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Linux Mint Debian Edition 7 has been released. The update is called Gigi.

The stable release comes less than a month after the first beta of the distro was released. LMDE 7 is based on Debian 13 Trixie. It ships with the Linux 6.12 LTS kernel, and the Cinnamon desktop environment.

LMDE 7 includes the features that were introduced in Linux Mint 22.2 Zara, such as support for fingerprint authentication, for login, sudo commands.  The update brings changes from libadwaita-1.7. Feel free to read my previous coverage to learn more about the features in Mint 22.2.

Linux Mint Debian Edition 7 also introduces support for OEM installs, meaning the distro can be pre-installed by manufacturers on brand-new computers.

(Image courtesy: Linux Mint)

As a reminder, LMDE 7 is a 64-bit only OS. It does not support 32-bit computers.

For a full list of changes, please refer to Debian 13's release notes.

LMDE 7 System requirements:

• 2GB RAM (4GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
• 20GB of disk space (100GB recommended).
• 1024×768 resolution (on lower resolutions, press ALT to drag windows with the mouse if they don’t fit in the screen).

Users on LMDE 6 can run the following commands in the terminal to upgrade to v7.

apt update
apt install mintupgrade
sudo mintupgrade

This should initiate the updater. Or you can download Linux Mint Debian Edition 7 from the official website.

There are a few known issues in LMDE 7, which you can read about at the release notes page. This is a long term support release, an LTS. It is expected to follow the same schedule as Debian 13 LTS, which is supported until 30 Jun 2030.

Note: This is an FYI article. I have not tested LMDE 7. But I use Linux Mint, so the experience is pretty much the same.

Linux Mint 22.3 is targeting a December 2025 release, and will include a new app menu, a status applet, improvements to the Wayland session, ad more.

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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 update broke the Media Creation Tool

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.

The better workaround: Rufus

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.

Combat Notification Overload

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

Secure Agentic Autofill Secure Agentic Autofill workflow (image source: 1Password)

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.

Closing Words

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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Google has announced that it has expanded AI Mode in Search to more regions, and has added support for several new languages. It will roll out to more users next week.

Oddly, the announcement does not mention the languages or the Countries. Leaving users to guess, eh? It's not likely they will miss it, AI Mode appears right at the top of the search results. While Google claims that users are engaging with AI mode for complex topics, and asking questions nearly 3 times longer than traditional search, it has been met with criticism from publishers, who feel that it steals traffic from their websites.

Anyway, AI Mode debuted in English alongside Gemini 2.0 in March 2025, but Google expanded support to a handful of languages in September, including: Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.

Here's an archived version of a support page that lists all the languages that are supported by AI mode, along with the regions it is available in. This is the current version of the page. Based on a comparison of the two versions of the page, here are the new languages that were added.

1. Arabic
2. Bengali
3. Bulgarian
4. Chinese (Simplified)
5. Chinese (Traditional)
6. Croatian
7. Czech
8. Danish
9. Dutch
10. German
11. Greek
12. Finnish
13. French
14. Hebrew
15. Hungarian
16. Italian
17. Kannada
18. Lithuanian
19. Malayalam
20. Marathi
21. Malay
22. Norwegian
23. Persian (Farsi)
24. Polish
25. Romanian
26. Russian
27. Serbian
28. Slovak
29. Swedish
30. Tamil
31. Telugu
32. Thai
33. Turkish
34. Ukrainian
35. Urdu
36. Vietnamese

Here is a list of the regions where AI Mode has been expanded to.

Americas

1. Aruba
2. Curaçao
3. St. Maarten

Asia-Pacific

1. Australia
2. Caribbean Netherlands

Europe, the Middle East & Africa

1. Åland Islands
2. Austria
3. Belgium
4. Bouvet Island
5. Bulgaria
6. Burkina Faso
7. Canary Islands
8. Ceuta & Melilla
9. Croatia
10. Cyprus
11. Czechia
12. Denmark
13. Estonia
14. Eurozone
15. Finland
16. Germany
17. Greece
18. Greenland
19. Hungary
20. Iceland
21. Ireland
22. Italy
23. Latvia
24. Liechtenstein
25. Lithuania
26. Luxembourg
27. Malta
28. Netherlands
29. Norway
30. Poland
31. Portugal
32. Romania
33. Russia
34. Slovenia
35. Slovakia
36. Spain
37. Sweden
38. Switzerland
39. Svalbard and Jan Mayen
40. Vatican City

That's about 45 new regions in total. It's clear that Google wants more users to use its AI, this massive push might help fuel its numbers up. Like I said, not everyone is a fan of AI Mode, don't like it? Block it and move on.

Do you use AI Mode?

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Apple has uploaded a video on YouTube to mock Windows. It is related to last year's CrowdStrike fiasco that took down millions of PCs worldwide.

The 8-minute-long video focuses on The Underdogs, with the same cast that debuted in the comedy short films from about 6 years ago. This time, the fictional sales team heads to Container Con, to land a huge deal. Things don't exactly go well for them initially, but then turns really wacky. Despite the video's theme primarily focusing on the BSOD issue, Apple managed to pretty much showcase many features across its devices, from Apple Watch, iPhone, and of course, Mac. It is a commercial for Mac, after all.

If you have 8 minutes to spare. Watch The Underdogs: BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) video, on Apple's YouTube channel.

I should warn you, the video is pretty silly, maybe a little cringy. I mean, you see worse things on YouTube, TikTok, etc. It's not as bad as those, especially the part where they explain about Mac's security, and simultaneously mock Windows' kernel level access to programs.

Apple wants you to switch to Mac. The timing is definitely curious, because Windows 10 reaches end of support in exactly a week. I'm not saying that is Apple is expecting people to buy a Mac. But a lot of people with outdated computers may be interested in buying a new computer. Would you buy a Mac, though? They are good computers, but Macs aren't really affordable.

You could of course consider switching to Linux, and save some money. Take a look at Linux Mint, I've been using it as my primary OS (alongside a Mac) for about 85 days now, including gaming. There's also Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Bazzite, CachyOS, etc. There are a lot of distros, the choice is yours, they are all free, and will likely run just fine on your old computer that can't be upgraded to Windows 11.

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Microsoft launched Windows 10 almost 10 years ago and it plans to end support for the operating system next week, on October 14th, 2025.

End of support means that Microsoft won't deliver updates to your devices anymore for the operating system. That is a problem, as security issues won't get fixed anymore. If you connect your PC to the Internet, this affects the security of the device and is in most cases better avoided.

This guide reveals the options that you have to keep the PC up and running, and secured.

Option 1: Extend the life by joining ESU

Extended Security Updates are at this time probably the best option. They extend life by a year for consumer PCs and by up to three years for business PCs.

For consumers, it is easy to join.

• Check Settings > Update / Security for enrollment information. Check this guide for additional details on enrolling in Windows 10 ESU.
• Use this handy open source script to join, even if you use a local account.

Users from the European Economic Area may join for free. Everyone else has three options (pay money, pay with Rewards points, allow cloud backups).

Takeaway: Extends support by a year, giving you time to think about the next step.

Option 2: Upgrade to Windows 11

The upgrade to Windows 11 should be free for most Windows 10 devices. However, not all Windows 10 devices are compatible with Windows 10, as Microsoft changed the system requirements.

You can use Microsoft's official PC Health Check app to find out if your PC is compatible.

If your PC is compatible, you should be able to upgrade to Windows 11 via Settings > Update & Security.

If your PC is not compatible, there is still a good chance that you can install Windows 11 on the device. My suggestion is to use the open source Flyoobe for that. It does all of the heavy lifting for you so that you can install Windows 11 without having to tinker with Registry settings or manipulating installation media manually.

Another option comes in the form of the open source tool Rufus. Either way, most Windows 10 PCs should be able to upgrade to Windows 11 using these tools.

Option 3: Sign up for 0Patch

The third-party 0Patch will provide critical security updates for Windows 10 once it goes out of support. You install an agent on the system that patches the issues in memory. It costs about $30 per year, but you also get support for other Microsoft products, such as Office versions that Microsoft no longer supports.

0Patch plans to support Windows 10 until 2030 at the very least. The company has a solid track record of pushing out patches, some even before Microsoft.

Option 4: Switch to Linux Linux Mint is an option

This is the most daunting option, as it will take quite some time and learning. Linux is free and open source, and you can switch for free.

However, there are some caveats:

• You need to migrate the data from your Windows 10 PC.
• Not all apps or games that you worked with may be available, but there are usually alternatives.
• You need to learn using a new operating system.

It is probably the best option, if you plan to use the PC for a long time. However, it is not the best course of action when you are in a hurry. Better option: join ESU, use the year to prepare, then migrate.

Option 5: Buy a new PC

This is Microsoft's recommended option. If your Windows 10 PC is not compatible with Windows 11, just buy a new one. This works out well if you needed a new PC anyway and have the money to do so.

This is not as easy as picking the first PC with Windows 11 that you encounter. You need to make several decisions.

1. Do you need AI functionality or want the option to use it in the future? Then you should pay attention to the Copilot+ PCs label, as this guarantees support for now.
2. Do you have special requirements, for instance for gaming or work that requires plenty of horse power?
3. Do you just need a PC to browse the Internet, do some shopping, watch a few streams? A mini PC may be an option.

Now You: have another option that I missed or did you pick one of the listed options already? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

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Mozilla has announced that it will begin rolling out profile management in Firefox next week. The feature is already available in the browser, but is hidden behind a preference.

Martin tested this feature in January this year, and as he mentioned, opening Firefox with the P parameter like this "firefox -P" lets you access the Profile Manager. You can also access your profiles, or create a new one from about:profiles. But these methods are not particularly user-friendly. That's why the Profile Switcher menu has been designed, to simplify things.

Using multiple profiles allows you to maintain a separate collection of tabs, bookmarks, add-ons, etc. You can create a separate profile for work, personal use, shopping, etc.

Mozilla says the new Profile Management feature will roll out to users from October 14th. A quick look at the Firefox Release Calendar says that Firefox 144 is set to release on October 13th. So that's the version which will bring profile management to the stable channel by default, for a limited number of users.

But you don't need to wait until then, you can try it right now in the stable version of Firefox by changing a flag. The setting has been available since Firefox 138, which was released in April 2025. To enable the Profile Switcher in Firefox, open about: config and search for browser.profiles.enabled and set its value to true. You don't have to restart the browser. To access the feature, just click on the hamburger menu button, and you should see Profiles at the top of the menu.

However, if you are worried that things might get messed up, you can install Firefox Nightly to test the Profile Manager. It already has the Profile Switcher enabled by default, so you don't need to edit any flag in the Nightly version.

Note: If you wish to sync profiles, you should create a separate Mozilla account for each profile. Refer to the support page here for more details.

Do you use multiple profiles in Firefox?

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Spotify has announced that it has partnered with ChatGPT. It says the chatbot will allow users to discover music with personalized recommendations.

Spotify recently introduced search and play for free users, with some limitations. So, why bother with ChatGPT when you can search for songs or artists directly in Spotify? Well, that can only search specific tracks, albums or artists.

According to the announcement, users can interact with ChatGPT using natural language to ask for songs, artists, albums, playlists, or podcast episodes. The bot will display Spotify in the chat, and follow your query to display suggestions. For example, you can ask it to create a Spotify playlist based on your favorite genre, or a mood, theme, topic, etc. Tap on one of the tracks in the results, and ChatGPT will open the Spotify app, where you can listen to the music.

(Image via Spotify)

You can access the new options on Chatgpt.com and ChatGPT's mobile apps on iOS and Android. But, you will need to be logged-in to the chatbot to access Spotify's capabilities. Want to try it? Just open ChatGPT and start typing your query, mention Spotify in it. You will be asked to log in to your Spotify account, to connect it with the chatbot.

Spotify has an AI DJ already, which has been met with mixed reaction from users. YouTube Music is also testing an AI host that can provide commentary, trivia and even tells stories.

Spotify's AI features are available for free users on the music streaming platform, but you are limited to Spotify’s catalog of playlists in Discover Weekly and New Music Friday. If you have a Spotify Premium subscription, you can use ChatGPT to create personalized playlists. The features are available for all ChatGPT users in, including free accounts, as well as those with a Plus and Pro subscription. But, it only supports English at the moment.

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Remember the free DLC that was teased for Assassin's Creed Mirage? Ubisoft has officially revealed it, Valley of Memory, is coming next month.

The free expansion is set in 9th-century Arabia. Specifically, it focuses on the AlUla region, an oasis-city that is located in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Valley of Memory will have players once again taking the role of Mirage's protagonist, Basim, but this time he steps into his past, searching for his lost father. You also get to understand why Basim joined the Hidden Ones.

Watch the official reveal of Assassin's Creed Mirage: Valley of Memory on YouTube.

This is a proper story expansion, featuring over 6 hours of content. Besides the main story, new assassination targets, it will add tons of new regions to explore, contracts, side quests, parkour challenges. AlUla poses many dangers, including a band of deadly robbers. Venture too far into the desert, and you could walk right into an ambush, or be attacked by the fauna. Ubisoft says it has carefully recreated the locations with the help of historians for accurately portraying the old town of AlUla, the Musa Ibn Musayr fortress, the Valley of the Stones, and the necropolis of Hegra.

Assassin's Creed Mirage: Valley of Memory also comes with various improvements to the gameplay mechanics. The Parkour system in the game allows users to manually trigger a jump, side and back ejects, for a more free-running experience. Mirage's free update will bring a new skill called Engineer 2, that lets you equip all level mods to tools. All tool mods can be upgraded to level 3. Mirage is also getting 2 additional difficulty levels that can be customized. These improvements are applicable to Mirage's main story too.

Assassin's Creed Mirage: Valley of Memory releases as a free update on November 18th for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Amazon Luna and iOS. For once, it's nice to see a free expansion for a game, it's a refreshing break from the recent price hikes for Game Pass, Xbox consoles, etc.

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Microsoft is making another change to the Windows Setup experience, also called Out-of-the-box experience (OOBE). It is removing a known workaround that allowed users to bypass the Microsoft account requirement while installing Windows.

In March 2025, Microsoft had announced that it was removing the bypassnro.cmd script for the improving Windows 11's security and user experience. It said that this change would ensure all users needed internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account to complete the setup. However, it didn't stop users from using other workarounds, like using a registry edit to activate the script, to set up Windows 11 without a Microsoft account.

That didn't sit well with the folks at Redmond, a new announcement says that Microsoft is removing known mechanisms for creating a local account during the Windows Setup experience. (Thanks ECJ for the tip)

The "Local-only commands removal" is likely referring to the start ms-cxh:localonly command, which people were using as a means to bypass the online account requirement.

Why is Microsoft doing this? Well, it claims that by bypassing the Microsoft account setup, they also skip critical setup screens. It also alleges that this results in a device that is not fully configured for use. Yeah, I'm sure users like to click through half a dozen screens to opt-out of Microsoft 365, OneDrive, Game Pass and other nonsense.

It says users will need an internet connection, and use a Microsoft account to complete OOBE. No more offline setups. Is that true? There are a couple of workarounds that still seem to work. If you have Windows 11 Pro, you can choose the option to join a domain later, which will create an offline account first. Rufus' developer commented a couple of weeks ago that the tool still works as of 2 weeks ago. That's on Windows 11 25H2, and it uses BypassNRO, but your network must be disconnected for it to work.

On a sidenote, Microsoft says users can customize their default user folder name in OOBE. You will need to press Shift + F10 to open Command Prompt. Switch to the OOBE folder by typing “cd oobe” press enter. Use the following command to set a custom folder name: “SetDefaultUserFolder.cmd <YourFolderName>”. It has a maximum limit of 16 characters.

Reminder: Windows 10 will reach end of life support on October 14, that's exactly a week from today. There are multiple ways to extend support for a year.

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When Meta launched its AI into its core products WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram, it launched it with limited capacities. AI-based chat was the main feature, which works similarly to all other AI chats that you can use for free or as a paying customer.

Nowadays, Meta expanded the functionality of its AI, which can now summarize content on Whatsapp among other things. It still cannot be disabled entirely, however.

Soon, all your interactions with AI may be used for personalizating content on all Meta platforms. Meta announced the change officially last week. It plans to use your interactions with AI to power advertisement and recommendations that it says will become more personal as a consequence.

• Meta users who use Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp will be informed about the change from October 7 onward.
• The change lands on December 16, 2025 for users from most regions and country.

While Meta does not provide a list of exceptions, it appears that users from the United Kingdom, South Korea, and the European Union won't have their AI chats used for those purposes at that time. The rollout may be delayed, just like the initial rollout of Meta AI was delayed in those regions.

Meta says that this helps provide more relevant content (and ads) to users. Currently, Meta uses interactions for the very purpose. When users like or post, this content may be used to push what Meta believes are related posts or ads into a user's feed.

The interactions with Meta AI will become another signal that Meta uses for the delivery of ads and for recommendations. For example, when you ask about a vacation destination, you might get ads around that, such as hotels in the location, day trips, or transfers.

There is no opt-out, similarly to how it is not possible to turn off Meta AI entirely at this time. However, users may continue to ignore the AI by not interacting with it to avoid giving Meta yet another signal for ads and personalization.

Meta says that it is blocking certain sensitive topics automatically from being used for the purpose. Topics such as religion, politics, or health won't be used for advertising on the company's platforms.

Meta users may add certain topics to a list of ads that they do not want to see. This may not prevent them entirely, but Meta claims that doing so will reduce the frequency in which these ads are shown.

Now You: Have you used Meta's AI in the past already or are using it regularly? Or do you prefer an AI-free environment? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

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