Let's Talk About... Microsoft's Windows 10 Spring Creators Update 2018

Microsoft's Windows 10 Spring Creators Update – Interesting Facts about the latest Update Release

Next month Microsoft Windows 10 Spring Creators Update will be released and these are some interesting facts about it.

Avid Reg readers will be aware of what's forthcoming for the Redmond operating system. If you're just tuning in, well, see the aforementioned link, and strap in for these highlights. When the OS upgrade is released proper, we'll be on the scene with the full details. In the meantime, here's your need to know:

1. Microsoft reckons the operating system will take, on average, 30 minutes to install, which is much shorter than usual
2. The OS will feature a thing called Timeline, which presents a summary of what you've been up to over the past 30 days, with on-screen links to apps and documents
3. You can share files with physically nearby devices using a wireless feature called Nearby Share
4. Shell and other bits and pieces of the desktop will look nicer. You may be forced to use Edge, though, but at least you can mute the browser's tabs
5. The Photos app in Windows 10 will be updated to use the High Efficiency Image File Format, a change that promises to improve the quality and compression of pictures

This update is called or codenamed is Red Stone 4, aka version 1803, and what's actually in it, is anyone's guess right now as Microsoft is being coy about the final change log. The software is largely expected to roll out from April 10, that being the month's Patch Tuesday.

Our advice? Hold off until the initial bugs are ironed out, and the exact feature list is cemented in. Alternatively, grab betas from the Windows Insider stream of updates and play with it to your heart's content.

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Let's Talk About... CRYPTOCURRENCY

CRYPTOCURRENCY

INFO SOURCE 1

INFO SOURCE 2

A cryptocurrency (or crypto currency) is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses cryptography to secure its transactions, to control the creation of additional units, and to verify the transfer of assets. Cryptocurrencies are a type of digital currencies, alternative currencies and virtual currencies. Cryptocurrencies use decentralized control as opposed to centralized electronic money and central banking systems. The decentralized control of each cryptocurrency works through a blockchain, which is a public transaction database, functioning as a distributed ledger.

Bitcoin, created in 2009, was the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Since then, numerous other cryptocurrencies have been created. These are frequently called altcoins, as a blend of alternative coin.

DEFINITION
According to Jan Lansky, a cryptocurrency is a system that meets all of the following six conditions:

•    The system does not require a central authority, distributed achieve consensus on its state.
•    The system keeps an overview of cryptocurrency units and their ownership.
•    The system defines whether new cryptocurrency units can be created. If new cryptocurrency units can be created, the system defines the circumstances of their origin and how to determine the ownership of these new units.
•    Ownership of cryptocurrency units can be proved exclusively cryptographically.
•    The system allows transactions to be performed in which ownership of the cryptographic units is changed. A transaction statement can only be issued by an entity proving the current ownership of these units.
•    If two different instructions for changing the ownership of the same cryptographic units are simultaneously entered, the system performs at most one of them.


OVERVIEW
Decentralized cryptocurrency is produced by the entire cryptocurrency system collectively, at a rate which is defined when the system is created and which is publicly known. In centralized banking and economic systems such as the Federal Reserve System, corporate boards or governments control the supply of currency by printing units of fiat money or demanding additions to digital banking ledgers. In case of decentralized cryptocurrency, companies or governments cannot produce new units, and have not so far provided backing for other firms, banks or corporate entities which hold asset value measured in it. The underlying technical system upon which decentralized cryptocurrencies are based was created by the group or individual known as Satoshi Nakamoto.

As of September 2017, over a thousand cryptocurrency specifications exist; most are similar to and derive from the first fully implemented decentralized cryptocurrency, bitcoin. Within cryptocurrency systems the safety, integrity and balance of ledgers is maintained by a community of mutually distrustful parties referred to as miners: members of the general public using their computers to help validate and timestamp transactions, adding them to the ledger in accordance with a particular timestamping scheme. Miners have a financial incentive to maintain the security of a cryptocurrency ledger.

Most cryptocurrencies are designed to gradually decrease production of currency, placing an ultimate cap on the total amount of currency that will ever be in circulation, mimicking precious metals. Compared with ordinary currencies held by financial institutions or kept as cash on hand, cryptocurrencies can be more difficult for seizure by law enforcement. This difficulty is derived from leveraging cryptographic technologies.


ARCHITECTURE
BLOCKCHAIN
The validity of each cryptocurrency's coins is provided by a blockchain. A blockchain is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Each block typically contains a hash pointer as a link to a previous block, a timestamp and transaction data. By design, blockchains are inherently resistant to modification of the data. It is "an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way". For use as a distributed ledger, a blockchain is typically managed by a peer-to-peer network collectively adhering to a protocol for validating new blocks. Once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks, which requires collusion of the network majority.

Blockchains are secure by design and are an example of a distributed computing system with high Byzantine fault tolerance. Decentralized consensus has therefore been achieved with a blockchain. It solves the double spending problem without the need of a trusted authority or central server.

The block time is the average time it takes for the network to generate one extra block in the blockchain. Some blockchains create a new block as frequently as every five seconds. By the time of block completion, the included data becomes verifiable. This is practically when the money transaction takes place, so a shorter block time means faster transactions.

TIMESTAMPING
Cryptocurrencies use various timestamping schemes to avoid the need for a trusted third party to timestamp transactions added to the blockchain ledger.

PROOF-OF-WORK SCHEMES
The first timestamping scheme invented was the proof-of-work scheme. The most widely used proof-of-work schemes are based on SHA-256 and scrypt. The latter now dominates over the world of cryptocurrencies, with at least 480 confirmed implementations.

Some other hashing algorithms that are used for proof-of-work include CryptoNight, Blake, SHA-3, and X11.

PROOF-OF-STAKE AND COMBINED SCHEMES
Some cryptocurrencies use a combined proof-of-work/proof-of-stake scheme. The proof-of-stake is a method of securing a cryptocurrency network and achieving distributed consensus through requesting users to show ownership of a certain amount of currency. It is different from proof-of-work systems that run difficult hashing algorithms to validate electronic transactions. The scheme is largely dependent on the coin, and there's currently no standard form of it.

MINING
HASHCOIN MINE
In cryptocurrency networks, mining is a validation of transactions. For this effort, successful miners obtain new cryptocurrency as a reward. The reward decreases transaction fees by creating a complementary incentive to contribute to the processing power of the network. The rate of generating hashes, which validate any transaction, has been increased by the use of specialized machines such as FPGAs and ASICs running complex hashing algorithms like SHA-256 and Scrypt. This arms race for cheaper-yet-efficient machines has been on since the day the first cryptocurrency, bitcoin, was introduced in 2009. However, with more people venturing into the world of virtual currency, generating hashes for this validation has become far more complex over the years, with miners having to invest large sums of money on employing multiple high performance ASICs. Thus the value of the currency obtained for finding a hash often does not justify the amount of money spent on setting up the machines, the cooling facilities to overcome the enormous amount of heat they produce, and the electricity required to run them.

Some miners pool resources, sharing their processing power over a network to split the reward equally, according to the amount of work they contributed to the probability of finding a block. A "share" is awarded to members of the mining pool who present a valid partial proof-of-work.

One company is operating data centers for mining operations at Canadian oil and gas field sites, due to low gas prices.

Given the economic and environmental concerns associated with mining, various "minerless" cryptocurrencies are undergoing active development. Unlike conventional blockchains, some directed acyclic graph cryptocurrencies utilise a pay-it-forward system, whereby each account performs minimally heavy computations on two previous transactions to verify. Other cryptocurrencies like Nano utilise a block-lattice structure whereby each individual account has its own blockchain. With each account controlling its own transactions, no traditional proof-of-work mining is required, allowing for feeless, instantaneous transactions.

China is home to about three-quarters of the machines mining the bitcoin blockchain. As of February 2018, the Chinese Government halted trading of virtual currency, banned initial coin offerings and shut down mining. Some Chinese miners have since relocated to Canada.

In March 2018, a town in Upstate New York put an 18 month moratorium on all cryptocurrency mining in an effort to preserve natural resources and the "character and direction" of the city.

WALLETS
A cryptocurrency wallet stores the public and private "keys" or "addresses" which can be used to receive or spend the cryptocurrency. With the private key, it is possible to write in the public ledger, effectively spending the associated cryptocurrency. With the public key, it is possible for others to send currency to the wallet.

ANONYMITY
Bitcoin is pseudonymous rather than anonymous in that the cryptocurrency within a wallet is not tied to people, but rather to one or more specific keys (or "addresses"). Thereby, bitcoin owners are not identifiable, but all transactions are publicly available in the blockchain. Still, cryptocurrency exchanges are often required by law to collect the personal information of their users.

Additions such as Zerocoin have been suggested, which would allow for true anonymity. In recent years, anonymizing technologies like zero-knowledge proofs and ring signatures have been employed in the cryptocurrencies Zcash and Monero, respectively.

ECONOMICS
Cryptocurrency market capitalizations as of 27 January 2018, in billions of US dollars.

Cryptocurrencies are used primarily outside existing banking and governmental institutions and are exchanged over the Internet. While these alternative, decentralized modes of exchange are in the early stages of development, they have the unique potential to challenge existing systems of currency and payments. As of December 2017 total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is bigger than 600 billion USD and record high daily volume is larger than 500 billion USD.

COMPETITION IN CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKETS
As of January 2018, there were over 1384 and growing digital currencies in existence.

TRANSACTION FEES
Transaction fees for cryptocurrency depend mainly on the supply of network capacity at the time, versus the demand from the currency holder for a faster transaction. The currency holder can choose a specific transaction fee, while network entities process transactions in order of highest offered fee to lowest. Cryptocurrency exchanges can simplify the process for currency holders by offering priority alternatives and thereby determine which fee will likely cause the transaction to be processed in the requested time.

For ether, transaction fees differ by computational complexity, bandwidth use and storage needs, while bitcoin transactions compete equally with each other. In December 2017, the median transaction fee for ether corresponded to $0.33, while for bitcoin it corresponded to $23.

LEGALITY
The legal status of cryptocurrencies varies substantially from country to country and is still undefined or changing in many of them. While some countries have explicitly allowed their use and trade, others have banned or restricted it. Likewise, various government agencies, departments, and courts have classified bitcoins differently. China Central Bank banned the handling of bitcoins by financial institutions in China during an extremely fast adoption period in early 2014. In Russia, though cryptocurrencies are legal, it is illegal to actually purchase goods with any currency other than the Russian ruble.

U.S. TAX STATUS
On March 25, 2014, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ruled that bitcoin will be treated as property for tax purposes. This means bitcoin will be subject to capital gains tax. In a paper published by researchers from Oxford and Warwick, it was shown that bitcoin has some characteristics more like the precious metals market than traditional currencies, hence in agreement with the IRS decision even if based on different reasons.

CRYPTOCURRENCY ALLIANCE SUPER PAC
The Cryptocurrency Alliance Super PAC. One of the many groups formed to protect consumer interests in cryptocurrencies.

In response to the IRS ruling, numerous organizations have been created to advocate for consumers. One of the most prominent examples is the Washington, D.C. based Cryptocurrency Alliance, an independent expenditure-only committee (Super PAC), created to raise awareness about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

Legal issues not dealing with governments have also arisen for cryptocurrencies. Coinye, for example, is an altcoin that used rapper Kanye West as its logo without permission. Upon hearing of the release of Coinye, originally called Coinye West, attorneys for Kanye West sent a cease and desist letter to the email operator of Coinye, David P. McEnery Jr. The letter stated that Coinye was willful trademark infringement, unfair competition, cyberpiracy, and dilution and instructed Coinye to stop using the likeness and name of Kanye West. 17th of January 2014 Coinye was closed.

A primary example of this new challenge for law enforcement comes from the Silk Road case, where Ulbricht's bitcoin stash "was held separately and ... encrypted."

THE LEGAL CONCERN OF AN UNREGULATED GLOBAL ECONOMY
As the popularity of and demand for online currencies has increased since the inception of bitcoin in 2009, so have concerns that such an unregulated person to person global economy that cryptocurrencies offer may become a threat to society. Concerns abound that altcoins may become tools for anonymous web criminals.

Cryptocurrency networks display a marked lack of regulation that attracts many users who seek decentralized exchange and use of currency; however the very same lack of regulations has been critiqued as potentially enabling criminals who seek to evade taxes and launder money.

Transactions that occur through the use and exchange of these altcoins are independent from formal banking systems, and therefore can make tax evasion simpler for individuals. Since charting taxable income is based upon what a recipient reports to the revenue service, it becomes extremely difficult to account for transactions made using existing cryptocurrencies, a mode of exchange that is complex and (in some cases) impossible to track.

Systems of anonymity that most cryptocurrencies offer can also serve as a simpler means to launder money. Rather than laundering money through an intricate net of financial actors and offshore bank accounts, laundering money through altcoins can be achieved through anonymous transactions.

LOSS, THEFT, AND FRAUD
GBL, a Chinese bitcoin trading platform, suddenly shut down on October 26, 2013. Subscribers, unable to log in, lost up to $5 million worth of bitcoin.

In February 2014, cryptocurrency made headlines due to the world's largest bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, declaring bankruptcy. The company stated that it had lost nearly $473 million of their customer's bitcoins likely due to theft. This was equivalent to approximately 750,000 bitcoins, or about 7% of all the bitcoins in existence. Due to this crisis, among other news, the price of a bitcoin fell from a high of about $1,160 in December to under $400 in February.

Two members of the Silk Road Task Force—a multi-agency federal task force that carried out the U.S. investigation of Silk Road—seized bitcoins for their own use in the course of the investigation. DEA agent Carl Mark Force IV, who attempted to extort Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht ("Dread Pirate Roberts"), pleaded guilty to money laundering, obstruction of justice, and extortion under color of official right, and was sentenced to 6.5 years in federal prison. U.S. Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges pleaded guilty to crimes relating to his diversion of $800,000 worth of bitcoins to his personal account during the investigation, and also separately pleaded guilty to money laundering in connection with another cryptocurrency theft; he was sentenced to nearly eight years in federal prison.

Homero Josh Garza, who founded the cryptocurrency startups GAW Miners and ZenMiner in 2014, acknowledged in a plea agreement that the companies were part of a pyramid scheme, and pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2015. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission separately brought a civil enforcement action against Garza, who was eventually ordered to pay a judgment of $9.1 million plus $700,000 in interest. The SEC's complaint stated that Garza, through his companies, had fraudulently sold "investment contracts representing shares in the profits they claimed would be generated" from mining.

On November 21, 2017, the Tether cryptocurrency announced they were hacked, losing $31 million in USTD from their primary wallet. The company has 'tagged' the stolen currency, hoping to 'lock' them in the hacker's wallet (making them unspendable). Tether indicates that it is building a new core for its primary wallet in response to the attack in order to prevent the stolen coins from being used.

On December 6, 2017, more than $60 million worth of bitcoin was stolen after a cyber attack hit the cryptocurrency mining platform NiceHash (Slovenia-based company). According to the CEO Marko Kobal and co-founder Sasa Coh, bitcoin worth $64 million USD was stolen, although users have pointed to a bitcoin wallet which holds 4,736.42 bitcoins, equivalent to $67 million.

DARKNET MARKETS
Cryptocurrency is also used in controversial settings in the form of online black markets, such as Silk Road. The original Silk Road was shut down in October 2013 and there have been two more versions in use since then; the current version being Silk Road 3.0. The successful format of Silk Road has been widely used in online dark markets, which has led to a subsequent decentralization of the online dark market. In the year following the initial shutdown of Silk Road, the number of prominent dark markets increased from four to twelve, while the amount of drug listings increased from 18,000 to 32,000.

Darknet markets present growing challenges in regard to legality. Bitcoins and other forms of cryptocurrency used in dark markets are not clearly or legally classified in almost all parts of the world. In the U.S., bitcoins are labelled as "virtual assets". This type of ambiguous classification puts mounting pressure on law enforcement agencies around the world to adapt to the shifting drug trade of dark markets.

Since most darknet markets run through Tor, they can be found with relative ease on public domains. This means that their addresses can be found, as well as customer reviews and open forums pertaining to the drugs being sold on the market, all without incriminating any form of user. This kind of anonymity enables users on both sides of dark markets to escape the reaches of law enforcement. The result is that law enforcement adheres to a campaign of singling out individual markets and drug dealers to cut down supply. However, dealers and suppliers are able to stay one step ahead of law enforcement, who cannot keep up with the rapidly expanding and anonymous marketplaces of dark markets.

CRYPTOCURRENCY IN GAMING
Games, lotteries, online casinos and other online gambling sites that feature Cryptocurrency as either a method of payment or as the winnings paid have steadily increased as its popularity has grown and become widely accepted.
Lotteries

In December 2017 Gibraltar based gaming operator Lottoland launched the worlds first regulated bitcoin lottery offering a 1000 bitcoin jackpot. Players still pay in traditional currencies but can receive their winnings in bitcoin if they choose.

ONLINE CASINOS & DICE SITES
Many online casinos and dice sites have launched to take advantage of the popularity of cryptocurrency however their legitimacy is often questioned because of concerns that they are not fair because of the computer algorithms used to run them. The service Provably fair was created to try and combat the fears of its users that they are not being cheated.

CRITICISM
Cryptocurrencies have been compared to ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes and economic bubbles, such as housing market bubbles. Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital Management stated in 2017 that digital currencies were "nothing but an unfounded fad (or perhaps even a pyramid scheme), based on a willingness to ascribe value to something that has little or none beyond what people will pay for it", and compared them to the tulip mania (1637), South Sea Bubble (1720), and dot-com bubble (1999). In October 2017, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink called bitcoin an 'index of money laundering'. "Bitcoin just shows you how much demand for money laundering there is in the world," he said.

While cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that are managed through advanced encryption techniques, many governments have taken a cautious approach toward them, fearing their lack of central control and the effects they could have on financial security. Regulators in several countries have warned against cryptocurrency and some have taken concrete regulatory measures to dissuade users. Additionally, many banks do not offer services for cryptocurrencies and can refuse to offer services to virtual-currency companies. While traditional financial products have strong consumer protections in place, there is no intermediary with the power to limit consumer losses if bitcoins are lost or stolen. One of the features cryptocurrency lacks in comparison to credit cards, for example, is consumer protection against fraud, such as chargebacks.

An enormous amount of energy goes into proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining, although cryptocurrency proponents claim it is important to compare it to the consumption of the traditional financial system.

There are also purely technical elements to consider. For example, technological advancement in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin result in high up-front costs to miners in the form of specialized hardware and software. Cryptocurrency transactions are normally irreversible after a number of blocks confirm the transaction. Additionally, cryptocurrency can be permanently lost from local storage due to malware or data loss. This can also happen through the destruction of the physical media, effectively removing lost cryptocurrencies forever from their markets.

The cryptocurrency community refers to pre-mining, hidden launches, ICO or extreme rewards for the altcoin founders as a deceptive practice. It can also be used as an inherent part of a cryptocurrency's design. Pre-mining means currency is generated by the currency's founders prior to being released to the public.

Paul Krugman, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winner does not like bitcoin, has repeated numerous times that it is a bubble that will not last and links it to Tulip mania.

American business magnate Warren Buffett thinks that cryptocurrency will come to a bad ending.

CAUSING A RISE IN GPU PRICES
The sudden increase in cryptocurrency mining has increased the demand of graphics cards (GPU) greatly. Popular favorites of cryptocurrency miners such as Nvidia’s GTX 1060 and GTX 1070 graphics cards, as well as AMD’s RX 570 and RX 580 GPUs, have all doubled if not tripled in price – or are out of stock completely. A GTX 1070 Ti which was released at a price of $450 is now being sold for as much as $1100. Another popular card GTX 1060's 6 GB model was released at an MSRP of $250, but it is now being sold for almost $500. RX 570 and RX 580 cards from AMD are out of stock for almost a year now. Miners regularly buy up the entire stock of new GPU's as soon as they are available, further driving prices up. This has caused, in general, a disliking towards cryptocurrency miners by PC gamers and tech enthusiasts.

Nvidia is reportedly asking retailers to do what they can when it comes to selling GPUs to gamers instead of miners. "Gamers come first for Nvidia," said Boris Böhles, PR manager for Nvidia in the German region, in an interview with the German publication ComputerBase. "All activities around our GeForce products are for our core audience. We recommend our trading partners make arrangements to ensure that gamers’ needs are still met in the current climate."

HISTORY
In 1983 the American cryptographer David Chaum conceived an anonymous cryptographic electronic money called ecash. Later, in 1995, he implemented it through Digicash, an early form of cryptographic electronic payments which required user software in order to withdraw notes from a bank and designate specific encrypted keys before it can be sent to a recipient. This allowed the digital currency to be untraceable by the issuing bank, the government, or a third party.

In 1996 the NSA published a paper entitled How to Make a Mint: the Cryptography of Anonymous Electronic Cash, describing a Cryptocurrency system first publishing it in a MIT mailing list and later in 1997, in The American Law Review (Vol. 46, Issue 4).

In 1998, Wei Dai published a description of "b-money", an anonymous, distributed electronic cash system. Shortly thereafter, Nick Szabo created "bit gold". Like bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that would follow it, bit gold (not to be confused with the later gold-based exchange, BitGold) was an electronic currency system which required users to complete a proof of work function with solutions being cryptographically put together and published. A currency system based on a reusable proof of work was later created by Hal Finney who followed the work of Dai and Szabo.

The first decentralized cryptocurrency, bitcoin, was created in 2009 by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto. It used SHA-256, a cryptographic hash function, as its proof-of-work scheme. In April 2011, Namecoin was created as an attempt at forming a decentralized DNS, which would make internet censorship very difficult. Soon after, in October 2011, Litecoin was released. It was the first successful cryptocurrency to use scrypt as its hash function instead of SHA-256. Another notable cryptocurrency, Peercoin was the first to use a proof-of-work/proof-of-stake hybrid.23IOTA was the first cryptocurrency not based on a blockchain, and instead uses the Tangle. Built on a custom blockchain, The Divi Project allows for easy exchange between currencies from within the wallet and the ability to use personal identifying information for transactions. Many other cryptocurrencies have been created though few have been successful, as they have brought little in the way of technical innovation. On 6 August 2014, the UK announced its Treasury had been commissioned to do a study of cryptocurrencies, and what role, if any, they can play in the UK economy. The study was also to report on whether regulation should be considered.

PUBLICITY
BITCOIN ATM
Gareth Murphy, a senior central banking officer has stated "widespread use of cryptocurrencywould also make it more difficult for statistical agencies to gather data on economic activity, which are used by governments to steer the economy". He cautioned that virtual currencies pose a new challenge to central banks' control over the important functions of monetary and exchange rate policy.

Jordan Kelley, founder of Robocoin, launched the first bitcoin ATM in the United States on February 20, 2014. The kiosk installed in Austin, Texas is similar to bank ATMs but has scanners to read government-issued identification such as a driver's license or a passport to confirm users' identities. By September 2017 1574 bitcoin ATMs were installed around the world with an average fee of 9.05%. An average of 3 bitcoin ATMs were being installed per day in September 2017.

The Dogecoin Foundation, a charitable organization centered around Dogecoin and co-founded by Dogecoin co-creator Jackson Palmer, donated more than $30,000 worth of Dogecoin to help fund the Jamaican bobsled team's trip to the 2014 Olympic games in Sochi, Russia. The growing community around Dogecoin is looking to cement its charitable credentials by raising funds to sponsor service dogs for children with special needs.

INFO SOURCE

Let's Talk About... UEFI -> 10 things you should know

LET'S TALK ABOUT... UEFI -> 10 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

1: UEFI IS THE REPLACEMENT FOR BIOS
The BIOS (basic input/output system) has been at the heart of the PC design for well over 30 years now. It is the piece of firmware that provides the operating system with a standard interface to the functionality of the computer. Unfortunately, its design is quite outdated, carrying a number of limitations that are not acceptable in the current age of computing. UEFI is the replacement for BIOS, and it brings with it a host of modern functionality to carry PCs through the next few decades.

2: IT ENABLES BETTER DISK SUPPORT
UEFI finally breaks free of the old DOS-style master boot record (MBR) disks, taking us into the GUID partition table (GPT) future. While not all operating systems support booting from GPT disks (notably, 32-bit versions of Windows), GPT support at the firmware layer will allow disks of enormous size to be used, even for booting the operating system.

3: APPLE ALREADY USES IT
Haven't heard of UEFI much? That's because while it is already in use, the most mainstream system out there using it is Apple, which isn't terribly friendly to tinkerers. It has also been used in Itanium systems for some time, as well as many embedded systems.

4: IT CAN BE EMULATED
Already, a number of virtualization platforms can emulate UEFI firmware, which allows you to load UEFI-dependent operating systems within them. Some examples are VirtualBox and Qemu. And yes, this means that it is technically possible to run OS X in a virtual machine under those environments.

5: BOOT LOADERS ARE NO LONGER NEEDED
UEFI takes the place of the traditional operating system boot loader, which relegates any boot loading tasks to be done within the operating system itself (like asking to boot in a Safe Mode). As a result, you have one fewer thing to break or make decisions about.

6: IT DOES NOT HAVE TO REPLACE BIOS...
UEFI can sit on top of the traditional BIOS and act as an interface between it and the operating system. Like BIOS, it presents a standardized view of the hardware to the operating system, allowing operating system makers to build on top of it and have their OSes work on a variety of motherboards.

7: ...BUT IT CAN USE BIOS ALTERNATIVES
At the same time, UEFI acts as an abstraction layer between the firmware that acts as a BIOS and the operating system. This means that an equipment maker can use whatever it wants to in the role that the BIOS fills and put UEFI on top of it and an operating system that uses UEFI will work just fine. Indeed, makers are free to build UEFI implementations that are complete top-to-bottom and do not need any firmware below them in the stack.

8: THERE IS WIDESPREAD INDUSTRY SUPPORT
The UEFI standard enjoys a large amount of support within the industry already. The UEFI standards organization has companies like Intel, AMD, Apple, Microsoft, and a number of BIOS and motherboard makers on it. As a result, UEFI will be the way forward, not just some dead standard left in the industry's wake like so many other initiatives. Modern operating systems are all compatible with UEFI as well.

9: YOUR JOB WON'T CHANGE MUCH
Unless you are working as an embedded systems engineer or write low-level code for an operating system, UEFI probably won't affect your daily tasks. Sure, there are some IT roles that involve digging into the BIOS, but for the work they typically do, the differences between BIOS and UEFI will not make an impact on their work life. The big thing for IT staff to learn will be how to work with GPT disks in more recent operating systems.

10: UEFI CAN BE A DEVICE DRIVER TARGET
One advantage of UEFI is that device drivers can target it instead of the specific hardware. This means that instead of needing to write drivers for different platforms, they can just write it once. Well, you are a PC person, what do you care, right? This will be huge for Windows 8, which will run on both x64 and ARM architecture. As a result, Windows 8 on ARM could very well come out of the gate with better driver support than Windows Vista.

Let's talk about HOW TO RID A NEW PC OF CRAPWARE

HOW TO RID A NEW PC OF CRAPWARE

A brand-new Windows computer should be pristine out of the box. They'll gum it up for you with "free" software you don't want. It goes by names like crapware, bloatware, or shovelware because computer makers shovel bloated digital crap by the barrelful onto new PCs. Retail PCs it's a whole other world of crap. 

With many of the uninstall routines, the dialog boxes had giant buttons that would say "Uninstall and Get PC XXXXXX" or something similar. If we just wildly clicked where the button was, the uninstall might work-but something else got installed in its place. We had to carefully look for the fine print on the dialog boxes that read "Delete Only" or similar. Tricks and traps abounded.

The problem is, even though these utilities may point out some bloatware, they may not automate removal. You may still have to go through the regular uninstall process, which-as we noted above-may be filled with tricks and traps to keep your new PC full of crap. So you may still be on your own to an extent, but there are ways around it.

CRAP-WARE = POTENTIALLY UNWANTED SOFTWARE
In other words, we can say crap as junk and ware from software. Actual malware in the guise of "potentially unwanted programs," or PUPs.

The programs don't call themselves that; it's a term used by anti-malware companies, like MalwareBytes. It describes programs you probably didn't install on purpose, don't want, and probably find unusable-but they have to say "potentially" because, sure, it's possible you wanted to install a toolbar for your browser called "Search Protect" from a company named Conduit, or a search engine for your browser called Binkiland.

In reality, it's about as likely as wanting to be set on fire. Both of those "programs," among others. They existed only to take over his browsing experience; each appears on a list of browser hijackers on Wikipedia.

Others you may see and should eradicate immediately: Taplika, SwiftBrowse, BetterSurrf, CrossRider, WeDownload, OpenCandy, OptimizerPro, and DoSearches. The list can and will go on and on, as the hijackers make new threats. It's telling that searching for "Search Protect" or "Binkiland" brings up absolutely no link for people to get those programs-only to remove the damnable hijackers' files.

Recommended tools to clean the hijacking PUPs:

1. MalwareBytes: The free version comes with a trial of the Premium version, so it's worth running on every fresh installation of Windows. Plus, the scans take a lot less time on a new Windows install. After 14 days, you lose things like real-time protection and anti-ransomware features, but it's worth running up front. Remember after that two weeks, get some real-time anti-malware protection.
2. Steven Gould's Cleanup!: Donationware that does the trick for Windows XP on up.
3. CCleaner: This Windows clean-up tool will do something unique: it'll uninstall apps built into Windows. I'm not talking shovelware crap, but actual apps that Microsoft created to work with Windows-so consider it OS-sanctioned crapware. Click on Tools, then uninstall, and you'll get a list of possibilities to delete. (This suggestion might be controversial: now owned by Avast, CCleaner got hit with data-collecting malware in 2017.)

ANOTHER OPTION TO CLEAN THE MESS
Start with a full reset of the OS using the Windows 10 Refresh Tool. It's the first thing anyone buying a new PC at retail should do after they take it out of the box. It sets the PC back to a pristine state-without crapware (except for the Microsoft-supplied stuff you may not want, like the Edge browser). If you actually want a piece of that shovelware, you're going to have to get it separately, but that's not difficult.

Expanded explanation from Microsoft Windows 10 Refresh Tool
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10startfresh

Microsoft, naturally, has a clean version of Windows on its Surface devices-again, clean as defined by what Microsoft thinks is best. Microsoft Stores also sell "Signature Edition PCs" from makers like HP, Razer, Sony, Toshiba, Dell, MSI, Asus, Acer, and Lenovo. Custom-build manufacturers that promise you a crapware-free installation of Windows include Maingear, Falcon Northwest, and Velocity Micro. Another option: go with a local reseller.

If you want to save money, install Linux on your old PC and you may have a tons of tons of free apps and games.

If you're wedded to using an older version of Windows, the only sure-fire way to get the same result is re-install Windows completely, with a totally fresh, clean configuration. That's not possible with most retail PCs that had Window 7, 8, or 8.1. Whether the operating system installer is an image on a partition of the hard drive or a DVD disc, it's going to most likely install Windows with all the crapware, fresh as an outhouse, as well. If you can't keep a retail copy of Windows 7 or 8 around for reinstalls, it makes the update to Windows 10 seem even more advantageous. You can even do the refresh and not lose your data files on well-used PCs.

There's the option to download ISO files of Windows 7 and 8 and even 10 at the Microsoft Software Recovery site. You'll need to verify a 25-character product key from a retail version of Windows to download and fully activate the operating system. Keys from computer makers-called OEMs, or original equipment manufacturers-won't work.

WHY?
You might be wondering, why exactly are big-name PC makers and software developers allowing all this crapware with extra "internet wrappers" PUPs to happen? Money, of course. As PC sales dwindle-they were on a five-year slump through 2017, but had a slight uptick over the holidays-so do software purchases, and everyone is scrambling to make up for any losses.

For proof, look to this article by How-To Geek. They examined programs from every single major download site, including CNET's Downloads.com, Tucows, FileHippo, Softpedia, Snapfiles, and more. Every single one had crapware bundled right into the software. That's not even taking into account that some of those sites have multiple download "buttons" (actually ads) on every page, to obfuscate and confuse users into downloading the wrong thing.

Always download software from the original developer's site (if you can find it). Unfortunately, even Google search results tend to default to download sites like those listed above.

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