An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Mozilla has announced today that its highly anticipated VPN (virtual private network) service will launch later this summer, "in the next few weeks." The product has also been renamed from its original name of Firefox Private Network to its new brand of the "Mozilla VPN." The name change came after Mozilla expanded the VPN product from the initial Firefox extension to a full-device VPN, capable of routing traffic for the entire OS, including other browsers. Currently, the Mozilla VPN offers clients for Windows 10, Chromebooks, Android, and iOS devices. Mozilla said beta testers also requested a Mac client, which they plan to provide, along with a Linux app.

For years, Parallels has provided virtualization software so you could run full Windows installs on a Mac, but today they're tackling a new OS. From a report: The company just announced that it is partnering with Google to work on bringing full Windows application support to Chrome OS enterprise devices. That's a big deal for the many businesses out there that run various pieces of legacy Windows software -- or just any business that wants to run Microsoft's Office software natively. It could Chrome OS devices a lot more viable in a variety of workspaces that may have previously had to rely on Windows hardware, though of course that'll depend on how well it is implemented. How exactly this will work remains to be seen; Parallels only said that partnership would "seamlessly add full-featured Windows apps, including Microsoft Office, to Chromebook Enterprise devices."

Ahead of Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference starting next week, the company has today launched a new version of its Apple Developer App to better support its plans for the virtual event. TechCrunch reports: Notably, the app has been made available for Mac for the first time, in addition to a redesign and other minor feature updates. With the needs of an entirely virtual audience in mind, Apple has redesigned the app's Discover section to make it easier for developers to catch up on the latest stories, news, videos and more, the company says. This section will be regularly updated with "actionable" content, Apple notes, including the latest news, recommendations on implementing new features, and information about inspiring engineers and designers, alongside new videos.

It has also updated its Browse tab where users search for existing sessions, videos, articles and news, including the over 100 technical and design-focused videos found in the WWDC tab. The WWDC tab has also been updated in preparation for the live event starting on Monday, June 22. The redesign has added a way to favorite individual articles, in addition to session content and videos. Plus it includes new iMessage stickers along with other enhancements and bug fixes. The app, which was previously available on iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, is also now offered on Mac.

In the "quick launch bar" of Windows 10, native app icons "support a shortcut menu for commonly or frequently performed tasks in the app. This menu can be invoked by right-clicking the app's quick launch bar icon," writes the Windows Club site -- adding that Mac users can use similar functionality when opening a web browser from the MacOS dock.

But now Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge are working on similar "App Shortcuts" that allow users to do things like send email or composing tweets directly from the Windows 10 taskbar or macOS dock. Slashdot reader techtsp shares their report: Right now, Chromium does not allow users to start a key task within a progressive web app through the Windows 10 taskbar. This is exactly what Chromium-based web browsers are now trying to change.

This feature will enable web developers to add support in Chromium for shortcuts defined in a Web App Manifest. As a result, Chromium progressive web apps can offer App shortcuts for their quick launch bar icon much like native apps.

The App shortcuts feature is currently in development on Microsoft Edge. Meanwhile, Google Chrome 85 is in the Dev channel.

Apple is preparing to announce a shift to its own main processors in Mac computers, replacing chips from Intel, as early as this month at its annual developer conference, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the plans. From the report: The company is holding WWDC the week of June 22. Unveiling the initiative, codenamed Kalamata, at the event would give outside developers time to adjust before new Macs roll out in 2021, the people said. Since the hardware transition is still months away, the timing of the announcement could change, they added, while asking not to be identified discussing private plans. The new processors will be based on the same technology used in Apple-designed iPhone and iPad chips. However, future Macs will still run the macOS operating system rather than the iOS software on mobile devices from the company. Bloomberg News reported on Apple's effort to move away from Intel earlier this year, and in 2018.

Roblimo once called it "a tradition, not just a speech" -- Bryan Lunduke's annual "Linux Sucks" presentations at various Linux conferences. But before you get too upset, in his 2014 interview with Slashdot Lunduke admitted "I love Linux, I have made my whole life around Linux. I work for Linux companies. I write for Linux magazines, but it really blows..."

This year he's releasing a special YouTube version of Linux Sucks 2020, the first time Lunduke has attempted the talk without a live audience, "And it feels really wicked weird." But he's still trying to get a rise out of his audience. "Follow me on this into Journey Into Graphs and Numbers Land," Lunduke says playfully, pulling up one of his 160 x 90 pixel slides showing current market share for Windows, Mac, and then Linux "You might notice that some platforms have a higher market share than Linux does," he says with a laugh, describing one slide showing Linux as "scooping up the bottom of the barrel at 1.6%..."

"But here's the thing. These numbers have been either consistent, or for Linux, slowly dropping." And then he puts up a graph showing the number of searches for Linux. "If you look back at 2004 -- the year 2004, 16 years ago -- that was the high point in interest in searching for the word Linux (or Linux plus other things). 2006 it was about half that -- so about two years later it had dropped down to about half. Here in 2020 it is so low, not only does it not fill up the first bar of pixels there, it's like only three pixels in. That doesn't happen -- that sort of decline does not happen -- unless the platform sucks. That's just the truth of the matter. That's just how it goes, right?"

And there's also some very specific reasons why Lunduke thinks Linux sucks:

An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 77 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 77 includes faster JavaScript debugging, optional permissions for extensions, and Pocket recommendations in the U.K. You can download Firefox 77 for desktop now from Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. According to Mozilla, Firefox has about 250 million active users, making it a major platform for web developers to consider. [...] Other than Pocket recommendations arriving in the U.K. (they've been in Canada, Germany, and the U.S. since April 2018), this is primarily a developer release. Firefox's Debugger is now better at handling large web apps with all their bundling, live reloading, and dependencies. Mozilla is promising performance improvements that speed up pausing and stepping, as well as cutting down on memory usage over time. Source maps should also see performance boosts -- some inline source maps load 10 times faster -- and improved reliability for many configurations. The debugger will now also respect the currently selected stack when stepping, which is useful when you've stepped into a function call or paused in a library method further down in the stack.

Adam Engst, writing for TidBITS: Because force-quitting apps and restarting or shutting down devices are necessary only to fix unanticipated problems, there are two notable downsides to engaging in such behavior as a matter of habit: reduced battery life and wasted time. Why would these behaviors reduce battery life? Remember, iOS is a modern operating system that's built on top of Apple's proprietary hardware. Apple has put a great deal of effort into ensuring that iOS knows the best ways to manage the limited hardware resources within your iPhone or iPad. No one, possibly short of an iOS systems engineer armed with Apple's internal diagnostic and debugging tools, would be able to outguess iOS itself on issues like memory usage, power draw, and CPU throttling.

When you invoke the App Switcher in iOS, you can swipe right to see all the apps you've used, possibly since you got your device. (The very first app in my iPhone 11 Pro's App Switcher is Apple's Tips, which I think came up automatically when I turned the iPhone on last year and hasn't been touched since. It's difficult to count apps in the App Switcher, but I probably have at least a hundred in there.) As the number of apps in the App Switcher should indicate, those apps are not necessarily running -- they merely have run at some point in the past. They're much more like the contents of the Mac's Apple > Recent Items menu. In normal usage, iOS devotes the lion's share of CPU and memory resources to the app that you're using. That's sensible -- the performance of that app is paramount. However, the next few apps in the App Switcher may also be consuming some CPU and memory resources. That's because iOS correctly assumes that you're most likely to return to them, and it wants to give you the best experience when you do. The screen shouldn't have to redraw multiple times, Internet-loaded content shouldn't have to update, and so on. [...]

"Having re-open-sourced MS-DOS on GitHub in 2018, Microsoft has now released the source code for GW-BASIC, Microsoft's 1983 BASIC interpreter," reports ZDNet, adding that GW-BASIC "can trace its roots back to Bill Gates' and Paul Allen's implementation of Microsoft's first product, the BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800 computer."

"Interested to look at thousands of lines of glorious 8088 assembly code for the original 1983 GW-BASIC...?" writes Slashdot reader sonofusion82, adding "there are not Makefiles or build scripts, just a bunch of 8088 ASM files."

Or as Hackaday jokes, "Microsoft releases the source code you wanted almost 30 years ago." In the late 1970s and early 1980s, if you had a personal computer there was a fair chance it either booted into some version of Microsoft Basic or you could load and run Basic... Now you can get the once-coveted Microsoft Basic source code...

They put up a read only GW-BASIC repository, presumably to stop a flood of feature requests for GPU acceleration...

From what we understand, GW-Basic was identical to IBM's BASICA, but didn't require certain IBM PC ROMs to operate. Of course, BASICA, itself, came from MBASIC, Microsoft's CP/M language that originated with Altair Basic... We did enjoy the 1975 copyright message, though:

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN ON THE PDP-10 FROM FEBRUARY 9 TO APRIL 9 1975

BILL GATES WROTE A LOT OF STUFF.
PAUL ALLEN WROTE A LOT OF OTHER STUFF AND FAST CODE.
MONTE DAVIDOFF WROTE THE MATH PACKAGE (F4I.MAC).
Bill Gates was 19 years old, Paul Allen was 22.

9to5Mac has learned more exclusive details about Apple's upcoming over-ear headphones, dubbed the "AirPods Studio," including specifications and settings. From the report: One of the key features of regular AirPods is ear detection, which automatically pauses the song when you take the earphones off. We've learned that AirPods Studio will have a similar feature, but it will work in a different way. Instead of ear detection, Apple is working to include sensors that can detect whether the headphones are on your head or neck. Based on this, we assume that AirPods Studio will play or pause content when they detect being placed on your head. Neck detection can be used to keep the headset turned on while the music is paused, just like when you take just one of the AirPods out of the ear.

Another new sensor will be able to detect left and right ears to automatically route the audio channels. That means there's likely no right or wrong side to use AirPods Studio, whereas current headphones have fixed left and right channels. Just like the AirPods Pro, Apple's new headphones will have Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency Mode. Users will be able to easily switch between the two modes to reduce external noise or to hear the ambient sound.

As AirPods Studio are expected to be mainly focused on professional users, pairing the earphones with a Mac or iOS device will unlock custom equalizer settings, with low, medium, and high frequency adjustments available, sources told us. According to a Bloomberg recent report, Apple's own-brand over-ear headphones will be available in at least two variations of the headphones -- one using leather fabrics and another with lighter materials to fitness use cases. Bloomberg also said Apple is testing a new modular design with exchangeable magnetic ear pads. [...] As for the price, rumors suggest that it will cost $349.

Epic Online Services is now available, giving developers free access to the same kinds of tools used to support Epic Games' massive Fortnite player base. From a report: The new suite, which went live on Wednesday, enables a unified gameplay experience across multiple platforms, including Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, PC platforms (Windows, Mac, and Linux), and Xbox. It gives developers and their communities ready access to features like cross-play, cross-progression, unified matchmaking, lobbies, and more. Support for Android and iOS platforms will be added soon. "At Epic, we believe in open, integrated platforms and in the future of gaming being a highly social and connected experience," said Chris Dyl, general manager of online services at Epic Games, in a news release. "Through Epic Online Services, we strive to help build a user-friendly ecosystem for both developers and players, where creators can benefit regardless of how they choose to build and publish their games, and where players can play games with their friends and enjoy the same quality experience regardless of the hardware they own."

Mozilla today launched Firefox 76 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 76 includes new Firefox Lockwise password functionality, Zoom improvements, and a handful of developer features. From a report: Lockwise, the password management service formerly known as Firefox Lockbox, is getting smarter. The Firefox feature already lets you generate, manage, and protect all those passwords for streaming services, grocery deliveries, and anything else that helps during the pandemic. If you share your device with family or roommates, Lockwise in Firefox 76 can now protect your saved passwords. When you try to view or copy a password from your "Logins and Passwords" page, you will be prompted for your device's account password.

[...] Firefox 76 adds support for Audio Worklets, which run custom JavaScript audio processing code for applications like VR and gaming on the web. Unlike their predecessor, ScriptProcessorNode, worklets run off the main thread in a similar way to web workers. Mozilla also notes Audio Worklets are "being adopted by some of your favorite software programs." The company specifically called out Zoom, which has become a phenomenon of its own during the pandemic. In short, you now join Zoom calls in Firefox without having to download or install the Zoom client.

Steam will no longer support SteamVR on macOS. The Verge reports: Steam introduced SteamVR for Apple computers way back in the mists of time -- 2017's Worldwide Developers Conference. As The Verge wrote then: "Valve has been working with Apple on this since last summer, which shows a high level of technical and business confidence in Apple's VR efforts." The move was announced in a short post on SteamVR's news page, laid out in a single sentence: "SteamVR has ended macOS support so our team can focus on Windows and Linux." Mac users will still have some access to the feature, however, via legacy builds. One door closes, another will surely open. Right?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: A bug has been discovered in Apple's macOS Image Capture app that needlessly eats up potentially gigabytes of storage space when transferring photos from an iPhone or iPad to a Mac. Discovered by the developers of media asset management app NeoFinder and shared in a blog post called "Another macOS bug in Image Capture," the issue occurs when Apple's Mac tool converts HEIF photos taken by iOS to more standard JPG files. This process happens when users uncheck the "Keep Originals" option in Image Capture's settings, which converts the HEIC files to JPG when copied to Mac. However, the app also inexplicably adds 1.5MBs of empty data to every single file in the process.

It's worth noting that the bug only occurs when transferring photos from Apple devices, not when importing photos from digital cameras using Image Capture. NeoFinder's team says it has notified Apple of the bug, and the developers suggest anyone plagued by the issue can try using a new beta version of the third-party utility Graphic Converter, which includes an option to remove the unwanted empty data from the JPEG files.

The popular anti-malware software MalwareBytes is releasing a new Windows VPN service called Malwarebytes Privacy. The company says it plans on offering Mac, iOS, Android, and ChromeOS versions in the future. Bleeping Computer reports: During our tests yesterday, you could select from 10 states in the USA and 30 countries around the world. [...] Malwarebytes told BleepingComputer that this is not a white-label service, but rather one they developed themselves. A trusted-third party built the network infrastructure, and Malwarebytes developers created the app and other components. Malwarebytes Privacy is using the modern WireGuard VPN implementation that was recently integrated into the Linux kernel.

Unfortunately, not much is known about Malwarebytes Privacy's logging and data retention policies. According to Malwarebytes' product page, "Malwarebytes Privacy does not log your online activities, whether it's browsing or accessing any websites." This is what most people want, but it would be good to get more specific language in a dedicated data retention policy or language in their privacy policy.

Apple is planning to start selling Mac computers with its own main processors by next year, relying on designs that helped popularize the iPhone and iPad, Bloomberg reported Thursday. From the report: The Cupertino, California-based technology giant is working on three of its own Mac processors, known as systems-on-a-chip, based on the A14 processor in the next iPhone. The first of these will be much faster than the processors in the iPhone and iPad, the people said. Apple is preparing to release at least one Mac with its own chip next year, according to the people. But the initiative to develop multiple chips, codenamed Kalamata, suggests the company will transition more of its Mac lineup away from current supplier Intel Corp. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Apple's partner for iPhone and iPad processors, will build the new Mac chips, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private product plans. The components will be based on a 5-nanometer production technique, the same size Apple will use in the next iPhones and iPad Pros, one of the people said.

One of the largest VPN companies, NordVPN, is rolling out NordLynx -- it's first mainstream WireGuard virtual private network for its Windows, Mac, Android and iOS client-software applications. ZDNet reports: NordVPN's own tests have shown NordLynx easily outperforms the other protocols, IKEv2/IPsec and OpenVPN. How much faster? According to NordVPN's 256,886 speed tests, "When a user connects to a nearby VPN server and downloads content that's served from a content delivery network (CDN) within a few thousand miles/kilometers, they can expect up to twice higher download and upload speed." While speed is what customers will notice, security experts like WireGuard for its code's simplicity. With only about 4,000 lines of code, WireGuard's code can be comprehensively reviewed by a single individual.

Besides WireGuard, NordVPN adds in its double Network Address Translation (NAT) system to protect users' privacy. This enables users to establish a secure VPN connection while storing no identifiable user data on a server. You're assigned a dynamic local IP address that remains assigned only while the session is active. User authentication is done with the help of a secure external database. To switch to NordLynx, users need to update their NordVPN app to the latest version. The NordLynx protocol can be chosen manually from the Settings menu.

macOS and iOS software developers will soon be able to code on an iPad or even iPhone, if an unconfirmed report is correct. iPadOS 14 and the iPhone equivalent will reportedly include support for Xcode, Apple's software development environment. Cult of Mac reports: This report comes from Jon Prosser, founder of YouTube channel Front Page Tech, who recently correctly predicted the launch date of the 2020 iPhone SE. On Monday, Prosser said via Twitter "XCode is present on iOS / iPad OS 14. The implications there are HUGE." Whenever anyone suggests that iPads have become as powerful as MacBooks, someone always asks, "Does it do Xcode?" The implication is that iPads are just toys -- only Macs are real computers. But if Prosser is correct, then devs will be able to use iPad or Mac, whichever they prefer. This is part of Apple steadily upgrading the capabilities of its tablets over years, especially the iPad Pro line. These now have USB-C ports, support for accessing external media, mouse support, etc. And top-tier iPad processors as powerful as Apple laptops.

Movie ticketing company Fandango has agreed to buy Walmart's on-demand video streaming service, Vudu, for an undisclosed sum. From a report: The video service today reaches over 100 million living room devices across the U.S. including smart TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, and other over-the-top streaming devices, as well as Windows 10 and Mac computers, and iOS and Android mobile devices. To date, the Vudu app on mobile has been installed over 14.5 million times. As a part of the agreement, Vudu will continue to power Walmart's digital movie and TV store on Walmart.com. In addition, Walmart says Vudu customers will have uninterrupted access to their Vudu library. They'll also continue to be able to use their Walmart login as well as their Walmart wallet to make purchases on Vudu, the retailer notes.

Dropbox privately paid top hackers to find bugs in software by the videoconferencing company Zoom, then pressed it to fix them. From a report: One year ago, two Australian hackers found themselves on an eight-hour flight to Singapore to attend a live hacking competition sponsored by Dropbox. At 30,000 feet, with nothing but a slow internet connection, they decided to get a head start by hacking Zoom, a videoconferencing service that they knew was used by many Dropbox employees. The hackers soon uncovered a major security vulnerability in Zoom's software that could have allowed attackers to covertly control certain users' Mac computers. It was precisely the type of bug that security engineers at Dropbox had come to dread from Zoom, according to three former Dropbox engineers.

Now Zoom's videoconferencing service has become the preferred communications platform for hundreds of millions of people sheltering at home, and reports of its privacy and security troubles have proliferated. Zoom's defenders, including big-name Silicon Valley venture capitalists, say the onslaught of criticism is unfair. They argue that Zoom, originally designed for businesses, could not have anticipated a pandemic that would send legions of consumers flocking to its service in the span of a few weeks and using it for purposes -- like elementary school classes and family celebrations -- for which it was never intended.

[...] The former Dropbox engineers, however, say Zoom's current woes can be traced back two years or more, and they argue that the company's failure to overhaul its security practices back then put its business clients at risk. Dropbox grew so concerned that vulnerabilities in the videoconferencing system might compromise its own corporate security that the file-hosting giant took on the unusual step of policing Zoom's security practices itself, according to the former engineers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss their work. As part of a novel security assessment program for its vendors and partners, Dropbox in 2018 began privately offering rewards to top hackers to find holes in Zoom's software code and that of a few other companies. The former Dropbox engineers said they were stunned by the volume and severity of the security flaws that hackers discovered in Zoom's code -- and troubled by Zoom's slowness in fixing them.