Featured Articles - The Best of How-To Geek

Windows 10’s “Sets” App Tabs Are “No More”

Sets was going to bring tabs to File Explorer and other Windows applications. An early version of Sets once appeared in Windows Insider builds, but Microsoft pulled it. Now, according to Microsoft’s Rich Turner on Twitt...

Chris Hoffman Apr 20th

What’s New in Chrome 74, Arriving April 23

The stable version of Chrome 74 is set to land on April 23rd. It will include a dark mode on Windows, Incognito detection blocking, support for media keys in PiP, various Chrome OS improvements, and a lot more....

Windows Updates Are Breaking PCs With These Antivirus Programs

On April 9, Microsoft issued a Windows patch that broke PCs with certain antivirus programs installed. This affects PCs running Windows 7, 8.1, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012, and Server 2012 R2—not Windows 10, this time....

Chris Hoffman Apr 19th

How to Enable Gmail’s Hidden Email Preview Pane

Gmail has a hidden preview panel that gives you a dual-pane view of your emails—just like in Outlook and other desktop email clients. Here’s how to enable it on the web and choose a horizontal or vertical split....

Rob Woodgate Apr 19th

How the UK’s New Internet “Porn Block” Will Work

On July 15, 2019, the UK government will enforce an age-verification requirement for online pornography websites. Websites that don’t comply with the UK’s rules will be blocked in the country. Here’s how thi...

How to Customize the To-Do Pane in Outlook

The Outlook client comes with several different panes that you can show and hide. These include panes that you see by default, like the Navigation pane and others that you might not be familiar with, like the To-Do and People...

Rob Woodgate Apr 18th

How to Track Someone’s IP (and Location) With a Link

Where is the person you’re talking to located? Are they who they say they are? To check, you can have that person click a special link. You’ll see their IP address, and that will tell you their rough location....

Josh Hendrickson Apr 18th

What’s New in Ubuntu 19.04 “Disco Dingo,” Available Now

Ubuntu 19.04 is available for download today. With Linux 5.0 and GNOME 3.32, Disco Dingo boasts performance improvements and visual tweaks. Whether or not you upgrade, Disco Dingo lays the groundwork for future long term supp...

How to Exit the Vi or Vim Editor

The vi editor is confusing if you’re not used to it. It takes a secret handshake to escape this application if you’ve stumbled into it. Here’s how to quit vi or vim on Linux, macOS, or any other Unix-like sy...

Dave McKay Apr 17th

The All-Digital Xbox Fulfills Microsoft’s Original Xbox One Vision

Microsoft just announced a new Xbox One without a disc drive. This brings Microsoft closer than ever to the original vision of the Xbox One and shows how far digital downloads have come. Unfortunately, it’s too expensiv...

How to Remap the Bixby Button on a Samsung Galaxy S8, S9, S10, Note 8, or Note 9

We’ve said before, and we’ll say it again: Bixby sucks. You’re better off using Google Assistant any day of the week. The good news is, it’s now possible to remap the pointless Bixby button without usi...

Josh Hendrickson Apr 16th

How to Stop Google’s Sensorvault From Sharing Your Location With Law Enforcement

Google’s Sensorvault is a location history database that police can query to see phones near the location of a crime. Google is the only company with such a database—and innocent people have been arrested because ...

Microsoft is Getting Rid of “Clutter” in Outlook, and That’s Worrying

At the tail-end of 2018, Microsoft announced that it would remove the Clutter feature from Outlook, leaving Focused Inbox to sieve out your less-important mail. I think that’s a potentially worrying change of direction ...

Rob Woodgate Apr 15th

How to Compare Two Text Files in the Linux Terminal

Need to see the differences between two revisions of a text file? Then diff is the command you need. This tutorial shows you how to use diff on Linux and macOS, the easy way.

Dave McKay Apr 15th

Alexa, Why Are Employees Looking at My Data?

Everyone’s been talking about Bloomberg’s report that Amazon workers are listening to the voice recordings created when you speak to Alexa. But Amazon is far from alone. Here’s how tech companies can—a...

How Much Internet Speed Do You Really Need?

Internet service providers always want to sell you a faster connection. But forget marketing: How much speed do you really need? The answer is more complicated than you might expect. Higher speed tiers aren’t always wor...

How to Play Wii U Games on Your PC With Cemu

Cemu—the Nintendo Wii U emulator—is now a mature program with good performance on most systems. If you’d like to play Wii U games on your PC with all the benefits of an emulator, Cemu is the way to go....

Here’s How to Watch the NBA Playoffs Without Cable

The NBA Playoffs start on Saturday, April 13th. This is the time of year when the game shifts from good to great. Here’s how to catch all the action without a cable subscription, so you never miss a game....

Cameron Summerson Apr 12th

Daily News Roundup, 4/12/19: Disney+ Will Land on November 12th for $6.99 a Month

Plus Facebook might roll Messenger back into the main mobile apps, Acer announced a slew of new stuff, future Android updates might come from Google Play, Falcon Heavy’s successful landing, and a lot more....

Cameron Summerson Apr 12th

Here’s How to Watch Game of Thrones’ Final Season Online

HBO’s Game of Thrones returns for season eight on Sunday, April 14. The series broke piracy records because HBO once made it so difficult to watch online, requiring a cable TV subscription. Thankfully, that’s no ...

Daily News Roundup, 4/11/19: The Black Hole

Amazon employees may be listening to things you say to (and around!) Alexa, YouTube TV got a price hike, Instagram cleans up “inappropriate” recommendations, and a lot more. Here are the biggest stories for the mo...

Cameron Summerson Apr 11th

How to Pause a Bash Script With the Linux Sleep Command

The sleep command makes your Linux computer do nothing. Counter-intuitive perhaps, but a period of inactivity is sometimes just what’s needed. This article shows you how to use this Bash shell command effectively....

Dave McKay Apr 11th

Scam Alert: Fake Job Recruiters Tried to Catfish Us, Here’s What Happened

Fake recruiters are catfishing desperate job-seekers, seducing them with the promise of a high-paying job before stealing their money and identity. We recently posed as a gullible recruit and let a scammer sucker us so we cou...

Daily News Roundup, 4/10/19: Spyware Isn’t Just for Android as Exodus Hits iOS Devices

Facebook fixes its most prominent issue with memorialized profiles, Verizon fixes issues with millions of routers, Google’s laptop and tablet team isn’t dead yet, Roku finally bets on itself, and a whole lot more....

Cameron Summerson Apr 10th

How to Display the Date and Time in the Linux Terminal (and Use It In Bash Scripts)

The date command is found in the Bash shell, which is the default shell in most Linux distributions and even macOS. This tutorial shows you how to master date on the command line and how you can use it in shell scripts to do...

Dave McKay Apr 10th