Lifehacker

PC gaming might offer cutting-edge graphics and gameplay, but most players do not own a high-end gaming rig. In fact, according to a recent survey by VPN Overview, the average Steam user only has an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card and older quad-core Intel CPUs. A setup like that can only play about 41 of the…Read more...

If you’re diving into DIY home repairs or building projects, the cost of tools can be prohibitive. That’s when a tool library can come in handy, especially if you’re looking to use a tool once for a specific project or if you’d like to test drive a type of tool before investing in your own. Rather than buying or…Read more...

The holiday season is that special time of year for kicking back, spending quality time with family, and...answering emails from your boss and scrolling through Slack notifications. Nope, not this year! If you’re taking a break this holiday season—a real break—that should also include breaking from work. Technology…Read more...

We’ve all dealt with our fair share of hurdles in 2021, but it’s gotten to the point that even your holiday menu requires some ingredient-gymnastics. If you haven’t heard: We’re experiencing a national cream cheese shortage. Prices have gone up, and in some places it’s hard (or impossible) to find. Even if you have…Read more...

“Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior,” a phrase coined by Facebook, is the use of multiple social media accounts or pages to mislead or influence people for political or financial ends. As part of the deception, these pages hide the identities and obscure the motives of the people behind them.

Ever wanted to browse the internet on your Apple Watch? There’s an app called µBrowser ($0.99) that lets you do just that, so that if your phone is dead or you’re at the gym without it, your Apple Watch can still help you find things on the web.

If you’ve ever been enlisted as tech support via phone for a parent or grandparent trying to work through a problem they’re having with technology, you know how frustrating it can be. You have to figure out how to solve their problem, yes, but you also have to figure out how to talk them through the fix—all without…Read more...

There’s plenty of sex on TV, though much of it is incidental window dressing—thoughtlessly tossed in as if by decree from ratings-hungry executives (looking at you, Game of Thrones).Read more...

Toxic positivity has earned a lot of backlash recently. Of course, we shouldn’t berate ourselves with negative self-talk, and there’s value in encouraging ourselves when fearful (I routinely utter, “I have all the skills I need” like a dime-store Stuart Smalley before doing anything nerve-wracking), but there’s also…Read more...

If you’re tackling even a small DIY project around the house, navigating the fastener aisle at the hardware store can be daunting. There are hundreds of different types of screws, nails, bolts, and staples on offer, and it can be tricky to know exactly which one you need to finish the job. But choosing the right type…Read more...

All of our minds wander once in a while. In fact, it’s estimated anywhere from a quarter to half of our waking hours are spent daydreaming, as our awareness drifts away from whatever we are currently doing or experiencing to focus on another topic entirely.

You might already know that websites and apps track you. It’s so common now we don’t even bat an eye. But did you know the same thing applies to emails as well?

Macs are relatively easy to troubleshoot, but sometimes you might need to see someone’s screen or take control of their laptop. And, weirdly enough, the Messages app can help you with that. There’s a built-in screen sharing tool in the Messages app that’s available to every Mac running macOS Mojave 10.14 and higher,…Read more...

This fascinating article in The Wall Street Journal details an arms-race taking place in America’s households. Concerned parents are using internet blocking and filtering techniques on their tech devices, while their children are diligently figuring out how to defeat them. Spoiler alert: The kids are winning.

What do you do when your favorite artist has been canceled? If you’re HBO Max, it seems, you leave them out of the reunion special for the films based on their work and hope no one notices.Read more...

Like most people, if you have a base variant MacBook with 128 GB of storage, freeing up space on your Mac is probably a regular event in your calendar. And if you’re pretty good at deleting unwanted files from your Mac, only to leave them in your Trash folder, that folder inevitably takes up double-digit gigabytes of…Read more...

Tech gifts are big during the holidays, but new tech purchases happen all year-round. Your laptop stops powering on, so you buy a refreshed MacBook Pro; your Android can’t hold a charge, so you upgrade to a Pixel 6; your old TV just isn’t 4K-enough, so you get yourself an LG OLED. Buying new tech is fun. But…Read more...

Lately, I find myself reminiscing about all the amazing post-Christmas and New Year’s Day brunches my friends have stumbled into in various states of hangover and undress in the past years. And over time, I found myself suffering from ennui about what the hell to do with eggs. Brunch = eggs, but I find them a pain in…Read more...

It’s not easy keeping track of movies you want to see and the books you want to read. You might keep a few review tabs open in your browser or have a running list of all the things you want to watch, but ultimately, these things tend get lost into oblivion. But if you finally want to organize your entertainment list,…Read more...

I don’t know why I thought monthly roundups of what’s new on Paramount+ were a good idea, or even necessary. I mean, I guess I do: Sure, the first few months of offerings from the former CBS All Access were pretty anemic, but amid the pandemic, they announced plans to release their films simultaneously on streaming…Read more...

The last three weeks have been a whirlwind of peppermint mochas, ugly sweaters, Secret Santas, and cookie exchanges. Even though you’ve baked dozens of treats and eaten your body weight in butter and flour, we’ve just now hit the holiday home stretch, with cookie baking at full throttle. More sprinkles, more extracts,…Read more...

The wait for COVID-19 vaccines for kids has been excruciating. The 5-to-11 age group finally got theirs last month, nearly a year after the vaccines were authorized for adults. But the under-5 contingent is still waiting, and unfortunately, they’ll be waiting even longer than we expected (or hoped).

The shift to a streaming-first business model has been rough for theater owners and a headache for Hollywood, but we aren’t talking about the people it is benefitting. Namely, all the men out there afraid to cry at the movies.Read more...

If you do a Google search on “family holiday traditions” you’ll instantly have access to 215,000,000 articles extolling the virtues of writing a letter to Santa, singing Christmas carols, or baking cookies as a family. And while we’ve got nothing against well-worn festivities like decorating gingerbread houses…Read more...

If you find yourself avoiding macOS updates more than any other software updates, you’re not alone. Even if you haven’t faced any stability issues or other bugs, updating macOS takes so long that ignoring the update feels like the better alternative. After all, critical security updates are installed automatically by…Read more...

There’s no shortage of reasons you might be sticking to sobriety this holiday season and beyond. Still, nothing tests your resolve quite like a loved one going on a political rant, or interrogating you about your life decisions, or otherwise pushing your buttons in a way only family can. For many of us, family time is…Read more...

Your Mac’s humble Activity Monitor can do much more than let you force quit a frozen app. If you know how to make use of it, the Activity Monitor can actully be quite useful, granting you the ability to troubleshoot problems and check CPU or network usage in real time, often without even opening the app. Here are the…Read more...

Heartworm disease is a potentially deadly condition that requires extensive treatment—think multiple medications and at least two months of complete rest—which is why veterinarians and dog owners work so hard to prevent it. The most common preventative treatment is an oral or topical medication given once a month, but…Read more...

The Apple Watch’s portability is both a boon and a curse. It’s an excellent little computer on your wrist, but at the same time, it occasionally takes a bit too long for basic tasks, such as switching between apps. We’re going to show you a few hidden Apple Watch tricks to help you speed up some of its standard…Read more...

Marriage and diamonds are just a few of the things that millennials have been accused of killing. But while it’s not really accurate to say that millennials aren’t buying diamonds (or getting married, for that matter), it is true that they are buying differently.

About once a year, I purge my closets of all my unwanted clothes, whether it’s the jeans that no longer fit, the T-shirts I’ve worn to shreds, or the weird-ass dress that seemed like a good idea at the time but ended up being an exercise in medieval torture. It’s tempting to save some of these items, out of a belief…Read more...

It’s the end of 2021, and Chrome extensions are still a thing. Quite a big thing, actually—as the world continues to move from work-from-home to a hybrid work environment, the tools and customizations offered by Chrome extensions are perhaps more critical than ever. These browser add-ons help you work, save time, and…Read more...

Figuring out the age of the Internet is like figuring out the age of the universe: We could date it back to the 1960s and ARPANET, or the introduction of the TCP/IP protocol in 1983, or the launch of America Online in 1985, or the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989, or maybe the creation of the Netscape browser…Read more...

The newest Nintendo Switch, commonly known as the Switch OLED, was released in October 2021. It’s the fourth major release in the Switch generation of consoles, after the original Switch in 2017, the Switch V2 in August 2019 (which offered better battery life), and the more basic Switch Lite in September 2019. Four…Read more...

Christmas is a load of shit, you say? Christmas movies are bad, actually? Well then, instead of supporting the holiday industrial complex by watching Miracle on 34th Street or Home Alone for the eight billionth time, slap on one of these anti-Christmas movies. I promise there will be no warming of the heart nor…Read more...

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 18 months, you know that the housing market is bonkers. Prices are out of control, demand is out of control, and properties are selling faster and with more offers than before the pandemic began. If you’ve thought about buying a home recently, or tried, you have…Read more...

When it comes to home design and decor, everything old is new. From patterns and colors, to furniture and home layout, a lot of the current trends aren’t current at all. And while it’s easy to find a new Art Deco lamp at Target, or a midcentury-modern couch online, there are some parts of older homes that simply…Read more...

Other than toddlers attempting to avoid naps, if you ask almost anyone else, they’ll tell you that they’re tired—if not exhausted. In addition to constantly being busy, many people would likely blame their persistent tiredness on a lack of restful sleep.Read more...

Some humans may think it’s the most wonderful time of the year, but their pets might not love the holidays as much as they do. For one thing, it probably throws off their normal schedule of sleeping 20 hours a day. Plus, there’s all this weird stuff hanging around the house that they’re not allowed to play with—not to…Read more...

Only a few weeks after recalling a variety of their aerosol antiperspirants, the Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) has now issued a voluntary recall of some of its aerosol dry shampoo and conditioner sprays, according to a notice from P&G posted on the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) website. The recalled products…Read more...

The PS5 and Xbox Series X|S have been out in the world for over a year, meaning we’re firmly inside the next-gen gaming era, and if you don’t have one of these systems yet, it can feel like you’re missing out. But are you, really? It has me wondering, when is the best time to buy the latest gaming console?

Few shows have blown a lead quite like How I Met Your Mother. For a few years there in the mid-aughts, it looked the the most natural successor to Friends: An NYC-set, relationship-focused group hang filled with memes and moments that entered the pop culture lexicon.Read more...

Donating a gift to a total stranger is a great way to celebrate the holiday spirit, but you have to know where and how to give first. Handing something to a random person on the street isn’t the most effective method, and some giving organizations don’t make it clear where your donations are actually going.…Read more...

Some movies live on forever. But some movies, like old toys, are loved passionately—and then abandoned entirely. Sometimes that’s by design; movies made to catch hold of a cultural moment aren’t likely to endure. A star or a style that’s big today isn’t necessarily going to make money tomorrow. Sometimes we were…Read more...

Apple’s AirTags and Find My service can be helpful for finding things you lose—but they also introduce a big privacy problem. While those of us on iOS have had some tools for fighting those issues, Apple left those of us on Android without much to work with. A new Android AirTag finder app finally addresses some of…Read more...

Listen, I don’t have pets. My three kids under age 9 keep begging for a dog, to which I say, “Are you going to pick up its poo at 5:30 in the morning when it’s freezing outside?” To which they reply, “Yes! We will!” Which we all know is a heinous, heinous lie. So, because I need another care task like I need a fourth…Read more...

This week, kids are watching season 2 of The Witcher, navigating the pitfalls of virtual reality (spoiler: the problem is other people), and enjoying some old fashioned glitter bombing. They are not, it seems, posting school shooting threats on TikTok.

When Disney acquired 20th Century Fox in 2019, it also acquired that once-venerable studio’s slate of animated films in development, which included two comic book-based properties I was very excited for: Mouse Guard, axed two weeks before production was to begin, and Nimona, which was just 10 months from completion…Read more...

Most early abortions are done by taking pills that cause a miscarriage. This method—medication abortion—is simple and safe, but until recently, federal rules made it illegal to get these pills in the mail like other prescriptions. The FDA has now permanently changed that rule.

Every year, Apple releases new features that both improve data privacy on the iPhone, and set a new benchmark for the industry as a whole. With iOS 15, it’s all about transparency. iOS 15.2 brings a new feature called App Privacy Report that provides a visual, easy-to-read report of all the ways an app is using or…Read more...