Thom Holwerda

5 days ago | osnews.com | Thom Holwerda

I think one of the more controversial parts of Windows 11 – aside from its system requirements, privacy issues, crapware, and “AI” nonsense – is its Start menu. I’ve heard so many complaints about how it’s organised, its performance, the lack of customisation, and so on. Microsoft heard those complaints, and has unveiled the new Start menu that’ll be shipping to Windows 11 soon – and I have to say, there’s a ton of genuine improvements here that I think many of you will be happy with.

5 days ago | osnews.com | Thom Holwerda

A few months ago I shared my Swift SDK for Darwin, which allows you to build iOS Swift Packages on Linux, amongst other things. I mentioned that a lot of work still needed to be done, such as handling codesigning, packaging, and bundling. I’m super excited to share that we’ve finally reached the point where all of these things are now possible with cross-platform, open source software. Enter, xtool![…]This means it’s finally possible to build and deploy iOS apps from Linux and Windows (WSL).

5 days ago | osnews.com | Thom Holwerda

Notifications in Chrome are a useful feature to keep up with updates from your favorite sites. However, we know that some notifications may be spammy or even deceptive. We’ve received reports of notifications diverting you to download suspicious software, tricking you into sharing personal information or asking you to make purchases on potentially fraudulent online store fronts. To defend against these threats, Chrome is launching warnings of unwanted notifications on Android.

6 days ago | osnews.com | Thom Holwerda

We present the formal verification of Apple’s iMessage PQ3, a highly performant, device-to-device messaging protocol offering strong security guarantees even against an adversary with quantum computing capabilities. PQ3 leverages Apple’s identity services together with a custom, post-quantum secure initialization phase and afterwards it employs a double ratchet construction in the style of Signal, extended to provide post-quantum, post-compromise security.

6 days ago | osnews.com | Thom Holwerda

John Siracusa, one third of the excellent ATP podcast, developer of several niche Mac utilities, and author of some of the best operating system reviews of all time, has called for Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, to step down. Now, countless people call for Tim Cook to stand down all the time, but when someone like Siracusa, an ardent Mac user since the release of the very first Macintosh and a staple of the Apple community, makes such a call, it carries a bit more weight.