microsoft 365 subscription. Here's what's included in the package.

This is not the same as Microsoft 365 Online, which is free for everyone. Microsoft 365 Personal (formerly called Office 365) includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook. You can access these apps on PC, Mac, iOS, and Android.  It also comes with 1TB of storage space on OneDrive in the free subscription. And before you ask, yes it includes Microsoft Copilot in desktop apps for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Designer, etc.

Word will auto save your documents in OneDrive, you may wish to change that. Copilot in Excel requires AutoSave to be enabled. The Redmond company had recently warned that Copilot in Excel lacks accuracy. Please note that Windows 11 will soon automatically install two companion apps on your PC, if you have Microsoft 365 Desktop apps installed.

So, why is Microsoft 365 Personal being given away for free? And why only in the United States? Microsoft announced the news as part of its commitment to the U.S. Government's efforts to increase AI education in the Country. That explains a lot.

Microsoft 365 Personal normally costs $99.99 per year, or $9.99 per month. Getting it for free can be great for students. You may want to set a reminder to cancel the membership after 12 months, otherwise you will be charged for the subscription on a monthly basis. If you choose to continue with Microsoft 365 after 12 months, you can do so for 50% off, i.e. $4.99 per month. This offer ends on October 31st, or until supplies last. Go to this page to claim your free subscription.

Users who wish to claim the Microsoft 365 student 12-month free trial and discount offer will need to use their college or university email address to verify their student status. You will also need to provide a payment method, likely a credit card, to claim the offer. Existing subscribers can also claim the offer, instructions for this are provided on the offer page.

Please refer to the terms and conditions on Microsoft's website for more details.

A word of advice, if you are concerned about your privacy, I strongly recommend using LibreOffice which is completely free, open source, supports Office document formats, and is available across platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux. Sure, it lacks the online features of Microsoft 365, but you can't put a price tag on privacy.

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Microsoft continues to retire some of its applications and products. Just recently, Microsoft announced the retirement of OneNote for Windows 10, its Android and iOS app Microsoft Lens PDF Scanner, and the end of its Movies and TV store on Windows and Xbox.

Regarding Outlook, its email service and application, it continued to push the new Outlook. While classic Outlook remains until at least 2029, the classic Mail and Calendar apps were migrated to the new Outlook experience already.

Now, Microsoft announced that it will retire another Outlook app. Called Outlook Lite, it was designed as a lightweight Outlook app for mobiles, especially older devices with low performance. Released originally in 2022, it promised a fast startup and less battery consumption compared to the regular Outlook application. Downside was that certain features were not supported by the lite application. You could not connect your Gmail account, for instance. File storage services such as Dropbox or Box, and Microsoft Exchange Server, were also not supported by the lite application.

Outlook Lite was available in certain regions only. Users from those regions could install the application via the official application stores. Those from other regions could use workarounds to install the application unofficially on their devices.

Millions of users downloaded and installed the Outlook Lite application. Starting October 6, 2025, Microsoft will block new installations of the Outlook Lite application. Existing users may continue to use the app "for a limited time", but it will eventually be retired fully.

Microsoft does not reveal dates in the announcement. It is unclear therefore, when the app will stop working for existing users. The company recommends that existing users migrate to the regular Outlook for Mobile application on their devices to continue checking Outlook emails on their devices. However, this comes at the cost of increased battery usage and performance requirements.

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Lenovo has announced its second flagship handheld gaming console, the Legion Go 2. It runs on Windows 11.

The Legion Go 2 sports an 8.8-inches Full HD+ (1920 X 1200) OLED display, that supports a 16:10 aspect ratio, 144Hz refresh rate, DCl-P3 color gamut, 500 nits brightness. The display supports 10-point touch, Variable Refresh Rate (30-144Hz), and is VESA True Black 1000 Certified.

Lenovo's Legion Go 2 is powered by an AMD Ryzen Z2 processor (up to 8 cores/16 threads), with an RDNA 3.5-based Radeon 890M graphics GPU, 16GB of LPDD5X RAM at 7200MHz. It is equipped with a 1TB PCIe SSD, and you can expand the storage up to 2TB via a MicroSD card reader. Besides handheld mode, there are 2 other ways to use the console.

The controllers of the Legion Go 2 are detachable, you can have one in each hand and play games in FPS Mode. Or you can snap the controllers to the sides of the charging connector and use it as a game pad in console mode, aka docked mode, that you can use to connect the device to your TV. Speaking of the controller, the joysticks have hall effect sensors, which is good to avoid stick drift.

The Legion Go 2 has a 3.5mm headphone jack, and two 2W Integrated Speakers System with Nahimic Audio. It has two USB4 ports (one at the top, other at the bottom) that supports 40Gb/s data transfer, DisplayPort 1.4, and Power Delivery 3.0. In terms of wireless connectivity, the Legion Go 2 supports WiFi 6E 2x2AX, and Bluetooth 5.3.

The console has several buttons, the power button/fingerprint reader, volume up and down keys are at the top of the device, while the corners are home to the Left and Right Triggers, and Left and Right Bumpers.

On the left controller, you have the View button, Legion Space button, Hall Effect Joystick, the Page button, the desktop button and the D-Pad. The right controller has a Quick settings button, Menu button, ABXY buttons, another Hall Effect Joystick, and a Touchpad. The headphone jack/mic, MicroSD card reader, a 2nd USB port, an FPS Mode switch are on the bottom of the console's frame.

There's more, to the right side of the right controller, you have the M1 and M2 buttons. Each controller has a release button on the back along with a couple of other buttons. Y1, Y2 on the left, and M3, Y3 on the right.

The Legion Go 2 has a built-in kickstand, to prop the device on a desk, while you play with the detached controllers. It's a fairly chunky device, and weighs 0.92kg/2.03lbs, likely due to the 4-cell 74WHr battery. It measures 206mm x 136.7mm x 22.95mm without the controllers. With the controllers its size is 295.6mm x 136.7mm x 42.25mm. The Legion Go 2 comes with a 65W USB-C charger, and a carry case in the box.

It's not clear whether the Legion Go 2 will support the Xbox full-screen experience that the ROG Xbox Ally does. I did read that Valve is working on SteamOS for the Legion 2.

The Lenovo Legion Go 2 will be available this October, starting at $1,100 for the AMD Z2/16GB RAM/1TBV model, while the 32GB model costs $1,200. Legion Go 2's Z2 Extreme 32GB/1TB model costs $1350, and the 2TB model carries a $1480 price tag. This makes the Switch 2's $449 price really affordable, but of course, Nintendo's game prices are really high.

On a side note, the ROG Xbox Ally launches on October 16, so it should be an interesting month.

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Six years after it was announced, it's here. Hollow Knight: Silksong has been released across all major platforms.

I've already talked about the metroidvania game's setting, so here's the release trailer for Silksong.

The game is available on PC (Steam, GOG, Xbox Game Pass), PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series One, Xbox Series S/X, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. Hollow Knight Silksong costs $19.99 in the U.S., €19,50 in the EU region, £17 in the U.K., A$ 29.50 in Australia, and CA$25.99 in Canada.

I wanted to see what the regional pricing was in India (it's $10 here), but when I visited the game's listing, Steam threw out an error. Silksong had actually managed to crash Steam's servers. I came across a couple of screenshots on social media that showed an error message, but here's the one I got (within 15 to 20 minutes of the game's release).

Steam was not the only one that was down, reports indicate that Nintendo's eShop, Sony's PlayStation Network (PSN), and the Xbox Store were all down for a while.  I'm used to Steam crashing when major sale events like the Summer Sale or Winter Sale start, but never on a game's launch. Anyway, Valve managed to restore Steam access quickly.

According to SteamDB's stats, 535,213 gamers played Hollow Knight: Silksong on Steam on launch day. . This number was achieved within the first hour of the game's launch. That's incredible, isn't it? I've never seen any game crash all game stores at the same time, let alone an Indie title. That shows you how popular Silksong is.

Perhaps the fact that the game didn't have pre-orders played a large part in this, people rushed to the storefronts to buy it, and it could have caused the servers to crash. That speaks volumes of Silksong's affordable price. The game's requirements are really low, you just need 4GB of RAM, 1GB of vRAM, and 8GB of storage to play the game. Plus it was a day 1 release on Windows, macOS, Linux and Game Pass.

This could be a valuable lesson for bigger studios to learn from Team Cherry's strategies. The original Hollow Knight sold 15 million copies, can Silksong break that record?

Have you played the game?

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Google Chrome, like many other web browsers, can be configured through policies and rules. These allow organizations and individuals to change certain settings, such as the homepage, search provider, or which extensions are installed.

Google Chrome displays "Your browser is managed by your organization" when any policy is set. It may also display the information when a third-party app, like a security software, has access to Chrome.

The notification is shown on the main Settings page of the browser, which you may access via Menu > Settings, or by loading chrome://settings/ directly.

You may also check chrome://management/ to find out about it.

The message confirms that at least one setting of the browser is managed through a policy. If Chrome is run on a work or education computer or laptop, chance is that the IT department set these policies. If you run Chrome on a home device and have not set policies manually, there is a chance that a malicious program has altered certain settings.

Note that legitimate programs may also cause Chrome to show the message. Good news is that you can find out easily.

The best option is to load chrome://policy/ in the browser. Chrome displays all policies there that do not have default values. In other words, any policy that is modified is shown here.

You may not be able to change any of the policies, especially on work or education computers. If you are the admin, however, you may remove policies or modify them to adjust what they do.

Note that you can't modify policies directly from within Chrome. What you may be able to do is remove extensions that have set policies.

On Windows, administrators may control policies via the Registry Editor. Here is how that is done:

1. Open the Start menu on the Windows system.
2. Type regedit.exe and press the Enter-key.
3. Confirm the security prompt that is shown.
4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome.
5. Each key listed here is a potential policy that has been set. You can select policies and press the Delete-key on the keyboard to remove them.
6. Close the Registry Editor when you are done.
7. Restart the PC.

Chrome won't display the "managed by your organization" message anymore, if you deleted all policies, and if no other interference is still active.

Users on Apple macOS devices may run the command defaults read com.google.Chrome to read the current preferences of the browser. You could then remove any policy with the command defaults delete com.google.Chrome KEYNAME.

Chrome maintains managed preferences under /Library/Managed Preferences/com.google.Chrome.plist on macOS by default. However, if the preferences are managed by a configuration file, they may not be visible here.

Last but not least, certain security applications may install policies to control some aspects of the Chrome browser. You could check the antivirus settings to find out if there is any information about that. A better option may be to run a search, e.g., Bitdefender Free Google Chrome policies, to find out that way.

The message that certain policies are managed by an organization should not worry you automatically, even if you have control over the browser and not set any policy by yourself. There are other legitimate explanations, for instance security software, that may have set policies.

However, if you are certain that you have not set any, have full control, and are certain that no legitimate software has modified policies either, then you may want to investigate to make sure that your system is not infected by malicious software.

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Mozilla is testing a new feature in Firefox Nightly, which adds Microsoft Copilot to the sidebar. Cue the pitchforks!

That gecko's up to something.

Firefox already has 4 chatbots: Anthropic Claude, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Le Chat Mistral. Windows Report's Venkat (the Techdows guy), spotted the addition of Copilot in the side panel of Firefox Nightly.  Mozilla has been working on bringing Copilot to Firefox for nearly a year.

When you select Copilot on the sidebar, the panel describes the AIs features briefly. You can use Copilot in Firefox without an account, but there are some restrictions like daily limits, no personalization, sync chats, shorter responses, etc. The chatbot can be used to generate text, images, code, and analyze images. Users with a premium subscription can access more features.

Click on a new chat, and you should see "Quick response", click on this button to switch between 3 modes.

The default option, Quick Response, is the fastest as the AI responds in a couple of seconds, and is suited for daily conversations. Think Deeper, as the name suggests, makes the AI think longer (about 10 seconds). The final option is Smart, which uses GPT-5, and automatically thinks deeply or quickly based on the task. You can also use voice mode to interact with Copilot, or upload images and documents that you want it to analyze.

It can also summarize pages. Right-clicking on a web page, or a tab on the tab bar also offers access to Copilot's summarization features. You can also access Copilot's menu by selecting text.

Don't want these shortcuts? Just click on Remove copilot. Right-click again, and it will replace the option with "Ask a chatbot", this can also be removed.

I'm not going to defend Mozilla's decision, it's up to the user to decide whether they want to use AI or not. Copilot in Firefox (and the other AIs), can all be turned off permanently. They don't run in the background, constantly monitoring you. Click on the AI's shortcut in the sidebar to access it, use it and close it. That's it. It's basically a shortcut to the AI service's website, but in a sidebar to provide quick access, which may be of value to some people. I'm not one of those people, and that's perfectly okay.

I have kept all AI features disabled in my main Firefox. If you want to disable AI features in Firefox, open about:config, accept the risks.

Paste these in the text field, one at a time:

browser.ml.enable
browser.ml.chat.enabled
browser.ml.chat.menu
browser.ml.chat.page
browser.ml.chat.shortcuts

Set their value to false. There you go, no AI features for you.

In addition to this, you can also disable Smart Tab Groups, and Link Previews using the following preferences.

browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled
browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled

Just search for browser.ml and you will see a lot of options.

For those of you who want to try Copilot, download Firefox Nightly from Mozilla's FTP servers.

As a reminder, Vivaldi recently announced it won't be adding any AI features to its browser.

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There is some good news for Firefox ESR 115 users on older operating systems. Mozilla has extended support for the version until March 2026.

Note: ESR refers to Extended Support Release.

Mozilla released Firefox 115 in July 2023. Then, it had announced that Firefox 115.0 ESR would be the last version that supports Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, as well as Apple macOS 10.12, 10.13, and 10.14. This version was originally intended to be supported until September 2024.

In September 2024, Firefox ESR 128 replaced 115 as the new code base for current operating systems. However, Mozilla extended Firefox 115 ESR support for users on Windows 7, 8, 8.1 until April 1, 2025. But in February 2025, Mozilla once again extended support for Firefox ESR 115 branch until September 2025.

You guessed it, the same thing has happened, another 6-month extension. Redditors have spotted a note on Firefox's release calendar says that Mozilla has decided to extend support for Firefox ESR 115 only on Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and macOS 10.12 to 10.14 up to March 2026. Mozilla will re-evaluate the situation in February 2026, to decide whether to end support for Firefox 115 ESR.

Why does Mozilla keep extending support for these old operating systems? The latest Firefox Public Data Report reveals that 39.352% Firefox users are on Windows 11, and 38.926% are using Windows 10. 6.769% of Firefox users are still on Windows 7. All other operating systems, including Linux and macOS have amount to 14.952% of Firefox users. Well, that probably explains why Windows 7 is still supported by Firefox, and of course by extension, Windows 8, 8.1 as well.

Mozilla recommends users on supported operating systems to use Firefox ESR 128 or above.

We do not recommend using older operating systems that do not get security updates anymore. If you have no other choice, i.e. if you cannot upgrade to a newer operating system due to hardware limitations, it's understandable but extremely risky. I strongly suggest looking at Linux distros like Mint, it may take some getting used to switch from Windows or macOS, but it's possible that your old computer will be able to handle Linux just fine.

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