Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps On My PC Without Asking

Did You Know? Olympic gold medals are actually silver plated in gold—solid gold medals haven’t been handed out since the 1912 summer games in Stockholm, Sweden. Geek Trivia In The Mid-1960s, There Was A Brief But Intense Fashion Fad Focused On Wearing? Kimonos → UFO Inspired Hats → Paper Clothing → Medieval Bracers → Advertisement Free eBook: Hybrid IT for Dummies Hybrid IT consists of both cloud and on-premises data center infrastructure.This book helps you understand both sides of the hybrid IT equation and how HPE can help your organization transform its IT operations and save time and money in the process. Delve into the worlds of security, economics, and operations to show you new ways to support your business workloads! 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 Match Colors on Your Multiple Monitors How to Prevent Your HomePod from Creating White Rings on Your Wooden Furniture How to Stop Facebook from Uploading Low-Quality Photos and Videos from Your Phone Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps On My PC Without Asking How to Stop the HomePod from Reading Your Text Messages to Other People What Is a Phone “Port-Out” Scam, and How Can I Protect Myself? Why Ad Companies Love Google’s Ad Blocker, But Hate Apple’s Privacy Features Skype Is Vulnerable to a Nasty Exploit: Switch to the Windows Store Version How to Change the Speed of (or Disable) Windows’ Taskbar Thumbnail Previews How to Keep Track of Cosmetic and Event Items in Overwatch How to Add Live TV to the NVIDIA SHIELD with an HD Antenna If You Live In the EU, You Probably Have a Better Gadget Warranty Perfect Computer Security Is a Myth. But It’s Still Important Today's Review Geek Articles Google Will Block Annoying Ads In Chrome Starting Today Logitech Pop Review: A Smart Switch for Your Smart Home Gadgets The Best Tools to Score Awesome Deals on Steam YouTube TV Is Getting More Channels, More Markets, More Expensive The Best Bargain Switch Games for Under $5 Geek Comic Today's Tech Term ipconfig ipconfig (short for Internet Protocol Configuration) is a command line tool used to manage the IP address assigned to, and the network connections of, the Windows computer it is running on. 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. The HomePod leave white rings on wood surfaces. We're sure Apple will be selling $80 coasters by the end of the month. [ Wirecutter] Intel expands bug bounty program to include Spectre-like side-channel attacks, dangles $250K A previously invitation-only program is becoming public, and there's a pretty big prize now too. [GeekWire] Real world 4G LTE vs. 5G test benchmark: 14x bandwidth The future is going to be awesome. [React Tech Stack] The Facebook Hackers Gaming Its Video Algorithm This is why your Facebook feed is full of videos ripped of from YouTube. [Daily Beast] Mac and iOS bug crashes apps with a single character A single character from an Indian language can bring most Apple devices to their knees. [Engadget] How to Match Colors on Your Multiple Monitors If you’re anything like me, you love working on a big, beefy desktop PC with as many monitors as will fit on your big, beefy desk. And if you’re anything like me, it also drives you crazy when the colors and image settings on those monitors don’t match exactly. Read This Article → How to Prevent Your HomePod from Creating White Rings on Your Wooden Furniture Apple’s HomePod is an amazing speaker, but it comes at a price. Not just a dollar amount, but also the toll it could take on your finished wooden furniture. If you’ve discovered white rings appearing on your furniture (or have heard about this phenomenon and want to prevent it), here’s what you can do. Read This Article → How to Stop Facebook from Uploading Low-Quality Photos and Videos from Your Phone Over the past few years, the quality of mobile cameras has become insane. Unfortunately, Facebook hasn't quite caught up to this. By default, when you upload a photo to Facebook from your phone, it's uploaded as a low resolution file. Here's how to change that. Read This Article → Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps On My PC Without Asking I'm getting sick of Windows 10's auto-installing apps. Apps like Facebook are now showing up out of nowhere, and even displaying notifications begging for me to use them. I didn't install the Facebook app, I didn't give it permission to show notifications, and I've never even used it. So why is it bugging me? Read This Article → How to Stop the HomePod from Reading Your Text Messages to Other People While the HomePod is great for music, it can also do some other neat things, like read your text messages to you. Be careful, though, as anyone within earshot can ask Siri to read your text messages from your phone. Here’s how to disable that feature. Read This Article → What Is a Phone “Port-Out” Scam, and How Can I Protect Myself? You’d be forgiven if you’ve never heard of a phone “port-out” scam, because up until recently it wasn’t really a widely talked about issue. But it’s gotten serious enough that T-Mobile is sending warnings to many of its customers. Here’s a closer look at what this is and how to protect yourself from it. Read This Article → Why Ad Companies Love Google’s Ad Blocker, But Hate Apple’s Privacy Features On February 15, Google Chrome will start blocking ads on intrusive sites, and mainstream ad companies aren’t particularly upset about it. In fact, they helped Google make this happen. Read This Article → Skype Is Vulnerable to a Nasty Exploit: Switch to the Windows Store Version If the desktop version of Skype is on your Windows computer, you’re vulnerable to a really nasty exploit. A flaw in Skype’s update tool could give attackers full control over your system, and Microsoft says there isn’t going to be a fix any time soon. Read This Article → How to Change the Speed of (or Disable) Windows’ Taskbar Thumbnail Previews When you hover your mouse over a Taskbar button for an app with open windows, a thumbnail preview of those windows pops up. By default, there is a slight delay before the preview appears. With a simple Registry edit, you can eliminate that delay, or even turn off those thumbnail previews entirely. Read This Article → How to Keep Track of Cosmetic and Event Items in Overwatch Overwatch is pretty great. As a multiplayer team shooter, it does almost everything right: plenty of variety, fast-paced gameplay, free hero and map updates, and unlike its spiritual ancestor Team Fortress 2, all players get immediate access to every weapon and technique. Read This Article → How to Add Live TV to the NVIDIA SHIELD with an HD Antenna It’s not much of a secret that you can get free TV by using an antenna to pull in nearby signals. But if you have an NVIDIA SHIELD, you can supercharge that experience by adding live TV to the SHIELD itself—and, for a small monthly fee, even add a full guide and DVR capabilities. Read This Article → If You Live In the EU, You Probably Have a Better Gadget Warranty The European Union has, in general, taken a far more hands-on approach to consumer rights than the US. If you're in the EU, you are probably entitled to a lot more recourse than you might think when something goes wrong with your gadgets. It’s not just the one-year warranty the manufacturer gives you. Read This Article → Perfect Computer Security Is a Myth. But It’s Still Important Maybe you’ve heard it before: “Security is a myth.” It’s become a common refrain after a never-ending string of high-profile security breaches. If Fortune 500 companies with million dollar security budgets can’t lock things down, how can you? Read This Article → Advertisement Free eBook: Hybrid IT for Dummies Hybrid IT consists of both cloud and on-premises data center infrastructure.This book helps you understand both sides of the hybrid IT equation and how HPE can help your organization transform its IT operations and save time and money in the process. Delve into the worlds of security, economics, and operations to show you new ways to support your business workloads!