Want to use a VPN? If you’re looking for a VPN provider or setting up your own VPN, you’ll need to choose a protocol. Some VPN providers may even provide you with a choice of protocols. This isn’t the final word on any of these VPN standards or encryption schemes. We’ve tried to boil everything down so you can grasp the standards, how they’re related to each other — and which you should use....
With the newer, more powerful hardware and improved operating systems that we have available to use these days, why does it still take as long as it does to fully boot a computer up each time? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader kosinix wants to know why computers are unable fully boot up instantly:...
Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Agovizer took a long hard look at the table Process display table in the Windows Task Manager and came back with some questions, specifically: We hopped over into the Task Manager on our machine and sure enough there were no processes assigned in slots 1, 2, and 3–although our PIDs jumped from 4 to 340, as opposed to his 4 to 200....
Android 12 made it easier to switch to Android from iPhone, but now, you can transfer your WhatsApp history between operating systems. Fortunately, now you can transfer your messages with a USB-C to Lightning cable. Once you’re in the transfer process between iPhone and Android, scan a QR code on your iPhone to launch WhatsApp and move all your conversations and media between devices. “Our team has worked hand-in-hand with WhatsApp to ensure your data remains protected throughout the transfer process, so no one else can ever access your WhatsApp information and files,” Google said in a blog post....
You can upgrade to the Professional edition of Windows 10 to get advanced features like BitLocker encryption, but many features aren’t available to normal Windows users. Some only exist in the Enterprise and Education editions of Windows, which require a volume-licensing agreement or monthly subscription fee. RELATED: How to Upgrade From Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Professional In Windows 7 and Vista, these Enterprise features were also available in the pricey Ultimate editions of Windows....
The Windows Subsystem for Android, or WSA for short, is a Windows 11 feature that allows some Android games and applications to run on your PC with alongside typical Windows apps. Now it’s about to get a big update. Microsoft announced in a GitHub discussion that an update is rolling out to people in the Windows Subsystem for Android Preview Program — it’s so early that it’s not even rolling out to general Windows Insiders right now....
A bad sector on a hard drive is simply a tiny cluster of storage space — a sector — of the hard drive that appears to be defective. The sector won’t respond to read or write requests. Bad sectors can occur on both traditional magnetic hard drives and modern solid-state drives. There are two types of bad sectors — one resulting from physical damage that can’t be repaired, and one resulting from software errors that can be fixed....
Storing your passwords in your web browser seems like a great time saver, but are the passwords secure and inaccessible to others (even employees of the browser company) when squirreled away? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader MMA is curious if Google employees have (or could have) access to the passwords he stores in Google Chrome:...
Your computer has a massive hard drive that you significantly underuse. Would decreasing the size of the primary partition actually increase the lifespan of the drive? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Chazjn is curious if underusing his drivespace will actually increase the longevity of the drive: So what’s the story?...
It’s not clear when the feature first started rolling out, but it’s available by default for some people, and requires toggling a feature flag for others. It can be accessed from Settings > Privacy and Security > Ask to Open Links from Other Apps in Incognito. If you don’t see it there, go to chrome://flags in the mobile browser, search for “3p-intents-in-incognito,” and set the dropdown menu to “Enabled.” You’ll have to completely close Chrome (swipe it away in the recents view) and re-open it....
There are many different websites for creating web-based surveys, but all you need is a Google account and Google Docs. Easily create a survey with Google Forms, sending the results directly to Google Sheets. Unlike various online survey services, Google doesn’t put a limit on the amount of responses you can receive. They aren’t trying to upsell you to a fancy paid survey service. Create a Survey To get started, sign into your Google Drive account, click New, point to More, and select Google Forms....
In today’s edition of Geek School, we look at the tools we can use to monitor the performance and reliability of our computers. Be sure to check out the previous articles in this Geek School series on Windows 7: Introducing How-To Geek School Upgrades and Migrations Configuring Devices Managing Disks Managing Applications Managing Internet Explorer IP Addressing Fundamentals Networking Wireless Networking Windows Firewall Remote Administration Remote Access And stay tuned for the rest of the series all this week....
Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Arnold Zokas just wants that annoying prompt to vanish, he writes: If you’re not as up-to-speed on what the whole elevated priviledges/User Account Control functionality is all about, we’d strongly recommend you check out our treatment of the topic here: HTG Explains: Why You Shouldn’t Disable UAC....
When you need to open something on your home network to the greater internet, is an SSH tunnel a secure enough way to to do it? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Alfred M. wants to know if he’s on the right track with connection security: Should Alfred stick to third-party solutions, or is his DIY solution secure?...
You’ll need to download the Paint.NET Effects plugin, which contains a set of filters for Drop Shadows, blues, color accents, gradients, and more—you’ll need to run the installer, and then you can find the Drop Shadow under Effects -> Object -> Drop Shadow. Note: you’ll probably want to create a new layer for whatever you’re giving a drop shadow to, like text on top of the background. Paint.NET Effects
Fingerprint scanners have been an option on some laptop models for about as long as the concept has existed, but they’ve always usually been kind of quirky and forgettable. Then along comes Apple, who not only perfects it, but makes it a must-have feature. Apple introduced Touch ID with the iPhone 5S in 2013, and it’s quickly proven itself to be an indispensable feature. By integrating it right into the Home button, it feels absolutely natural to unlock you device, download apps, or make purchases with a simple touch of your finger....
One of Evernote’s selling points is that all your notes, clippings, and other bits and bytes are stored both on the Evernote servers and your local device. If that’s not enough data security for you (and it shouldn’t be), read on as we show you how to properly backup your Evernote notebooks. Why Do I Want To Do This? There are several reasons why you would want to (and should) backup your Evernote notebooks....
Apple lets you use up to two password autofill services together on your iPhone or iPad. You can use iCloud Keychain and other services like Bitwarden or LastPass. You can also disable the iCloud Keychain and make the third-party service the default. RELATED: LastPass vs Bitwarden: Which Is Right for You? The process for changing the default password autofill service is the same. (That’s what we will cover below.) But the setup process will depend on the app that you’re using, so we recommend that you set up the password manager of your choice first....
grep is a text search utility that can work with standard input or multiple files at once. It’s used to print out matches for patterns, strings, or regular expressions. It’s often useful to be able to count the number of matches, which grep can do pretty easily. Counting Matches With grep The grep command has the -c flag, which will count the number of lines matched and print out a number....
If you need to do something related to an email message you received, you can easily create a task from the message in Outlook. A task can be created that contains all the content of the message without requiring you to re-enter the information. Creating a task in Outlook from an email message is different from flagging the message. As it says on Microsoft’s site: Using the method described below to create a task from an email message, the task is separate from the message....
