Microsoft won’t force Office 365 users to use Bing

Last month, Microsoft announced some changes to include a new Chrome extension with its Office 365 ProPlus installer used by business customers. But this would mean that Chrome’s default search engine would be set to Bing.

This announcement had attracted some negative feedback in the online communities and in general IT admins weren’t quite happy with the news. As of now, Microsoft is backing out from the plan and stated that they recognize the worries of customers and have made plans to change search defaults.

From now on, the software giant will no longer associate Microsoft Search Chrome extension with Office 365 ProPlus installs and the IT admins will be able to seamlessly deploy it using a toggle in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

But even then, devices that have joined the Active Directory will get the extension for now, and new options to deploy it to unmanaged devices will arrive late. Fortunately, the company has assured that the end-users will have control over their search engine preferences even if the extension is enabled.

The Microsoft Search in Bing Extension will be removed while shipping the Office 365 to countries like the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and India this month.

Google Chrome will soon stop downloading all insecure file types

Time and again, we have seen Google bringing various software updates and enhancements, all intending to ensure increased security and better user experience. And this time too, Google proves the same.

In an attempt to offer increased security to users, Google Chrome comes with a new version of the browser to protect users from insecure and harmful content. Although, the new version Chrome 82 will be launched in April.

As of now, this version of Google’s browser will warn users about the insecure file type and executables like .exe before allowing them to download it. In future releases, it will completely block downloads of insecure file types from non HTTPS using websites.

April’s release of the version will only give warnings to the users before they try to download any file type that bears potential security threats. Eventually, Chrome will alert users to less dangerous file types. And by the end of the year, Chrome will straightaway block downloads of insecure file types with malicious content from non HTTPS websites.

Along with desktops, the version will be rolled out in mobiles as well but they will be one version behind the desktop version.

Google’s unannounced experiment with Chrome causes problems

Google’s experiment has caused massive problems across the globe for businesses as Chrome browsers suddenly went blank last week. The problem did not impact all the Chrome users. But many Chrome browsers running on Windows Server ‘terminal server’ setups were affected.

This server setup is common in enterprise networks. Many IT admins from around the world complained that thousands of employees could not use Chrome browsing software to access the internet as the tabs kept going blank.

Google had to reveal that the widespread problem was caused due to its experiment on the stable versions of Chrome which made changes to the browser’s behavior. The search engine giant did not notify either the admins or the users of the changes. Instead, the change was simply introduced.

The change meant that a new feature WebContents Occlusion was included in the browser. The feature suspended Chrome tabs when other apps were moved on top of them to reduce the resource usage when the browser was not in use. The feature had been under testing in Chrome Canary and Chrome Beta.

Google said that it had included the feature in Chrome to get feedback on the feature. But the feature ended up behaving rather badly. Chrome team released a new configuration to fix the issue for all the users.

No more notification permission prompts: Firefox

Mozilla has been shaping its browser in a way that is far more secure and unique from the rest of the browsers. The company earlier this year had announced that they are tackling the issue of notification permission prompts on websites.

Anyone who has accessed a website knows about notification permission prompts. Some websites have a popup that asks if you’d like to receive notifications from the website in the future. And once accepted the users are likely to receive a number of notifications, right from the site’s ads to important events.

This permission prompts can be annoying because it happens on almost every website you visit. Mozilla in its latest software release ‘Firefox 72’ is making sure that these prompts disappear unless you specifically ask for it using an icon that allows you to interact with the website.

Mozilla made this function backed by research that revealed that notification prompts are indeed unpopular among users. The study revealed that almost 99% of them aren’t accepted and 48% percent of them are rejected at once i.e., out of 1.45 billion prompts that were shown to the users, only a mere 23.66 million accepted the request.

Mozilla, thus, points out this reason for replacing the ‘Not Now’ option with a ‘Never Allow’ option to avoid these prompts from the Firefox 70 version.

Microsoft Introduces New Edge Browser Logo

Microsoft unveiled a stylized logo for its Chromium-based Edge browser. The software giant first introduced the Edge icon about four years ago which looked like an improved version of the Internet Explorer logo.

The latest logo resembles a wave and can be brought under the fluent design style of the company’s new Office icons. The logo also reveals the letter ‘e’, but it looks nothing like the old Internet Explorer logo and therefore has a refined look. The logo depicts the company’s vision to move on from its past and advance with the latest design for its Chromium version of Edge.

The latest Edge icon was revealed by the company through an interesting game called Easter egg hunt. Microsoft employees posted cryptic clues to a series of puzzles and images which then led the players to a secret game (edge://surf). The puzzle solvers could witness the new logo once they completed it.

Microsoft is yet to reveal the release date of the final version of its Edge Chromium browser. The company had released a beta version a few months back and also a stable version recently. More information regarding the release date is likely to be announced by Microsoft in the upcoming Ignite conference in Orlando which is happening next week.

Firefox 70 has privacy reports and new password generator

Mozilla is taking privacy very seriously and it is continuing its efforts to provide users with an ad-free world. The latest updates involve an Enhanced Tracking Protection feature for Firefox. The company claims it has blocked more than 450 billion third-party tracking requests from various companies who are trying to track the users’ web activity.

Firefox 70 has a personalized dashboard that reveals how often Firefox has blocked third-party cookies, social media trackers, fingerprinting tools and crypto miners.

The browser provides privacy protection by default in the settings and if you’re not satisfied, it is also possible to set a stricter default which may result in occasional site breaks.

Mozilla has placed the shield icon near the URL bar which provides details about the current site and also provides a link for the privacy report.

The report covers limited content and displays data for just a week. Also, the data doesn’t sync between machines and it doesn’t reveal which companies are trying to track you.

Mozilla has included a Firefox Monitor that alerts a user when his/her email account appears in a breach. Also, Lockwise, the password management, and syncing service get an update and now has a password generator.

Mozilla’s plan to differentiate itself as a privacy browser is noteworthy because the privacy space is somewhat unreachable for Google Chrome as its revenues are mainly generated through ads whereas Mozilla has no such issues and can opt for stricter security policies.

Google Chrome about to block insecure content on HTTPS pages

For the past decade, Google was a huge HTTPS proponent and has successfully pushed it to the next level. But now Chrome is enhancing its security operations by blocking the mixed content.

According to Google, “Chrome users now spend over 90% of their browsing time on HTTPS on all major platforms.” However, the issue of securing all HTTPS configurations still persists, with some secure pages seeing sub-resources load over HTTP.

The mixed content includes images, audio, and video although many of the browsers now block scripts and iframes by default. The problem with adding mixed content is that it confuses the browser security UX as the pages are presented to it as neither secure nor insecure. This is because hackers can tamper with mixed images and can even inject a tracking cookie into a mixed resource load.

Google is fixing this by blocking all the mixed content but the transition will be slow so that both users and developers have time to adjust with the rollouts.  Google intends to implement this starting with its Chrome 79 update that is currently in the development channel and once it enters the browser it will begin blocking all the mixed content by default. According to reports the process will start this December and will end with Chrome 81 by next year.

Microsoft advisory urges users to avail Windows updates soon

According to a report, over 7% of all the browser users use Internet Explorer (IE). But Microsoft in its latest advisory has said that Internet Explorer users are at risk and must update their Windows because it has a serious security vulnerability.

Microsoft in the advisory said that all the supported Windows versions have trouble with this vulnerability. The report said vulnerability could allow remote execution of malicious code because of the way the scripting engine of the IE handles objects in its memory.

The advisory further mentions that the vulnerability could corrupt memory which lets a malicious actor execute arbitrary code on the system. This could give the attacker control of the affected system. “An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights,” said the advisory.

In another scenario, Microsoft described that an attacker could also craft a website to lure the user and exploit the vulnerability with the browser.

To patch the vulnerability, Microsoft has released an emergency patch and is urging its Windows users to avail the update ASAP. The security vulnerability is quite serious and has even prompted the Homeland Security to put out another advisory for the same issue.

YouTube To Stop TV Interface For Web Browsers

YouTube finally puts a halt on its TV-friendly web interface as several other streaming apps offer similar services.

Earlier, YouTube offered a television interface for people who used the service via an ordinary browser. The interface was commonly accessed by people who had a PC stick or similar devices that can be attached to their TV for streaming purposes.

The YouTube.com/TV URL was solely designed for television viewing and it had larger and better graphics than what is available on the regular YouTube.

The same interface had enabled Amazon to offer a workaround for its Fire TV owners when the company had a quarrel with the IT giant Google last year. Some speculate that this decision to remove the UI option is to prevent any such scenarios in the future.

Also, there’s an increase in the availability of low-cost streaming devices in the market which offer attractive offers and it’d be a viable option for users when compared to connecting an old computer to the TV. Majority of people have already switched to Chromecast, Android Tv or Roku making YouTube’s TV UI unnecessary.

Users who continue to use this service are notified of the termination process, but users will still be able to watch it on the regular YouTube.

Google to set up new standards with its Privacy Sandbox

Google has finally decided to redefine its privacy policies, with its brand new Privacy Sandbox, which benefits the publisher by targeting our interests, while also securing user privacy by not revealing the identity.

According to a recent blog post, the privacy sandbox will be focusing mainly on restricting tracking technology that currently stores a user’s private information. Many of the browsers have already included security sandboxes designed to defend malware.

Google suggests the use of cryptographic tokens which users can amass which would show that they are trustworthy. With the help of artificial intelligence, privacy sandbox can show ads relevant to people’s interest by extracting minimal information from the user and storing personal data elsewhere than in their browser.

The intention of Google is to instill new privacy rules throughout the web and not just in Chrome. Further, Google wants to set a benchmark for other browsers to follow, because many of the major browsers like Mozilla and Safari have already initiated their own privacy procedures by blocking cookies.

Google doesn’t appreciate the removal of cookies, because they say, it helps the publishers make money from their content and are essential to keep the web vibrant.

Setting the internet standards means that Google will have to collaborate with publishers, advertisers and other browser makers but when more than 70% of users worldwide use Chrome as their browser they actually will have no other option other than following the rules set by the internet giant in the long run.