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Are My Amazon Echo and Google Home Spying on Everything I Say?

In-home voice assistants like the Amazon Echo and Google Home are convenient, but are they also a secret back door for the government and corporations to spy on everything you say? No. Of course not. Reports of the Echo and Google Home’s ability to spy on you have been greatly exaggerated.

iOS 11’s Control Center Doesn’t Truly Disable Wi-Fi or Bluetooth: Here’s What to Do Instead

That shiny new Control Center in iOS 11 doesn’t actually let you disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth anymore. You can toggle Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off from the Control Center, but the hardware radios will still be running and they’ll turn back on completely at 5 a.m. Yes, this is really weird.

How to Temporarily Disable Touch ID and Require a Passcode in iOS 11

iOS 11 has a new feature that allows you to discreetly disable the Touch ID unlock functionality, requiring the PIN code for access to the device. Here’s why that’s important (and how to use the new locking feature).

How to Free Up Space on Your iPhone or iPad by Offloading Unused Apps

Apps can consume a lot of space on an iPhone or iPad. In iOS 11, a new feature allows you to remove an app from your device without removing the app’s data. In other words, you can remove the app and free up space without losing anything—when you redownload the app in the future, you can immediately pick up right where you left off.

Safari Now Disables Auto-Playing Videos. Here’s How to Allow Them for Certain Sites

You’re trying to do some reading when you hear it: a video playing somewhere off-screen. You curse under your breath, scroll down to find the offending media, then try to find back your place in the article.

How to Stop iPhone and iPad Apps From Asking for Ratings

Lots of iPhone and iPad apps ask for ratings, and they often don’t stop. Even if you do leave a review just to stop seeing the review requests, new apps you install will pester you for reviews, too. iOS 11 fixes this problem, limiting how often apps can ask for ratings and allowing you to stop these requests entirely.

How to Revoke Third-Party App Access From Soundcloud

SoundCloud, an alternative platform for posting and selling music and other audio-only content, offers an API that lets other websites and applications access its data for cool connections. But it’s always possible to be too connected, and if you’d rather be a little more secure with your SoundCloud account, you’ll want to restrict and cancel some of those connections. Here’s how.

How to Customize Your iPhone or iPad’s Control Center

Starting with iOS 11, you can now customize the Control Center you see when you swipe up from the bottom of your iPhone or iPad’s screen. You can remove shortcuts you never use, add new shortcuts, and rearrange the shortcuts to make the Control Center your own.

How to Delete Your Instagram Search History

Search histories can be somewhat incriminating, and there’s often very little reason to keep them around. Your Instagram search history is no exception. Here’s how to clear it.

How to Leave the iOS Beta Now that iOS 11 Is Out

Once a major release of iOS comes out, the benefits of being the on the beta release channel diminish significantly–here’s how to get off the beta tester train and get back to regular old public releases.

What’s New in iOS 11 for iPhone and iPad, Available Now

iOS 11 is on its way, and Apple announced a number of new features and changes at WWDC 2017 this year. From improvements to Messages and Apple Pay to powerful multitasking and file management on the iPad, here are the best new features. iOS 11 will be released on September 19, 2017, but you can play with it yourself today if you install the iOS 11 public beta.

16 Finder Shortcuts Every Mac User Should Know

The Finder seems pretty basic, but there are all kinds of things hidden just below the surface. Whether you want to cut and paste files or jump to a particular folder, it’s all about knowing the right keyboard shortcuts.

Is MoviePass, the $9.95 Movie Theater Subscription, Worth It?

MoviePass offers an unprecedented deal for moviegoers: $9.99 a month lets you see a movie in theaters every single day. Yes, you read that right. You can watch around thirty movies in theaters every month for ten bucks. Since that’s cheaper than a single ticket in most places, people flocked to it. But before you sign up, there are still a few things to consider.

What Is “Application Frame Host” and Why Is It Running on My PC?

Open the Task Manager on Windows 10 and you’ll see an “Application Frame Host” background process running. This process has the file name “ApplicationFrameHost.exe” and is part of the Windows 10 operating system.

Hosted Telephony: What Are the Benefits? [Sponsored]

Hosted Telephony: What Are the Benefits?

How to Auto-Run Windows Programs When You Plug In a USB Drive

Portable apps—self-contained executables that can be moved onto flash drives and run without installation—are popular tools for anyone who has to work on multiple Windows machines. If you want to make your workflow even faster, you can add an “auto-run” file that automatically opens the program as soon as you plug in the drive.

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The Best Selling Debut Album In History Belongs To Which Of These Musical Acts?

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Is It Worth Upgrading to the iPhone 8 or iPhone X?

As summer turns to autumn, the leaves turn brown and the new iPhone is announced. At How-To Geek, we don’t get outside much, so we’re obviously more interested in the new iPhones than whatever trees are doing. Apple introduces the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and the iPhone X. We’re not going to address the profoundly weird start to the keynote, so the big question is: should you upgrade?

Equifax Got Hacked: How to Stop Identity Thieves from Opening Accounts in Your Name

Everybody is getting hacked left and right. Anthem lost 80 million records in 2015. The US government got hacked and lost personal data for millions, all the way down to fingerprint data. Now Equifax, a credit bureau, got hacked. So how can you protect yourself from criminals opening accounts in your name?

Should You Get an “Ultra HD” 4K TV?

Walk through any electronics showroom and most TVs you see will be some form of “Ultra HD” 4K. There are plenty of models available, and they’re cheaper than ever. But should you buy one?

What’s the Best Antivirus for Windows 10? (Is Windows Defender Good Enough?)

Windows 10 won’t hassle you to install an antivirus like Windows 7 did. Since Windows 8, Windows now includes a built-in antivirus called Windows Defender (which used to be available separately as Microsoft Security Essentials). But is it really the best for protecting your PC–or even just good enough?

18 Things You May Not Have Known Google Photos Can Do

Google Photos may seem like a simple image hosting service, but it’s actually quite powerful. Google Photos bridges the gap between cloud storage, image hosting, and image sharing services, giving stiff competition to Flickr, iCloud, Dropbox, and OneDrive.

Wi-Fi Security: Should You Use WPA2-AES, WPA2-TKIP, or Both?

Many routers provide WPA2-PSK (TKIP), WPA2-PSK (AES), and WPA2-PSK (TKIP/AES) as options. Choose the wrong one, though, and you’ll have a slower, less-secure network.

How to Fix Windows Update When It Gets Stuck

Windows Update is supposed to work silently in the background, but it may refuse to continue if it can’t install an individual update.

10 Handy Uses for Your Old iPad or Android Tablet

Tablet sales are slumping at the moment, probably as a result of big smartphones and convertible laptops chip away at a tablet’s usefulness. But if you have one or more tablets at home gathering dust while you happily poke away at your giant smartphone, there are probably some good ways to put them to use rather than selling them or recycling them. Here are a few ideas.

How to Change Microsoft Edge to Search Google Instead of Bing

Microsoft’s new Edge browser uses Bing as its default search engine, but if you prefer something else you can change that. Edge can use any search engine that supports OpenSearch as its default.

How to Turn Your Windows PC Into a Wi-Fi Hotspot

Windows can turn your PC into a wireless hotspot, allowing it to share its wired or wireless Internet connection with other wireless devices. But how you set it up that depends on what version of Windows you’re running. Here’s how it all works.