macOS 26.4, released on Tuesday (the 24th), brought back the compact tab layout to Safari (screenshot). The five of us who use this layout — which had been removed in macOS 26.0 — are grateful.
Asides
I had the chance to see the “privacy screen” that Samsung put on the Galaxy S26 Ultra in person at one of the brand’s stores. It has two levels of dimming, and at either level, the screen loses a lot of brightness for the person using the device (facing it; see this video), and although I wasn’t wearing glasses, I got the impression (and I wasn’t the only one) that the drop in resolution with the privacy screen enabled is noticeable (for some, even with it disabled).
For me, the significant emphasis Samsung places on a tangential feature supports a healthy trend I noticed years ago: phones became utilities, and buying one is now similar to buying a refrigerator.
Simplenote, a note-taking app with very good syncing, is in maintenance mode, which means that there are no features/new developments planned or in development, only occasional bug fixes. The news was dropped on a support forum, which fits with the melancholic end of the app, bought by Automattic in 2013.
Firefox 148, released on Tuesday (24th), features a kill switch for the browser's AI features. Below it are selective controls for specific features. All of them are located in a new area in the settings (about:preferences), called “Artificial Intelligence Controls.”
Confirming the rumors, the upcoming iOS 26.4 is expected to bring end-to-end encryption to messages exchanged between iPhone and Android using the RCS standard. There’s more: as this feature depends on a newer version of RCS, 3.0, other welcome additions are also expected to arrive: editing and deleting sent messages, reactions (tapback) without duplicating messages, and replying to specific messages.
A critical flaw has been discovered in Notepad (CVE-2026-20841). That once simple Windows editor that only displayed plain text, you know? The one that Microsoft tainted with Markdown (the vector for this flaw), Copilot, and who knows what else? An attacker could place a malicious link in a Markdown file that, when clicked by the victim, would execute code remotely. A fix was made available by Microsoft in routine updates released on Tuesday (10th).
The Gemini protocol (not to be confused with Google's AI) continues to exist. On Sunday (8th), it got a significant boost on Apple devices with the launch of Lagrange, a browser for the small web that took 4.5 years to complete. In addition to Gemini, the browser also works with classic protocols such as Gopher and Finger, and other hobbyists. Free, for iOS/iPadOS.
From Anthropic's “studies” claiming that Claude did this or that to Moltbook, a “social network for AIs” (which seems to be a lie), it's always the same story depicted in the comic strip above: people telling AI to behave in a certain way being shocked when AI behaves in that way.
Regarding Moltbook and its foundation, OpenClaw, I will limit myself* to giving one piece of advice: don't use it. The tool open the doors to your private digital life, with unpredictable consequences.
* I limit myself to this because, in my opinion, the press is doing a huge disservice by legitimizing this nonsense.
The way Signal is built — with people's privacy as a priority — makes it difficult and slow to release features that other apps have had for a long time. They take a while, but they get there. The latest version, now available, introduces pinned messages in individual and group chats. It works on Android, computers, and iOS.
For me, NetNewsWire is the perfect app for macOS. NetNewsWire 7.0, released this Tuesday (27th), reinforces this distinction. The implementation of Liquid Glass is so good that the app looks better (screenshots), without losing its identity. Extra points for the icon-free menus, mitigating one of the silliest problems in macOS 26 Tahoe. Now I’m looking forward to the iOS version.
In his annual message to the public, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan says that “AI will be a boon to the creatives who are ready to lean in” and that more than a million channels used AI to create videos daily in December. At the same time, he promises measures “to reduce the spread of low quality AI content.” These seem like contradictory promises. Good luck to him.
The new version of Nova Launcher, a popular launcher for Android, brought an unwanted new feature: advertising trackers from Meta and Google. On Exodus, a non-profit app auditing platform, you can see the changes from the previous version (8.1.6) to the new one (8.2.4).
Nova Launcher was purchased by Sweden's Instabridge a few months after the launcher's creator left Branch, the company that bought the app in 2022 and promised to open its code — which never happened. Instabridge has confirmed that it is testing ads in Nova Launcher and that it will not display ads to those who have Nova Prime (paid version).
Once again, Google threatens the 3 billion (!) Gmail users with Gemini (AI) features. This time, the change is dramatic: the inbox will be “smart”, which would be tempting if AI models were capable of summarizing correctly (they are not) and were not prone to mistakes (“hallucination” is an euphemism for mistakes). For now, the new Gmail is being released to Americans who pay for Google's expensive AI plans. The prophylactic measure is to disable all AI features in Gmail: in the settings, General tab, uncheck the option Enable smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet. You're welcome!
People using a Logitech mouse on macOS spent a few hours with limited functionality. An expired certificate for the Logitech Options+ and G HUB apps caused the confusion. The ridiculous issue at least served to help people discover better alternative utilities for this purpose. (The best software, however, is no software; a good mouse works fine without these things, hehehe!)
The drawing for Brazil’s largest lottery prize ever — BRL 1 billion (USD 180 million) — was postponed due to the volume of bets, which reached 125,000 per second, 120,000 of them via digital channels. The draw, originally scheduled for 10 PM on Wednesday (31st), was moved to this morning. I hope they actually make it this time.
Via O Globo (pt_BR).