HP Crapware, Huge macOS Security Flaw, and Opinions on Chromebooks

Did You Know? When custody of a pet is disputed during a divorce, the dispute is overwhelmingly about dogs—96 percent of disputes center around dogs with cats and horses trailing in second at one percent each. Geek Trivia In The 1930s, It Was A Fad Among College Students to Swallow? Pennies → Bullets → Frogs → Goldfish → Advertisement Unblock Content the Easy Way with StrongVPN You're just trying to check out a website and they've locked you out because it's blocked in your country. It's ridiculous, but luckily you can get around the restrictions with StrongVPN.— and unlock any website you want. Of course, they also have a money-back guarantee if it doesn't work for you. Download StrongVPN to Unlock Content Today Want to Change Your Email Preferences? At some point in the past you subscribed to the How-To Geek newsletter, but if you'd like to change the frequency or unsubscribe, you can do so by clicking the button. Change my Subscription (or unsubscribe) Today's How-To Geek Articles How to Stop Certain Apps From Showing Content in Spotlight Search on Your iPhone How to Run Any Command Prompt Command with Cortana How to Add Falling Snow to Your Photos With Photoshop Chromebooks Are More than “Just a Browser” Huge macOS Bug Allows Root Login Without a Password. Here’s the Fix How to Stop Your iPhone or iPad From Automatically Connecting to a Wi-Fi Network Do iMessage’s “Typing” Bubbles Only Appear When I’m Actively Typing? HP Just Installed Bloated Telemetry Crapware on Your PC. Here’s How to Remove It How to Manage Your Child’s Android Phone with Google Family Link How to Stream Higher Quality Music on Spotify How to Block Cryptocurrency Miners in Your Web Browser Today's Review Geek Articles The Headphone Jack Is Dead… and I'm Delighted Best Travel Surge Protectors for Gadgets Big and Small Geek Comic Today's Tech Term SLOC SLOC (short for Source Lines Of Code, a.k.a. [LOC] Lines Of Code) is a count/measure of the number of lines in the text of a program’s, application’s, and/or system’s source code. What We're Reading This section contains what we're reading from around the web, along with commentary from our editors. Think of it like your daily digest of the most interesting things online. Microsoft is bringing clever tabs to every Windows 10 app "Sets" will basically be tabs for desktop applications, with some cool syncing technology for Office 365 users. [The Verge] How Snapchat is separating social from media Snap CEO Evan Spiegel thinks the blending of news content and social content is a problem, here he writes about how his platform plans to separate them. [Axios] Remembering Obsolete Technologies Makes Us Feel Good Remember the sound of a dialup modem connecting, or the annoyingly satisfying static of a bad TV signal? [The Atlantic] Lockheed Martin Is Making Laser Cannons for Fighter Jets Laser weapons are becoming real. This isn't as fun as I thought it would be, though. [Wired] I turned a Furby into an Amazon Echo. Introducing: Furlexa Utterly terrifying. Watch the video, it's worth it. [howchoo] How to Stop Certain Apps From Showing Content in Spotlight Search on Your iPhone As iPhones have become more powerful, Spotlight search has gotten a lot more useful. Now when you search for something, Spotlight also searches the contents of your apps (if the developer has the feature enabled). Read This Article → How to Run Any Command Prompt Command with Cortana Cortana may not be as popular as Microsoft was hoping for, but it can be useful. No longer do you need to be next to your computer to perform a task; you can shout it from the other side of the room. However, there are some things Cortana can’t do out of the box. Read This Article → How to Add Falling Snow to Your Photos With Photoshop Taking photos in the falling snow is hard. It's cold, your gear gets wet, and everyone ends up grumpy. Why bother going outside at all when you can fake it in Photoshop? Here's how. Read This Article → Chromebooks Are More than “Just a Browser” Chromebooks have come a long way since their humble introduction with the CR-48 back in December of 2010, but people still think of them as “just a browser”. The thing is, this platform has grown significantly since then, and that mindset is just outdated. Read This Article → Huge macOS Bug Allows Root Login Without a Password. Here’s the Fix A newly-discovered vulnerability in macOS High Sierra allows anyone with access to your laptop to quickly create a root account without entering a password, bypassing any security protocols you have set up. Read This Article → How to Stop Your iPhone or iPad From Automatically Connecting to a Wi-Fi Network Your iPhone or iPad automatically joins Wi-Fi networks you’ve previously connected to. You can now override this behavior, telling your device not to automatically connect to a specific Wi-Fi network. Your iPhone or iPad will remember its passphrase and other details, but will only connect when you choose to do so. Read This Article → Do iMessage’s “Typing” Bubbles Only Appear When I’m Actively Typing? If you have an iPhone and you send a text message to someone who also has an iPhone (or other Apple device), you’ll see a small bubble appear when the other person is typing out a message. Read This Article → HP Just Installed Bloated Telemetry Crapware on Your PC. Here’s How to Remove It Not to be outdone by other terrible PC manufacturers, HP has been quietly, remotely installing a telemetry service known as “HP Touchpoint Manager” on its PCs since at least November 15, 2017. It’s sending data back to HP, introducing security holes, and generally bogging PCs down. Read This Article → How to Manage Your Child’s Android Phone with Google Family Link If you’re the parent of young child and would like a way to keep them safe when they use their phone, Google Family Link may be the option you’ve been looking for. It’s a way to provide a child with a fully capable smartphone that you can control. Read This Article → How to Stream Higher Quality Music on Spotify With Spotify Premium, you get access to higher quality music streaming. By default (and if you're on the free plan), Spotify streams at 96kbps on mobile and 160kbps on your computer. At these sort of bitrates, you’ll hear a small but noticeable drop in quality compared to a CD. Read This Article → How to Block Cryptocurrency Miners in Your Web Browser Cryptocurrency miners are a new scourge on the web. Web pages can now embed JavaScript code that runs in your web browser to mine themselves Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies using your computer. The website keeps the cryptocurrency, and you get higher electric bills, 100% CPU usage that drags down your computer, and reduced battery life. Read This Article → Advertisement Unblock Content the Easy Way with StrongVPN You're just trying to check out a website and they've locked you out because it's blocked in your country. It's ridiculous, but luckily you can get around the restrictions with StrongVPN.— and unlock any website you want. Of course, they also have a money-back guarantee if it doesn't work for you. Download StrongVPN to Unlock Content Today