Linux, Open Source, & anti Microsoft news

Patch Tuesday’s truly odd Win10 patch KB 4524244 wreaked havoc before it was finally pulled last Friday night. Since then, accusations have flown about Kaspersky, in particular, and Microsoft’s complicity in signing a rootkit. There’s plenty of blame to go around — and much more to the story.

Engineers at Bosch Rexroth have chosen an open source way to power their app-based automation platform, citing better security and faster time to production.

Screens on Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 3 have appeared to develop a crack habit, with one of the latest complaints claiming this happened even after repair.

Pushed to users as part of its latest ‘Patch Tuesday’ updates, Microsoft has confirmed the KB4524244 security update bundled in it can cause system freezes and crashes across every supported version of Windows 10, from Windows 10 Home right through to Enterprise and Server. Unfortunately, KB4524244 was available for four days but Microsoft has now stated it has been pulled for good.

2038 is for Linux what Y2K was for mainframe and PC computing in 2000, but the fixes are underway to make sure all goes well when that fatal time rolls around.

Samsung’s attempt to prevent attacks on Galaxy phones by modifying kernel code ended up exposing it to more security bugs, according to Google Project Zero (GPZ).

Microsoft will no longer forcibly make Bing the default search engine in Chrome for Office 365 ProPlus customers. A techcommunity post from Microsoft announced the change. Microsoft states that people will have the choice to opt-in to have the Microsoft Search in Bing browser extension installed.

Microsoft had one of its largest patch bundles in recent memory, as the Windows giant released fixes for 99 CVE-listed vulnerabilities.

In what may prove to be the biggest migration from Windows to the Linux desktop, the South Korean government is looking into shifting from Windows 7 to a trio of Linux desktops.

Microsoft originally implemented the “Suggested” section on the Windows 10 Start Menu as a way to advertise its official apps; but in the latest listing, Microsoft has gone beyond self-promotion. Microsoft’s recent extensive advertising is becoming hard to ignore, which has prompted many users to disable the ads. Those who haven’t done so may have noticed the most recent one takes a dig at a competitor browser. The listing displays “Still using Firefox? Microsoft Edge is here”, to all users of the former- even with the latter already installed. The ad provides a link to download the chromium-based browser.