Hey Xbox Insiders! We have a new Xbox Update Preview releasing to the Alpha Skip-Ahead ring today. It's important we note that some updates made to these preview OS builds include background improvements that ensure a quality and stable build for Xbox consoles. We will continue to post these release notes, even when the noticeable changes to the UI are minimal or behind the scenes, so you're aware when updates are coming to your device. Details can be found below!

New Features and Experiences
We have exciting news! Alpha Skip-Ahead users can expect something new coming to their Xbox Update Preview.

Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta)
Xbox Insiders can preview Mouse and Keyboard support while playing via cloud gaming on supported browsers (Edge and Chrome) and the Xbox App on Windows PCs for users enrolled in the PC Gaming Preview. Note: Users on browser will need to enable Preview features on their browser to gain access to the feature. This is done by clicking on your profile picture at xbox.com/play and then select Settings and then enable "Preview features."

The world's leading PC gaming hardware brand, MSI, has partnered with Opera GX, the browser for gamers to create a unique browser and interactive content experience for fans of MSI's and Opera GX's products and services. "Our partnership with MSI has enabled us to once again create a truly engaging branded browser experience for one of the most renowned hardware brands in gaming," said Mattijs de Valk, VP of Business Development Gaming at Opera, adding: "The GX MSI browser ensures that users stay connected with MSI brand and its products and services in a fun and engaging way - while browsing the internet with the best browser for gamers."

The partnership with Opera GX is just the beginning of a series of upcoming activities. First is the GX MSI Edition—a special co-branded version of the Opera GX gaming browser, including exclusive MSI-themed interactive backgrounds, music, sounds and content. GX MSI Edition comes packed with game-changing features, including CPU, RAM, and Network limiters, hundreds of customization options via GX Mods, and seamless integration with popular platforms like Discord and Twitch.

Opera is unveiling Opera One today. Opera One is the early access version of a completely redesigned browser that is planned to replace the flagship Opera browser for Windows, MacOS, and Linux later this year. Based on Modular Design, Opera One transforms the way you interact with your browser, delivering a liquid navigation experience which is more intuitive to the user. With today's release, Opera One also becomes the first major Chromium-based browser with a multithreaded compositor that brings the UI to life like never before. Opera One also introduces Tab Islands, a new, more intuitive way of interacting with and managing multiple tabs. This news from the company comes just weeks after announcing its first generative AI features, including AI Prompts, as well as access to ChatGPT and ChatSonic in the sidebar.

Introducing the first implementation of Modular Design
Opera has a history of reinventing itself to address the changing needs of its users as well as the evolving nature of the web. With Opera One, the browser has been redesigned according to Modular Design. The new design philosophy, which is being presented today for the first time, will allow Opera to over time build a more powerful and feature-rich browser that is ready for a generative AI-based future. The Opera browser is thus beginning its metamorphosis into a browser that will dynamically adapt to the user's needs by bringing only the key features to the foreground: the relevant modules within Opera One will adjust automatically based on context, providing the user with a more liquid and effortless browsing experience.

Microsoft's Window Defender engineering team has finally found the time to address a long term bug within its anti-malware software - relating to performance issues with Mozilla's Firefox web browser. User feedback stretching back to five years ago indicates extremely sluggish web surfing experiences, caused by a Windows "Anti-malware Service Executable" occupying significant chunks of CPU utilization (more than 30%). The combination of Firefox and Windows Defender running in parallel would guarantee a butting of (software) heads - up until last week's bug fix. A Microsoft issued update has reduced the "MsMpEng.exe" Defender component's CPU usage by a maximum of 75%.

Microsoft and Mozilla developers have collaborated on addressing the disharmonious relationship between Defender and Firefox. A plucky member of the latter's softwareengineering team has been very transparent about the sluggish browser experience. Yannis Juglaret has provided a string of project updates via Mozilla's Bugzilla tracking system - one of his latest entries provide details about the fix: "You may read online that Defender was making too many calls to VirtualProtect, and that global CPU usage will now go down by 75% when browsing with Firefox. This is absolutely wrong! The impact of this fix is that on all computers that rely on Microsoft Defender's Real-time Protection feature (which is enabled by default in Windows), MsMpEng.exe will consume much less CPU than before when monitoring the dynamic behavior of any program through Event Tracing for Windows (ETW). Nothing less, nothing more."

As generative AI tools continue to reshape the digital landscape, Opera is integrating AI capabilities into its desktop browsers. Shipping today in Opera and Opera GX are AI Prompts and sidebar integration of the popular GPT-based services ChatGPT and ChatSonic. Users can explore AIGC (AI-generated content) tools within Opera and Opera GX.

"AIGC is a game-changer for web browsing. Our goal is to use these technologies to give our users new browsing superpowers - reimagining how they learn, create, and research," said Joanna Czajka, Product Director at Opera.

While NVMe storage devices offer significant performance and reliability advantages over their platter-based counterparts, many Linux and VMware based applications continue to rely on older SAS & SATA solutions due to the ready availability of firmware level RAID storage and native driver support. This combination greatly simplifies the kernel update process while minimizing downtime. RAID solutions with native driver support will be treated as embedded devices, and do not need to be updated separately to comply with the kernel change.

The SSD6200 product family was designed to address these concerns. The NVMe RAID capability is integrated at the firmware level, and functions independent of the host. In addition, SSD6200 series controllers are natively supported by all major Virtualization platforms, such as VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V and Proxmox, and all current versions and distributions of Windows, Linux and FreeBSD operating systems. This native, In-Box driver support ensures administrators are free to update the Kernel, apply patches, or download and install scheduled updates whenever the need arises, using standard operating procedures. No work-arounds, no hassles, no surprises.

Today, Adobe kicked off Adobe MAX 2021, the largest creativity conference in the world. The company delivered innovation across Creative Cloud flagship applications and introduced new collaboration capabilities to fuel new levels of creativity for millions of customers worldwide, from students to social media creators to creative professionals.

At Adobe MAX, the company announced major updates across Creative Cloud flagship applications powered by Adobe Sensei, accelerated the video creation process with the addition of Frame.io and advanced 3D and immersive authoring abilities. Adobe also previewed new collaboration capabilities with the introduction of Creative Cloud Canvas, Creative Cloud Spaces and betas of Photoshop and Illustrator on the web.

Microsoft has released its Chromium-based Edge browser some time ago and it is already capturing the market. Just in April of this year, it became the world's second most popular web-browser, just behind Google Chrome. Surpassing even Mozilla's Firefox web-browser, the new Edge is rising in popularity very quickly. So far, Microsoft gave an option for Windows 10 users to just download the new browser if they want to, or the only Edge browser you had would be the old version based on the EdgeHTML engine. Even though Microsoft has recently decided to start rolling out the new Chromium-based browser via OS updates, the old version could still find its way in the OS and there wouldn't be a new one present. Starting with update 20H2, Microsoft is bundling the new browser with OS update, making it a default option in the OS.

While the new browser is going to replace old Edge for default opening of links or some files like PDF, the old Edge will still be present. A lot of legacy applications are relying on opening some of their stuff in the old browser, and there sure would be problems if it would be gone. Additionally, gone are the year plus month names for Windows 10 updates, like 1803, 1903, and 1909. Now you get a year plus the first or second half of the year. For example, the next update is 20H2 (second half of 2020), and the one after it is 21H1 (first half of 2021). This is done to avoid confusion and with this Microsoft announced that updates will be faster in general.

Counter-Strike is one of the favorite game franchises for all gamers. It is an FPS shooter that probably got many of us into gaming. Version 1.6 which launched in 2000 is still played by many players around the world to this day. Including my self sometimes. It is just quick fun for when you have some spare time to kill and want to do a few multiplayer rounds. Its simplicity and fun were what made the game very popular among many gamers. So wouldn't it be fun to play it without installing if you want quick action? Now it is possible to play it in your web-browser requiring no installation of the game. There is a website which you can visit here and try it out for yourself. Surprisingly it runs very smooth and I didn't experience any issues myself. Please tell us your experience in the comments if you decide to try and run this.

Microsoft released the first preview of its overhauled chromium-based edge browser back in January, but users had to navigate to Microsoft's site to install the browser. The new browser will now automatically roll out to versions of Windows 10 from version 1803 onwards, this will mean up to a billion installs of the updated browser. The New Edge browser when installed via windows update completely replaces the previous Edge browser whereas the website install coexists with the existing Edge browser.

Tor, like much of the world, has been caught up in the COVID-19 crisis. Like many other nonprofits and small businesses, the crisis has hit us hard, and we have had to make some difficult decisions. We had to let go of 13 great people who helped make Tor available to millions of people around the world. We will move forward with a core team of 22 people, and remain dedicated to continuing our work on Tor Browser and the Tor software ecosystem.

The world won't be the same after this crisis, and the need for privacy and secure access to information will become more urgent. In these times, being online is critical and many people face ongoing obstacles to getting and sharing needed information. We are taking today's difficult steps to ensure the Tor Project continues to exist and our technology stays available. We are terribly sad to lose such valuable teammates, and we want to let all our users and supporters know that Tor will continue to provide privacy, security, and censorship circumvention services to anyone who needs them.

Microsoft's latest Edge browser based on the open-source Chromium browser is now the 2nd most popular browser in the world. Having launched just three months ago, it already has increased its userbase around the world to become more popular than even some long-lasting alternatives such as Mozilla Firefox, which is now the 3rd most popular option, showing that Firefox's userbase is decreasing in favor of the new Edge browser by Microsoft. The number one is still Google's Chrome which owns the majority of users at 68.5%, while Edge is at 7.59%. Firefox is present with a 7.19% market share, placing it just below Edge. It is impressive to see a new browser gain big userbase in such a short time, as alternative browsers often take years to gain even 2% of the market. You can check out the whole browser market share chart below.

Just in April, Microsoft was introducing the first flighting programs for their chromium-based Edge browser, with daily (Canary) and weekly (Developer) builds being made available to users. Fast forward four months, and the company is now making it available in beta form - the last step between general availability and an official, "finished" release.

Microsoft decided to stop developing their in-house browser engine, instead taking from and building upon the open-source Chromium project, from where Google chrome takes most of its components. The decision was meant to allow Microsoft to become a more powerful player in the development of Chromium and the internet browsing experience as a whole, facilitating developers' work. The Beta of Edge supports 14 languages and some quality of life features, such as the ability to decide whether their new tab page is laid-out in a Focused, Inspirational or Informational mode. Some other supported features include Microsoft Search (integrated with Bing), Internet Explorer mode and Windows Defender Application Guard. There's also a tracking prevention browsing mode, which prevents tracking from websites that you haven't really visited. This features includes three levels of privacy - Basic, Balanced and Strict. Will this be enough to make you jump towards the Edge?

Microsoft has released the first public version of their Chromium-based rendition of Edge. Remember that Microsoft announced back in December of last year that they would be ceasing development efforts on their own browser back-end, and would instead be adopting the Chromium open-source coding - which powers the ubiquitous, 65% market share-earning Google Chrome. The plan is to streamline development efforts, reduce web development fragmentation, and contribute to a more open internet by building and contributing towards the Chromium project.

Now, users can take a look at the Chromium-powered version of Edge (yes, it did keep the Edge branding). The Chromium-based Edge release is nowhere near completion - MIcrosoft is instead using flighting programs, like it is doing with most of its products now, to aid in the development of features and bug correction - having a global Q&A is much better than having a dedicated team in-house, after all. This is being done via Canary and Developer builds of the Edge browser, where Canary are available daily, and follow the development flow of the browser at is being developed, or via weekly Developer builds, which should bring more impactful performance and feature upgrades - along with some added stability.

So, it goes like this: Microsoft has confirmed they will be killing of their own-developed Edge browser in favor of a Chromium-based alternative. However... The new browser will retain Microsoft's Edge nomenclature, instead of parting ways with the (likely damaged) branding. Microsoft is committing to the open-based Chromium backbone, and will be building upon its database to contribute towards a more open Internet.

The idea is to deliver more frequent updates - and of course, reducing the engineering and coding efforts to keep an in-house browser up to date and secure from all manner of Internet threats. And this will likely be achieved; whether Microsoft's efforts will bring it a higher market share than the current 4%, though, is anyone's guess. It seems to be a usual Microsoft dilemma in that the first search on its browsers is for another web browser... And it might remain especially so without a branding change. Living in Chrome just sounds better than living on Edge.

It looks like Microsoft is on a tactical retreat in the web-browser wars, with no amount of marketing integrated with Windows 10 dissuading users from using Google's near-monopolistic Chrome web-browser. Windows Central has come out with a sensational report that suggests that Microsoft could kill off the Edge web-browser that ships with Windows 10. It could try a different strategy against Chrome - designing a new web-browser that's derived from Chromium, the open-source foundation that supplies Chrome with key components. Much like Firefox, Chromium is heavily forked and customized by the OSS community.

Microsoft is internally calling this Chromium-based browser "Anaheim." The browser will be designed for both the x86 and ARM versions of Windows 10, and could be heavily differentiated from Edge and Internet Explorer, which could include a new branding, or perhaps even a significantly different user-interface from Edge. Microsoft could begin non-public community testing of "Anaheim" throughout 2019.

The name of the product may sound ironic given the intended application, but the Mozilla Firefox Reality web browser is the first of its kind to be built dedicated to virtual reality (and also augmented-, and mixed-reality for that matter) portals. Mozilla had originally announced earlier this year this was in the making, and today we see availability at the usual VR suspects- Viveport, Oculus, and Daydream app stores. The Mixed Reality Team at Mozilla felt that VR took advantage of the so-called 3D immersive web, and that using existing 2D-centric browsers meant not being able to, in their words, "enjoy it".

This meant that Mozilla built Firefox Reality with a new approach to navigation, user input, searches and more. Features built into the browser include searching with one's voice, for example, taking advantage of microphones either integrated in headsets or as part of audio peripherals used in conjunction. Mozilla says they spent thousands of hours testing and collecting feedback from users to get to the release version of the browser, and this comes also in the form of a new home screen that adds interactive, immersive experiences right from the get go as seen below. More to follow past the break.

Well, after users think they've closed their browsers, more specifically. Researchers form anti-malware provider Malwarebytes have discovered a new form of web-based cryptocurrency mining that has a stealth-like approach to running mining code, which might cause less attentive users' machines to keep mining even after their web browsers have been closed. This is done via an utterly simple method, really: upon opening a malicious web page that has been coded to make users' machines mine cryptocurrency, the web page opens a pop-up window that is minimized behind the Windows Taskbar's clock. It's ingeniously simple - but could be surprisingly hard to detect, and could mean that the mining process will actually keep on using CPU cycles and mining crypto indefinitely until the next system reboot.

Rightware, the leader in embedded user interface (UI) technologies and benchmarking software tools, today introduced Browsermark 2.0 - a free to use benchmark that was designed from the ground up to measure and compare the performance of any browser on any internet enabled device, including: desktops, notebooks, tablets, smartphones and more.

In addition to measuring general browsing functionality tests like: page loading and page resizing, and conformance testing for HTML5 and network speed, Browsermark 2.0 also features 4 new areas of testing: WebGL, Canvas, HTML5, and CSS3/3D.

The European Commission has informed Microsoft of its preliminary view that Microsoft has failed to comply with its commitments to offer users a choice screen enabling them to easily choose their preferred web browser. In 2009, the Commission had made these commitments legally binding on Microsoft (see IP/09/1941). The sending of a statement of objections does not prejudge the final outcome of the investigation.

In its statement of objections, the Commission takes the preliminary view that Microsoft has failed to roll out the browser choice screen with its Windows 7 Service Pack 1, which was released in February 2011. From February 2011 until July 2012, millions of Windows users in the EU may not have seen the choice screen. Microsoft has acknowledged that the choice screen was not displayed during that period.

This month is the 20th Anniversary of Wolfenstein 3D. To celebrate id Software and Bethesda have given us all a free browser-based version of its seminal shooter. John Carmack has also given a director's commentary, full of the usual fascinating Carmackchat. You can play the snazzy HTML 5 version of Wolf 3D if you're browsing in Firefox 10, Chrome 16, Internet Explorer 9, Safari 5, or newer. Fingers crossed that your work computer is updated vaguely frequently. id Software got distracted by Doom and Quake after the release of a Wolf 3D prequel, but the series returned in 2001 with Return to Castle Wolfenstein from Grey Matter and Nerve Software. Splash Damage followed this with the superb free multiplayer spin-off Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, then the last entry in the series was Raven's Wolfenstein in 2009. The iOS version is also going temporarily free in the App Store some time later today. Here is the Link

Opera Software today released the beta version of Opera 12, codenamed "Wahoo", the latest entry in Opera's long line of desktop web browsers. Opera 12 is both smarter and faster than its predecessors and introduces new features for both developers and consumers to play with ahead of the final launch. Discover Opera 12 for yourself at www.opera.com/browser/next/.

It's a theme, not a meme

Themes give you an easy way to change the look of Opera to suit your tastes or your mood. Just select a new theme and - voila! - your new-look browser awaits. To try a theme for Opera 12 beta, visit addons.opera.com/themes.

Google's Chrome narrowly became the world's top internet browser for the first time on Sunday 18 March 2012, according to StatCounter, the independent website analytics company. The firm's research arm StatCounter Global Stats reports that Chrome topped the polls in India, Russia and Brazil, all of which contributed to it becoming the number one browser for that day on a global basis.

"While it is only one day, this is a milestone," commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. He added that Chrome still faces a battle to unseat its main rivals including IE and Firefox in many regions. Chrome remains in 2nd or 3rd place in China, United States and Germany, for example.

According to data collected by Net Applications, February saw both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Google Chome losing some browser market share which was quickly picked up by Apple's Safari, Mozilla's Firefox and Opera.

Last month's numbers still have IE on top with 52.84% of the market (down from 52.96% in January), while Firefox kept its silver medal by securing a 20.92% share (20.88%). On third place we have Chrome with 18.90% (18.94% in the previous month), while on fourth Safari has once again passed the 5% mark, topping 5.24% (4.90%). Opera was fifth with a 1.71% share (1.67%).

Don't worry if you just installed Firefox 10.0 cause there's a new Foxxy browser craving your attention, the Firefox 11.0 beta. This fresh build comes with an updated migration tool that can also import Chrome bookmarks, history, and cookies, and features add-on syncing capabilities, redesigned media controls for HTML5 video, and support for the CSS text-size-adjust property and the outerHTML property.

Firefox 11.0 also brings some goodies for devs like the Page Inspector 3D View, the new Style Editor tool, SPDY Support and more.

To download the Firefox 11.0 beta (for Windows, Mac OS or Linux) see this page.