If the idea of a more secure Windows browser appeals to you — and why wouldn’t it — then you might want to have a peek at the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview Build . That’s because it includes the Windows Defender Application Guard for Microsoft Edge, which was announced last September but is finally available for testing today. This Application Guard essentially encases your browser in a virtual machine, so that if your browser ever gets attacked by malware, it won’t affect the rest of your PC. To enable this, you need to use the “Turn Windows features on or off” dialog, and then mark the checkbox for “Windows Defender Application Guard.” Now when you open Microsoft Edge and click on the menu, you’ll see the option for a “New Application Guard window.” Click it, and a new special isolated browser window will appear. The whole thing is possible due to the Virtualization Based Security (VBS) made possible by Windows 10. The virtual PC created by Application Guard would keep the Edge browser separate from storage, other apps and the Windows 10 kernel. Other browsers offer “sandboxes” too, but Microsoft says that Application Guard is unique because there’s a hardware container that makes it impossible for malware and other exploits to seep through. There are a couple of caveats though. Running Edge in a virtual machine will likely slow it down, and since each browser’s session is siloed, all data and cookies are lost once you close it. It’s also only available for Enterprise users for now, presumably because their security needs are much higher than the average person. Still, perhaps it could be introduced as an optional feature later on for everyday users. Aside from Application Guard, the Windows 10 Insider Preview Build also includes an improved PDF Reader for Microsoft Edge and integrated Cortana settings.
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Microsoft tests a secured Edge browser for business
There was a surprise in the latest Community Technology Preview release of SQL Server 2017. An anonymous reader quotes InfoWorld: Python can now be used within SQL Server to perform analytics, run machine learning models, or handle most any kind of data-powered work. This integration isn’t limited to enterprise editions of SQL Server 2017, either — it’ll also be available in the free-to-use Express edition… Microsoft has also made it possible to embed Python code directly in SQL Server databases by including the code as a T-SQL stored procedure. This allows Python code to be deployed in production along with the data it’ll be processing. These behaviors, and the RevoScalePy package, are essentially Python versions of features Microsoft built for SQL Server back when it integrated the R language into the database… An existing Python installation isn’t required. During the setup process, SQL Server 2017 can pull down and install its own edition of CPython 3.5, the stock Python interpreter available from the Python.org website. Users can install their own Python packages as well or use Cython to generate C code from Python modules for additional speed. Except it’s not yet available for Linux users, according to the article. “Microsoft has previously announced SQL Server would be available for Linux, but right now, only the Windows version of SQL Server 2017 supports Python.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.