Featured Articles - The Best of How-To Geek

How to Control Philips Hue Lights From Your Mac

Want to easily control your Hue lights? You don’t have to pick up your phone or yell across the room at Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri. Here are some easy ways to control your Hue lights right from your Mac….

Chris Hoffman Sep 15th

Which Old Components Can You Reuse When Building a New PC?

Building a new PC is fun, exciting, and . . . expensive. After you’ve built a few desktops, all those new boxes of Corsair, NVIDIA, and Intel gear can lose their luster—especially after you tally up the bill….

How to Extract an Icon from a Windows EXE File

Sometimes you’re working on a project and need access to a high-quality version of a Windows 10 application icon, but you can’t find one on the internet. Luckily, a free utility called IconViewer makes it easy to extract a hi…

Benj Edwards Sep 14th

How to Broadcast Messages on Google Assistant Speakers and Displays

If you have a number of Google Home or Nest speakers and Smart Displays scattered around your house, why not put them to use as a broadcasting system? That’s exactly what you can do with the Google Assistant….

Joe Fedewa Sep 14th

How to Control When Your Mac Automatically Goes to Sleep

It’s often a good idea to let your Mac sleep after a period of time when you’re not using it, but the way recent versions of macOS present sleep-mode options in System Preferences feels counter-intuitive. Here’s how to sort i…

Benj Edwards Sep 14th

Windows Me, 20 Years Later: Was It Really That Bad?

Twenty years ago, the turn of the millenium saw some serious software bugs. No, we’re not talking about Y2K here: We’re talking about Windows Me. Dubbed “Windows Mistake Edition” by PCWorld, Windows Me is not remembered fondl…

How to Track Your Data Usage on Android

As smartphones have become more popular, data plans have become more limiting. A lot of people need to keep a close eye on data usage to avoid surprise bills. We’ll show you how to do this with Android’s built-in tools….

Joe Fedewa Sep 13th

20 Years Later: How the Mac OS X Public Beta Saved the Mac

On Sept. 13, 2000, Apple released Mac OS X Public Beta, the first public release of OS X to include the Dock. It was also the first to feature the unprecedented eye candy that was the Aqua interface. It marked the beginning o…

How to Force Close Apps on Android TV

It’s always annoying when an app doesn’t work as it should. Sometimes, the only thing you can do to solve the problem is force close the app. You can do this on your Android TV just like on your smartphone. Here’s how….

Joe Fedewa Sep 12th

How to Play Mozilla Firefox’s Hidden Unicorn Pong Game

It seems like every browser has a hidden game these days. Chrome has a dinosaur game, Edge has surfing, and Firefox has . . . unicorn pong? Yep, you read that right—here’s how to play it.

Benj Edwards Sep 12th

HDMI 2.1: What’s New, and Do You Need to Upgrade?

With next-gen consoles arriving by the end of 2020 and NVIDIA’s RTX 30 series of graphics cards cresting the horizon, HDMI 2.1 is looking more critical than ever. Does this mean you have to upgrade your TV to take advantage o…

What Are Google Play Points, and How Do You Use Them?

The Google Play Store is home to thousands of apps, games, movies, e-books, and more. You might find yourself making a lot of purchases there, so why not get rewarded for it? That’s where Google Play Points come in….

Joe Fedewa Sep 11th

When Is Android 11 Coming to My Phone, and How Do I Install It?

When a new version of Android is released into the world, the first question people ask is “when will my device get it?” The answer to that question is as complicated as the Android ecosystem itself.

Joe Fedewa Sep 11th

How to See Which Program Is Using All Your CPU on Windows

Sometimes your Windows 10 PC slows to a crawl, perhaps accompanied by a whirring fan and programs that barely respond. Often the problem is an application that is using a large share of the CPU’s power, leaving little left fo…

Benj Edwards Sep 11th

What’s the Difference Between a Megabit and Megabyte?

Despite the fact that they’re similar words with similar abbreviations, megabits (Mb) and megabytes (MB) are different units of measurement. Here’s what they measure, and when they’re used.

Vann Vicente Sep 11th

How to Speed Up Your Old Mac and Give It a New Life

As your Mac gets older, it starts to show its age during daily use. Everyday tasks can drag as your computer struggles to keep up. More demanding apps and games might even refuse to run at all. Sometimes, your Mac might just …

Make Your Mac Feel Faster by Turning Off Bouncing Dock Icons

By default, every time you open a Mac application by clicking it on your Dock, the app icon will briefly “hop” in an animated sequence as the app loads. If you find this annoying, Apple makes it easy to turn off. Here’s how….

Benj Edwards Sep 10th