reporting Archives

AppWizard

July 10, 2025

Minecraft vs. Roblox: Which Video Game is #1 in 2025?

Roblox reported 79.5 million daily active users (DAUs) in Q1 2025, while Minecraft had 140 million monthly active users (MAUs) in 2023. Roblox generated .8 million in revenue in Q1 2025, compared to Minecraft's million for the entirety of 2023. 54% of Roblox users are under 13 years old, while Minecraft appeals to a broader demographic, including adults. Roblox focuses on user-generated content and social interaction, while Minecraft emphasizes creativity and nostalgia.

AppWizard

July 10, 2025

Amazon MGM Hires Charlie Coleman as International Marketing Chief

Amazon MGM has appointed Charlie Coleman as its head of international marketing, based in London, reporting to Sue Kroll. Coleman previously worked at Disney and Warner Bros., where he became EVP of international marketing and led campaigns for films like “The Batman” and “Dune.” His appointment is part of a trend of former Warner executives joining Amazon MGM, which is preparing for a full theatrical release schedule starting in 2026, including films like “Project Hail Mary” and “Masters of the Universe.”

AppWizard

July 9, 2025

Modder behind the ‘Swiss army knife of PC gaming’ deletes their 20 year-old Steam account with anti-Valve manifesto: ‘By the end of my bitter dealings with Valve… there was zero hope’

Kaldaien, the creator of the graphics and performance enhancement tool Special K, has deleted their Steam account after two decades, citing frustrations with Steam's update policies and the platform's evolution since 2002. They criticized Steam for becoming bloated and complicating software compatibility, making older games unplayable due to updated requirements. Kaldaien expressed concerns about the diminishing freedom for gamers to purchase from various sources and criticized the Steam Input API for obstructing access to alternative input options. Despite being a Steamworks partner, they felt unresponsive to Valve and noted that some issues stem from developers' choices rather than Steam itself. Kaldaien's experiences highlight the concentration of power in Valve's hands and raise questions about the long-term implications for gamers reliant on a single platform.

Tech Optimizer

July 8, 2025

How TimescaleDB helped us scale analytics and reporting

At Cloudflare, PostgreSQL and ClickHouse are used as primary databases for transactional and analytical workloads. PostgreSQL is preferred for product development due to its speed, versatility, and reliability, with hundreds of instances running in various configurations. ClickHouse, introduced in 2017, allows ingestion of tens of millions of rows per second with millisecond-level query performance but comes with trade-offs. The Digital Experience Monitoring (DEX) product was developed with a focus on simplicity and rapid shipping, utilizing a team of three engineers and collaboration with other teams. DEX's initial launch included fleet status logs uploaded every two minutes and synthetic tests with usage caps, leading to a successful MVP launch ahead of schedule. The architecture included an HTTP API, PostgreSQL for storing configurations, and a React UI in the Cloudflare Dashboard. PostgreSQL was chosen for analytics due to its ability to handle structured logs, with a table created for device state logs lacking a primary key but optimized with unique and standard indexes for common queries. The UPSERT query was used for data insertion, and the order of columns in multicolumn indexes was optimized for performance. After launching DEX, the system scaled to 1,000 inserts per second, leading to performance degradation. Precomputed aggregates were implemented to improve query performance, resulting in up to a 1000x improvement. Table partitioning was considered but ultimately not pursued due to its manual management requirements. TimescaleDB was explored as an alternative to enhance query performance, offering features like automatic partition management, continuous aggregates, and compression. A side-by-side comparison with PostgreSQL showed significant performance improvements, particularly for longer time windows. TimescaleDB's integration allowed for efficient data retention and aggregation, simplifying the infrastructure. Following the success of DEX, other teams at Cloudflare began using TimescaleDB for analytics and reporting, consolidating data from various sources and managing high ingestion rates effectively by optimizing data handling techniques such as switching to COPY for bulk inserts and adjusting replication settings.

Winsage

July 7, 2025

Windows 11 usage is surging? Not so fast – here’s the real story

Numerous tech publications are reporting on a chart from Statcounter Global Stats that shows a decline in Windows 10 usage and an increase in Windows 11 usage as of June 30, 2025. Some articles claim that Windows 11 has caught up to Windows 10 in market share, but the difference is so small it may fall within statistical error. Statcounter's data reflects pageviews rather than actual market share, which can misrepresent the popularity of the operating systems. The firm, established in 1999, has seen a decline in its customer base from 3 million in 2009 to 1.5 million by 2022. Statcounter's data comes from small to medium-sized websites and does not include major sites like Google and Facebook, leading to potential inaccuracies in interpreting market share. Trends indicate a gradual decline in traffic from Windows 10 devices and a rise from Windows 11 devices, particularly as Windows 10's end-of-support date approaches, but these trends do not necessarily reflect the overall Windows PC population.

AppWizard

July 6, 2025

‘There are no plans to drop support for SteamOS’: The Finals devs commit to Steam Deck and Linux players despite new kernel-level anti-cheat

Embark Studios announced updates for their game, The Finals, focusing on enhanced security measures against cheating through the introduction of kernel-level anti-cheat technology in the 7.3 patch. This technology aims to combat cheats that use kernel-drivers to manipulate game memory. The developers confirmed their commitment to supporting players on Steam Deck and Linux platforms, stating there are no plans to drop support for SteamOS/Proton/Wine and/or SteamDeck. They have been collaborating with CodeWeavers since Season 5 to ensure quality assurance for each release. Players are encouraged to report any issues they encounter. The interest in SteamOS and other Linux distributions is rising as Windows 10 approaches its end of life. The Finals is currently in its seventh season since its launch in 2023.

AppWizard

July 6, 2025

Activision takes Call of Duty: WWII offline after hackers apparently disrupted the game with RCE exploits — malicious code wreaks havoc on PC gamers as bad actors take complete control of your computer

Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in 2023 to enhance PC and console gaming integration, focusing on the inclusion of Call of Duty in Xbox and PC Game Pass. Call of Duty: WWII, released in 2017, remained active in 2025 but faced issues when hackers exploited remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities shortly after its addition to Game Pass. Although no serious damage was reported, the potential risks were concerning, especially given the game's outdated peer-to-peer matchmaking system. Activision introduced the Ricochet anti-cheat system in 2019, but Call of Duty: WWII lacks these protections. In response to the hacking incidents, Activision temporarily removed the game from the Microsoft Store for investigation, while it remained available on Steam and PC Game Pass. Reports of hacks included a streamer experiencing a live hack that changed their desktop wallpaper and the sharing of hacking tools by users.

Tech Optimizer

July 5, 2025

Multiple PHP Vulnerabilities Allow SQL Injection & DoS Attacks

Critical security vulnerabilities in PHP, identified as CVE-2025-1735 and CVE-2025-6491, pose risks for SQL injection attacks and denial of service (DoS) conditions. These vulnerabilities affect PHP versions below 8.1.33, 8.2.29, 8.3.23, and 8.4.10. CVE-2025-1735 relates to the PostgreSQL extension, where insufficient error checking during string escaping can lead to SQL injection vulnerabilities and application crashes. This flaw is associated with PostgreSQL's CVE-2025-1094. CVE-2025-6491 affects the SOAP extension, causing segmentation faults when a SoapVar instance has a namespace prefix exceeding 2GB, which can lead to application termination. This issue is linked to limitations in libxml2 versions prior to 2.13. Patches are available for all affected PHP versions to mitigate these vulnerabilities. CVE-2025-1735 has a CVSS score of 9.1 (Critical), while CVE-2025-6491 has a CVSS score of 5.9 (Moderate).

AppWizard

July 4, 2025

Peak re-releases its next update aimed at improving stability and reassures players ‘we don’t have any issue with sharing video content, including modded stuff’

The developers at Landcrab released a patch for their game, Peak, which initially caused access issues for some players. They have since reintroduced a refined version of the patch that retains the original fixes while resolving the access problems. The new patch enhances stability for reconnecting to games after disconnections and includes various other improvements. The developers are also updating the End User License Agreement (EULA) and are encouraging players to report any bugs.

Winsage

July 3, 2025

Microsoft asks users to ignore Windows Firewall config errors

Microsoft has advised customers to ignore certain Windows Firewall notifications, identified as 'Event 2042,' that may occur after installing the June 2025 preview update (KB5060829). These notifications indicate a 'Config Read Failed' warning but do not affect the normal operation of the Windows Firewall on Windows 11 24H2 systems. The company is aware of the issue, which is related to a new feature under development, and is working on a resolution. No action is required from users, and similar past issues have not impacted system functionality.