November 22 Tech news roundup: Cloudflare outage was due to a bug, Android will allow power users to sideload apps, Microsoft’s plans to make Windows 11 an agentic OS have begun

Cloudflare says it wasn’t attacked, it was a bug that caused the outage

Cloudflare had suffered a massive outage on November 18 which brought down many websites and services around the globe. The internet services company, which powers 20% of the internet, has announced that the failure was not due to an attack by threat actors. It was caused by a bug in its software. Cloudflare explained that a change, made to one of its bot detection system’s databases, caused a glitch that propagated to the rest of its network.  As a result of this, Cloudflare’s Bot Management System began to throw out false positives and errors on websites that used its technology, thus blocking users from visiting the sites.

The company managed to restore its services about 3 and half hours after the issue began, but the outage had left millions of people unable to access popular services including ChatGPT, X, Spotify, to name a few.

Windows 11 is transforming into an agentic OS

Microsoft is making drastic changes to Windows 11, pushing towards an agentic OS. A new Insider Preview Build that is available for testers brings a toggle for “experimental agentic features”, which when enabled will allow the operating system to create AI agents that have separate accounts on the computers. These are used to perform tasks that the user requires. And it also grants the AI access to system folders. It creates agent workspaces that allow the AI agents to work alongside the user, these are isolated desktops.

Microsoft says that AI models have functional limits, may not provide information that is accurate, and could also introduce security risks. Yet that hasn’t stopped it from proceeding with its plans. The Redmond company wants to make all agent actions observable and distinguishable, and wants users to have control over all queries for user data and actions that are taken. It wants AI agents to meet or exceed the security and privacy standards of the data that it has access to.

Pavan Davuluri, President of Windows and Devices at Microsoft, had announced on X last week that Windows is evolving into an agentic OS. The post was met by criticism from users who said “no one wants this”. Davuluri disabled replies to the tweet, due to the downpour of negative feedback. This week, Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, said that he found it mind blowing that that people are unimpressed with super smart AI that can generate any image/video. His post was also greeted with negative feedback, with many people pointing out that Microsoft was forcing AI on users, when they didn’t want it. A video published on Microsoft’s YouTube channel highlights how Ask Copilot and Agents on Windows Taskbar work on Windows 11.

Google to allow experienced users to sideload apps on Android

Google has announced that future versions of Android will allow experienced users to install apps from third-party sources. The move comes after its controversial decision to enforce Developer Verification for Android app developers who distribute their apps on third-party websites and app marketplaces. Google had claimed that this would reduce the risk of malware on Android. However, many users and developers had criticized the policy, saying this would kill many apps whose developers do not wish to register with Google. F-Droid pointed out this policy could give Google total control over the Android ecosystem.

The Mountain View company backtracked on the decision to kill sideloading, to say that it is working on a new advanced flow that will allow experienced users to accept the risks of installing software that isn’t verified. It will also display clear warnings to educate the users about security risks of installing APKs downloaded from the internet. This is better than not having an option to sideload apps at all.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 wins 7 trophies at The Golden Joystick Awards

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 could just be this year’s best game. The RPG, which was made by French studio, Sandfall Interactive, won a record-equalling 7 trophies at The Golden Joystick Awards. It was voted as the Ultimate Game of the Year, Best Soundtrack, Best Storytelling, Best Visual Design, Studio of the Year. Jennifer English, who voiced Maelle, was named the Best Lead Performer, while her colleague Ben Starr won the Best Supporting Performer award for his role as Verso.

The other nominees for GOTY were Blue Prince, Donkey Kong Bananza, Ghost of Yotei, Hades 2, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Peak, Silent Hill f and Split Fiction. Clair Obscur has also been nominated in several categories for The Game Awards 2025.

Android’s Quick Share now works with AirDrop on iOS, iPadOS, macOS

Google has made a major announcement. It has revealed a new feature for Android’s Quick Share protocol. The wireless file-sharing method, that lets users send and receive files from their Android phone or tablet to other nearby Android devices and PCs, now works with Apple’s devices. Android users can finally share content through Quick Share to AirDrop compatible devices such as iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The feature is currently available for the Google Pixel 10 devices, but the company is working on expanding support to more devices.

Google says that it built Quick Share’s interoperability with AirDrop independently, without help from Apple.

Nvidia releases hotfix patch to address low-performance issues on Windows 11

Nvidia has released an update to its video graphics drivers to resolve a problem that affects Windows 11. Specifically, this issue impacts users who have installed the October 2025 security update on their PC. Gamers had reported that ever since they installed the latest Windows update, they had seen lower than usual performance in some games, i.e. they used to run fine before the update. While a full list of affected games is not available, the following titles were among those that users were experiencing low frame rates with: Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Rise of the Ronin, Star Citizen, Valheim, etc.

Nvidia did not explain what the issue was, but says that it has been addressed in GeForce Hotfix Display Driver version 581.94, which is based on the Game Ready Driver 581.80.