July 2015

Many extensions that you install in Firefox add one or multiple preferences to the browser to control various settings.

Problem is, these preferences are not removed when you uninstall the add-ons again in the browser. If you never clean up the configuration of Firefox, you will end up with a bloated file that contains lots of unused preferences.

Apart from extensions, old preferences not used in Firefox may also add to that provided that you have customized their values.

Microsoft pushed out Windows 10 build 10240 yesterday to Windows Insider users which is the RTM build of the operating system.

Along with the announcement came the claim that the new default browser of the system, Microsoft Edge, is blazing fast and beating Chrome and Safari on JavaScript performance benchmarks.

Microsoft stated that Edge was beating Chrome on Sunspider by 112%, on Google Octane by 11%, and on Apple JetStream by 37%.

Newsbin Pro is probably the commercial program that I have been using for the longest. It is a Usenet client that I started to use way back and while I did test and review other clients, I never considered switching from Newsbin seriously.

Apart from excellent support for all things Usenet I needed, automatic unpacking, PAR support, search and such, it was run by a dedicated team that was active on the official forum and when it came to development.

Mozilla announced a while ago that it plans to improve the quality of the Firefox browser through a new initiative that it called Great or Dead internally.

The basic idea behind the initiative is to take a good close look at Firefox features that need improvement and decide whether to spend the time improving them or removing them from the web browser.

The developer of the hardware monitoring and reporting program HWiNFO32 and HWinFO64 has released an update for both applications that brings their version to 5.0.

The free programs, available as portable and installed versions, enable you to monitor system hardware of machines running Windows.

The three big areas the applications cover are monitoring, reporting and analysis.

Monitoring refers to using built-in sensors to monitor hardware components, for instance their temperature, clock speed, status or timings.

Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system ships with Microsoft Edge as the default browser. Microsoft Edge replaced Internet Explorer as the main browser on Windows 10 and while it is still possible to load Internet Explorer, Microsoft's main focus is on Edge now.

Hooks is a free application for Android devices that you configure to receive custom alerts and notifications for things you are interested in.

The application offers more than 100 different channels that include sports, music, TV, movie, gaming, weather, event, news or tech information.

Setup is easy and straightforward. A tap on the add alert button in the main interface on first run displays the notification creation dialog.

There you can browse all available channels either directly, by search, or by using popular or suggested filters.

Tab Origin is an add-on for the Firefox web browser that provides you with the means to return to pages you came from even if you have closed them already.

Maybe you have encounter the following issue before: after browsing a page for a while you clicked on a link on it which took you to a new website or a page on the same domain. Maybe by loading it in the same tab or by loading it in a new tab.

Maybe you closed the originating tab afterwards, for instance because you thought you did not need it anymore.

Microsoft released a Fix It solution for all current versions of Windows that diagnoses the performance of the system to improve it if issues are found during the scan.

Microsoft Fix It solutions are small programs that Windows users can run on their machines to diagnose and repair certain issues they experience.

Microsoft released lots of Fix It programs over the years for dozens of common issues that fix those with minimal user interaction.

Welcome to the July 2015 patch overview that reviews all security and non-security patches that Microsoft released this month for Microsoft Windows and other company products.

This is the last Patch Tuesday before the release of Microsoft's new operating system Windows 10.

The guide starts with an executive summary that provides you with a quick overview of the most important information.

It is then followed by information detailing which Microsoft products and versions are affected by security patches, and then the list of security patches and security advisories.