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September 2018

Microsoft releases September 2018 non-security Office updates

Microsoft released a batch of updates for supported versions of Microsoft Office yesterday. The released updates for Microsoft Office 2010, 2013 and 2016 are non-security updates only. Microsoft will release security updates for Office on the second Tuesday of September, on September 11, 2018.

The released updates are only applicable for MSI-installed versions of Microsoft Office and not for Office 365.

Only one update was released for Microsoft Office 2010, three for Microsoft Office 2013, and nine for Microsoft Office 2016.

Firefox 62.0 release information

Welcome to the Mozilla Firefox 62.0 release information overview. Mozilla plans to release Firefox 62.0 for desktop and Android devices on September 5, 2018.

All Firefox channels have received updates: Firefox Stable to version 62.0, Firefox Beta to version 63.0, Firefox Nightly to version 64.0, and Firefox ESR to Firefox ESR 60.2

The new version of Firefox ESR is a milestone release, at least for Firefox ESR users who are still using Firefox ESR 52.x as the version is no longer supported and Firefox 60.x does not support legacy extensions anymore.

WhatsApp backups are not encrypted

WhatsApp backups created by the built-in backup option of the messaging client on Android are not encrypted when they are stored on Google Drive.

WhatsApp users on Android can enable the application's automatic backup functionality to store backups on the device itself or upload backups to Google's Google Drive web storage service.

Backups are useful as they can be used to restore data on the device they were created on initially but also on new devices of the user so that media and messages become available on the new device as well.

Firefox to display extension recommendations

Mozilla tests a new feature in Firefox Nightly at the moment that suggests extensions to users when they visit certain sites on the Internet.

The recommendation feature is turned off by default and needs to be enabled at this point. Extensions may increase the user experience on sites they are designed for, for example by blocking advertisement, enhancing search functionality, or improving privacy.

What happened to HTTP and HTTPS in Chrome?

Chrome users who run version 69.x of the web browser will notice that Google changed how the address of webpages is displayed in the browser.

Chrome displayed the scheme, the http:// or https:// part of the address, previously in front of the address which highlighted the type of connection, e.g. a secure connection using encryption for https, to the user.

Starting with Chrome 69, Chrome omits http and https from the address. and replaced "secure" with a lock icon for https sites.

Save any webpage as a single file in Chrome or Firefox

SingleFile is a cross-browser open source extension for Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera to save any webpage you come across as a single HTML file.

All modern web browsers come with options to save webpages; all you have to do is press Ctrl-S to save the webpage to the local system. While that works okay most of the time, it is not optimal for many use cases as a folder with required files is saved for each HTML document you save in the browser.

How to change the default KeePass password options

KeePass is an open source password manager for the Windows operating system (and other operating systems thanks to ports) that ticks all the right boxes for me.

While I can understand the appeal of cloud-based password managers -- access your passwords everywhere as long as you have your credentials for the account at hand -- it is always overshadowed by the fact that your data is saved in the cloud which has privacy and security implications.

Need Another Reason to Block Automatic Windows Updates?

If you are a regular here on this blog you know that it is better to have automatic updates turned off on Windows as it gives you more control over the updating process and some time to monitor responses to released updates.

While most updates install just fine and work fine as well after installation, broken or faulty update releases appear to have increased in recent time.

The features and changes of Windows 10's October 2018 Update

Microsoft's upcoming feature update for Windows 10 will be named the October 2018 Update and Windows 10 version 1809.

The company ended the previous scheme for names that used the seasons to the informative but rather boring "launch month and year" scheme when it released the April 2018 Update in April 2018.

The new name scheme for updates is less confusing than last year's Spring and Fall updates which one half of the globe could not really related to at all, but it is not without issues.