lab-testing

PCMag’s security reviews and lab-test coverage make one point very clear: antivirus is no longer a single-number contest between scanners — it’s a layered decision about detection, usability, privacy, and cost that must be matched to how you actually use Windows. Background / Overview PCMag’s...

Malwarebytes still leads the pack in 2026 for consumers who want a lean, effective antivirus that does the job without turning every click into a configuration exercise, but the landscape has shifted: built‑in Windows Security (Microsoft Defender) is now genuinely competitive for everyday users...

The retirement of Windows 10 has moved from inevitability to operational reality, and for engineers who run test-and-measurement racks and lab systems the decision to move to Windows 11 is now a project, not an afterthought. Background Windows 10’s formal end of mainstream support (October 14...

Cain & Abel still exists in the wild, but it is a legacy password‑recovery toolkit — last formally updated in 2014 — and anyone who plans to download or run it on modern Windows must balance usefulness against compatibility problems, antivirus detections, and legal/ethical risks. Background /...

India’s food regulator has quietly — and decisively — raised the bar on compliance, forcing food businesses, importers and marketers to rethink testing, labelling and supply‑chain controls all at once. Background The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has stepped up enforcement...

Google’s experimental Windows app aims to remove the friction of switching windows to look something up — a floating, Spotlight‑like search bar you summon with Alt + Space that can search local files, installed apps, Google Drive, and the web, and that folds in Google Lens and the company’s AI...

Google’s experimental Google app for Windows lands as a compact, Spotlight‑style overlay that promises to unify web search, local file search, Google Drive access, Google Lens visual queries and a conversational AI Mode — all summoned from anywhere on the desktop with the Alt + Space hotkey...

Microsoft’s decision to retire Windows 10 on October 14, 2025 has forced a reckoning for millions of aging PCs—and a surprising cottage-industry of community tooling has stepped forward to offer a practical, if imperfect, bridge: Tiny11 Builder, a PowerShell-driven project that creates...

NTDEV’s new Nano11 Builder takes the Windows‑11 debloat movement from pragmatic trimming to experimental minimalism, producing bootable ISOs and installed images measured in single‑digit gigabytes by surgically removing inbox apps, servicing infrastructure, and even parts of the Windows...

Microsoft has made Windows 11’s annual refresh—version 25H2—available as official ISO media to Windows Insiders in the Release Preview channel, completing the packaging that IT teams, OEMs and advanced users need for clean installs and image-based testing even as the bulk rollout continues to be...

NTDEV’s community ecosystem has produced yet another extreme take on Windows 11: nano11, a script-driven rebuilder that pares a stock Windows 11 image down to astonishingly small sizes — an ISO reportedly just over 2 GB and an installed footprint under 3 GB when combined with compression — by...

Microsoft quietly pulled back the promised ISO images for Windows 11, version 25H2 this week, updating its Release Preview announcement to say the ISOs are “delayed and coming soon” even as the update itself lands in the Release Preview channel as an enablement-package style release. Background...

NTDEV’s ecosystem of third‑party builders has a new, headline‑grabbing member: nano11, a PowerShell‑driven script that pushes the tiny‑Windows idea to its limits by producing an ultra‑small Windows 11 image — the developer says an ISO a little over 2 GB and runnable installs in the sub‑3 GB...

Windows 11’s August cumulative update set off an alarm in enthusiast circles when a string of reproducible tests showed NVMe SSDs vanishing under sustained large writes — but the emerging, vendor‑validated explanation reframes the catastrophe as a narrower supply‑chain and firmware‑provenance...

Microsoft says the recent reports that a Windows 11 cumulative update “bricked” consumer SSDs are not supported by its telemetry and lab findings, and vendor testing so far has failed to reproduce a fleet‑level failure tied to the August servicing wave tracked as KB5063878. Background The story...

Microsoft’s follow-up on the August 2025 Windows 11 update controversy closes one public chapter: after an industry-wide probe, Redmond says it found no evidence that the August cumulative update (commonly tracked as KB5063878) caused the cluster of SSD disappearances and failures reported by...

Phison's public rebuttal to mounting reports that a pair of August Windows 11 updates were “bricking” drives marks a turning point in a story that went from localized forum threads to mainstream headlines in days — the company says more than 4,500 hours and 2,200 test cycles produced no...

A wave of community test results and vendor confirmations this week has put the latest Windows 11 cumulative update under a harsh spotlight: several SSDs can disappear from Windows during sustained, large write operations after installing the August 12, 2025 update (KB5063878), with a...

Not long ago, running a Windows PC without a paid third‑party antivirus felt like leaving your front door open — today, that advice is overdue for a rethink because Windows’ built‑in protections are both better and far more capable than most people realize. Background Windows has a long...

Phison has publicly disowned a circulated advisory that claimed Windows 11’s August cumulative update was uniquely “killing” Phison‑based SSDs, while the vendor — and several independent labs — simultaneously confirm an industry‑wide storage regression tied to the August 12, 2025 cumulative...