open source

Nova Launcher’s original developer has walked away, Microsoft Launcher feels all but idle, and the Android launcher landscape is quietly rearranging itself — but the idea of swapping your home screen still matters, just in different ways than it did a decade ago. Background Third-party Android...

Windows ships with capable, polished defaults — but for many real workflows the built‑in apps are the bottleneck: limited features, conservative design choices, and occasional performance problems leave gaps that small, focused third‑party tools fill quickly and cheaply. The six alternatives...

Windows ships with a tidy set of built‑in utilities that make a PC usable out of the box — but if you’re looking for speed, control, and features that actually match real workflows, the defaults often fall short and quietly slow you down. A recent roundup arguing that Windows’ bundled apps can...

Files 4.0 is the first major rework of the community-built Files file manager that truly feels like a single‑package answer to many of File Explorer’s long‑standing UX gaps — a unified Omnibar with a built‑in command palette, a sharpened split‑pane workflow, a clarified search vs. filter model...

Firefox Nightly users can now summon Microsoft Copilot from the browser sidebar — an optional, opt‑in hook that exposes Copilot’s chat, voice and summarization capabilities inside Firefox while reopening a broader debate about privacy, platform boundaries, and the creeping normalization of...

The Debian Project published the first point release for Debian 13 (codename Trixie) on September 6, 2025 — a conservative, safety-first refresh that bundles security patches and important bug fixes into updated installation images and repository snapshots rather than changing the distribution’s...

Tiny11 is the latest reminder that the Windows upgrade debate has moved far beyond marketing slogans: while Microsoft insists many older PCs are unsupported for Windows 11, independent projects like NTDEV’s Tiny11 are actively proving the opposite — and forcing a much more uncomfortable...

When I first started using the command line on Windows, the Command Prompt felt like a utility drawer: useful for a handful of quick tasks but cramped, inflexible, and increasingly outclassed by modern tooling — which is precisely why switching to Windows Terminal has become a practical...

A prominent tech writer has publicly abandoned the Windows 11 Start menu in favor of Flow Launcher, an open‑source, keyboard‑first app launcher — and in doing so rekindled a long‑running debate about how Windows should expose search, system commands, and shortcuts to power users. The transition...

ExplorerPatcher’s latest release finally restores several long-broken customizations for Windows 11 24H2 and includes a practical — if controversial — workaround that lets the utility avoid the upgrade safeguard that Microsoft introduced for 24H2 builds. The update, published as release...

The tiny11builder project has received a significant refresh: the PowerShell-based builder now supports Windows 11 version 25H2 builds, adds explicit removal of Copilot and the new Outlook for Windows client, switches to more efficient recovery compression for smaller ISOs, and introduces...

Microsoft’s PowerToys is about to plug one of Windows 11’s most persistent annoyances: a built‑in way to automatically switch between Light and Dark modes on a user-defined schedule — delivered as a PowerToys module rather than via the core Settings app. Background / Overview For years Windows...

Microsoft has published the assembly source for “BASIC for 6502 Microprocessor — Version 1.1” on GitHub under a modern permissive license, making the exact code that powered a generation of home computers readable, buildable, and reusable by anyone — hobbyists, historians, educators, and...

Microsoft's decision to put the original 6502-targeted Microsoft BASIC source into the public eye is both a tidy act of software preservation and a reminder of how much of modern computing grew from tiny, highly optimized assembly programs—code once written by Bill Gates and his earliest...

The end of Windows 10 has sharpened a decision many hobbyists and professionals have been postponing: if you’re ready to ditch Windows, should you move to macOS or switch to Linux? The answer isn’t a slogan — it’s a set of practical trade-offs rooted in apps, hardware, support, budget, and how...

Microsoft’s PowerToys just filled two of the most persistent usability gaps in Windows 11: a built‑in way to surface and resolve keyboard shortcut conflicts, and a promised scheduler that will automatically switch the system between light and dark themes—features that many power users have asked...

If you’re seriously contemplating ditching Windows and can’t (or won’t) keep both, the choice between Linux and macOS comes down to a handful of practical questions — ecosystem, apps, hardware, cost, and how much control you want over the machine. ZDNET’s “7-step” checklist frames the decision...

Microsoft’s PowerToys is about to plug one of Windows 11’s most conspicuous gaps: an official, supported scheduler that automatically toggles between Light and Dark modes, coming as a new PowerToys module in the next release cycle. The feature was teased in the PowerToys v0.94 announcement and...

Files v4.0 arrives as a major rework of one of the most polished third‑party File Explorer replacements for Windows 11, introducing a unified Omnibar, a refined Dual Pane workflow, expanded cloud drive support, and built‑in cryptographic verification tools — changes that push Files from a...

Microsoft’s PowerToys team has quietly moved to fill a conspicuous gap in Windows’ personalization features: beginning with PowerToys v0.94 the project teased a scheduled automatic theme switching utility that will let Windows switch between light and dark modes on a timetable — a capability...