November 2018

If you have installed the October 2018 Update for Windows 10 already on your own machine or PCs that you administrate, you may have encountered a number of bugs in that particular version.

Microsoft had to pull the update shortly after release in early October 2018; it took the company six weeks to re-release the update. The new version fixed some of the issues but not all of them.

Microsoft promised to do better in terms of update transparency and quality, but did release a statement that update quality was better than ever.

Phishing has been around for a very long time on the Internet; it refers to certain techniques that criminals use to steal passwords, credit card information, Social Security Numbers, and other valuable information.

One common technique lures unsuspecting users to a domain that looks like the destination they want to visit; Facebook's login page, a bank's website, PayPal, eBay, Amazon, or any other eCommerce site or high profile target.

The links are distributed via email campaigns, on websites, or in chat rooms.

Tor Browser is a web browser specifically designed for privacy and anonymity. The web browser is a modified version of Firefox ESR that includes privacy tweaks and even some extensions to improve privacy and security on the Internet.

What makes it special is that all connections go through several severs of the Tor network before they connect to the destination.

ImBatch is a versatile bulk image converter for Microsoft Windows devices that is free for non-commercial use.

Image batch processors can be useful tools to automate repetitive processes like converting image file types or changing other parameters like image resolutions or optimizing images for web publishing.

While most image viewers and editors support the processing of images, many do lack batch optimizing options or the versatility that ImBatch offers.

UUP Dump Downloader is an open source program for Microsoft's Windows operating system to download Windows 10 ISO images that include the latest updates for the operating system.

Windows Defender does not like the program and blocked the download claiming that it included a Trojan. The security application is not the only one that flags the executable as malicious; the security engines of BitDefender, GData, F-Secure, Symtance or Sophos flagged it as well while Avast, Avira, ESET, Kaspersky, or Malwarebytes returned a clean rating.

Firefox CookieMan is a third-party program for Microsoft's Windows operating system to manage cookies.

Firefox includes a good set of tools to control and manage cookies and site data. Users of the browser may load about:preferences#privacy in the browser and activate "manage data" on the page to get the list of set cookies.

The menu lists each site that set a cookie in Firefox, the number of cookies that it set, the storage requirement, and the last use date.

The German Federal Office for Information Security, BSI (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik) published a detailed Windows 10 Telemetry analysis on November 20, 2018.

How do you use your web browser? Do you keep tabs open when you close it and reload the session to continue where you left off? Start with a blank page and nothing else? Use bookmarks to save important sites for safekeeping?

Depending on how you use the browser, you may be interested in a new extension called Set Aside. Set Aside is a Firefox add-on that saves any tab that is open so that you have a record of all the sites of a saved group. You may then re-open the entire group of tabs or individual sites at a later point in time.

Microsoft updated the growing list of known issues with Windows 10 version 1809, the October 2018 Update, on November 21, 2018.

A new entry highlights that Microsoft blocks the upgrade to the new feature update on devices with certain Intel display drivers.