Norton LifeLock said a large number of customer accounts were affected by the breach.
A customer notification from Gen Digital, Norton’s parent company, stated that the breach was likely the result of a credential stuffing attack where cybercriminals use lists of previously leaked passwords to break into numerous accounts used by victims, assuming they will use this same password for multiple services.
On December 12, 2022, Gen Digital reported that it had received a large number of failed login attempts, prompting the attack. He believes the compromised accounts were from December 1.
Passwords at risk
Given the fact that many admit to reusing the same passwords for different accounts, these attacks can be quite effective.
Notifications were sent to over 6,000 customers whose accounts had been hacked. Gen Digital said that hackers may have ascertained personal information when hacking into customer accounts, such as names, phone numbers and addresses. Passwords stored using the password manager feature could also have been accessed, and Gen Digital warns that this cannot be ruled out.
LifeLock is the identity theft protection platform from Norton, the company best known for its once-leading antivirus software. It also comes bundled with the company’s Norton 360 security suite.
As Gen Digital itself recommends, multi-factor authentication is essential to keeping you safe by making sure you’re the one trying to access your account. It works by sending a verification prompt or code to another device, such as a smartphone, via SMS or a dedicated authenticator app when you try to log into your account.
LifeLock Password Manager is not alone in the event of a potential breach. LastPass has had a hard time since its customers’ password vaults were stolen last year, despite customers’ assurances that their passwords remained encrypted.
For optimal security, consider using the best firewall
Google Stadia may be shutting down in just a few days, but that hasn’t stopped Google from releasing one last game for the ill-fated streaming device.
Now playable on Google Stadia, Worm will be very familiar to anyone who owned a phone in the early 2000s. It’s basically Snake, albeit with some modern additions like colorful visuals and multiple game modes.
If you’ve kept your Google Stadia subscription all the way to the end, you can give Worm Game a shot by switching to its Stadia page (opens in a new tab). You can even try it for free for up to three hours with the Google Stadia trial.
You may have seen the last game on Stadia today. It’s humble 🧡 thanks 💜 for playing with our team. Find it here: https://t.co/PyAUH181v1January 13, 2023
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Don’t be too quick to think Google released the Snake clone as a prank, though. The Worm Game store page explains that the game was used to test many of Google Stadia’s features from its launch in 2019 until its imminent demise.
And as for Snake, the Worm game is certainly a bit more complicated than the one you run on your Nokia 3310 on long car trips to Wales. Nothing to write home about, but at least an important footnote in Google Stadia’s brief history.
A fitting end?
(Image credit: future)
The shutdown of Google Stadia on January 18 is no surprise. A bizarre subscription model coupled with inconsistent streaming quality led to the device sitting lukewarm with all but its most ardent supporters.
However, Stadia was not completely without victories. I’m a big fan of Google’s excellent Stadia controller, and now that Google has finally confirmed Bluetooth support, the pad has at least been given a new lease of life. At least for gamers who want to continue using it wirelessly on PC and hopefully devices and consoles.
Unfortunately for Google, several other streaming services like GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming offer more compelling game libraries with better streaming quality. As a result, Stadia has never been able to find a sizeable and devoted audience on PC, mobile and consoles.
The streaming service itself isn’t going out with a bang, but I’d say it certainly isn’t whining, as evidenced by the release of Worm Game. It’s a game that’s clearly important to the development of Google Stadia, however primitive and basic it is.
Whether or not Google decides to finally throw its hat back to the game streaming ring remains to be seen. But if that happens, the tech giant will do well to learn from the shortcomings of its first experiment.
Now that 2023 is well underway, rumors of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 are popping up fast and thick, with the latest speculation surrounding the upcoming foldable camera setup.
According to a new report from a Vietnamese tech store Pixel (opens in a new tab)The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 could replace the 50MP rear camera used by its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, with a much more powerful 108MP rear sensor (like the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra).
Pixel also suggests that the Galaxy Z Fold 5 could come with a 64MP telephoto lens (with 2x optical zoom) and a 12MP ultra-wide-angle camera. This setup would trump the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s 10-megapixel telephoto sensor, but would lose out on the latter’s 3x optical zoom capabilities.
This last point tells us to be a little wary of these new rumors. While it’s undoubtedly exciting to think we might finally see a foldable phone that can match non-foldable phones in the photography department, it’s hard to imagine Samsung giving the Galaxy Z Fold 5 lesser optical zoom capabilities than its predecessor.
Moreover, how SamMobile (opens in a new tab) notes that Samsung’s track record of sparsely deploying two major versions of the trotting camera raises another red flag. The Galaxy Z Fold 4’s camera setup marked a significant improvement over the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3’s equivalent sensors, making us a bit skeptical that the Galaxy Z Fold 5 will feature another major snapper update.
Of course, we’re expecting some photographic improvement from the Galaxy Z Fold 5 over the Galaxy Z Fold 4, but at this stage, we’re hesitant to completely bury the rumors of a 108MP rear sensor and 64MP telephoto lens.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 has a 50MP main rear camera and a 10MP telephoto lens (Image credit: future)
Analysis: Assembling more than just camera upgrades
However, we have more faith in rumors about the design of the Galaxy Z Fold 5. According to a South Korean outlet Naver (opens in a new tab)Samsung intends to use a waterdrop-shaped hinge in its upcoming foldable phone, which would allow the phone to fold completely flat with no visible gaps between the two halves of the display.
Several phones from Chinese manufacturers are already taking this approach to designing their foldable devices (for example, the Huawei Mate X2, Honor Magic Vs and Oppo Find N2), but at the expense of full water resistance. However, Samsung is rumored to be planning to add a new hinge shape while keeping the Galaxy Z Fold 5’s IPX8 rating, a feature no rival has been able to compete with in the foldable space.
As for the phone’s release date, we expect the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 to arrive in August 2023. The Galaxy Z Fold 4, Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Fold 2 were unveiled in August in their respective release years, so we expect that the Galaxy Z Fold 5 will stick to tradition in this respect.
There’s no word yet on the phone’s price, but the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 launched for $1799 / £1649 / AU$2499, so a similarly staggering figure is to be expected from its successor. Still, these improvements could help it find a place in our roundup of the best Samsung phones.
Microsoft DirectStorage 1.1, a feature that uses the GPU to speed up loading times, has just been tested with comparisons between AMD, Intel and Nvidia graphics cards – with very interesting results. In short, it looks like this feature will significantly speed up loading with NVMe SSDs.
How Tom’s gear (opens in a new tab) reports, compile (opens in a new tab) developed a comparative test of this german tech site Computer game equipment (opens in a new tab) (PCGH) used to obtain results for AMD’s RX 7900 XT versus Intel’s Arc A770, as well as Nvidia’s RTX 4080.
All GPUs tested on a PC with Intel Core i9-12900K (Alder Lake flagship CPU) running Windows 11.
First, a quick tech reminder to refresh your memory if needed: DirectStorage 1.1 comes with GPU decompression technology, allowing the GPU to decompress (compressed game assets) and do so with much greater speed and efficiency than the CPU.
This provides faster loading times and quicker on-the-fly resource loading in large open world games, meaning a smoother experience when roaming these types of large environments.
In testing, PCGH found that Intel’s A770 GPU was actually the best at achieving fast decompression of game assets, reaching 16.8 GB/s compared to 15.3 GB/s for the RTX 4080 and 14.6 GB/s for the AMD 7900 XT (in the PCIe 4.0 tests – although Intel also led in the case of PCI 3.0, albeit by a slightly narrower margin).
While this was a somewhat eye-opening win for the Intel Arc, it’s important to note that it didn’t translate into any real difference in load times between the GPUs, with all of them delivering blazingly fast speeds.
PCGH witnessed the 5-second load time go down to 0.5 seconds – essentially in the blink of an eye – in all cases for these AMD, Intel and Nvidia graphics cards, so they were all fully in line with the actual end results.
Analysis: Really impressive results – but where are the games?
It’s an exciting first look at independent benchmarks showing just how fast DirectStorage will be for PC gamers, no matter what kind of (modern) GPU they’re using. Note that gamers must have an NVMe SSD as well as Windows 11 for best results.
While DirectStorage will work on Windows 10 PCs, there are a whole bunch of optimizations for Windows 11 on the storage front, which means it will provide a much greater speed boost. So it’s easy to see why, given the impact DirectStorage seems to have on these benchmarks, this will be a compelling argument for PC gamers to upgrade to Windows 11.
Keep in mind that this may not be an argument that will apply in the real world for a while, simply because there aren’t any games yet that use DirectStorage (not on PC, anyway). The only game we know is coming and bristling with DS support is Forspoken, and it’s frustrating that it’s been the victim of multiple delays right now.
Forspoken was expected in May 2022, then pushed back to October 2022, before being pushed back to January 24, 2023, just over a week away. Hopefully – barring further last-minute delays – we’ll be able to see DirectStorage in action on PC very soon.
Still, one PC game is only a drop in the ocean of needs, and it’s unclear when more titles will follow to take advantage of this fast SSD acceleration technology. This means it will still be a while before PC gamers sticking with Windows 10 feel the real pull to upgrade to Windows 11, but judging from the early testing so far, it looks like the pull will be considerable when it comes to play.
Brave users can now contribute to the fight against online censorship with the latest update.
Brave version 1.47 allows users around the world to turn their devices into a proxy service to give people around the world access to the Tor Browser.
This is not the first step the secure browser has taken to bypass internet restrictions, following the earlier introduction of support for Tor Bridges in private Windows with Tor version 1.44. But the company’s new feature is a step forward to empower the Brave community to promote an open and free internet for everyone – right behind their screens.
Brave and Tor Snowflake
The latest Brave update adds the Tor Snowflake feature directly to the browser system. It is a peer-to-peer technology developed by the Tor Project to allow people around the world to access censored websites and apps.
Like many top VPN services, Snowflake helps those living under strict internet restrictions bypass online censorship.
However, as explained by Tor wa blog post (opens in a new tab)“Unlike a VPN, you don’t need to install a separate app to connect to Snowflake’s proxy server and bypass censorship. This is usually a workaround feature built into existing applications.”
Powered by a combination of proxy technology and the WebRTC protocol, Snowflake masks users’ online activities, making them appear as if they are using the network for a simple video or voice call. It then automatically assigns Tor’s ephemeral bridges to give access to blocked sites to anyone who needs it.
At the same time, it secures the privacy and anonymity of users, so that the authorities will not be able to know if and when someone manages to bypass their online restrictions.
Tor Bridges, already available in the Brave browser since September last year, is relay software run by volunteers with the goal of helping people access Tor in the event of a lockdown.
They basically give users an alternative access point to Onion routing.
To enable this feature in Brave Browser, you should head over to Settings menu and tap Privacy and protection strap. click on Windows Tor to select or manually add an active built-in bridge.
The snowflake represents the natural evolution of this. In fact, anyone who wants to help others access Tor can now enable the browser extension on their Tor Bridge of choice simply by enabling this option.
This means that users’ devices don’t just act as intermediaries between the external computer and the Tor website. They also allow encrypted messages to flow between the Snowflake system and other computers on the Tor network.
While anyone can do what they can to help people around the world easily access Tor, it is worth noting that the Snowflake feature does not work for users residing in countries where Tor is censored and/or accessing the internet through a firewall fire at school or workplace.
DeepMind, a Google subsidiary, says it may launch a rival ChatGPT soon – and its chatbot promises to be a safer kind of AI assistant.
DeepMind has been a pioneer in AI research for the past decade and was acquired by Google nine years ago. However, after ChatGPT steals the latest headlines, said Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind Time (opens in a new tab) that it is considering releasing its own chatbot called Sparrow for “private beta” in 2023.
Sparrow was introduced to the world last year as a proof of concept in research document (opens in a new tab) who described it as “a dialogue agent that is useful and reduces the risk of dangerous and inappropriate responses.”
Despite some concerns about the potential dangers of chatbots, which DeepMind says contain “inaccurate or made-up information,” it appears that Sparrow may be ready to take flight in beta form soon. Given DeepMind’s close relationship with Google, it could effectively become the search giant’s answer to ChatGPT.
According to Demis Hassabis, the slight delay in the launch of Sparrow is due to DeepMind’s desire to ensure it has important features that ChatGPT lacks – specifically citing specific sources. As Hassabis Time told, “care must be taken on this front.”
The DeepMind research article also says that Sparrow will initially be more limited and conservative than ChatGPT. The latter went viral for its impressive ability to help everyone from programmers to armchair poets, but it also caused concern for its ability to make discriminatory comments and its ability to write malware.
DeepMind discussed the behavior-restricting principles Sparrow relies on, along with a willingness to refuse to answer questions in “contexts where it’s appropriate to submit to people.” In early testing, Sparrow apparently gave a credible answer and, most importantly, backed it up with evidence “78% of the time a factual question was asked.”
But its true capabilities will become clearer when this public beta launches later this year. We’re sure to grab the popcorn for the first AI chatbot debate between the Google-linked Sparrow and the increasingly Microsoft-loving ChatGPT.
Analysis: AI chatbots are still in kindergarten
In examples like the one above, Sparrow cites sources to back up his factual answers. (Image credit: DeepMind)
Anyone who has used ChatGPT will know that it is capable of making a pretty good imitation of intelligence on many topics. But while it’s definitely a fun ride, AI chatbots also need moral intelligence and the ability to cite sources – and that’s where DeepMind claims its “dialogue agent” Sparrow is at its strongest.
Taking this to the next level will require a ton of outside input, which is why Sparrow’s public beta is imminent. DeepMind says developing better rules for its AI assistant “will require both input from experts across a wide range of topics (including policy makers, social scientists and ethicists) and participatory input from diverse users and affected groups.”
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI (which created ChatGPT), similarly spoke about the difficulty of opening AI chatbots without causing collateral damage. On Twitter (opens in a new tab) acknowledged that “there will be serious problems with the use of OpenAI technology over time; we’ll do our best, but we can’t anticipate every problem.”
In other words, the creators of both ChatGPT and DeepMind’s Sparrow are like parents with curious toddlers, which brings fun and danger in equal measure – especially when their kindergarten teacher is actually the entire internet.
ChatGPT is already going wild and heading towards the monetary future with ChatGPT Professional, a soon to be paid tier. But DeepMind’s Sparrow appears to be the more benign figure that AI chatbots need as they race towards next-gen models like the rumored ChatGPT-4.
Spyware has been discovered stealing user data from Iran via a compromised VPN installer, antivirus vendor Bitdefender has revealed.
A joint company investigation with cybersecurity firm Blackpoint found that components of the Iranian EyeSpy malware were injected “via trojanized installers of VPN software (also developed in Iran)”.
Most of the targets were within the country, with only a few victims in Germany and the USA.
This is especially worrying in a country like Iran, where using one of the best VPN services is becoming more and more a necessity. Whether it’s to bypass strict internet censorship or to remain anonymous to avoid dangerous government surveillance. Most likely a mix of both.
At the same time, a harsh crackdown on Iranian VPN services could push people to insecure third-party sites. This makes such a spyware campaign even more dangerous to the privacy and security of Iranians.
Anti-dissident software?
“In light of recent events, it is possible that the target is Iranians who want to access the internet via VPN to bypass the country’s digital lockdown. Such malicious installers can install spyware on people who pose a threat to the regime.” Bitdefender Report (opens in a new tab) recorded.
Developed by Iranian company SecondEye, EyeSpy is legitimate surveillance software marketed to companies as a way to monitor the activities of employees working remotely.
The attackers were observed to use components of a legitimate application in a malicious way to infect users downloading the Iranian 20Speed VPN service and spy on their activities.
Once injected into a device, malware can spy on virtually any activity and collect tons of sensitive data. This includes stored passwords, cryptocurrency wallet data, documents and images, clipboard contents, and keystroke logs.
“Malware components are scripts that steal sensitive information from the system and upload it to a SecondEye-owned FTP server,” Bitdefender explained.
“This can lead to complete account takeover, identity theft and financial loss. Furthermore, by logging keystrokes, attackers can obtain messages that the victim types on social media or emails, and this information can be used to blackmail victims.”
The campaign appears to have been active since May 2022, with the number of attacks increasing after a wave of anti-government protests that began in September.
Following this event, VPN downloads in Iran skyrocketed, peaking at over 3,000% by the end of the month.
VPN islargely used by Iranian citizens to access restricted apps like Instagram and WhatsApp. But as the government increasingly imposes harsh sentences on dissidents, up to the death penalty, additional security software is also needed to protect sensitive data.
While more and more Iranians are downloading a virtual private network to their devices, the result is that the authorities are hardly cracking down on reliable VPN services.
Many providers are currently blocked in Iran, which means third-party VPN installers are on the rise. According International Iran (opens in a new tab). 20Speed VPN is actually one of the most popular websites where Iranians buy VPN subscriptions. Over 100,000 are active installationsVPN app for android.
To combat such malware campaigns, Bitdefender experts recommend “using well-known VPN solutions downloaded from legitimate sources. In addition, a security solution like Bitdefender can protect against information theft.”
CES – one of the biggest annual tech conferences in the world – has been home to a lot of silly gadgets over the years. We’ve seen finger-picking robots, ovens that can live-stream your cooking, and even an RGB face mask.
But today I want to bring to your attention a silly device from CES 2023, a device that you may not have realized was even that funny: the Asus ROG Swift Pro PG248QP; is a gaming monitor that boasts a ridiculously high maximum refresh rate of 540Hz.
At first glance, the new Asus monitor does not seem stupid. The high refresh rate is a fantastic feature – if a brand wants their display to be on our list of the best gaming monitors, it’s one of the main factors we’ll be using to judge their tech.
That’s because increasing the refresh rate of game setups can give you an edge, especially in multiplayer matches. Thanks to smoother gameplay and lower input lag, you can track your opponents more easily and react better to the information displayed on the screen than if you were using a weaker system.
But you don’t just need a fast monitor, you also need a gaming setup that can take advantage of the screen’s high refresh rates, running games at a high level. And unless you want your graphics to look like ugly unrecognizable blobs of pixels, you almost certainly don’t have hardware that can hit 540 frames per second (fps) in your favorite games.
Who needs such a good monitor?
If you’re purely a console gamer, you shouldn’t even be looking in the general direction of this monitor, let alone thinking about buying one. PS5 and Xbox Series X peak at 120Hz, very far from the 540Hz maximum offered by the Asus ROG Swift Pro PG248QP.
Instead, this display is aimed at PC gamers, but for many of you, Asus’ latest display is still not quite right.
Even the Mainear Turbo can’t keep up with the fast Asus monitor. (Image credit: future)
Let’s look at the number one in our best gaming laptop guide, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15. It features an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS CPU, an Nvidia RTX 3070 graphics card, and 16GB of RAM, which is an above-average configuration (based on Steam user data (opens in a new tab)). In our tests of Total War: Three Kingdoms and Metro: Exodus – both running at HD resolutions and low quality graphics – the laptop was only able to hit 164 fps and 125 fps respectively.
When it comes to our pick of the best gaming PC we’ve tested, the Mainear Turbo, the situation is better but still not enough. The model we received used an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti, and 32GB of DDR4 RAM to max out at 320fps in Total War: Warhammer III and 221fps in Cyberpunk 2077 (both in HD with low quality graphics settings). Only 60% of what the Swift Pro PG248QP can achieve.
What if we traded for the Nvidia RTX 4090? In our tests, we found that Nvidia’s best (and most expensive) graphics card boasted frame rates around 55% higher than the RTX 3080Ti. Including this in Maingear Turbo’s performance, you’d see a total of 498 fps in Total War: Warhammer III and 344 fps in Cyberpunk 2077 – still below the 540 target.
If you don’t have an RTX4090, 540 fps is a tough target to achieve (Image credit: future)
With the right knowledge (and game selection), you can probably move this setup and other similarly capable PCs overseas. But most of us don’t have an RTX 4090 – heck, a lot of us don’t even have a 3090 (or 3080, for that matter).
Asus’ latest monitor is certainly impressive, but considering the rest of the PC’s space, it’s a ridiculous item that virtually no one has any use for. If you want to pick it up when it goes on sale so you can say you have the world’s fastest gaming monitor, that’s power for you, but I’m telling you right now: it’s probably a waste of money.
Those of you looking for a more sensible place to start might want to check out our ultimate gaming monitor buying guide and should keep an eye out for monitors that better match the performance your PC can realistically achieve.
Three popular e-commerce plugins for WordPress (WP) installations, open to SQL injection attacks since December 2022, have been patchedprotecting businesses from attackers modifying or deleting their websites.
The three affected plugins as Tenable security researcher Joshua Martinelle discovered (opens in a new tab) (by Beeping Computer (opens in a new tab)), werePaid Pro Membership (opens in a new tab)‘, a subscription management tool with over 100,000 installations, ‘Easy digital download (opens in a new tab)‘, an e-commerce tool with over 50,000 installs, and ‘Survey marker (opens in a new tab)‘ (market research tool with over 3,000 active installs)
SQL injections are vulnerabilities that allow attackers to enter data into web page forms or URLs to modify databases. Attackers can exploit vulnerabilities that allow SQL injection to inject scripts designed to modify websites or gain unauthorized access to their backends.
SQL injections in wordpress
While all websites can be vulnerable to SQL injection during development, WordPress installations, hosted on a popular centralized platform loaded with many popular plugins, are a popular target for cybercriminals looking for exploits.
Only in January 2023 TechRadar Pro has reported in other WP plugin offerings live chat using the functionality for three years to execute JavaScript code that redirects users to malicious websites, and also another similar prank targeting a plugin that adds a gift card feature online stores.
Fortunately, after the bugs were revealed and the proof-of-concept (PoC) exploits by Martinelle were published in WordPress on December 19, 2022, the plugin developers quickly addressed the bugs, and fixes were released within weeks or even days.
A fix for “Survey Maker”, part of version 3.1.2 of the plugin, was released on December 21. “Paid Memberships Pro” followed on January 27, patched to version 2.9.8, and “Easy Digital Downloads” followed on January 5, 2023 as part of version 3.1.0.4.
If they have not already done so, affected users are advised to update these plugins to the latest versions to protect themselves against SQL injection attacks in the foreseeable future.
Merry Christmas, one and all! It’s the most wonderful time of the year – and not just because the sleigh bells are ringing. Almost all of the major streaming services released at least one movie or TV show this weekend that made headlines, so there’s really never been a better time to sit down in front of the TV and catch something new.
Leading the Christmas rush is Netflix, whose sequel Knives Out and Roald Dahl’s adaptation of Matilda are sure to light up millions of living rooms this Christmas. But HBO Max, Prime Video and Apple TV Plus also have something new to offer, so there’s no shortage of options to browse when dinner fatigue kicks in on Sunday.
Below, we’ve rounded up seven of the biggest new movies and TV shows that will be streaming over the next few days.
Glass Onions: Knife Mystery (Netflix)
Daniel Craig continues to redefine his post-James Bond career with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (also known as Outdoor knives 2) on Netflix this weekend.
In the highly anticipated sequel to director Rian Johnson’s acclaimed crime thriller Glass Onion, Craig reprises his role as lead detective Benoit Blanc to solve another humorous mystery – this time on a private Greek island owned by eccentric tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton). .
Janelle Monae, Kathryn Hahn, Dave Bautista, Jessica Henwick, Leslie Odom Jr, Kate Hudson and Ethan Hawke also star in Johnson’s sequel, which was praised for being “lighter and brighter” than its predecessor. Without a doubt, Glass Onion will soon be on our list best Netflix moviesso add this item to your watchlist as soon as possible.
Now available to stream on Netflix.
Roald Dahl’s Matilda Musical (Netflix)
The singing and dancing film adaptation of the musical Matilda (which itself is an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s novel) is the definition of Christmas family fun.
Directed by Matthew Warchus and with original music by Tim Minchin – both of whom directed the Tony Award-winning stage show – Roald Dahl’s musical Matilda the Musical tells the story of Matilda Wormwood (Alisha Weir), a student with extraordinary powers who dares to take a stand against her oppressive parents and nefarious school principal .
Emma Thompson, Lashana Lynch, Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough are also starring in this great Netflix musical, which can be watched in the US from Sunday December 25 (which is Christmas for those celebrating). British viewers can find Matilda in cinemas, where it will remain exclusively until 2023.
Available to stream on Netflix from Sunday.
The Witcher: Origin of Blood (Netflix)
If you can’t wait to go back to the creature-filled forests of the continent, but you can’t wait The Witcher season 3followed by the show’s first spin-off, The Witcher: Origin of Bloodmay be the answer to your prayers.
Set 1,200 years before the time of Geralt of Rivia, this four-part miniseries traces the origins of the first Witcher and follows seven destiny-bound outcasts as they join forces to overthrow the tyrannical elven kingdom of Xin’trea. Sophia Brown (replacement for originally cast Jodie Turner-Smith), Michelle Yeoh, Laurence O’Fuarai and Minnie Driver are among the cast of the series.
Before the release of Blood Origin, we spoke to its creators and cast about how the series is changing The Witcher’s mysterious past. Down our moneyhowever, this Netflix spin-off is a “frustrating and magic-less dud that doesn’t know what it wants to be.”
Available to stream on Netflix from Sunday.
Boy, Mole, Fox and Horse (Apple TV Plus)
Matilda the Musical’s health rival this weekend is The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, which is available to stream on Apple TV Plus starting Sunday.
Produced by the BBC, an adaptation of Charlie Mackesy’s hugely successful children’s book, this animated short follows one boy’s journey home and the unexpected companions he meets along the way. Idris Elba, Tom Hollander and Gabriel Byrne lend their voice talents.
The Boy, Mole, Fox, and Horse’s limited run time means it probably won’t make our list the best Apple TV Plus moviesbut his humble tale of simple kindness is sure to make you feel uplifted this festive weekend.
Available to stream on Apple TV Plus from Sunday.
Jack Ryan Season 3 (Best Video)
John Krasinski’s Special Agent Jack Ryan returns for his highly anticipated third appearance on Prime Video this weekend.
Amazon’s Jack Ryan Season 3 Synopsis isn’t exactly short, but the general outline of the new episodes of the series is as follows: While working as a CIA officer in Rome, Ryan is tipped off to a secret plan to rebuild the Soviet Empire, which sends him on a cross-country journey across Europe to prevent World War III. So standard spy tricks.
All eight episodes are now available to stream on Prime Video – we hope they’re good enough to get the Amazon spy series on our list the best Prime Video shows.
Now available to stream on Prime Video.
I Hate Suzie season 2 (HBO Max)
The Sky-produced series I Hate Suzie didn’t set the world on fire when it debuted in 2020, but those who watched the star Billie Piper couldn’t recommend her highly enough.
Now, titular child star turned actress Piper is back to break down in public in a three-part episode of I Hate Suzie Too, which was described by Sky as an “anti-Christmas special” given Suzie’s ongoing fight with ex-husband Cob (Daniel Ings) and separation from best friend Naomi (Leila Farzad).
Still not convinced? Showrunner Lucy Prebbile – who co-wrote I Hate Suzie (and its sequel) with Piper – is also co-executive producer and writer Relegation season 4, which is the upcoming entry in one of the best HBO Max shows ever. What’s with the credentials?
Now available to stream on HBO Max.
Alice on the Border Season 2 (Netflix)
The Japanese sci-fi thriller Alice on the Border returns with its long-awaited second season on Netflix this weekend.
Continuing the story of Haro Aso’s manga of the same name, in Season 2 of Alice in Borderland, Kento (Ryōhei Arisu) and Tao (Yuzuha Usagi) will be challenged to complete a deadly, Calamari game-esque games at the behest of mysterious game masters.
Judging by the season trailer, things are getting suitably bloody with Alice in Borderland season 2, and all eight episodes are now available to stream on Netflix (perhaps the series will finally make it onto our list of Netflix’s best shows).
