January 2017

The private search engine Startpage is my search engine of choice. If you are a long-time reader, you know that I made the switch from using Google first to DuckDuckGo, and then to Startpage, back when news about Prism and other government surveillance and privacy-invading activities hit the world.

APKUpdater is a free application for Google Android devices that you can utilize to keep sideloaded apps up to date on the device.

Rainmeter 4.0 has been released on January 1, 2017. The new version of the popular desktop customization suite ships with new features and options, but also some changes that will affect part of the program's user base.

First, the bad news; Rainmeter 4.0 is no longer compatible with Windows XP or Windows Vista. The Rainmeter team asks users who work with the now-unsupported operating systems to stick to the previous release Rainmeter 3.3.2 instead.

Additionally, Windows 7 systems need to have the Service Pack 1 and the Platform Update installed to run Rainmeter 4.0.

2016 was an interesting year for Microsoft and its Windows 10 operating system. The company ended the free for all buffet in the first half of 2016, but not before pushing the free offer way to aggressively to the PCs of its customers.

Task Manager DeLuxe is a free portable task manager alternative for Microsoft Windows that gives you more information and addition system controls.

The Windows Task Manager is not necessarily a bad program, but it lacks options and information that users may find useful at times.

It is great for quickly killing a process and other basic tasks, but once you need to dive deeper, for instance by analyzing process dependencies, it reaches the end of its usefulness.

Now that we have made it successfully into 2017, even with that leap second scare and all, it seems like a good time to run maintenance related tasks on your PC to cut excess fat, free up storage, make it faster, and just make sure everything is in working order.

While many of you have probably a good understanding of the tools and processes involved in giving a Windows PC a thorough maintenance job, knowing something and doing it are not necessarily the same things.

Support for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system will end on April 11, 2017; Microsoft won't publish public security patches anymore for Windows Vista after the Patch Tuesday in April 2017.

Windows Vista is currently in the so-called extended support phase. Microsoft divides the support period of its operating systems into mainstream and extended support phases.