Lifehacker

Google Photos has received several big updates recently, but now the app has a full-on messaging service that you can use to swap photos and carry on conversations between your contacts.

So far, many of the Democratic candidates for president want to raise taxes on the wealthy to fund their policy plans. But what does that really mean?Read more...

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December is usually a good time to get a deal on a car since both manufacturers and dealers want to end the year with strong sales numbers. However, just because something looks like a good deal doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pick apart the details.

Helping kids develop their news literacy skills has become more important than ever—and teaching kids only to identify fake news isn’t enough. To develop true news literacy, kids have to learn deeper strategies than simple fact-checking; they also have to consider how the news is gathered and presented.Read more...

Microsoft plans to roll out Edge via a Windows Update on January 15. We’ve had a great time playing around with it since the Chromium version of the browser debuted in April, and we’ll probably have even more to say before its official release next month. But it’s also OK to not want another browser on your desktop or…Read more...

Because they last a long time, it’s easy to forget that your passport is about to be invalid. Whether you have an unexpected international trip come up or you meticulously planned an international journey without paying attention to the most important details, sometimes you need a passport—fast.

A major WhatsApp bug has been discovered that leaves your chat history at risk of being permanently deleted by others, and you should update the app as soon as possible to patch out the vulnerability.

Ever tried to learn SQL, the query language that lets you poke at the innards of databases? Most tutorials start by having you create your own database, fill it with nonsense, and then run queries that will make your eyes glaze over (hooray, we can simulate the accounting department for a widget factory). The Knight…Read more...

On Monday night, a federal judge approved a purge of 313,000 voters in Georgia who did not vote in recent elections, effectively shrinking the number of registered voters in the state from 7.4 million to 7.1 million, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution reports.

Every home baker wants a stand mixer, and they often go on sale just in time for holiday gift-giving. If you’re committed to buying one for yourself or someone you love this year, don’t default to the cheapest Kitchenaid on Amazon. Depending on your needs, a vintage mixer might actually be a better choice.

If you were hoping to apply for an Affordable Care Act health insurance plan for 2020, you should know that the deadline for applications submitted through Healthcare.gov has been extended.Read more...

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While you’re thinking about your own financial lessons from the past year, take a look at some of the most popular stories here at Two Cents in 2019. They range from the practical to the absurd, but they’re all on this list for a reason: They contained some kernel of financial wisdom you can take away and apply to…Read more...

A solid plumbing system, if well-maintained, could—and should—last for decades. This is a good thing, because replacing the whole thing is a huge and costly project.

It’s a pretty well-known fact that Alexa-enabled devices and Google Home products record everything you say to them. What you may not know is how to delete these recordings or turn this feature off entirely. In the video above, I show you how.Read more...

We’ve all got stories about that neighbor. The one who never cuts the grass. The one who never cleans up after their dog. The one who plays video games—with the sound enhanced by a subwoofer—in the middle night, right up against your shared bedroom wall.Read more...

We all know the tricks about when to buy airline tickets, like booking exactly 65 days in advance of your planned departure date or on a Tuesday morning because that’s when flights are cheapest for some reason. But when is the best time to purchase upgrades?

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Email newsletters keep blowing up, so we’re following up on Lifehacker’s 2017 staff recs with a new batch of our favorite newsletters. Here’s what kept us informed and entertained in 2019.Read more...

As you install more and more software on your Mac, your menu bar might start to get cluttered with extraneous icons. This not only looks messy, but it can make it a bit of a chore to access settings for your various apps.

We’ve all heard the phrase “engage your core” as it relates to lifting. And your core strength is crucial—we’ve written about it in the past—it’s the difference between a crappy deadlift and a great one. Or a mediocre pushup and one with perfect form. Basically, if you’re doing anything requiring some kind of…Read more...

No matter how many sci-fi movies depict it, we’re not going to be able to achieve eternal life by uploading a digital version of our consciousness to the cloud anytime soon.

While taking a peaceful scroll through your Facebook feed, you may have seen videos of Snoop Dogg advertising a debt relief program from something called the Debt Council.

A lot of advice about persuasion assumes a relatively equal power dynamic. But sometimes you need to persuade someone higher up than you in a hierarchy: your boss, their boss, a project leader. For that you need four specific strategies: focus on common goals, get to a neutral space, let them build your case with you,…Read more...

Electric cars might be the way of the future, but the variations in charging plugs across different brands and models make finding a compatible electric vehicle (EV) charging station a lot more difficult than simply pulling up to a gas station. Thankfully, Google Maps on Android now has an “Electric vehicle settings”…Read more...

Last week, I wrote about a resource for parents of children with autism—a book that outlines parenting advice from adults who also have autism. It struck me as such an important concept that we can often overlook when our children receive a diagnosis or struggle in a way that is personally unfamiliar to us; we ask…Read more...

Ever dreamed of making a podcast of your own? Of being the next Teri Gross or Joe Rogan? This week we’re learning how with the help of Lifehacker’s own video producer Abu Zafar. Abu recently produced a 3-part video series for Lifehacker called How to Start a Podcast and he joins us this week to talk about some of the…Read more...

I don’t need more than good ol’ Alexa on my Echo, but if you’d prefer to chat with Samuel L. Jackson, Gordon Ramsay, or Pikachu (to name a few celebrity voices), you have options. Jackson is my favorite of the bunch, but he’s not free: it’s $0.99 to download the skill right now, which will bump up to a whopping $4.99…Read more...

You might already be wary of gas pump skimmers that can steal your payment information from the card reader. Now, Visa has issued a warning about a new threat at the pump: hackers working through the gas station’s sales system.

Everyone who eats chicken loves a boneless, skinless thigh. Juicy, tender, and well suited to everything from flash-frying to slow braising, they’re the perfect cut for just about any recipe. But all this is common knowledge by now, which means boneless thighs aren’t the budget-friendly hack they were even a few years…Read more...

Vanna White has been turning letters on Wheel of Fortune for 36 years, and has worn nearly 7,000 evening gowns in the process.Read more...

There are lots of reasons you might want to start working from your home, after you’ve become a parent. The commute is eating up too much of your day; you want to move to be closer to extended family but you want to take your job with you; or you simply crave the additional flexibility that working from home can…Read more...

I used to be a big fan of Starbucks’ wacky contests—those that reward you randomized stickers, tokens, or other trinkets on a digital playing field for completing various “buy stuff from Starbucks” challenges. And in saying that, I might as well be saying, “I’m a sucker.” It’s a lot shorter.Read more...

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Redditors love to ask each other for their favorite fun, mindblowing, counterintuitive, or disturbing facts. Every few months a new “fun fact” thread ends up on the front page of Reddit, and thousands of people pitch in with their favorites. I looked at years’ worth of threads, collected the very best facts, and…Read more...

It’s awards season, and Netflix has got a few certain winners in the mix. If you’ve already hoovered Marriage Story and The Irishman, you’ll want to set aside Friday for the big premiere of The Two Popes, which stars Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce as Benedict and Francis, and is essentially exactly the same as The…Read more...

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Over the past few months I’ve had to go to a handful of different doctor’s appointments around town. I live in San Francisco and don’t own a car, so going to those appointments always means Lyfting to them. Without fail, before each and every one of them I end up getting ready to head out the door and then realize I…Read more...

Last night I attended a holiday party where my contribution was a plate of sausage and cheese balls and a 750ml bottle of Old Fashioneds. Both were well received, but the Old Fashioned perhaps caught the most attention. As it turns out, a lot of the party-goers had never considered making a bunch of them at once, and…Read more...

Last month Instagram started hiding the likes on some posts from U.S. accounts. The idea behind the move was to allow users to “focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes you get.”

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Working from home is fantastic in a lot of ways. Working alone at home can make things like lunch breaks and what clothing you’re wearing pretty flexible. It can also something like cleaning up your space optional, in some cases so optional that you might not do it all. No one is going to see your home office, right?

YouTube can be a great place to find music to listen to. Since it’s a video site; however, often that music comes with a video that can be distracting when you’re really just looking for some tunes. Music Mode is a Chrome Extension that can help.

This morning Samuel L. Jackson helped me out with a little holiday baking. By “help,” I mean that was the one that told me it was time to take some cookies out of the oven, a job normally reserved for my kitchen Alexa.

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For eight years, I’ve been unable to grow leg hair along my shins.

Just in the nick of time before a new round of tariffs was supposed to go into effect, the U.S. and China have announced a limited deal to end the trade war. Eventually.

The Game Awards were last night. And while we do love a pretty trophy (and are sad The Outer Worlds didn’t take top honors), there’s more to the event than pixel pageantry. Coinciding with the big day, there’s also a PC “Game Festival” going on—all on Steam—that features some great time-locked demos you can play right…Read more...

An annoying lock screen bug has been bothering some unlucky Android users for months now, locking them out of their devices by way of a weird authentication loop. The bug has been present as far back as September, when it was originally spotted on Pixel XL devices. It remains unfixed and, worse, seems to be cropping…Read more...