PCWorld March 2019

For some, two of the best products Microsoft ever produced are Windows Mobile and Windows 7—and support for both are ending in about a year’s time. Earlier this week, Microsoft reminded customers that official support for Windows 7 ends on January 14, 2020, even posting an official reminder page to encourage customers to hurry up and adopt Windows 10. Now is also the time for Windows phones to finally accept their fate: Windows 10 Mobile, version 1709, will lose support on December 10, 2019. At that time, Windows 10 Mobile users will no longer be eligible to receive new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free assisted support options, or online technical content updates from Microsoft for free, Microsoft says. In other words, no new patches. Backups, at least, will persist until March…

When Microsoft announced the standalone versions of Office last year, known as Office 2019, Microsoft’s attitude seemed decidedly lukewarm. We were wrong: Now it’s downright hostile. Microsoft released three videos recently to try and demonstrate that the AI-powered, always-updated version of Office 365 trounces the standalone Office 2019 in tasks ranging from automatically filling in geographic data in an Excel spreadsheet to automatically adding relevant skills to a Word resume that can then be sent to a recruiter. In each of the “showdowns,” Office 2019 forces the user to perform the tasks manually, while Office 365 either automatically performs the task or connects to the Internet to simplify it. According to Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365, Office 2019 is “frozen in time”: “They [the Office 2019 apps] don’t ever…

As data breaches become normalized, it’s more and more likely that your personal information may be exposed. But how will you know? In February, Google published a Chrome plug-in that will report if the login info you use in say, Yahoo, has been stolen. Google’s Password Checkup plug-in won’t do anything until it detects that you’ve logged in to a site whose data has been previously compromised. If a login and password have been found in the recent “Collections” leak of more than 2 billion usernames and passwords, a message will pop up warning that your information has been compromised. All told, Google has archived over 4 billion credentials that it feels have been compromised. Put another way, you can always manually check to see if your username and password has been…

Stealing a page from Apple’s recent earnings warning, Intel blamed a lack of demand in China as one of the reasons for reporting healthy fourth-quarter profits that were nevertheless less than Wall Street expected. Intel’s fourth quarter, traditionally the company’s strongest, capped what Intel said was a record-breaking year in terms of revenue. But Intel blamed China, weakness in cloud-computing customers, a weakened modem market, and an inability to manufacture enough processors as reasons the company’s revenues did not meet expectations. Intel’s manufacturing woes have been a source of questions since 2018, as has been when Intel will name a replacement for Brian Krzanich, Intel’s former chief executive, who unexpectedly stepped down in June of 2018. Interim CEO Bob Swan addressed both issues, at least in part. Swan predicted that Intel’s manufacturing…

After searching more than half a year for a new chief executive, Intel decided the best candidate was the guy already running the company: Robert “Bob” Swan, the “acting” and now permanent CEO. Technically, Intel promoted from within to hire Swan, who had served as the company’s chief financial officer since 2016. But Swan’s resume paints him as an outsider, with stints at fab tools maker Applied Materials, and nine years as the CFO at eBay. Swan has had CEO experience, but only running Webvan, an online grocery service that entered bankruptcy in 2001. There’s no question Swan comes as a surprise, as he was reported not to have wanted the job in the first place. “Swan told me that as he was in the interim CEO role, he started to like…

When Opera announced that it was shutting down its VPN app for iOS and Android last year, it appeared as though it was gone forever. In fact, Opera directed users toward SurfEasy Total VPN with deep discounts on subscription plans. Apparently, Opera thought better of that idea, because it’s bringing its VPN back. There are a few caveats though. For one, it’s still in beta mode. For another, it’s only available within the full Opera browser (not Opera Mini) on Android phones. But otherwise, it’s just as free, unlimited, and easy to use as the standalone app that was shuttered in April. And it’s basically just like the desktop version except on your phone. To try it out, you’ll need to download the Opera browser beta, which is separate from the Opera…