Microsoft Edge

Four themes that are influencing the industrial sector today and in the future

by Monsurat Omobusayo on May 24, 2023

At its core, manufacturing is about innovation, as it builds economic capacity, bolsters workforces, and generates opportunity and growth. Today we’re seeing the industry undergo a once-in-a-century transformation driven by changing consumer demands, labor challenges, supply chain disruptions, technological advancements and sustainability demands. We’ve come a long way since the industrial revolution, and the industry has evolved into a much more complex place.

To explore these challenges and opportunities, we’ll join global leaders and colleagues at the world’s biggest trade show for industrial technology, Hannover Messe. As we enter this week of innovation, we’re discussing four key areas that are reshaping the future of manufacturing: empowering a connected workforce, fueling intelligent engineering and factories with the industrial metaverse, building agile supply chains and accelerating sustainability. Powering these trends is artificial intelligence (AI), which offers more potential for our industry than anything we’ve ever experienced, and we are just scratching the surface of what’s possible.

Here we explore how Microsoft brings these four trends to life to advance the industry:

Empowering the connected workforce

To support intelligent factories, a connected workforce is key, and 63% of frontline manufacturing workers are excited about the job opportunities that technology creates. From the front office to the factory floor, Microsoft solutions can improve operations by streamlining daily work, driving efficiency, safety and productivity as well as helping foster an engaged workforce.

We’re building solutions to address the unique challenges manufacturers face — by helping streamline frontline operations, enhance communication and collaboration, improve the employee experience and strengthen security across shared devices.

Today, we are sharing new capabilities and updates for the workforce, including:

The native integration of AI-empowered Power Virtual Agents (PVA) into Power Apps is now in public preview. AI-infused virtual agents will be readily available in Power Apps, allowing frontline manufacturing workers to easily find intelligent answers within the context of their manufacturing applications.
Leverage Teams as your calling solution to connect with teammates, customers and suppliers. Later this year, factory floor employees will be able to make and receive calls through shared mobile Android phones from wherever their work takes them. Building resilient and agile supply chains.
Supply chain disruption is not new; however, its complexity and the rate of change are outpacing organizations’ ability to address issues. Manufacturers are under pressure to prevent and minimize disruptions, and as a result, almost 90 percent of supply chain professionals plan to invest in ways to make their supply chains more resilient.
To support our customers, Microsoft offers solutions like Supply Chain Platform and Supply Chain Center, which enable organizations to reduce risk across complex supply chains and provide a ready-made “command center,” allowing organizations, such as Kraft Heinz, to meet their unique needs without replacing current systems. Additionally, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot gives businesses real-time predictive insights using generative AI across materials, inventory, distribution network and more, which means potential disruptions can be avoided before they happen.
Today, Microsoft is working with customers to improve their supply chain resilience. Semiconductor company STMicroelectronics transformed their supply chain, advanced research and development, and scaled manufacturing leveraging Microsoft Azure HPC. They are now able to bring their products to market faster, and double their capacity by 2025, while becoming carbon neutral by 2027. Toyota Material Handling Europe is bringing warehouse automation to Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, with autonomous guided vehicles that can perform repetitive tasks quickly and accurately, leading to increased efficiency and productivity. This robotics technology can help manage inventory levels, resulting in better stock control and reduced carrying costs. People and AI working together: The next generation of intelligent engineering and factories with the industrial metaverse
One of the most significant changes in manufacturing has been the rise of intelligent factories. Imagine an industrial ecosystem connected to a common virtual space that allows everyone to visualize and interact with complex processes in real-time, with real-world data. The industrial metaverse, built with foundational technology like AI, Digital Twins, Mixed Reality, ML and Cloud-To-Edge is changing how companies run and manage their business by delivering immediate value through remote operations and skilling, AI process and asset optimization and robotics, automation, and autonomous operations.
Similarly, the Industrial Metaverse is creating new opportunities to make product engineering more collaborative and immersive. This enables manufacturing companies to reduce and accelerate time-to-market in an increasingly competitive environment.
Our commitment to immersive experiences that support manufacturers and frontline workers continues with today’s announcement that we’re bringing Windows 11 to HoloLens 2, enhancing security and offering the latest tools for developers. We’re also launching new updates to Dynamics 365 Guides, including the ability to annotate anything within arm’s reach, a custom security feature called “Restricted Mode” that gives organizations more control over their mixed reality apps and new updates to Teams calling within Guides to enhance the user experience.
Siemens is using generative AI to help industrial companies drive innovation and efficiency across the design, engineering, manufacturing and operational lifecycle of products. It will bring a Teamcenter app to Microsoft Teams that leverages the language models in Azure OpenAI Service to enhance cross-functional collaboration. In addition, at Hannover Messe we are demonstrating how an Azure AI Service powered assistant can augment the creation, optimization and debugging of code in software for factory automation, and how we can use industrial AI to enable visual quality inspection on the shop floor. Rockwell is integrating robotics and AI technologies to empower companies to optimize their field service workers and asset management in factories. NVIDIA’s Omniverse Cloud makes it easy for teams, from design and engineering to frontline workers, to digitize their workflows, from building digital twins of factories to running closed-loop simulations. Sustainability, energy optimization and fuel cell innovation are more important than ever
Sustainability is a top priority for manufacturers who are adopting eco-friendly practices and implementing initiatives, such as using renewable energy sources, adopting circular economy principles to reduce waste and optimizing production processes to minimize environmental impact.
Through our technology like the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability and our rich partner ecosystem, we are building a critical foundation for an energy efficient and sustainable future. This week, Seeq Corporation announced the Seeq Solution for Microsoft Sustainability Manager, which enables teams to integrate time series process data preparation, analysis and continuous improvement, reducing the environmental impact of process industry operations.
Many of society’s hardest sustainability problems are chemistry and materials science problems that will ultimately require a scaled quantum machine to solve. However, given the continuous increases in classical computing capabilities, more quantum chemistry problems can be solved today using state-of-the-art cloud services. Johnson Matthey, a global leader in sustainable technologies, has teamed-up with Microsoft’s Azure Quantum chemists to develop new predictive modeling tools with the supercomputing capabilities of Azure HPC and refined workflows to accelerate chemical simulations, explore the potential of AI and get quantum ready.
Many manufacturers are facing the urgent situation of rising energy costs on the factory floor and the production plant, which is why we’re working with partners and customers to prioritize top use cases that will help manufacturers gain visibility into where energy loss is occurring and triage the issue through targeted assessments.
These are some of the exciting innovations happening today to help us build a stronger, more resilient and more sustainable tomorrow

Microsoft Edge

The time of simulated intelligence: How the Microsoft Cloud is speeding up artificial intelligence change across businesses

by Monsurat Omobusayo on May 23, 2023

This previous quarter has placed a focus on headways in generative artificial intelligence, and the potential outcomes of its application to convey realistic business results. For associations all over the planet, there is a mind boggling an open door to upgrade items and administrations while opening development and business worth to assist with molding the eventual fate of the business. The speed and size of mechanical development happening today is extraordinary and inhales hopefulness into a requesting economy. Those utilizing the Microsoft Cloud — the most trusted, thorough, and coordinated cloud — are best situated to exploit these headways. As pioneers hope to embrace man-made intelligence, it turns out to be more basic than any other time to focus on having an information driven business, invigorated with computerized and cloud capacities. This approach will assist associations with utilizing generative simulated intelligence as a catalyst to change. From Rogers further developing network for Canadians through computerization and artificial intelligence to the Service of Training in the Assembled Middle Easterner Emirates fostering an artificial intelligence mentor for understudies, the conceivable outcomes are both boundless and part of the present real factors.

Modernizing manufacturing operations in the cloud to boost efficiency, lower costs and increase security

Mercedes-Benz is leveraging conversational AI capabilities within Azure OpenAI Service to deliver best-in-class customer service with Mercedes Virtual Assistant, while Austrian construction company Strabag is building a risk management solution that improves operational efficiency to save time and reduce financial losses. Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Compay is continuing to scale its finance and supply chain operations on Azure while lowering enterprise applications costs. Australian-based Graintech estimates a 68% reduction in carbon emissions and reduced travel spending by using HoloLens and Teams to enable remote work and collaboration. FUJIFILM built its Cash Application service using Azure AI and Dynamics 365 to automate 20% of its manual invoicing processes. MAPEI is better engaging its customers with self-service tools while saving costs by consolidating its sales, customer service and marketing systems in the cloud. Belgian manufacturer Picanol Group is promoting tighter integrations between IT and operations by managing and securing its entire IT environment on the Microsoft Cloud. U.K.-based Kier Group is lowering infrastructure costs by consolidating its on-premises environment and migrating 90% of its server workloads to Azure. Krones is improving productivity and security for employees while protecting its globally distributed endpoints and over 6,400 patents by upgrading to Windows 11 Enterprise. Seeing an opportunity to embrace AI and IoT technology to mitigate supply chain disruptions, Liebherr-Components co-developed a turnkey security solution with Reycom AG using Defender for IoT.

Transforming retail experiences for consumers with AI and data-driven insights

To accelerate product launches and enhance customer service, Unileer has adopted Azure as its primary cloud platform and become a cloud-only enterprise by partnering with Accenture and Microsoft in one of the largest cloud migrations in the consumer goods industry. Campari Group is leveraging Dynamics 365 Copilot capabilities to increase the impact of its marketing campaigns by creating more personalized content and deeper customer insights. To launch the largest autonomous store chain in Europe, Żabka is creating frictionless customer journeys using AI-powered real-time computer vision technology from AiFi and Microsoft Cloud for Retail for store analytics and insights. Retailers like Canadian Tire and IFCO are leveraging Power BI to better understand product performance and develop detailed forecasts for customers. Sakata is automating price updates to reduce cumbersome manual processes, resulting in times savings of more than 60%. In Ukraine, retail technology company IPLAND is applying automated machine learning to increase image recognition speed and data collection for consumer goods companies looking to optimize their in-store product displays. Northern Tool + Equipment is providing intelligent customer experiences that guarantee faster and more reliable delivery times by working with real-time data within Microsoft Supply Chain Center.

Reinventing financial services through cloud capabilities and co-innovation

To democratize access to financial services in Mexico, Finvero is utilizing cloud and AI solutions to provide simpler, friendlier and more agile experiences for users. Leveraging support from the Microsoft for Startups program, Australia-based Thriday is freeing up time for small business owners by simplifying administrative tasks and improving financial management solutions using AI and machine learning. At its Hack Day event, AustralianSuper co-created a solution with Microsoft to reduce its manual effort for onboarding advisers by 90% in just two weeks. India’s largest private-sector bank, HDFC , is using the Microsoft Cloud to securely modernize its data landscape to scale information management and data analytics. In Israel, global solutions provider Sapiens has cut its time to market in half — reducing operational overhead by at least 40% — by automating its development life cycle and delivery processes with Azure. In Brazil, ClearSale is combining advanced AI and human intelligence to ensure e-commerce purchases aren’t being made by scammers or hackers, and Cielo is making it easier to securely optimize access time for new suppliers — reducing the onboarding time needed from 60 days to two hours or less.

Reinventing financial services through cloud capabilities and co-innovation

To democratize access to financial services in Mexico, Finvero is utilizing cloud and AI solutions to provide simpler, friendlier and more agile experiences for users. Leveraging support from the Microsoft for Startups program, Australia-based Thriday is freeing up time for small business owners by simplifying administrative tasks and improving financial management solutions using AI and machine learning. At its Hack Day event, AustralianSuper co-created a solution with Microsoft to reduce its manual effort for onboarding advisers by 90% in just two weeks. India’s largest private-sector bank, HDFC Bank, is using the Microsoft Cloud to securely modernize its data landscape to scale information management and data analytics. In Israel, global solutions provider Sapiens has cut its time to market in half — reducing operational overhead by at least 40% — by automating its development life cycle and delivery processes with Azure. In Brazil, ClearSale is combining advanced AI and human intelligence to ensure e-commerce purchases aren’t being made by scammers or hackers, and Cielo is making it easier to securely optimize access time for new suppliers — reducing the onboarding time needed from 60 days to two hours or less.

Advancing sustainability progress across transportation and energy industries with data and automation

passengers To help organizations reduce water consumption and identify greenhouse gas emission savings, Ecolab has expanded its partnership with Microsoft, combining its digital platform capabilities with the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability. Serving more than 1.4 million in the U.K., public transportation provider FirstGroup is supporting its sustainability goals and making it easier to collaborate and solve problems by centralizing the visibility and management of its hybrid and multicloud environments with Azure Arc. In Germany, rail transportation leader Deutsche Bahn is building upon its commitment to a cleaner transportation infrastructure for the country by using Dynamics 365 to organize, analyze and visualize its data with the help of partner proMX. Greece-based company Public Power Corporation cut carbon emissions by over 99% while reducing its total cost of ownership by 30% by integrating its data sources on Azure. To enhance productivity for workers across the world, Norway-based Aker Solutions moved its global data center to the cloud and realized an estimated 40% reduction in CO2 emissions. To meet growing customer needs, German energy company EnW automated its operations to make it possible to manage 10,000 renewable energy plants with only 20 employees.

Empowering professional services companies with cutting edge data and generative AI solutions

To achieve its mission of saving 1 million lives every year by 2030, Laerdal Medical is integrating is integrating Azure Speech Services into its training programs to create more immersive, real-life simulations between patients and providers. Amdocs is empowering service providers to improve end-user experiences across all channels and applications with its Customer Engagement Platform that combines best-in-class cloud, AI and telco technologies. ZS Associates is accelerating its new project launches by 75% through better access to collaboration and data tools using Azure and Microsoft 365. In Australia, KPMG is giving employees access to a proprietary version of ChatGPT within Teams so employees can safely explore and use the technology to drive innovation, boost efficiencies and improve the people experience. EY has developed a generative AI chatbot to modernize payroll employee care that can answer complex questions. To scale the capacity of its sales workforce and support more customers, supply chain solution and service provider Dematic has cut its time to solution from eight weeks down to one day by running its customer data and design calculations on Azure. Hungary-based digital solutions provider BPiON is deploying and maintaining applications almost 10 times faster — allowing the cloud-native company to expand its operational infrastructure to two new countries in less than a day.

I believe the only way to navigate uncertainty is through continued and accelerated innovation, and Microsoft itself is no exception. We have been delivering AI solutions for customers successfully over the last several years using cognitive services, machine learning and digital twins. Moving forward, we will infuse generative AI capability into our consumer and commercial offerings to deliver copilot capability for all services that our customers know and love across the Microsoft Cloud. Additionally, we will work with our partners, start-ups, digital natives and our customers to enable them to leverage these same capabilities in their own solutions. I am excited to see what our customers will create with generative AI in partnership with us. Together, we can apply the world’s most advanced AI models to meet business imperatives responsibly, securely and with the confidence that can only be achieved with the Microsoft Cloud.

Microsoft Edge

Declaring the following rush of man-made intelligence advancement with Microsoft Bing and Edge

by Monsurat Omobusayo on May 23, 2023

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Just three months ago, we unveiled the new AI-powered Microsoft Bing and Edge to reinvent the future of search with your copilot for the web. We aimed to tackle a universal problem with traditional search – that nearly half of all web searches go unanswered, resulting in billions of people’s searches falling short of the mark. We launched the new Bing to bring you better search results, answers to your questions, the ability to create and compose, and with a new level of ease of use by being able to chat in natural language. Bing combines powerful large language models like OpenAI’s GPT-4 with our immense search index for results that are current, cited and conversational – something you can’t get anywhere else but on Bing. This is fundamentally changing the way people find information.

In just 90 days, our customers have engaged in over a half a billion chats, using chat features to get summarized answers to help them with everything from finding the best place to travel for someone with pollen allergies, to organizing the last 10 years of worldwide volcanic activity into a table. We have also seen people create over 200 million images with Bing Image Creator. All up, Bing has grown to exceed 100 million daily active users and daily installs of the Bing mobile app have increased 4X since launch. As a result we are seeing growth of Bing share and it follows the eight straight quarters of growth in our Microsoft Edge browser share. We’re excited about continuing to make Bing more accessible by its introduction to the Windows taskbar, reaching over half a billion customers every month.

Entering the next generation of AI-powered search
Today I’m thrilled to share we are moving to the next generation of AI-powered Bing and Edge to transform the largest category of software in the world – search – by greatly expanding the vision and capabilities we think of as Your Copilot for the Web. This next generation is defined by:

Opening up Bing to more people by moving from Limited Preview to Open Preview and eliminating the waitlist for trial.
Moving from text-only search & chat to one that is incredibly more visual with rich image/video answers and coming shortly, new multimodal support.
Moving from single use chat/search sessions to multi-session productivity experiences with chat history and persistent chats within Edge.
Opening up platform capabilities so developers and third parties can build on top of Bing to help people take actions on their queries and complete tasks.
Bing now in Open Preview
Thanks to tremendous customer adoption, engagement and feedback, we’re ready to take the next step and are announcing the new Bing is now in Open Preview and no longer has a waitlist. This means that it will now be easier than ever for everyone to try the new Bing and Edge by simply signing into Bing with your Microsoft Account.
Making search more visual
We know from research that the human brain processes visual information about 60,000 times faster than text, making visual tools a critical way people search, create and gain understanding. Bing has always been known for its visual experiences including features like Knowledge Cards and visual search. And now we’re delivering those same experiences in chat. We’re introducing richer, more visual answers including charts and graphs and updated formatting of answers, helping you find the information you seek more easily.
We recently announced the integration of Bing Image Creator into the new Bing chat experience making Bing the only search experience with the ability to generate both written and visual content in one place, from within chat. And today, I’m excited to share that we are expanding Image Creator to all languages in Bing – that’s more than 100 languages – so now you can create images in your native language.
We’re also beginning our journey to a redesigned Microsoft Edge where one in four Bing chats originate. Edge continues to be your copilot for the web, the first to use AI, and the only browser with Bing built-in. As these changes begin to roll out, you’ll begin to see a sleeker and enhanced user interface including a streamlined look, rounded corners, organized containers and semi-transparent visual elements.
Lastly, we’re expanding what’s possible with multi-modal capabilities and are beginning the work to incorporate visual search in chat so you will be able to upload images and search the web for related content.
Making search more productive
Two of the most requested features we’ve heard are maintaining access to your chat history and being able to share and export. Starting shortly, you’ll be able to pick up where you left off and return to previous chats in Bing chat with chat history. And when you want to dig into something deeper and open a Bing chat result, your chat will move to your Edge sidebar, so you can keep your chat on hand while you browse. Over time, we’re exploring making your chats more personalized by bringing context from a previous chat into new conversation. Starting soon, we’re also adding export and share functionalities into chat. For times when you want to easily share your conversation with others in social media or continue iterating on a newly discovered idea, you can export it directly – the format stays the same to make an easy transition to continue in collaborative tools like Microsoft Word. Chat in Microsoft Edge will also soon have improved summarization capabilities for long documents, including PDFs and longer-form websites, making it easier to consume dense online content. We are also introducing Edge actions. Available in the coming weeks, people will soon be able to lean on AI to complete even more tasks with fewer steps. For example, if you want to watch a particular movie, actions in Edge will find and show you options in chat in the sidebar and then play the movie you want from where it’s available. Edge mobile will also soon include page context, so you can ask questions in Bing chat related to the mobile page you’re viewing. The compose feature in sidebar can also now tailor drafts based on feedback you give like tone, length, phrasing and more. Moving from a product to a platform
The new AI-powered Bing has already helped people more easily find or create what they are looking for, making chat a great tool for both understanding and taking action. The integration of Image Creator saves you time by completing the task of creating the image you need right within chat.
We’ll soon build third-party plug-ins into the Bing chat experience creating a platform for developers. For example, if you’re researching the latest restaurant for dinner in Bing chat, it will leverage OpenTable to help you find and book a reservation. Or, with Wolfram|Alpha, you can create powerful visualizations and get answers to complex science, math and human-curated data-based questions directly from Bing chat. We are working with our partners at OpenAI to make it easier and as consistent as possible for developers to take advantage of this opportunity. We believe these types of skills are a game-changer in the reinvention of search and to advance opportunities for developers in search. We look forward to sharing more details at Microsoft Build later this month. Continuing to build in the open, responsibly
As we’ve said from the beginning, responsible AI is at the center of every new experience we build with the new Bing and Edge. And getting the new Bing into preview so we can learn from real-world testing and feedback has been critical to our success and ability to expand the experience to more users. We believe innovating and learning in the open is part of a responsible approach. But we don’t stop there. Together with our partners at OpenAI, we’ve continued to implement safeguards to defend against harmful content based on what we’re learning and seeing in preview. Our teams continue to work to address issues such as misinformation and disinformation, content blocking, data safety and preventing the promotion of harmful or discriminatory content in line with our AI principles. Learn more here about our approach to responsible AI with the new Bing.
If you haven’t tried the new Bing and Edge yet, now is the time to experience firsthand how we’re reinventing search with your copilot for the web. We’ll also continue our thoughtful and measured approach of gathering feedback and making rapid adjustments in preview. We continue to use this feedback to make weekly changes to the preview by incorporating the most requested features and updates and adding new experiences along the way. Experience the future of search by visiting bing.com today or downloading the Bing mobile app in your favorite app store

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge Now Gives Desktop Apps a Native Feel

by Juliana Luwoye on September 29, 2022

New features coming to Microsoft Edge is a weekly thing these days. Some of those features make the browser resemble a one-stop-shop for bloatware. On the other hand, there is no doubt plenty of the features enhance the browsing experience. I will let you decide where the new Edge ability to make desktop webs apps seem more native fits.

Available in Microsoft Edge 105, the new feature is known as Windows Controls Overlay. This is an API tool for Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) that Microsoft has been planning for around two years.

Microsoft has put plenty of R&D into trying to make PWAs feel more like a native experience. The company’s results rely on changing the UX of the apps instead of focusing on performance. So, a PWA will have a title bar of an app that matches the OS default instead of its own title bar.

This enhancement provides the PWA with 30px of height to take control of. Essentially, even this small amount of space will allow the PWA to show customer menu bars, titles, navigation tabs, and so on.

You can see how this will look in the image above.

Microsoft says the Windows Controls Overlay feature works on Microsoft Edge across Mac, Linux, and of course Windows:

“We believe PWAs are a great fit for making desktop web applications. Turning your website into an app that really feels like it belongs on desktop has never been so easy and using the Window Controls Overlay feature will help you create desktop apps that look much more modern and engaging to your users.”

Tip of the day: For the most part, Windows apps are stable, but they can still be still thrown out of whack by updates or configuration issues. Many boot their PC to find their Microsoft Store isn’t working or their Windows apps aren’t opening. Luckily Windows 11 and Windows 10 have an automatic repair feature for apps that can resolve such issues.

Source Winbuzzer

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Editor in Edge Sending Personal Info to Microsoft Could Be Putting Users at Risk

by Juliana Luwoye on September 20, 2022

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Microsoft-Editor-Main-Windows-On-Laptop-Smartphone-and-Web

Cybersecurity researchers have found editing suites/spellcheckers such as Microsoft Editor in Edge and Enhanced Spellchecker in Google Chrome send potentially personal identifiable information (PII) about users to Microsoft and Google servers.

A team at the JavaScript security firm otto-js were testing script detection when they found the unusual activity. Furthermore, if users access the “Show Password” option when entering their password, this information is also sent to the companies.

It seems anything put into a form when the spellcheckers are active will be sent. However, the researchers say Google only receives the information temporarily:

“The text typed by the user may be sensitive personal information and Google does not attach it to any user identity and only processes it on the server temporarily. To further ensure user privacy, we will be working to exclude passwords proactively from spell check.”

It is worth noting that Enhanced Spellchecker in Chrome is off by default. Users must enable it if they want to use it. In Microsoft Edge, the Microsoft Editor suite is not available by default. Instead, users must install it to the browser.

In Chrome, Google tells users that “(t)ext that you type in the browser is sent to Google.” It is likely Microsoft has similar language around the Editor. However, the security researchers warn this practice could open attack avenues for threat actors.

It is worth checking out the full research on the otto-js blog.

Microsoft Editor

If you’re unfamiliar with Editor, it made its debut with the launch of Microsoft 365 Personal and Family early in 2020. Launched on Microsoft Word, the feature later become available on other Microsoft Office apps and web browsers.

The Editor feature is available for free. However, advanced grammar suggestions, writing refinement tips, and spell checking are limited to Microsoft 365 subscribers.

Tip of the day: With many reachable wireless access points popping up and disappearing again, the available networks list can become quite annoying. If needed you can use the allowed and blocked filter list of Windows to block certain WiFi networks or all unknown WiFi networks.

Source Winbuzzer

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge Malvertising Scam is Targeting Unwitting Users

by Juliana Luwoye on September 16, 2022

Microsoft Edge has plenty of security features, but as the browser becomes increasingly popular, threat actors are targeting it more. Scammers and cybercriminals are always looking for a victim. According to cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes, there has been a recent example of a campaign attempting to scam Edge users.

Specifically, threat actors are targeting users with a tech support scam that is being sent via malicious adverts through the Microsoft Edge “My Feed” section. This is known as a “malvertising” attack where a fake page tricks users into interacting with malicious content.

Malwarebytes explains how the campaign functions in a blog and accompanying image. According to the company, the adware attack is sophisticated because the ad banner knows to only redirect potential victims to the scam page.

“When a user clicks on one of the malicious ads, a request to the Taboola ad network is made via an API (api.taboola.com) to honor the click on the ad banner… The goal of this script is to only show the malicious redirection to potential victims, ignoring bots, VPNs and geolocations that are not of interest that are instead shown a harmless page related to the advert.

This scheme is meant to trick innocent users with fake browser locker pages, very well known and used by tech support scammers.”

Ongoing Scam

Over 24 hours, Mal

warebytes was able to find 200 hostnames, and there are undoubtedly many more to be found. The company says one of the domains associated with the hosts is a software company director out of Dehli, India.

As this is a scam, no update is going to avoid the issue. Instead, it is on Microsoft Edge users to be vigilant and avoid interacting with content they are unsure about.

Tip of the day: Windows now has a package manager similar to Linux called “Winget”. In our tutorial, we show you how to install and use this new tool that allows the quick installation of apps via PowerShell or a GUI.

Source Winbuzzer

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge Now Testing Video Ad-Blocking Tool

by Juliana Luwoye on September 16, 2022

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Another week and another Microsoft Edge feature to discuss. As Microsoft continues to throw everything but the kitchen sink at its web browser, the feature set keeps expanding. Over on the Edge Canary channel/app on Android, the company is now testing a video ad-blocking tool.

At the moment, it seems the feature will be exclusive to mobile and potentially just on Android. Of course, Microsoft Edge on Android and other platforms already have ad-blocking features through the free integration from AdBlock Plus.

With Edge Block Video Ads (a strange name for sure), the browser will work alongside AdBlock Plus to disable video ads that make it past the integratedblocker.

For the moment, Edge Block Video Ads is only available through the Edge Canary app, where users can enable it through the edge://flags path in the URL address bar.

Availability

As always, Canary is the first preview phase and is the testing of the feature. If testing goes well, Microsoft will begin rolling it out to other testing channels ahead of a full release on Android. That should happen in the coming months.

Microsoft is currently not saying if the tool will come to Microsoft Edge on iOS, Windows, Mac, or other platforms. I would say an iOS release is likely somewhere down the line.

Over recent years, Microsoft has been throwing features at Edge. Some of those new additions are useful and others could be seen as bloatware (the reality is somewhere between). Either way, Microsoft Edge is a fully stocked browser experience.

Tip of the day: Did you know that your data and privacy might be at risk if you run Windows without encryption? A bootable USB with a live-linux distribution is often just enough to gain access to all of your files.

If you want to change that, check out our detailed BitLocker guide where we show you how to turn on encryption for your system disk or any other drive you might be using in your computer.

Source Winbuzzer

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge Now Testing Video Ad-Blocking Tool

by Juliana Luwoye on September 15, 2022

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With Edge Block Video Ads (a strange name for sure), the browser will work alongside AdBlock Plus to disable video ads that make it past the integrated blocker.

For the moment, Edge Block Video Ads is only available through the Edge Canary app, where users can enable it through the edge://flags path in the URL address bar.

Availability

Microsoft is currently not saying if the tool will come to Microsoft Edge on iOS, Windows, Mac, or other platforms. I would say an iOS release is likely somewhere down the line.

If you want to change that, check out our detailed BitLocker guide where we show you how to turn on encryption for your system disk or any other drive you might be using in your computer.\

Source Winbuzzer

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge “Wallet” Feature Coming to Windows 11 and Windows 10

by Juliana Luwoye on September 8, 2022

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Microsoft Edge is getting yet another new feature for users on Windows 11 and Windows 10. Known as ‘Wallet’, the new tool promises to provide a place to securely manage physical card payments online within the web browser.

When making payments with a card on Microsoft Edge, the Wallet feature will ask if you want to use a saved card instead of entering a new card number, and CVV. Users can include their own cards manually, or Edge will request to save card details you enter when making purchases.

Considering Microsoft does not have its own payment platform, this is the closest the company has come. I will also file this as a useful Microsoft Edge feature. The browser has loads of tools, some of them not really necessary. Wallet is different as it makes for a more efficient browsing experience.

Aside from being a web browser, Edge is now also… well, nearly everything else. Whether you find the myriad features useful or think of them as bloatware (the reality is somewhere between), Edge is a fully stocked browser experience.

Available Now

In terms of the Wallet feature, it is now rolling out to select users in the United States, with A/B testing. This means while it is running in the Canary channel, it is now available to all users who have access to Canary builds. Only devices included in Microsoft’s limited A/B testing ring can try it out.

Either way, it is clear this feature is on its way so I expect a full preview release in the coming weeks. A final end-user push should come in a couple of months.

Tip of the day: Headsets are a vital tool for communication and can cause stressful moments when they don´t work as planned. In our tutorial we are showing you how to properly set up a headset on your Windows PC so this will be a thing of the past.

Source Winbuzzer

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge Gains Market Ground on Google Chrome

by Juliana Luwoye on August 2, 2022

It is well-known that Google Chrome is the comfortable market leader in the web browser market across form factors and platforms. However, on desktop, Microsoft Edge is increasing its market share against Chrome, according to Statcounter.

In its July 2022 report, the researcher points out Edge is continuing its steady upwards growth. During the month, the browser took 10.84%, up 0.2 points from June 2022.

Google Chrome remains the dominant desktop browser, with a 66.19% market share. However, that is a decline of 0.74 points from the previous month. Apple’s Safari is the third on the list thanks to macOS. The browser remained unchanged with a market share of 8.94%.

Firefox in the fourth enjoyed month-on-month growth of +0.28 points on 8.08%. Microsoft’s legacy browser, Internet Explorer, is still lingering with a 0.75% share. This is despite Microsoft killing off the old browser for good recently.

Google Chrome – 66.19% (-0.74)
Microsoft Edge – 10.84% (+0.2)
Apple Safari – 8.94% (+0.01)
Mozilla Firefox – 8.08% (+0.28)
Opera – 3.06% (+0.08)

Google Hits Back

We reported today that Google is looking to fight back against the growth of Microsoft Edge. Specifically, the company is working on a feature that will allow users to default the browser on Windows in a single click.

Spotted by reliable Windows tipster Leopeva64-2 on Reddit, there is a commit on Chromium Gerrit that shows a new setting for users to set Chrome as default on Windows with a single click.

Tip of the day: With a single registry tweak, you can add a ‘Take Ownership’ button to the right-click context menu that performs all of the necessary actions for you. You’ll gain full access to all possible actions, including deletion, renaming, and more. All files and subfolders will also be under your name. The Take Ownership context menu will set the currently active user as the owner of the files, though they must also be an administrator. They can then enter the folder or modify the file as they usually would.

Source Winbuzzer