Computer News

Well, it is Wednesday and there is some news. No guarantees after that…

Linux Malware
Well frack. There is a Linux Trojan that takes screenshots every 30 seconds and apparently Android 2-factor authentication has been pwned.

Et tu, Intel?
Intel’s Driver Update Utility has a security flaw. It has been fixed. Download it here.

Software Updates
Audacity 2.1.2 (download)
VirtualBox 5.0.14

Planet Nine
The stargazers at Caltech say they found a ninth planet. I’m still pissed they took Pluto away. That’s just wrong. Once you have a Disney character named after you there should be no take-backs.

Etc…
Star Wars: Episode VIII delayed until December 2017
How to seal a bag of chips without a clip

More Privacy News
Pew research has a rather lengthy discussion on privacy. The topic and discussion are very interesting and worth the read. I question the results of the survey as it was an online survey of “461 U.S. adults and nine online focus groups of 80 people”. Very small group of people and I don’t particularly trust online surveys. For instance, does anyone think the polls on this TweakHound.com are an accurate representation of anything other than the way readers of this site feel? I certainly don’t. I put them up because it’s fun and it gives me some insight to my readership.

Speaking Of Online Surveys
Lots of sites copied info from a Computerworld article quoting a survey that nobody can read. Well, you can read it but it’ll cost you $500.00.
The survey “Fielded online through Survata in late September 2015, the survey asked 1,009 U.S. adults about their attitudes toward Microsoft’s latest operating system:“.
The gist of the Computerworld article is that 60% of Win10 users had a favorable opinion of the OS. Interestingly, 37% of those were Windows Insiders.
Personally I question the usefulness of an online survey of only 1009 people that is over 3 months old.

No Old Windows On New Hardware
ARSTechnica – Skylake users given 18 months to upgrade to Windows 10
Neowin – Microsoft will not support older Windows versions on upcoming PC hardware
Paul Thurrott – Microsoft Finds Another Way to Force Windows 10 Upgrade on Businesses
The above posts are based on Terry Myerson’s Windows 10 Embracing Silicon Innovation blog post. He said in part,
“Going forward, as new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support. This enables us to focus on deep integration between Windows and the silicon, while maintaining maximum reliability and compatibility with previous generations of platform and silicon. For example, Windows 10 will be the only supported Windows platform on Intel’s upcoming “Kaby Lake” silicon, Qualcomm’s upcoming “8996” silicon, and AMD’s upcoming “Bristol Ridge” silicon.”
In a nutshell, new hardware will need new Windows. Some folks are pissed about it. I understand their feelings but I’m not sure how much care about this issue. I’ll run the OS I desire and virtualize the rest.

Site News
Thank you all for hanging in with me this last week and coming back here. I’m still trying to tweak the best settings for the speed of this site.

Flash Updated
APSB16-01 Security Updates Available for Adobe Flash Player
Flash for IE
Flash for other browsers
Main download page
Windows 8/8.1/10 users check Windows Update. Microsoft will get around to updating it…eventually.
Google Chrome users, ditto.

Firefox 43.0.3
Fixed:
On some Windows configurations, improve the decoding of some videos on YouTube
Fix network issue when using Nvidia’s Network Access Manager
Download 32-bit (en-US)
Download 64-bit (en-US)
Download other systems and languages
Release Notes

Interesting Reads
Recently Bought a Windows Computer? Microsoft Probably Has Your Encryption Key
In Defense of the Server GUI
Techno-skeptics’ objection growing louder

Lemmy – Born To Lose, Lived To Win
Meadowlark Lemon, Harlem Globetrotters’ Dazzling Court Jester, Dies at 83 (If you aren’t familiar with his work, check YouTube)

Firefox 43
Download 32-bit (en-US)
Download 64-bit (en-US)
Download other systems and languages
Release Notes

Destroy Windows Spying Updated
Build 716 released, “fixes”.

AMD Drivers
ARSTechnica reports AMD will open source drivers as well as “substantially upgrade its open source Linux drivers”.

GWX No Thanks Button Gone

Playing a little catch-up today!

DWS Lite 1.6
Destroy Windows Spying updated.
“FINAL VERSION Spy fully functional blocks at the moment. For the program will be released only bug fixes, and minor changes after this release.”

7-Zip
My go-to Swiss army knife of file extractors has released its 1st non-beta in 5 years!
(Thanks to David M. for the heads up!)

Samsung 850 EVO 1TB Firmware
User A.G. reports that he just got a notification that firmware version EMT02B6Q was available for his drive despite the fact it was reported released in September.
A quick Google search shows a few other folks asking about it this week too. If you have one of these you may want to fire up the latest SSD Magician and check.

Stuff From Around The Web…
TrueCrypt is safer than previously reported, detailed analysis concludes
Administrative Tools in Windows 10
Fedora 23 Xfce review
Windows 10 pilot rollouts will surge in early 2016, says Gartner
Comcast injects copyright warnings into browsers, raising privacy concerns

TH2?
“They” said Threshold 2 would be out today. No sign of it here.
Posted on Nov. 9th by @GabeAul on Twitter: “Not yet, will be a couple more days for ISO”

Time To Run Windows Update
Got Windows and/or MS Office? You’ve got updates.
Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for November 2015

Flash
Adobe Flash patched again? No, say it isn’t so!
APSB15-28 Security Updates Available for Adobe Flash Player
Download Flash
Get Flash for IE in Win 8/8.1/10 via Windows Update.
Latest version of Chrome has it too (see below when released)
Related: 8 of top 10 vulnerabilities used by exploit kits target Adobe Flash Player

Google Chrome Updated
“The stable channel has been updated to 46.0.2490.86 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. This release contains an update to Adobe Flash Player (19.0.0.245) and security fixes.”
Download or update from within the program.

Newegg Premier, 3 Months Free
http://promotions.newegg.com/nepro/15-5150/ (takes a while to get the code)

Other News And Random Stupidity

The geek distrust of telemetry risks making software dumber
What the hell do they put in the water cooler at ZDNet?

“Why would you buy a PC anymore?” asks Tim Cook
It’s only Tuesday and we have the winner for Tool Of The Week!

Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You
“The tracking — which Vizio calls “Smart Interactivity” — is turned on by default for the more than 10 million Smart TVs that the company has sold.“

Threshold 2
Lots of folks are thinking the latest insider build (10586) is indeed TH2 RTM.
In an effort to avoid having my every move sent to Microsoft I stopped doing insider builds on my main rig.
Since TH2 official is “supposed” to be released Tuesday I’ll wait.
The place to watch for the real scoop is WZor.net.

New Nvidia Drivers
GeForce Game Ready Driver WHQL 358.87
Release Notes

Rockets Red Orange/Yellow Glare
Last October a NASA rocket exploded at Wallops Island in my state. They just released some awesome pics of the event.

Speaking of NASA
They have the details on some Geeks that spotted something leaving a black hole!

Cool Stars Wars Vids
10 Star Wars Movie Scenes You’ve Never Seen
10 Star Wars Movie Mistakes You Missed

Get The Latest SSD Info
[H]ardOCP has a great article detailing the recent goings-on with SSD’s. They have buying advice too.

Threshold 2
The “experts” told us TH2 would be released today.
Instead Microsoft will apparently release it on Patch Tuesday, which kinda makes sense, even though Patch Tuesday was supposed to go away.

Firefox 42 Hits Mirrors
Not official yet.
Download (en-US)
Download other systems and languages
Release Notes

AMD Drivers
Changes are afoot.
“AMD is ditching Catalyst Control Center in favor of newly architected solutions dubbed Radeon Settings, which is a critical part of what AMD is calling the Radeon Software Crimson Edition.”
Head over to Hot Hardware for more info and videos!

New Star Trek Series
Oh hell yeah!
“CBS Television Studios announced today it will launch a totally new Star Trek television series in January 2017. The new series will blast off with a special preview broadcast on the CBS Television Network. The premiere episode and all subsequent first-run episodes will then be available exclusively in the United States on CBS All Access, the Network’s digital subscription video on demand and live streaming service.“