Tip o’ the Week 369 – Edging forward?

Posted on March 24, 2017 by ewand

There was a time when browser wars raged; different companies felt that if end users ran on their browser, they’d have control over the way the user got access to the web. The browser landscape is radically different today, though.

It’s easy to think that everyone does most of their browsing on mobile devices but that’s not quite the case, yet – though it’s now more common to use a mobile than either a PC or a tablet.

Still, if 45% of all browsing is still being done on a desktop machine, it’s interesting to see the spread of usage – here’s the UK’s desktop browser market share since Windows 10 was released:

So, it’s pretty clear that Chrome (in green) is the de facto browser. IE (dark blue) has dropped 11% and Edge (light blue) has crawled up to 7.5%, with Safari and Firefox oscillating one or two points up and down but more or less holding station. Expanding the view to worldwide, shows that Firefox is more popular overseas (it’s the most popular browser in Germany, for example). Have a play with the chart above until it shows you some data you like.

InfoWorld published a recent report citing “13 reasons not to use Chrome”, some of which are pretty bogus but others may warrant attention:

Malware protection – as the traditional means of infecting computers with malware has changed (from sharing files on floppies or USB sticks), the most likely way of picking up something nasty is through your browser. A recent NSS Labs report showed that Edge was best at blocking phishing attacks, and another on “Socially Engineered Malware” – the kind of sites or pop-ups that dupe a user into installing things they shouldn’t – shows that Edge blocked 99% of them, whereas Chrome managed 86% and Firefox, 78%.
JavaScript performance – Chrome isn’t necessarily the best; Edge outperformed it in a couple of benchmarks and was beaten in a couple more, here. Regardless of whether you care about JavaScript or not, you should watch Hanselman’s pitch, if only for the GIFs and side anecdotes.
Battery life – Microsoft released a report saying that Edge would improve your Windows laptop’s battery life compared to other browsers. Opera took issue and said they were the best. Paul Thurrott didn’t agree, said he was switching to Edge but apparently has reverted back to Google’s Chrome.
Mactards may want to use Safari vs Chrome for the same reasons.

Of course, preference plays a big part in why people use any tool versus another. Why not try something different, though? You can always revert back if you try a browser and decide you don’t like it.

Edge is getting better with various releases, with more to come in the next couple of months with the Creators Update. If you fancy trying Edge out as your default, check out WindowsCentral’s excellent guide.

Tip o’ the Week 342 – LastPass on Edge

Posted on September 5, 2016 by ewand

As has been discussed on previous ToWs, one of the notable features of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update has been the slew of improvements that have come to the default web browser, Microsoft Edge. Even Thurrott is talking about it, if anyone is prepared to pay to read.

The availability of extensions is surely one of the big news items. One of the most useful extensions (see the rest here, or in the store) is LastPass – an online website password manager, useful for a couple of things … keeping an off-machine archive of your usernames/passwords for websites (across multiple machines if you pay for a Premium subscription) and an easy way of entering the saved username & password (look for the ellipsys icon which the addin shows at the far side of password dialogs – click on that to select the saved usernames & passwords for that site; you could use this to manage multiple identities for the same site).

The LastPass addin – and corresponding web service – also lets you set up a random password when signing up for new websites; hopefully avoiding the same username/password problem that hurts when online forums or websites get compromised and usernames & passwords are leaked. And who has the time to generate and remember a unique username & password for every site?

Tip o’ the Week 319 – Reading list on Edge

Posted on March 29, 2016 by ewand

One of the nice features of the Edge browser in Windows 10 is the built-in Reading List – the idea being that if you’re noodling about on the web and want to mark something as worth reading, but just not right now, then the Reading List is the place to do it.

When you’re looking at a page you want to come back to (but generally only once, so you probably don’t want to add it to your Favourites list), simply tap or click the star button on the Edge menu bar, and you can add the current site to your Reading List, which can be recalled at any time by opening the Hub (the 3-line icon to the right of the star), then the icon that looks like a stack of paper. The featured item at the top of the list is the last one you were actually reading, and the ones below are the previously saved stories.

There is/was, in fact, a Windows app that could do the same sort of thing from any source – called Windows Reading List. That’s still a viable way of catching stuff to read later, though if you use Edge as your browser, then the same kind of functionality is built it. You can migrate your old Reading List entries into Edge if you so desire (the tl;dr version; open everything in your Reading List, then add it to your Edge browser’s Reading List).

Improvements have flowed to the Edge browser since Windows 10 release, especially in the November TH2 update, version 1511 (press WindowsKey+R then run winver to see what version you’re on – OS build 10586 was the November update, but Insiders may see version 1511 and build well into the 14xxxs now).

Syncing content across devices was provided, but disabled by default…

If you choose to enable Syncing, then you’ll see the Reading List on multiple machines (assuming you’re using the same Microsoft Account on them all), and even on your Windows 10 Mobile phone too.

So, you can add stuff to your list whilst on the hoof (tap the ellipsis … on the bottom to access the Reading list or the menu to add stuff to it), and when you’ve read on any device, you can just tap/hold or right-click to delete that item from the list and it’s gone from everywhere.

Tip o’ the Week #289 – Edge, Cortana & Win10 keyboard tips

Posted on July 31, 2015 by ewand

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Assuming everyone has upgraded to Windows 10 by now, it’s a useful time to post some tips that could help the new user get a leg up more quickly. So far, reaction seems to be going well – even some Mac users quite like it (though if you read to the very end, it’s not all a bed of roses) – and if, nothing else, there are some notable improvements over previous Windows versions.

I’m close to the Edge

The new Edge browser is one of the more celebrated bits of Windows 10, at least for now. It’s fast, it’s standards-compliant (and that’s something of a double-edged sword to a degree, as it means legacy plugins and old-layout web pages might not work). Even naysayers admit that Edge is a Good Thing, on the basis that it’ll put a firecracker into the Webkit bonfire, even if it’s not perfect itself.

For new upgraders, the first thing you might decide to do with Edge is to restore your favourites from IE – click on the multi-line icon on the toolbar, then the star (which represents Favourites), and click Import favourites to bring yours from IE. Some degree of username/password history will come across as well, though you may need to select the username on the first visit to a web page (as cookies are not migrated across).

To use Edge on intranet sites when attached to a corporate network, you can force the browser to try the intranet address only by adding a trailing slash to the end of the name – eg msweb/. This will stop it from trying to find that name on the internet, if for any reason it can’t get to the site internally.

If you are find sites that don’t like Edge, you can always click on the ellipsis (…) menu on the top right, and click Open in Internet Explorer, and the page will launch in IE11. Whilst you’re at it, you might want to pin the IE icon to your taskbar by right-clicking on it – then you can always go straight to IE next time.

If you’d like to change your default browser altogether, just type default web browser at the start menu, and that will let you reset to IE or another browser.

Keyboard CTRLs R US

Most of the usual keyboard shortcuts still apply in Windows 10, though there are a few changes & additions – with the removal of the Charms bar,

WindowsKey+C fires up Cortana with voice input, if you’ve already got that working (see below)
WindowsKey+S for everyone else, reduced to typing Cortana search commands or not having Cortana at all
WindowsKey+A for the Action Center – the new notifications area that appears to the right of the screen
WindowsKey+I for Settings of all sorts – very handy
WindowsKey+TAB – quick way of seeing all the running apps, across multiple desktops
WindowsKey+X still brings up the “power user” menu – a great way of getting to otherwise fairly hidden functionality like Device Manager

There have been some keyboard-related tips in recent weeks, and others regarding new apps that come with Windows 10. If you’ve not been using the preview, you might have missed them. See:

#279 – Windows 10’s multiple desktops
#280 – Telling time on Windows 10
#281 – Calculator rebooted
#286 – Windows Explorer tweaks in Win10

Hey Cortana! Oh, you’re not available…

Depending on how your upgrade has gone, Brits who run Windows 10 might find that Cortana isn’t showing up as available in the region, even though she’s supposed to be. The same might be true of other lingos – your mileage may vary.

If you’re having trouble getting old Blue Eyes to play ball and you’re in Blighty, you’ll need to make sure all your language settings are tickety-boo.

Check you’ve got the right country set in the high-level settings, but don’t stop there –make sure the language pack isn’t still searching Windows Update, and that each of the components has been downloaded.

Select the Windows display language shown, and within Options, click on Speech and clip_image005 make sure the language you speak is correct.

If you make sure that you have the correct language pack installed, and that it’s set as the speech language, then you should be allowed to enable Cortana.

If you have a microphone on your PC, then you can also switch on “Hey Cortana”, clip_image009 which will mean she’s listening out for you to say that all the time… and will jump in with a spoken response to your every query. Just make sure your Windows Phone isn’t nearby or you’ll end up cheating on one Cortana with another. Let’s wait for the Cortana vs Cortana Youtube videos.