November 30 Tech news roundup: Browser makers are taking the fight to Microsoft Edge, Google injects text ads in its iOS app, Windows 11 update blocked on some PCs

Google is trying to block users from downloading uBlock Origin

Google is desperate to block ad blockers in any way it can. Users who wish to install uBlock Origin or similar extensions from the Chrome Web Store, are seeing a banner on the add-on’s store page reads, “This extension is no longer available because it doesn’t follow best practices for Chrome extensions.”

This is Google’s way of preventing ad blockers and other extensions that don’t support Manifest V3 API. Chrome is also recommending users to remove the extension. There are ways to bypass the restriction and install uBlock Origin on Chrome. You may also want to consider switching to a different Chromium-based browser like Brave, Vivaldi, Opera or Microsoft Edge. Mozilla Firefox is also an excellent alternative and offers the best ad blocking experience via uBlock Origin.

Windows 11 24H2 update blocked on PCs with Ubisoft games

Gamers who wanted to play Assassin’s Creed or Star Wars Outlaws on their PCs are facing some unusual problems. Reports from users indicate that certain games are freezing, crashing, or becoming unresponsive. Oddly, these issues are only reported by people who had upgraded their PCs to Windows 11 24H2.

The majority of issues seem to impact Ubisoft games such as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Assassin’s Creed Origins, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Some users say that other games like Far Cry, Call of Duty Infinite Warfare, Fallout 76, and Need for Speed Unbound, are also suffering from crashes and freezing. Ubisoft is working on a fix to address the problems. Microsoft has confirmed the issues and says that it is investigating the issues, and will release an update in the future to patch the bugs. Meanwhile, the Redmond company has blocked the Windows 11 24H2 update on PCs that have one of the affected games installed on the computer.

Browser Choice Alliance want EU to designate Microsoft Edge as a Gatekeeper

Google Chrome, Vivaldi, Opera, Waterfox and Wavebox have formed a group called the Browser Choice Alliance. The companies have one goal in mind, to fight Microsoft Edge. The Browser Choice Alliance highlights that Microsoft makes it unnecessarily hard for Windows users to switch to a different browser, by hiding the options deep in the Settings app. They are also angry at Microsoft Edge’s Bing search engine, which displays banners with misleading messages when a user tries to search for a third party browser. Bing’s message reads, “There is no need to download a new web browser.” It also promotes some features of Microsoft Edge, portraying it as a superior option.

The Browser Choice Alliance has approached the European Commission, to raise the group’s concerns about Microsoft’s anti-competitive practices. The members say the Microsoft Edge should be designated as a Gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Google is inserting search ads on web pages in its iOS app

Google is at it again, this time it has introduced a new form of ads that will sneakily be placed in the text content on web pages. The feature is called Page Annotations, and is available in the Google app for iOS. When you visit a website via the search app, it may inject links by underlining some important words on the web page. Clicking on these text ads will open a pop-up with content that is relevant to places, topics, people, etc. These are essentially ads.

This move could hurt small blogs and other websites, where visitors who accidentally click on such links may become annoyed by the behavior and never return to the website again. Sadly, Page Annotations are enabled on websites by default, and any website that does not want its content to be used in the ad program needs to opt out of it by filling up a form, and such requests could take up to 30 days to be processed by Google. This might be viewed as an unfair practice, and could attract the attention of antitrust agencies. It is unclear if Page Annotations will be expanded to Android, and desktop platforms.

Firefox 133 brings Bounce Tracking Protection

Mozilla has released Firefox 133 with a new measure to prevent tracking called Bounce Tracking Protection. When you click a link, the browser may send a request to a tracking server, after which it lands on the actual page. This process is called redirecting. Redirects are a common way that ads and data brokers use to track users. The new Bounce Tracking Protection feature in Firefox wants to prevent such trackers by deleting cookies and site data on a frequent basis. The option is available for users who have enabled Strict Enhanced Tracking Protection in the browser. A similar feature has been available in Brave Browser for a few years, and uses different ways to bounce trackers.

Your Firefox may seem snappy, that’s because the browser now supports GPU-accelerated Canvas2D, which improves the performance on Windows PCs. This setting is enabled by default. The auto-open feature for Picture-in-Picture has also been improved, users will need to manually toggle this from Firefox Labs. Versions of Firefox Extended support release aka ESR have been updated to 115 and 128.

Gamers say Light of Motiram has copied Horizon Zero Dawn

Light of Motiram was announced yesterday by Polaris Games, a studio owned by Tencent. However, the open-world multiplayer survival game for PC has drawn strong criticism from gamers who accused the developers of plagiarism, and copying the Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West games.

https://en.softonic.com/articles/the-game-that-has-been-accused-of-plagiarizing-horizon-zero-dawn-but-it-is-more-similar-to-palworld

Critics are not wrong, Sony’s games and Tencent’s share many similarities. Like the Horizon games, Light of Motiram is set in a distant future that has a female protagonist who fights mechanimals, aka animal robots. The theme appears to be largely identical with a focus on post-apocalyptic tribes, even the clothing and gear appear to be the same. The font and music are similar to the ones from the Horizon games too, at this point you could call it a Horizon clone. But, Light of Motiram also shares some similarities with Palworld, a game in which you raise friendly creatures and use them to aid you in battle. That said, Palworld itself has been accused of ripping off Pokémon. Speaking of Palworld, the game will get a massive update next year that will bring an island that is six times bigger than Sakurajima.

Microsoft’s Xbox Store for Android is ready, but can’t be launched yet

Microsoft has confirmed that its gaming app for Android devices is ready, but it cannot be launched yet. Sarah Bond, President of Xbox, said that the company cannot release the Xbox Store for Android before a specific court order comes into effect. This in reference to a ruling that will force the Google Play Store to allow apps to use third party payment methods instead of Google Play.

A judge had suspended the ruling based on a request from Google. Microsoft blamed this as the reason why it is unable to launch the Xbox Store for Android. Google on the other hand pointed out that Microsoft has always been able to offer its users options to play and purchase Xbox games from its app, and that it had chosen not to do so, just like the Epic Games Store had done. In other words, Microsoft chose not to launch its app store because it does not want to pay commission fees to Google.

Computer sales could increase in 2025 because Windows 10 is reaching its end

Windows 10 is reaching its end of life support in October 2025. Millions of PCs around the world are not eligible to be upgraded to Windows 11 due to some rather strict hardware requirements. While desktop users could upgrade some parts such as the CPU, Motherboard, to get their PCs ready for Windows 11, laptop users cannot do so.

They will have to either switch to Linux, pay to extend security updates for Windows 10, or shell out a large sum of money to buy a new laptop. The pain of these users could turn profitable for OEMs. Laptop sales have been unimpressive in 2024 due to political and economic instability in many countries. Reports suggest that things could take a turn for the better, and that the laptop market could grow by 4.9% in 2025.