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Hard disk drives could finally be out by Christmas if this trend continues
By Desire Athow published about 1 hour ago

The average price of SSD building blocks is falling down and it’s good news

Analyst firm Trendforce has forecasted that the average selling price of NAND Flash, the basic building block of all SSD (Solid State Drives) and microSD cards will fall by up to 15% during the current quarter. It has already been down by almost 25% over the last quarter prompting the biggest manufacturers; Kioxia, Solidigm, Micron and WDC to slash production in order to reduce supply in the market.

Weak demand in the consumer and enterprise SSD customers combined with Samsung’s reluctance to keep producing as much NAND as possible means that the price drop we’ve seen over the past 12 months across SSD and microSD products will likely carry on unabated with smaller capacities gradually phased out.

Samsung is the largest NAND Flash vendor and has already committed to investing heavily in R&D in order to stay ahead of rivals. SK Hynix and Micron announced in 2022 that they would launch 238-layer and 232-layer products respectively which - on paper - will dramatically bring down the cost of Terabyte for solid state drives.

For obvious reasons, no vendor has yet released PLC (penta level cell) NAND, the next technological breakthrough which will enable even cheaper, high capacity SSD.

Data bloodbath by Christmas 2023?
The cheapest 1TB microSD cards are currently selling for around $75 at Amazon, a near 50% price drop compared to a year ago. While we don’t expect prices to half, another 30% drop by the end of the year appears to be reasonable, which would bring the price of a 1TB microSD card closer to $50.

This would have a knock on effect on smaller capacities (512GB, 256GB, 128GB) and we expect 64GB and 32GB microSD to be pushed out of the market altogether.

The same applies for USB flash drives where the cheapest genuine 256GB models are currently selling for around $10 with vendors resorting to multi-pack offers in order to entice customers with lower capacities. The fact that many recent laptops do not have a Type-A connector or a microSD card slot also dramatically reduces the size of the total addressable market.

The most exciting market remains that of SSD where customers are having an absolute field day as prices continue going down. The cheapest SSD per TB at the time of writing is the Leven JS600 ($74.99 for 1.92TB), a further drop of around 30% over the next nine months will see it reach parity with smaller capacity hard disk drives like the Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM008.

These cheap models are 2.5-inch SATA storage devices and because they're defacto equipped with a SATA connector, they should rapidly supplant external hard drives with a capacity of up to 2TB as well. Two trends though that’s worth bearing in mind: 2.5-inch drives are on the way out as well as they’re being replaced by M.2 PCIe drives.

Larger capacity hard drives are safe for now but it’s only a matter of time before the next tier (3TB, 4TB) are on the way out. A 4TB SSD from Leven retails for $180, still about twice the price of a 4TB WD Passport hard disk drive for example.

Microsoft pushes out an emergency fix for the dangerous 'acropalypse' bug
By David Nield published about 13 hours ago

Here's how to get it

Microsoft has acted swiftly to patch up the worrying 'acropalypse' bug that we reported on earlier this week – a bug that could enable information cropped out of images by the Windows screenshot tools to be recovered.

As per BleepingComputer(opens in new tab), Microsoft has now issued an OOB (out-of-band or emergency) update that fixes the issue, which has the technical designation of CVE-2023-28303. Microsoft is recommending that users apply the update at their earliest opportunity, as you might expect.

Applying the update isn't difficult at all: from the Microsoft Store, click the Library icon on the left, then pick Get updates (top right). This should force the patch to be applied, if it hasn't already been automatically installed.

The bug – which is similar to one that has affected the Markup feature on Google Pixel phones – means that images and screenshots cropped in the Windows 11 Snipping Tool and the Windows 10 Snip and Sketch tool could be compromised.

Essentially, the CVE-2023-28303 vulnerability means that parts of a PNG or JPEG image that have been cropped out aren't properly removed from the file after it's saved again. Those cropped sections could include sensitive information such as bank account details or medical records, for example.

It's important to note that applying the patch won't fix any files that have already been cropped, only ones that are edited in the future. You'll need to recrop any existing images to be sure the excess parts of the picture have been properly removed.

At first, the opportunity of recovering cropped out parts of images may not seem like a particularly terrible security vulnerability – after all, who cares if someone manages to add back in some empty sky that you've removed from one of your vacation photos?

There are lots of reasons that images are cropped though, as tech journalists know all too well. Personal information such as email addresses, bank account numbers and contact names need to be cut out of pictures before they're shared widely on the internet.

With so many of us sharing so many of our photos with other people and on the web at large, it's crucial from a security perspective that these images don't reveal more than we want them too – something which was a problem with CVE-2023-28303.

Microsoft has at least acted quickly to get the fix tested and then applied – but it's a concern that this same bug has appeared completely separately in software from both Microsoft and Google in recent days.

Windows 11 might be getting a feature that macOS has had for ages
By Michelle Rae Uy published about 13 hours ago

Windows 11 may soon let you force quit an app from the taskbar

Finally, Windows 11 may soon allow users to force quit frozen apps from the taskbar.

If you use a Windows laptop or desktop PC regularly, you are probably already familiar with the pains of having to go through hoops of force quitting an app that’s stopped working. That’s because unlike on macOS, Windows simply doesn’t have that option when you right-click an app on the taskbar.

That may soon change according to a report by Tom’s Hardware. It looks like Microsoft is currently working on adding an ‘End Task’ option on the menu when you right-click on an app on the taskbar.

In Build 23430, the latest Windows 11 Insider build, you can enable it by going into Settings > Privacy & Security > For developers. It doesn’t actually work just yet. According to the same report, it doesn’t appear when you enable it in this version and also reverts back to off when you close the Settings window. Apparently, it does show up on the right-click menu when using the ViveTool GUI utility app, but it also doesn’t do anything when you click on it.

What’s also curious is that in its current state, the ‘End Task’ option is disabled by default and found on the developers' menu, which might deter regular folks for fear of doing something to their system they wouldn’t know how to fix.

Still, this find points to Microsoft possibly making the force quit option easily accessible for all users, and I think it’s going to be a welcome update.

Currently, to end a program on Windows that’s essentially frozen – and therefore cannot be shut down by tapping the X button, clicking on the ‘Close window’ option, or pressing Alt + F4 – you have to open Task Manager or the Windows Command Prompt and close the offending app from there. Or, more annoyingly, you have to CTRL-ALT-DELETE and shut down the whole system.

It is, therefore, not exactly a straightforward process, and many non-Windows savvy users often end up having to Google ‘how to force quit an app on Windows’ to do so. I do realize there’s a method to Windows’ madness: force-quitting an app could lead to corrupted files. But not having a convenient way to do so has been a bane of my existence, and I’m certainly not alone here.

It’s more apparent when you’re using both Windows and macOS, which has had the ‘Force Quit’ option for as long as I can remember. A lot of developers and regular users will benefit from the convenience of having an ‘End Task’ option available to them right from the taskbar.

Now, the question is, when exactly will Microsoft roll out this feature? Hopefully soon because we all needed it years ago.





Microsoft finally gets around to fixing half-decade-old Firefox CPU bug
By John Loeffler published about 2 hours ago

No rush fellas, really

Better late than never, I guess, but Microsoft finally got around to fixing a five-year-old high-CPU usage bug in Mozilla Firefox.

The bug, which is tied to Windows Defender's Antimalware Service Executable process, has been known to produce high-CPU usage when running Firefox compared to Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. Fortunately, the issue looks like it is resolved at long last.

"According to Microsoft, this will be deployed to all users as part of regular definition updates, which are packaged independently from OS updates," Yannis Juglaret, a Mozilla developer, wrote on Mozilla's Bugzilla message board last month. "This includes even Windows 7 and 8.1 users, even though these platforms should not have had the performance issue with Firefox in the first place because the ETW events that cause it do not exist on these older versions of Windows. So as far as I understand, only users that would explicitly reject definition updates (which does not sound like something reasonable to do with your AV) would not get the fix."

That update has now rolled out(opens in new tab), so Firefox users should hopefully see noticeably better performance.

Ok, so why did it take this long to fix?
Five years is a very long time for a bug fix.

And while it might be tempting to get conspiratorial and assume that not fixing a Mozilla Firefox bug is Microsoft's way of trying to get users to switch to Microsoft's own Edge web browser, it likely has a lot more to do with the issue being so limited in scope.

Firefox is a great web browser, but it's hardly the most popular. According to StatCounter's global Browser Market Share data, Firefox is used by just 2.93% of all users, while Chrome and Edge, which are based on the same Chromium foundation, account for just shy of 70% of the web browser market (with Edge making up a mere 4.64% of that total).

So, really, Microsoft probably felt it had a number of better things to do with its developer's time than to go track down a niche performance bug affecting so few users. And, according to Neowin(opens in new tab), Mozilla's own developers appear to have been integral to getting the bug fixed, so it's likely that Mozilla had to do most if not all of the heavy lifting here.

:o

The latest Windows 11 update bug is making the taskbar vanish for some users
By Muskaan Saxena last updated about 14 hours ago

It’s an infestation!


A steady stream of problems seems to be trickling in after the latest Windows 11 update, with the newest issue appearing to mess up the taskbar auto-hide functionality for some people. Aside from the taskbar simply vanishing, some users are experiencing a completely ‘broken’ taskbar.

Several users have taken to Reddit to report the bug and its impact on the taskbar's functionality when it comes to the autohide feature. Windows 11's taskbar can be set to automatically hide in desktop and tablet use, so as to not distract from whatever apps or programs users have up on their display.

Users can enable the feature by heading to the ‘Taskbar’ section of their settings and once enabled you can view the taskbar by hovering your mouse over the bottom edge of the screen (or touching the bottom of the screen on a tablet).

After the update, however, some have said that the feature is now less efficient, either staying up more often or getting stuck. The bug is rather inconvenient, particularly when users are faced with stuck taskbars in workspaces that would benefit from a hidden one (such as if you are using an OLED display that can suffer from burn-in on static visual elements). At least it does not seem like a widespread issue at this time.

Windows Latest notes that in a support document for the update, Microsoft explains that installing the Windows 11 April update may result in issues with File Explorer, which shows that it is aware of similar issues that come with the update. Though, we are yet to hear any resolution from Microsoft at this time.

The only solution we could suggest for the File Explorer bug was to uninstall the update completely, and while it may seem drastic, it may seem like the better choice if more bugs creep up in the coming weeks after the update.

It's clear that users should brace themselves for more disappearing features and buggy software if they choose to keep the update installed on their PC.

The taskbar auto-hide looks like a complete stupidity to me. Never belonged to Windows... I was right to not trust this new system.

Oppositely to some motto, how one appears IS how one is, and if Microsoft proposes a new commercialised operating system which has the taskbar centralized... well, this is a clear sign that things are not working in their team: thickheaded kiddos software engineers with few talent and no respect of traditions, they want to revolutionize the product at any cost, even if the final product is worster than the previous one.

No, I'm not fan of those born in the Nineties and later...

I experienced already this scenario in my brief time with Apple and with the modern Microsoft online assistance (this last one was an old assistant, but surely he was not a professional, because he made me lose any fucking file I had on my Dekstop, without any possiblity of recover).

What can I say... if the software companies reduce the salaries, hiring then cheaper people and driving away talents, this is what is expected to happen.

This vicious new malware version is now targeting password managers
By Lewis Maddison published 3 days ago
1Password and KeePass are the new targets

A new version of an already active malware is now shifting focus to target 1Password - in our view the best password manager for families - and KeePass.

ViperSoftX is an infostealer that has already been after crypto wallets, but its now attacking more of them, in addition to multiple web browsers - not just Google Chrome - and password managers as well.

It also has stronger code encryption now and is better at avoiding detection from antivirus tools.

ViperSoftX can install the malicious Chrome extension VenomSoftX, but according to security researchers (opens in new tab), it can now also infect Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Brave.

The malware was first discovered in 2020 stealing crypto currency using a JavaScript-based RAT (remote access trojan). By 2022, however, Avast(opens in new tab) found that it had advanced considerably in its capabilities, with the cybersecurity vendor claiming that it had stopped close to 100,000 attacks on its customers from the malware through most of last year. Most victims were based in the U.S., Italy, Brazil, and India.

It seems that now, however, ViperSoftX has extended its global reach, with Trend Micro detecting additional prominent activity in Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia and France. Enterprises and consumers alike are being targeted too. Analysts found that the malware is often hidden in software cracks and activators.

In addition to attacking many more crypto wallets now, the latest version of ViperSoftX has been found by Trend Micros to be scouring for files associated with 1Password and KeePass, and attempting to steal data related to their browser extensions.

An exploit tracked as CVE-2023-24055 does allow for stored passwords to be exported in a plain text file, but Trend Micro found now evidence that this is being used by ViperSoftX.

However, it told BleepingComputer(opens in new tab) that it could steal users' vaults in the later stages of the attack, once the malware has taken hold and extracted data from the victim's system and sent it to the threat actor.

More worringly, the new ViperSoftX uses DLL sideloading in order to be mistakenly recognized as a trusted process, thus remaining undetected by security software. It also checks to see if monitoring tools like VMWare or Process Monitor and antivirus software such as Windows Defender and ESET are present on the system before it it begins its processes.

It also uses byte mapping, a technique to encrypt its code in a way that makes it much harder to decrypt without having the correct map to do so.

Gmail caught mixing ads with regular emails, annoying many on the internet
By Cesar Cadenas published about 8 hours ago
No longer confined to the Promotions tab

Do you like ads in your Gmail account? No? Well, too bad because it looks like we’re going to get even more. Screenshots from across the internet show users getting way more ads than usual on Gmail for desktop and mobile.

Advertisements are nothing new to Gmail, but they’re normally tucked away at the top of the Promotions and Social tabs where they can be easily ignored. The new placement, however, changes all that, integrating ads in between actual emails.

As a result, it’s much harder to tell the difference between the two at a glance even if they have an Ad icon signifying them as such.

Looking at screenshots on Twitter, there doesn't appear to be any specific targeting behind the ads. It appears to be all at random. One user showed he had ads from Edible Arrangements and a job listing from the U.S. Border Patrol. Another had a combination of Amazon and KFC. The intrusiveness is also pretty egregious on smartphones as some have gotten images alongside the ads taking up even more space.

It is worth pointing out that this Zerg Rush of advertisements isn’t affecting every single user. Personally, we didn’t see any changes on Gmail for desktop. Everything was business as usual. We did, however, see more ads than usual in the Promotions on the mobile version, although there were no extra images.

Now, to be fair to Google, it’s possible none of this is being done on purpose. In a response to an upset user, the official Gmail account on Twitter said the sudden influx of ads doesn’t “sound good” and asked them to send feedback via the Gmail Help tool. There also have been instances this year where bad actors would hijack the Google Ads network to push adult content to “unsuspecting victims”. In one instance, hackers were so bold to push malware onto people.

On the other hand, it’s not like Google is innocent either. 80 percent of the company’s revenue comes from digital ads, according to The Guardian. So the tech giant has more than enough reason to create new ways for businesses to advertise. In a recent report, The Financial Times “claims to have seen an internal presentation” where the tech giant aims to use generative AI to create original advertisements drawing “from those already created by human hands.”

We would love to give Google the benefit of the doubt that this is another hijacking or some internal accident and not the start of another advertising program. At the time of this writing, the only official word we’ve heard so far is the tweet from earlier. So, we asked Google if they would like to make a statement about these ads appearing inside Gmail accounts. We’ll update this story if we hear back.

Not upgraded to Windows 10 22H2 yet? You’ll soon be forced to (or switch to Windows 11)
By Darren Allan published about 19 hours ago

Microsoft’s suggestion is, predictably, to migrate to Windows 11

Windows 10 users who haven’t upgraded to the latest version of the operating system (22H2) will soon have to do so.

That’s because Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 21H2 on June 13, and has issued a reminder to that effect (as Neowin reports).

In other words, the June 2023 security update will be the final one for those on 21H2. After that, there’ll be no more updates at all, feature-wise, or security fixes.

If you want further updates, you’ll need to be running Windows 10 22H2. Microsoft notes: “As always, we recommend that you update your devices to the latest version of Windows 10, or upgrade eligible devices to Windows 11.”

Naturally, Microsoft couldn’t let go of an opportunity to get a quick plug in for upgrading to Windows 11. Of course, if your PC doesn’t meet the system requirements for Windows 11, then you can’t switch over to the latest OS. Furthermore, you might not want to anyway, due to some of the decisions Microsoft has made, particularly on the interface front with Windows 11.

At any rate, this forced upgrade for Windows 10 users will be the last one. There won’t be a newer version than 22H2 to upgrade to, as Microsoft recently announced that this is the last feature update for the older operating system. There’ll be no 23H2 or anything else – only monthly security updates from now on, which will continue to be provided for Windows 10 until the OS itself goes out of support (which will be in October 2025, so still a relatively long way off).

All of which is very much angling to get folks to upgrade to Windows 11, with adoption not being everything Microsoft would’ve hoped for at this stage. Certainly not compared to how things went with Windows 10, which had racked up far more users than Windows 11 at the same point in its lifespan.

Watch out, Google might delete your old Gmail account if you aren’t careful
By Hamish Hector published about 13 hours ago

Inactive Google accounts will be deleted forever if you don't act


Following in the wake of Elon Musk’s announcement that Twitter will start purging inactive accounts, Google has said that it will be doing the same for old Gmail accounts. Thankfully, however, it’s much clearer about which accounts will be classified as inactive, and when account deletions will begin.

In a post on its Keyword blog, Google explains that its main reason for deleting inactive accounts is that the move should help keep users safer from hijacking and scams. Based on its internal analysis, Google says that abandoned accounts are over 10 times less likely to have 2-step verification set up compared with active accounts. The move will also mean that Google isn’t unnecessarily retaining personal data.

Considering Google accounts allow you to do more than simply check emails and remember all your YouTube subscriptions – you can use them as a password manager and to log into a huge range of third-party services – you likely have an old account or two that you don’t want to be deleted.

The good news for those of you that have an account you’ve not used in a while is that Google won’t enact its new policies right away. As per the announcement, the earliest it’ll begin deleting accounts is December 2023; so you have until at least then to log in to the account to save it from Google’s purge.

What’s more, before an account is deleted Google says it will send multiple notifications over the months leading up to the account being wiped – both to the email itself and its recovery email address if one has been provided. It’s not likely Google will flip a switch one day without warning.

How can I stop Google from deleting my account?
At a minimum, for Google to consider an account active you have to log in to it at least once every 2 years. Additionally, Google will consider an account active if you do actions like check or send emails, access Google Drive, or watch a YouTube video while logged into the account.

Additionally, if you have an active subscription set up through your Google account – such as Google One, or one to a third-party news publication or an app like one of the best streaming services – Google will also consider your account active.

Lastly, if the account is set up for an organization like a school or business it won’t be affected by the change – Google won’t be automatically deleting these kinds of accounts.

If you have multiple Google accounts, we’d recommend setting it up so that your most-used address is the recovery email for accounts you don’t use frequently. That way if you do forget to keep an account active you should see Google’s warning messages that’ll remind you to use it before it’s gone forever.

Microsoft makes embarrassing Windows 11 U-turn after user revolt over ads
By Matt Hanson published 1 day ago

Complaining works: Microsoft U-turns on ads in Windows 11 Weather app

It looks like complaining can work, as it appears that Microsoft has pulled a U-turn when it comes to cramming one of Windows 11’s most popular apps with ads.

As Windows Latest reports(opens in new tab), Microsoft had recently changed the Weather app in Windows 11 to be based on the MSN website’s weather service. While this ordinarily wouldn’t have been too controversial, as web-based apps can take up less storage space and run more quickly than traditional Windows apps, Microsoft still found a way of annoying users by adding ads into what was once an ad-free app.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has riled up users by forcing ads into its products, but it looks like this time it went too far, with the backlash on social media and via Microsoft’s feedback site causing the company to quietly drop ads from the app – or at least in some of the app.

On the home screen, you’ll no longer see ads in the app. However, as Windows Latest noticed, and I’ve confirmed, if you click on another page in the app, such as ‘Forecasts’, there are still ads.

Also, if you click ‘See full forecast’ from the Weather widget, you’ll end up on the MSN weather website, which also shows ads. Annoyingly, this also opens in Microsoft’s Edge web browser, and if you don’t have it set as default, you’ll also get a pop-up asking you to change that.

All these adverts and nagging pop-ups can make Windows 11 feel like a chore to use, so I’m certainly glad that Microsoft seems to have taken to heart some of these criticisms.

A company listening to customer feedback and making relevant changes is always good and should be applauded. However, while I would love this to be a sign that Microsoft is re-evaluating its entire approach to ads in Windows 11, unfortunately, I don’t think that’s the case.

The fact that Microsoft quietly dropped ads from the first page of the Weather app without any acknowledgment makes me think Microsoft is not entirely fond of this move and could reintroduce ads just as quietly as it removed them.

Also, with ads only being removed from one screen in one app also leads me to think this is a move that’s not going to be replicated elsewhere – if at all. It all feels a bit like Microsoft has begrudgingly removed the bare minimum of ads.

So, despite this being a positive move, Microsoft has a lot more to do if it wants to properly address the concerns many people have about the liberties it's taking with Windows 11.