Can Your Password Be Hacked in One Second?; Microsoft Sends Warning to Anyone Using Windows 11 on Incompatible Hardware; ChatGPT Can’t Find Real News; 4 Things to Know About Who Can See Your Online Activity… and more!
Every day, we scan the tech world for interesting news, sometimes from outside the tech world. Every Thursday, we feature news articles that grabbed our attention over the past week. We hope you find this week’s ‘Thursday Newsbytes’ informative and interesting!
What’s your password? Here are the most common, many hackable in under 1 second
“123456” is the most commonly used password. The password has taken the number one slot five out of six years NordPass has conducted its most common password study.
Bank accounts, social media profiles, streaming platforms and even smart refrigerators require passwords these days. Keeping track of a laundry list of passwords can be difficult and so can be creating new, unique ones.
For the sixth year, NordPass, an online password manager, has released a list of the 200 most common passwords – ones that should be avoided due to how easy they are to “crack,” or hack.
To create its list, NordPass collaborated with partner NordSteller, a threat exposure management platform. The two platforms analyzed 2.5 terabytes of data from 44 countries, extracted from publicly-available sources, including those on the dark web. NordPass and NordStellar analyzed passwords stolen by malware or exposed in data leaks. (No personal information was analyzed for the study.)
Here are the top 50 most common passwordsAcross all 44 countries surveyed, the chart below shows the top 50 most common passwords, many of which can be hacked in less than one second…
Microsoft sends a warning to anyone using Windows 11 on incompatible hardware
As we’re nearing the end-of-life date for Windows 10 in October 2025, the company has tried a lot of things to encourage people to upgrade or purchase a new PC so they can run Windows 11. However, as much as it tried, people have stuck with their faithful devices and instead opted to upgrade to Windows 11 even if it’s using incompatible hardware. Microsoft has seemingly acknowledged the practice, guiding everyone on returning to Windows 10 if things aren’t working out. However, it also comes with a warning if people stick with Windows 11.
Microsoft adds a disclaimer for people using Windows 11 on incompatible hardware
As spotted by Neowin, Microsoft has updated its page on using Windows 11 on unsupported hardware. If the OS detects that your PC isn’t up to scratch, it’ll add a watermark warning you about it. Moreover, as announced on the support page, there’s now this disclaimer…
ChatGPT search can’t find the real news, even with a publisher holding its hand
News quotes become a game of telephone
OpenAI proudly debuted ChatGPT search in October as the next stage for search engines. The company boasted that the new feature combined ChatGPT’s conversational skills with the best web search tools, offering real-time information in a more useful form than any list of links. According to a recent review by Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, that celebration may have been premature. The report found ChatGPT to have a somewhat lassie-faire attitude toward accuracy, attribution, and basic reality when sourcing news stories.
What’s especially notable is that the problems crop up regardless of whether a publication blocks OpenAI’s web crawlers or has an official licensing deal with OpenAI for its content. The study tested 200 quotes from 20 publications and asked ChatGPT to source them. The results were all over the place.
Sometimes, the chatbot got it right. Other times, it attributed quotes to the wrong outlet or simply made up a source. OpenAI’s partners, including The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and the Axel Springer and Meredith publications, sometimes fared better, but not with any consistency…
4 things to know about who can see your browsing history and internet activity
It’s a good idea to assume that everything you do online is being monitored by someone, somewhere. That way, you’re always vigilant and make sure you keep your most important data far away from prying eyes. However, there are a lot of misconceptions about who can see your online activity, and what exactly they can see. Let’s clear things up by going over four entities that can see your search history or browsing activity, what each one can see, and what you can do to protect your privacy.
Whether you use Google, Bing, or another search engine, the one you choose can see quite a bit of information about your online habits. The big ones are the worst offenders, like Google and Bing, and there are some privacy-focused options. However, you should know that pretty much every search engine will see your search history, and can use that data to influence your recommendations, the ads you see, and more. Your data can also be used to optimize search results…
Microsoft’s New Update—Bad News Confirmed For 400 Million Windows Users
Microsoft has a surprising new problem on its hands as it struggles to convince 800 million Windows 10 users to upgrade to Windows 11. With its popular ageing OS approaching end-of-support next October and sales of shiny new AI PCs not hitting the expected mark, this looks like being a critical holiday shopping season.
As I reported on Monday, the latest Windows stats from November show a marked end to the recent acceleration we’ve seen in Windows 11 upgrades. After eight steady months of transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11, the bad news is a sudden change in direction. And while that shift only accounts for around 1%—somewhere between 10 and 15 million users, the situation is much worse in the key US market.
According to Statcounter, globally Windows 10 market share was up from 61% to 62% over the month, with Windows 11 dropping from more than 35.5% to below 35%. But in the US, Windows 10 was up from 58% to 61%, with Windows 11 sharply down from nearly 40% to below 37% after six months of steady rises…
Thanks for reading this week’s Thursday Newbytes. We hope these articles were informative, interesting, fun, and helpful. Darcy & TC
If you get rid of a Windows 10 computer, format the hard drive and donate it to a rage or smash room. That’s where I take all my breakable devices and other items people might like to pay money to let off steam and smash with a baseball bat.