The latest insider preview build of Windows 11 – 25324 – brings a welcome boost to user security protection, among other tweaks and enhancements.
Available now for Canary Channel insiders, the change specifically targets potentially unsafe sites that could be used for phishing, introducing a new popup as part of the Enhanced Phishing Protection in Microsoft Defender SmartScreen that was introduced in Windows 11 22H2.
Users who have enabled warnings, which primarily protect school and work passwords, will now get a popup for potentially unsafe copied and pasted passwords, rather than when they have physically typed them in.
Windows 11 updates
Furthermore, the SHA-3 family of hash functions including SHA-3 derived functions (SHAKE, cSHAKE, KMAC) have gained support, and a new USB 4 ‘Hubs and Devices’ page has been added to Settings to help users manage high-performance peripherals, displays, and charging, including docking.
Microsoft has also carried out some work to streamline its widgets which should come as no surprise as the company seeks to make accessing information even easier, following huge investments in artificial intelligence in recent months.
Widgets will now display over three columns on large enough devices (rather than two), with new dedicated widget sections. The company says that this gives users glanceable access to high-value and personalized content.
Additionally, more widgets will now support animation from the taskbar when hovered over or clicked, and a new shortcut button to the Bing chat experience in Edge will feature in the taskbar for those with access to the new Bing.
All of this, hopefully, in an effort to attract more customers to a more user-friendly and secure environment, because while Windows 11 adoption is on the rise, it still only accounts for 19% of all Windows installations (via Statcounter (opens in new tab)), trailing far behind Windows 10 accounting for 73% of the Windows market.
