PCWorld June 2023

Google’s search engine has remained relatively unchanged for decades. With the advent of AI, look for that to change—and you can test the new-look Search today. Google Search’s familiar interface, with a search box and a list of responses, is being overhauled to look more like Microsoft Bing’s chatbot now does, with AI stepping in to provide supplementary information it never offered before. (In Bing, you can perform a “traditional” search, with a list of links and a Bing Chat box to the side; you can also conduct the search entirely within the Bing Chat interface by selecting Chat from a list of options, or scrolling or swiping up on the Bing Search page.) Google is trying something a bit different with its updated search engine, bringing in recommendations as well…

Windows 10 might not be dead, but it’s nearing the end of the road. Microsoft said Thursday that the company doesn’t plan on releasing any additional feature updates to Windows 10. “The current version, 22H2, will be the final version of Windows 10, and all editions will remain in support with monthly security update releases through that date,” Microsoft’s Jason Leznek said in a blog post describing the latest Windows client roadmap update. Microsoft has also updated the lifecycle page for Windows 10 Home and Pro to reflect the changes. “Windows 10 will reach end of support on October 14, 2025,” the page reads. “The current version, 22H2, will be the final version of Windows 10, and all editions will remain in support with monthly security update releases through that date. Existing…

Set a reminder: In just a few weeks, you’ll be able to ask Google if your email address is being used as currency on what’s known as the “dark web.” It’s a service that the company previously made available to Google One subscribers as a paid security method. Now, it’s being rolled out to Gmail users as a whole. The “dark web” is usually referred to as a series of servers that don’t publicly register with search engines—quite the opposite, as they want to stay hidden from the eyes of the law for whatever reason. The dark web or Darknet surfaced a few years ago, when researchers started delving into the far reaches of the web. There are plenty of vital, positive aspects of the dark web; it can be used…

Your number of browser tabs may be the source of your stress when working online. Well, part of it, anyway. According to a study performed at Aalto University in Finland (and spotted by PC Gamer), browser clutter appears to be a problem for most people. But just what is browser clutter? The research, which involved 400 online survey respondents and 16 in-person interviewees, breaks that concept into several components—one of which involves the number of tabs that sparks stress and frustration. Also folded into this concept are advertisements, pop-up notifications, and disorganized information on a page. The study, however, did not identify a magic number of tabs that helped avoid becoming overwhelmed. Survey participants only identified whether they saw browser clutter as a problem, which most people do. (About 57 percent…

Follow any tech site with regularity and you’ll hear the same refrain over and over—back up your files. The longer you wait, the more you flirt with disaster, and you don’t have as much time as you might think. In March, a Los Angeles storage recovery service revealed that on average, their clients’ failed hard drives died within the first three years of use. And now a study from Backblaze has corroborated that finding with much more data. In the original report, Secure Data Recovery came to its discovery by cataloging the details of 2,007 faulty drives from six prominent manufacturers, with capacities ranging from 40GB to 10TB. Backblaze’s latest release of drive statistics (which the cloud storage and backup service publishes quarterly about the storage powering its data centers) paints…

Managing passwords is pain. Tools exist to help (like password managers) but staying on top of them remains dreary work. But a new system for securing accounts is filtering through the web—passkeys. They take away a lot of the burden associated with passwords. You simply need a device capable of serving as an authenticator to set up a passkey, then you’ll use a biometric method on that device (face identification, fingerprint) or a PIN to authorize logins. And after much anticipation, their rollout is starting to pick up steam—as evidenced by this week’s launch of passkey support for Google accounts, right on the eve of World Password Day 2023. Passkeys first started generating buzz last year when Google, Microsoft, and Apple all pledged to adopt them. A form of passwordless…