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

These included CVE-2020-0674, a remote code execution flaw in Internet Explorer's Trident rendering engine that is already being exploited in the wild. This hole would typically be exploited by a malicious webpage or the like to infect a visiting vulnerable computer.

"Even if you don’t use IE, you could still be affected by this bug though embedded objects in Office documents," noted Dustin Childs of the Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative.

"Considering the listed workaround – disabling jscript.dll – breaks a fair amount of functionality, you should prioritize the testing and deployment of this patch."

Three years ago, I released EdgeDeflector; a tiny open-source utility program for Windows 10. It reinforces the default web browser setting in situations when Microsoft ignores its own setting and pushes you to use its Edge browser instead. It’s a tiny software project that I’ve not had to write any new code for in years. However, supporting it has proven a frustrating experience.

The origin story of EdgeDeflector is a tiny act of rebellion against tech behemoths abusing their market positions. Microsoft uses Windows 10 features like Search, Cortana, and others to force users to open links in its Microsoft Edge web browser. The operating system has a default web browser setting, but Microsoft circumvents this setting in certain parts of its operating system. It doesn’t respect the choices of its consumers to not use its software. EdgeDeflector gave back this control.

EdgeDeflector was positively received by users and has been downloaded over 300 000 times. 265 000 through the project page on GitHub and 35 000 times from mirrors. It popped up in all the Windows news/fan blogs within a few months of its launch. It still occasionally receives coverage from tech blogs with nothing more original to cover.

Also: I opened up Edge to test something and it added BING as a search provider in Firefox. The only thing in there before was DuckDuckGo.

• Windows 10 warning: anger at Microsoft rises with serious new failure

  This is the future of proprietary operating systems like Windows, macOS and iOS as their parent companies move towards services and subscription models. More and more, they’ll use their operating systems to push their services and subscriptions, to the detriment of the user experience. It’s been happening in Windows 10 for a few years now, and iOS, too, is riddled with ads for Apple’s services.

• Linux-Based Windows 12 Promises Flawless Updates, Available for Free

  The photo gallery on the page is mostly the same screenshot with a different desktop background, and by the looks of things, it indeed appears to be a Windows 10 theme with flat icons.

• Linux-based Windows 12 Lite is '3x faster than Windows 10' and 'immune from ransomware'

  Sounds too good to be true? Well it might not surprise you to hear that this isn’t an official Microsoft product, rather it’s a version of Linux Lite 4.8 LTS with Windows 10 wallpaper and flat icons.

  The official website looks like something out of the nineties, which makes the line that says "You have all the tools now for designing really good websites" even more entertaining.

  Windows 12 Lite isn’t available to download from the website, but you can buy it for £15 on DVD. You really shouldn’t though.

Security researchers at Check Point have identified two major security flaws in Microsoft Azure that could be exploited by hackers to gain access to sensitive information stored on machines running Azure or to take over Azure servers.

The first security flaw was discovered in Azure Stack and if exploited, it would enable a hacker to gain access to screenshots and other sensitive information from machines running Azure.

Azure stack is a cloud computing software solution that was developed by Microsoft to allow enterprises to deliver Azure services from their own data centers. The software giant created Azure Stack as a means of helping organizations embrace hybrid cloud computing on their own terms while still being able to address business and technical considerations.