Google has begun notifying users of an upcoming change in its proprietary email service Gmail. Messages about this are being sent to users and have also appeared in various places in Google Support and Help.

So, Gmail’s simplified HTML mode will soon stop working. It will only be available until January 2024. Let us remind you that the simple HTML version of Gmail is offered in outdated versions of browsers, as well as in cases of poor Internet connection. It lacks some features of standard Gmail, including:

• chat;
• spell checking;
• shortcut keys;
• adding and importing contacts;
• selecting the sender’s address;
• formatting

Mozilla has announced the release of an update to its Firefox browser. In version number 118, users will find a significant innovation – a built-in translator for entire pages, which is significantly different from the translation services of competitors, including Google Translate or Microsoft Bing Translator.

The Firefox 118 release note notes:

Automatic translation of web content is now available to Firefox users! Unlike cloud-based alternatives, translation is done locally in Firefox, so the translated text never leaves your computer.

Simply put, the translator does not require a connection to servers and can work offline; during translation, the data does not leave the user’s computer and is not sent to Microsoft, Google or other companies.

If the user has opened a website in a supported language that is different from the browser’s default language, a translation icon will appear in the address bar. When you click PIR, a pop-up window appears asking from which language and into which language you want to translate. If your browser does not automatically detect the language of a website, you can set it manually. You can also select the settings “always translate” or “never translate”.

Now for the bad news: Firefox full-page translation currently only supports 9 languages:

• Bulgarian
• Dutch
• English
• French
• German
• Italian
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Spanish

Mozilla notes that there are other limitations. For example, the tool may not handle websites with mixed language content very well, and there is no translation of text from images or videos.

Microsoft has begun warning about the imminent shutdown of another service – offline maps that can work offline, without an Internet connection, will no longer be available in the Windows operating system.

Generated by the Midjourney neural network

As users have noticed, when opening the Maps application in Windows 11, a message appears: “By the end of 2023, offline maps will no longer be available in the Maps application.” After this date, you will not be able to view offline maps in the application.

The decision to end support is most likely due to the expiration of the agreement between Nokia, its Here brand and Microsoft.

Microsoft acquired Nokia’s mapping and navigation business (Here) in 2015, and since then both companies have been working together to create offline maps for Windows.