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Apple has announced that it is renaming its streaming service. Apple TV+ is now Apple TV.

Stop the presses! Wonder how long it took for them to arrive at this decision. Let's have a brainstorming session! And then someone said, "I got it! Let's call it Apple TV." Well, it's a little better than all the Xbox names. It's simpler, right? That's what you think. Here's something that you should know.

Apple has a streaming device, it's called Apple TV. No joke. But it's not an actual television, it's something that plugs into your TV, and lets you use various apps to stream videos. Confused? There is also an app that you can use to stream videos from Apple's network on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, etc. Any guesses about what it's called? That's right, the Apple TV app. It's kind of crazy to think they renamed the streaming service the same, when two products/services with the same moniker exist.

The internet is flooding with jokes about it that say things like, "You can stream Apple TV using Apple TV, on your Apple TV". The fact that none of these is an actual TV set is the icing on the cake. So, why did they do it? Why rename the streaming service, all of a sudden?

Apple announced the release of F1 The Movie on streaming platforms including Amazon Prime Video, Fandango at Home, and its own service. This announcement mentions, "Apple TV+ is now simply Apple TV, with a vibrant new identity." That's the reason, just because.

What's so vibrant about removing the plus from the name? If anything, they have made it all the more confusing now. Task failed successfully! Can you imagine guides and tutorials about using Apple TV? Which one are they talking about? Search results are about to get way worse.

Disney+, Paramount+, ESPN+, and Discovery+ all make it clear what the context is, they are paid subscriptions, just like Apple TV+ was. Even iCloud+, News+ does the same. It's an odd change.

On the plus side, sorry I couldn't resist that, there is no price hike for Apple TV subscription plans worldwide. They did increase the price by $3 a couple of months ago in the U.S. Anyway, the renaming hasn't reflected across Apple's web pages, or apps yet. But it is only a matter of time before the vibrancy spreads.

Do you use Apple TV? Which one?

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Amazon launched some Alexa-enabled Echo devices a week ago. The result has been absolutely chaotic, full-screen ads on smart displays.

Ads aren't new in Amazon's devices, ad-supported Kindle eReaders have been sold for a long time, they cost a little less than the regular versions. You may be aware that Prime Video has ads too. And ads on Alexa devices are not new either, they have been around for a couple of years. Up until now, the ad experience has been relatively muted, even on the Echo Show.

That changed with the release of the new models, which appears to be rather spammy with ads. According to The Verge's Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, the ads seem to be appearing on the smart home devices frequently, very frequently. On an Echo Show 8, an ad appeared once between two photos, and this happened many times. And you can't turn them off, or opt out of it.

The ads aren't, well, marked as ads or sponsored. Amazon's Echo Show just "highlights" the products that you may be interested in. Sneaky, isn't it? Then again, it is made and marketed by an online shopping giant. It's an unpleasant experience, but one we should have seen coming, especially in this day and age, where ad-supported is basically the starter tier. It is no a longer consumer-first economy.

Earlier this year, Amazon introduced Alexa Plus, its AI-powered assistant, which shouldn't come as a surprise. A couple of months ago, Amazon announced an Alexa+ Home screen Ad program, which displays full-screen ads for products on Alexa+ powered Echo Show Devices. This was launched in the US, UK and Germany. This was a part of Amazon's marketing strategies, to improve its revenue from its Devices & Services division.

The Division's head, Panos Panay, had told Tuohy, that the ads are not ads, if they are relevant. He called them "an add-on", which can help customers who are looking for something specific. But he also admitted that the current state of the ads were randomized. That would explain why users have been getting ads for products that they were not interested in. What next? Ads on the speaker? Speaking of which, remember when Amazon disabled local processing of Alexa voice requests. Coincidence?

Users can swipe to the next screen, or press the information button to provide feedback. But none of these stop the ads. Echo users on Reddit are annoyed by the changes, with some saying that they have unplugged their Echo Show due to the intrusive ads, others said they have cancelled their Amazon Prime subscription, and have switched to different speakers.

Do you have an Amazon Echo Show? Will you buy one knowing it will display ads?

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Apple Clips has been discontinued. The video editor app wasn't particularly popular among users, which probably led to it being abandoned.

The thing is, not a lot of people actually used it, some people may not have even heard about it. Apple launched Clips in April 2017, for iOS 10.3. It was designed to create videos, add effects, text, graphics to the videos, etc. You could save your work as a project, and come back to it later. The app came out during the time when Snapchat, Instagram were gaining popularity, especially for Stories.

While Clips was a decent video editor, its features were nowhere near the tool set that was offered by iMovie. Speaking of which, iMovie is available for Mac, iPhone and iPad, and is the perfect replacement for Clips. You don't even need to look for an alternative.

Anyway, the news that Clips has been discontinued is official. Macrumors reports that a support page on Apple's website mentions that The Clips app is no longer being updated. I still have it on my iPhone, and you may also have it, as it comes pre-installed with iOS.

Apple says users can continue using Clips on iOS 26 and iPadOS 26, and earlier versions of the operating systems. However, new users cannot download it, because Apple Clips is no longer available on the App Store, it was delisted on October 10, 2025.  Users are advised to save their Clips to their photo library or another location. You can import your projects to iMovie or other apps, to edit them.

The advisory to save the Clips seems to suggest a possibility that the app may disappear in future versions of iOS. That said, Apple Clips is a pretty basic video editor, you're probably not going to miss it. Use iMovie, or if you want more and have an iPad, take a look at DaVinci Resolve, which is a professional video editing suite that is free to use with a single optional in-app purchase to upgrade to the Studio version.

A lot of AI video generators are available now, and even apps like Google Photos lets you create videos from photos using AI, so that's always an option.

Did you use Apple Clips?

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Windows 10 users have just a day left to make a decision regarding the future of their device. Microsoft is ending support for the operating system on Tuesday. Probably the best option at this stage is to subscribe to extended security updates to extend support by a year for consumer devices.

However, some users may prefer to upgrade to Windows 11, especially if their device meets the operating system's requirements.

This can be done in the Settings application via Update & Security usually, but some users may prefer to use the Media Creation Tool instead.

What is it? The Media Creation Tool is an official software by Microsoft that can create bootable USB or DVD media to install or upgrade Windows.

Microsoft confirmed on October 10th that the tool may "not work as expected" when run on Windows 10 devices. The program may "close unexpectedly" and may not even display an error message when doing so.

Microsoft says that this issue affects the very latest version of the tool, which it released on September 29, 2025.

The company is working on a resolution, but it did not provide a timeline. The update "will be released in a future update to the Windows 11 media creation tool" according to the announcement.

Affected users may download a Windows disk image directly from Microsoft at the meantime to upgrade or use it as a workaround, suggests Microsoft. This is not as comfortable, as the ISO needs to be moved to a USB device using another tool or burned to DVD manually in that case.

You may want to use the open source tool Rufus instead. It is the better tool anyway. Rufus offers similar functionality as Microsoft's official program. You can use it to create bootable USB media. It supports downloading Windows 10 or Windows 11 from Microsoft, and you can pick the version that you want to download.

That is good news for users who want to upgrade to an earlier version of Windows 11 first and not the very latest that Microsoft released.

Rufus supports extra features, like bypassing certain system requirement checks when installing or upgrading Windows 11. Ideal for upgrading a Windows 10 system that does not meet the requirements.

In any case, I recommend creating a full system backup of the system partition before you start the upgrade.

Now You: Do you still use Windows 10 on your PC or have you moved on? If you still do, what are your plans going forward? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

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Often, when I'm asked to fix something on a mobile device or computer, I noticed that the user is getting a ton of notifications from all sorts of websites. It is easy enough to allow sites to send notifications. Once click and it is done. Not so easy to turn them off again, at least not, if you do not know where to look for that option.

Google's last effort to do something about too many notifications in Chrome dates back to 2020. It introduced quieter notifications in Chrome 80 back then.

Google announced that it plans to do something against notification overload on the official Chromium Blog. The company says that this should pave the way for a "quieter browsing experience" in the Chrome browser.

The details:

• The change will roll out in Chrome for Android and for the desktop.
• Chrome unsubscribes you from notifications automatically, if you did not visit a site recently.

Google says that less than one percent of notifications receive interactions from users, and that this is the main reason why the company set out to find a solution.

Chrome displays a notification -- or the irony -- when it removes notifications from websites. The option to review is provided, and you may use it to restore a notification. Doing so opens the Safety Check page of the browser. There you may view the removed sites and restore access.

Users who do not want the feature may turn it off entirely. This may be useful for users who want to keep all notifications, even if they do not interact with them usually.

While Google mentions Chrome only in the announcement, the change will land in Chromium, the open source core of the browser. It is therefore likely that other Chromium-based browsers, such as Microsoft Edge, Vivaldi, Brave, or Opera, will also get the feature in the future.

Google claims that tests have shown that the feature reduces notification overload significantly and changes clicks on notifications only minimally.

The new feature is part of the browser's Safety Check feature. It will include notification checks in its frequent scans starting today.

Now you: how do you handle notifications in the browser? Do you allow them from certain sites, or block any request immediately? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

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Mozilla is prepping a new VPN service called Firefox VPN. This will protect all traffic in the browser.

Mozilla has a VPN called, Mozilla VPN. It's basically Mullvad VPN. So, what's Firefox VPN. Well, unlike Mozilla VPN, which is a systemwide protection, Firefox VPN is said to be a browser-only VPN, so it won't protect web traffic from other apps on your computer.

A few months ago, Windows Report's Venkat discovered that Mozilla began testing something called Firefox IP Protection. It was laying the foundation for Firefox VPN. This is being tested currently, and is available for few users. A new article by Windows Report says that once the VPN is available, you will see an option on the toolbar, and will be prompted to sign in to your Mozilla account to set up the VPN. This experimental VPN will route your traffic through a server located in the U.S. Things are likely to change in the future, as it is still in beta. Don't like it? You will be able to disable the feature from the browser.

Image courtesy: Windows Report

Is there a way to test Firefox VPN? The short answer is no. I enabled the browser.ipProtection.enabled flag in about:config, but it doesn't seem to do anything. I also tried searching for further VPN flags in about:config, and in about:studies, but couldn't find it in Firefox stable, beta and nightly channels on Linux and on a Windows 11 VM. After discussing this Venkat in a personal chat, I've come to the conclusion that there is no away around the Nimbus rollout, which is completely automated and randomized.

To learn more about Firefox VPN, I began looking around Bugzilla, and found a GitHub page that indicates that the IPP Add-on Activator extension that was introduced in the Firefox 143 branch, which we are on currently.

Bugzilla has several reports about IP Protection, one of which reveals a plan for a new section to manage Firefox VPN from the browser's Settings. It looks like users will be able to configure the VPN to be used on a per-site-basis, or choose to encrypt all traffic in Firefox, except for some that you may blacklist. There are plans to set the VPN to auto-start with the session, or only turn it on in Private Browsing mode.

The "upgrade to Mozilla VPN" option is also interesting, which all but confirms that Firefox VPN will be free.

Here's another listing that showcases the site management panel for Firefox VPN.

It will surely have some restrictions such as data limits, fewer server locations, compared to Mozilla's VPN. Mozilla wants Firefox to become "the best VPN-integrated browser on the market". As for its privacy policy, Firefox VPN will collect some technical data, including the connection quality, bandwidth usage for improving its service. It will not log your browsing history. I wouldn't be surprised if this is some sort of collaboration with Mullvad.

Opera, Microsoft, Brave, and even Vivaldi (Proton VPN) have a built-in VPN. Why not Firefox? It shouldn't be a problem as long as it is optional.

What do you think?

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Last month, Vivaldi was updated to 7.6 on desktop. Now, the mobile versions have been updated, Vivaldi 7.6 for iOS brings several new features, including a Reader View, and a Tab Stack Pane.

When you are on a web page, tap on the Reader View button in the address bar to view a distraction-free version of the page. It offers a few customization options such as changing the theme (light, dark, sepia, high-contrast black), a brightness slider, options to switch between Sans Serif, Serif or Monospace font, and adjust the text size using the + and - buttons.

Note: You can disable Reader View from the Settings > Content Settings.

Vivaldi comes with a bunch of search engines by default. The latest update adds an option to use custom search engines, so you can add Kagi, Qwant, or anything that you prefer. Go to Settings > Search > Add Search Engine.

For example, you can add Qwant like this: https://www.qwant.com/?q=%s or Kagi using: https://kagi.com/search?q=%s. Give it a nickname to access it quickly, usually this is done automatically. The app also picks up the search engine's icon, and adds it to your list. Tap on an existing search engine to edit its options.

Vivaldi's Tab Switcher is now home to a new button, the Tab Stack Pane. Tapping on it allows you to view a list of all your Tab Stacks. You can now add a tab to a stack quickly, by long pressing on a link, and selecting the Add to Stack option.

Long pressing on URLs also displays a preview of the linked page, without leaving the current page, right inside that compact pop-up. It does temporarily blank the background tab, possibly for readability. Link previews can be disabled from the Settings > Content Settings.

Vivaldi 7.6 for Android update adds a new feature. You can create bookmark folders quickly, by choosing to create a new folder when you save a bookmark.

Download Vivaldi 7.6 for iOS from the App Store, and the Android version from the Play Store. The announcement for the update is available on Vivaldi's blog.

Which of these new features do you like?

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Canonical has released Ubuntu 25.10 Questing Quokka. There are a couple of important changes in this release.

Ubuntu 25.10 comes with the GNOME 49 desktop environment, making Wayland session the only option available for users. It does not support X11/Xorg sessions. Ubuntu 25.10 ships with Linux kernel 6.17, based on 6.17-RC7. It includes Mesa 25.2.3 drivers with support for Intel Core Ultra Xe3 integrated Intel Arc graphics, and Intel Arc Pro B50 and B60 “Battlemage” discrete GPUs.

The proprietary Nvidia driver now supports Suspend-resume by default, in order to reduct freezes and corruption when waking up from sleep. Fractional scaling has been improved to reduce blur. Ubuntu's default monospace font size has been reduced to match the UI font size in terminals and similar apps.

The update changes some default apps. Ptyxis terminal emulator is now the default terminal, replacing the GNOME Terminal. Loupe image viewer replaces the Eye of GNOME as the default image viewer. Ubuntu now uses sudo-rs, which is a new Rust implementation of the sudo tool. The initramfs-tool has been replaced by Dracut, which uses sytemd, for the default initial ramdisk infrastructure. It supports new features such as Bluetooth and NVM Express over Fabrics (NVMe-oF). Chrony is the new default time-daemon in Ubuntu 25.10, replacing systemd-timesyncd, and uses the Ubuntu Network Time Security (NTS) servers by default. Apps can be set to auto-start at boot from the Settings > Apps.

Images courtesy: Canonical Blog

Ubuntu's Software Updater window will not pop up or steal the keyboard focus, when system updates are available. The OS will display a notification, that has options to open the Software Updater or to install all updates directly.

An icon in the system tray reminds you that updates are available even after dismissing the notification. It also provides a quick way to apply all the updates or inspect them in the Software Updater. Ubuntu 25.10 brings experimental support for TPM-backed Full Disk Encryption (FDE), for added security.

Ubuntu 25.10 Ubuntu 25.10 will receive updates for 9 months, until July 2026. You can download it from the official website. If you want more technical details about Ubuntu 25.10, please refer to the Questing Quokka release notes on Ubuntu Discourse.

Here are the system requirements for Ubuntu 25.10

• 2 GHz dual-core processor or better
• 4 GB system memory
• 25 GB of free hard drive space
• Either a USB port or a DVD drive for the installer media

Canonical also confirmed that Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is called Resolute Raccoon.

Windows 10 will reach end of support in 5 days from now. If your computer cannot be upgraded to Windows 11, you can try Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora or any distro that you want.

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Over the past few years, it has managed to captivate users with ChatGPT, but OpenAI has bigger plans. It wants to create an operating system with ChatGPT at its heart.

Nick Turley, the head of ChatGPT, told TechCrunch that he believes that the company is inspired by browsers, to create an OS. He says that browsers have become the primary tool at the workplace because of web apps. Turley isn't the first one to compare browsers with an operating system. In fact, a couple of browsers were already designed like that, Arc Browser and Dia Browser. The Browser Company's CEO, Josh Miller, had the same idea as Turley.

It's worth noting that back in April this year, Turley had told a U.S. court that OpenAI would be interested in buying Chrome, if Google were to be forced to sell it. A couple of months later, rumors began circling that OpenAI was building its own AI browser to rival Perplexity's Comet browser. Turley did not confirm the rumors, nor did he deny it, but believes that ChatGPT will evolve into a platform with various apps.

AI-powered is advancing rapidly. In September, OpenAI had added shopping capabilities in ChatGPT, allowing users to buy products from Etsy, and Shopify (coming soon). OpenAI launched apps in ChatGPT earlier this week, with support for Expedia, Uber, Thumbtack, Instacart, DoorDash, Target, Booking.com, Canva, Coursera, Figma, Spotify and Zillow. These apps are available in English for all users, except those in the European Union. A couple of days ago, I reported about the Spotify app's availability in ChatGPT. A couple of days ago, Google introduced the Gemini 2.5 Computer Use model in Google AI Studio and Vertex AI.

If AI can provide and handle everything a user needs, it eliminates the need for interaction with other browsers or apps. That's sort of what OpenAI seems to think, clearly that is the motivation to create a ChatGPT operating system. Whether that is a good thing for users, and would actually serve as a replacement for Windows, Linux and macOS, is a completely different story. I feel it's a little far-fetched, and possibly difficulty to achieve, in terms of attracting users. An AI-powered browser would likely help win users over far easier than an OS. Not that I like either idea, of course.

What do you think about an AI-powered operating system?

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Agentic browsing is the next big thing in AI, at least when you ask the likes of Microsoft, Google, Opera, Perplexity and others. It is an integrated AI that performs tasks on behalf of the user. From research to creating Spotify playlists or, my personal favorites, buying groceries (that's irony).

While some of these tasks do not require special permissions or data, others, like making a purchase on your behalf, do. This usually requires authorization. If you want the AI to buy something from Amazon, it needs your Amazon account credentials to do just that. At other times, it may need access to API keys or one-time codes.

That is seen as a problem by some, as you have to trust the maker of the AI that the artificial intelligence won't do anything problematic with the data. There is also the chance of it being retained and then stolen, if things go really wrong.

1Password, maker of the password manager of the same name, announced a solution to the problem. According to the company's announcement, agentic browsers introduce a whole range of issues:

• No single source of truth for secrets management across agentic AI and employees
• Difficulty of revoking credentials/items, especially long-lived ones
• Proliferation of untracked/out-of-date credential grants

The company calls its solution Secure Agentic Autofill. It explains: "Secure Agentic Autofill injects credentials via the 1Password Browser Extension into a browser on behalf of an AI agent only when required and always authorized by a person".

The AI never gets its virtual hands on the password, credentials, or other sensitive data under the system. Credential storage is delegated to the password manager, which will fill out the credentials on behalf of the user. 1Password says that the AI and its large language model "never need to see nor handle the credentials" to complete the workflow.

The maker of the password manager has developed a new protocol for that very purpose. Its purpose is to allow the secure requesting and delivering of credentials into the browser context. The protocol creates an end-to-end encrypted channel between the 1Password browser extension and 1Password device.

The agent has to inform 1Password that credentials are required, which 1Password then identifies. The password manager requests human approval to inject the credentials securely into the browser.

The integration is only available through Browserbase. The company operates a platform for building and running browser-based AI agents.

Can 1Password succeed with Secure Agentic Autofill? Much depends on adoption, preferably by bigger players. It might stay a niche feature of a password manager, especially if the likes of Google, Microsoft, or OpenAI do not throw their weight behind the protocol.

Now You: Would you hand over credentials to AI agents so that they can act on your behalf? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

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A few days ago, Discord had revealed that one of its customer service providers had suffered a data breach. It had resulted in photos of government-ID photos being stolen by the attackers.

In its initial report, Discord had said that the hackers had gained access to "a small number" of government-ID images. However, an update to the statement says that about 70,000 photos of government-issued IDs were exposed. Sure, that's a small number.

VX Underground, which is known for its repository for malware samples for cybersecurity research, alleged that the Discord data breach was significantly larger. They claimed that attackers had targeted Zendesk, and compromised it, thus gaining access to 1.5TB of age verification related images. The total number was said to be 2.1 Million, more specifically, 2,185,151 images. This included driver licenses, passports, and may also have included an unknown number of email addresses. More importantly, the report claimed that Discord was being extorted by the attackers.

Discord has denied the data breach was so large. In a statement sent by spokesperson Nu Wexler to The Verge, Discord said that inaccurate claims are being circulated online. The company says approximately 70,000 users may have had their government-ID photos exposed. Discord also said that it would not reward those responsible for their illegal actions, meaning it would not pay the ransom.

Discord says all users who were impacted by the data breach have been notified of the attack, and that it is still investigating the matter with the help of law enforcement, security experts, and data protection authorities.

This security mishap has highlighted that age verification laws such as the U.K.'s Online Safety Act could not only pose privacy risks, but also expose user data to hacks. It only took a couple of months for hackers to gain access to a database containing images of personal identification documents, which was never supposed to exist in the first place. Discord had claimed that its support services would verify the age of users and immediately delete them, which, if it were true, would not have led to such an incident.

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