Articles

Microsoft has warned the latest Windows 10 update could produce a completely black screen for some users. It's easily fixable and shouldn't be a permanent problem. Microsoft hasn't given any details of why the problem occurs, or if it affects people ... with a particular piece of hardware or software in place. It's only saying that a "small number of devices" appear to be affected. The problem is listed as being with Windows 10 version 1809 and 1803. Those are the two major updated versions of Windows 10 which were released last year. Version 1803 was released in April, 2018, while 1809 was ... (view more)

Facebook is launching an app that tracks what apps users use on their devices. In return, compensation will be provided. Facebook says only users over 18 years of age can take part in the 'research'. The app is named "Study" and is openly billed as ... being a "market research tool" for Facebook. It's designed for Facebook to learn more about its users, which the company says will help improve its services. Study will collect and transmit details of what apps are on the user's phones, how much time they spend using those apps, and - in some cases - what specific featured they ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Joni D. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a gmail account, and over the years I've signed up for a few newsletters and promotions. Long story short, my gmail inbox contains 44,000 emails in total; 38,000 of those emails are located in ... the 'promotions' folder. I've logged into gmail.com and tried to mass delete my gmail inbox, but I have no idea how to do that. Selecting 50 items per page and clicking 'delete' would take years to clean out my inbox. Do you know how I can mass delete my gmail inbox , spam, promotions and similar from my gmail account? " My response: I rarely ever ... (view more)

Mozilla has made two major changes to make Firefox browsing easier and safer. It's adding a robust password manager and and enhanced cookie blocking feature that will help avoid dubious online tracking. The password manager is called Firefox ... Lockwise. For now it's only available as a browser extension, rather than being built into the browser itself. It's the same service that was previously available on mobile devices as "LockBox." The basic functions of Lockwise include being able to store login credentials and access from multiple devices, and are much the same as on third-party ... (view more)

If you're still on Windows 7 or earlier, you need to make sure you have a recent security patch installed as soon as possible. It fixes a very serious operating system exploit, dubbed "BlueKeep". Note that a firewall and antivirus will not block ... operating system exploits , which is why using an unsupported operating system is incredibly dangerous . The bug is in the way that Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) works. Remote Desktop Protocol lets somebody on one computer see and control another computer in another location. It has some extremely useful applications such as working away ... (view more)

Microsoft says it is working on a "modern operating system" for the computers of the future. It avoided using the term "Windows" and the features and characteristics it describes share a lot with Google's Chrome operating system. The details came in ... a talk by Microsoft executives at Computex, a conference in Taipei. They demonstrated some of the latest laptops that run Windows, but then discussed how future PCs will have continually evolving requirements. The company's write-up of the talk says Microsoft is investing in "modern OS" experiences and uses that term eight times in a single ... (view more)

The National Security Agency (NSA) is refusing to comment on claims a tool it developed has been used in a ransomware attack on the Baltimore city government. The New York Times says the attackers used a tool called "EternalBlue." The attackers have ... encrypted Baltimore government systems and demanded between $76,000 and $114,440 (depending on the account) to restore access. Officials have refused to pay and used workarounds including some manual processing of files and switching to Gmail for internal communications. It seems the attack was carried out using EternalBlue, which is ... (view more)