Lifehacker

When most of the tech in your life is acting up—whether it be your computer, phone, game console, what have you—simply turning the device off and on again works wonders. Tech likes a reset! However, not all of our stuff has an on/off switch. AirPods and other Bluetooth headphones, for example, don’t have any obvious…Read more...

Any person flipping through a dossier on my life would find that from childhood until now, littered across papers like report cards, teacher’s notes, transcripts, correspondences, psychologist’s notes, recorded schoolyard snickering, employee reviews, and greeting cards are words like the following: Unusual.…Read more...

Instagram’s website design isn’t exactly the epitome of user experience. At best, it can be described as usable. You can use it to view your feed, stories, and you can finally even post photos from the website. But just being usable isn’t enough. That’s why it’s time to improve Instagram’s web experience using these…Read more...

I like to think I am pretty good with words. I’ve been working in journalism and digital media for most of my career; I’ve written thousands of articles and blog posts; I’ve edited perhaps tens of thousands; I’ve committed various grammar guides and style books to unconscious memory. But my wife still kicks my ass at…Read more...

This week, Generation Z is casting its collective gaze toward the heavens, but they’ve still found time to mock toxically masculine podcasts, catch video game cheaters, and laugh at monkeys’ dumb noses.

When you’re shopping for a new laptop or desktop, you’re eventually going to have to figure out how much RAM to buy. The trouble is, it’s not easy to know how much RAM you might actually need, and computer makers are terrible at letting you know. Do you have to buy more RAM to get decent performance out of a computer,…Read more...

Dumbbells and barbells, the two workhorses of free weight training, each have subtly different advantages. Dumbbells are small; you hold one in each hand. A barbell is the longer, typically two-handed implement. Many exercises can be done with either one. So how do you choose?

Read more...

The popular VPN service ExpressVPN recently sold to Kape Technologies, a company with a shady past some users are worried undermines the VPN’s privacy.

The biggest Bowl of the year is upon us (not the Puppy Bowl, though that’s a momentous event in its own right). Super Bowl LVI is around the corner (and the CDC has been mercifully devoid of stark warnings not to gather). If party hosting is on your agenda, it’s time to prepare your fare. Whether it’s a small or large…Read more...

Apartment search website Rent Café recently compiled a list of the trendiest interior design searches from Google, offering insight into how we’ll all be decorating our homes in 2022. (Or, more likely, highlighting all the pictures we will print out intending to pin them to our inspiration boards, except they will…Read more...

When I was but 10 tender years old, I saw a trailer for Bed of Roses, a Christian Slater vehicle that—at the time—seemed to embody the absolute height of romance. (I was not allowed to see the movie, as it was rated R. Oddly, I was allowed to see Jerry Maguire that same year.) According to the preview, which I have…Read more...

You don’t have to be a true football fan to make the most of a Super Bowl party. The big game is a perfect excuse to get together with your friends, huddle around some buffalo chicken dip, and day-drink to the point where you find yourself emotionally invested in car commercials.

The Super Bowl is one of the last truly communal events in this country. Where other forms of entertainment, from music to television, are increasingly divided into specific niches with small audiences, sports retains its universal appeal, and football reigns supreme. How supreme? In 2021, more than 91 million people…Read more...

I don’t mean to be alarmist, but you really need to stop throwing your coffee grounds away. Like, now. Do you know how wildly versatile they are? How many glorious, non-intuitive ways you can repurpose the remains of your morning cup of joe around your home, your garden—even your body? Their microbial,…Read more...

Wordle has become a daily obsession for many of us; it’s nice to take a few minutes out of the day to attempt to decipher the Wordle word in six guesses or less (today’s took me five, to my great shame). While the game has been free to play thus far, its recent acquisition by the New York Times raises concerns about…Read more...

Read more...

Biohacking is, in a way, lifehacking’s bizarro-world twin. (“Bio” means “life,” after all.) “Lifehacking” isn’t an organized movement or even really a word, never mind the name of the website you’re reading right now; biohacking has cult status and people will identify themselves as followers of the practice. Life…Read more...

If you’re not into it, a room full of football fans watching a game can seem like a confusing rite from a strange cult. Still, there’s no reason to make everything awkward or make yourself look like a jackass on football’s biggest night of the year. If you’ve chosen to attend a Super Bowl party, here’s a guide for…Read more...

For prospective home buyers who weren’t lucky enough to get into the game before the pandemic, the hope of a housing market crash may be the one thing to hold onto following month after month of rising prices and quick sales. Maybe prices will bottom out, we think, suddenly making homeownership more affordable and…Read more...

Super Bowl party fare is traditionally salty, cheesy, greasy, and meaty. Wings, pizza, burgers, dogs, and bacon-flecked, creamy dips—all delicious, but not exactly friendly to vegetarians.Read more...

Groundhog Day-esque time loops are having a moment in video games. In the last year or so, two AAA games (Deathloop, Returnal) and one beloved critical-darling (Forgotten City) have used “time-repeating endlessly” as a central element. But in-game time loops go back to the very first video games. What is a video game,…Read more...

Having a complete, hot breakfast before work every day can be life changing. Eggs, toast, cheese, maybe some bacon—this is what the kids call “hashtag goals.” My morning fuel-up usually consists of scalding coffee and a clementine I forgot about, but I deserve more. While quick breakfasts so often err on the side of…Read more...

If your child is a frequent nail-biter, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that something may be amiss emotionally, or they’re the only kid with this annoying habit. But neither is (necessarily) true. According to Nemours KidsHealth, “An estimated 30% to 60% of kids and teens chew on one or more fingernails. And,…Read more...

Garage doors often get overlooked on our home maintenance lists unless and until they break. But keeping them running smoothly and preventing wear and tear can increase their lifespans and also make them quieter. To avoid costly repairs later, you should maintain your door now, including, at minimum, lubricating it …Read more...

While there are some who will fight tooth and nail to say whether iOS or Android is the superior smartphone platform, most of us can get along just fine with one another, green bubbles be damned. What isn’t fun is when iMessage reactions from iPhones (called Tapbacks) come into Android as a full text. What would…Read more...

Considering we spend a third of our lives doing it, sleep sure is mysterious. We don’t remember most of the time we spend doing it, and we spend a lot of our waking lives passing around information—and misinformation—about how to do it better.

Your PS5 and PS4 are getting Discord integration—but not in the way that you think. For now, the integration is limited to showing your Discord friends what you’re playing on your PlayStation. This feature is being rolled out to all Discord accounts as we speak; here’s how you can link your PlayStation Network (PSN)…Read more...

If you’re hitting your internet plan’s top speeds, but things still aren’t fast enough for you, upgrading your plan might be your best bet. However, if you test your connection and see you’re nowhere near the speeds your plan should be capable of, you don’t always need to pay to improve your performance. There are…Read more...

Beer is the official beverage of football, but perhaps it shouldn’t always be. When it comes to the biggest game of the year (in the United States), the best drink to serve at a Super Bowl party is—in my expert, esteemed, and highly sought-after opinion—Champagne.

The early ‘90s represented a kind of Big Bang for the time loop narrative. Groundhog Day certainly wasn’t the first instance of a repeating time narrative in fiction, but it presented the relatively convoluted science fiction conceit with such humor, poignancy, and panache that it’s hardly surprising that, since then,…Read more...

If you want to save a couple cents, get deep into zero-waste living, or prepare for your post-apocalypse lifestyle, recycling your old soap scraps into new bars is a great place to start. It’s easy, fun, and you can tell yourself your creation is just as good as store-bought soap.

It’s easy to get stuck in a negative frame of mind, and a lot harder to snap yourself out of it. You might feel trapped by the constant fear of failure, or perhaps mired in jealousy over things you don’t have. Being consumed by negative emotions isn’t likely to help you change your circumstances for the better—but w…Read more...

To some enthusiastic food bloggers, the air fryer is an intuitive appliance that can cook anything and everything. To certain members of my family, it is an inscrutable black box that exist to take up counter space. (“What should I use it for?” they ask, prompting me to spam them with my own content.) The truth lies…Read more...

There are a ton of great free workout programs out there, and they’re not too hard to find, especially once you start browsing fitness forums like the ones on Reddit. But even when these programs are free, there are still barriers to getting started, like figuring out how to get a program from a spreadsheet into your…Read more...

I’m generally in favor of humanity bending mother nature to our will, but when it comes to breeding dogs, we’ve gone too far (OK, also with regard to climate change).

No matter how hard they tried, the killjoys and technophiles of the world simply could not kill off vinyl records. Every time a new audio technology hit the market, predictions of the Death of Vinyl would follow—and when Compact Discs arrived 40 years ago, it seemed like that death had finally come. Who wouldn’t want…Read more...

Have you ever been enjoying a sleeve of Oreos when someone decides to chime in with the fact that, actually, a serving size is only three cookies? We hear about “serving sizes,” “portions” and often “portion control” all the time, but what do they actually mean? Is there a meaningful difference, or do they all end up…Read more...

Tarts are the rich, European great-aunt of the American dessert pie. Dainty, refined, understated, and a little pretentious, usually boasting ingredients so rich that a tiny sliver is all you need. You can bet that the scalloped crust of such a tart is super tender and crumbly, too. Besides flavor and texture, part of…Read more...

Reddit is one of the few social media websites that allows you to develop full-fledged apps for the service. That’s why you’ll find lots of high-quality Reddit apps on the App Store and the Google Play Store. And in many ways, these third-party apps are better than the official Reddit experience.

Another month, another Chrome update. This time around, we get Chrome 98, which will be rolling out today, Feb. 1 to Chrome users everywhere. Once updated, you can take advantage of fun new features and changes, like a built-in screenshot tool and upgraded emojis. Some changes, however, won’t be obvious out of the…Read more...

If I’m not careful, the late afternoon “hangries” have a way of sneaking up on me during that in-between time when lunch is a distant memory but it’s not yet time for dinner. When it happens, rather than taking some extra time to prepare a healthy snack, I find myself rummaging through the cupboards in search of…Read more...

“Cuck” remains a common insult these days, though it really peaked as a pejorative around 2016 or so. It’s one of those words that has kind of lost its meaning and is now used any time a person wants to convey that someone else is somehow a “beta”—secondary to or beholden to something or someone. But what if you’re…Read more...

Like human children, your canine kids are not immune to cuts, burns, sprains, and other injuries, ranging from very minor to life-threatening. Because dogs can’t actually tell us what hurts and how much, it’s up to us to be on the lookout for issues and know how to manage them. This includes having first aid supplies…Read more...

Your accent says a lot about you: It tells someone where you were raised, hints at your ethnicity, and gives out clues about your social class and economic circumstances. Even though the details of your life obviously change long after your accent is “set,” there is still a lot people can guess about you from the way…Read more...

Last week we asked you what you wish you had known before adopting your pet, and as always, Lifehacker readers delivered. (I also asked for some cute pet pictures; sadly, you did not deliver nearly as many of those as I would have liked).

We all have some gross personal habits, if we’re honest enough to admit them. We may smack our gum, or belch when (we think) no one’s listening; we may even dig for nasal gold once in a while when the winter crusties are upon us and a tissue just won’t cut it. But nothing—nothing—can come close to the gross habits of…Read more...

I have never believed there is a “best way” to cook any particular food. I have my favorites, and recognize that some techniques are more effective than others, but there is no one, perfect way to fry an egg. (There are at least eight.)Read more...

Every day, flying commercial reaches new depths of pain and suffering. Airlines keep finding new ways to save pennies, which almost always translates into new humiliations for passengers. And while many of the factors that make flying so awful are systemic, including overworked flight crews and the chaos of security…Read more...