Lifehacker

Along with the companies that make hand sanitizer and toilet paper, puzzle manufacturers and sellers have been doing a brisk business lately. With everyone confined to their homes for the past few months, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve had more time for slower-paced activities. If your family has hopped on the…Read more...

Josh Gad is at it again. After using his time in quarantine to reunite the casts and crews of classic movies like “Lord of the Rings,” “Goonies,” “Back to the Future” and “Splash,” he’s now adding “Ghostbusters” to his “Reunited Apart” YouTube series. On Monday, June 15, 2020, at 9 a.m. PST/12 p.m. EST, key members of…Read more...

Everything in the world might be pretty terrible right now, but if nothing else, we’ll be treated to seeing Jupiter, Mars and Saturn rise every day in June 2020. Even though Jupiter and Saturn are the largest in the solar system, they’re not the brightest. But this month, both gas giants will be more visible than…Read more...

Still riding the wave of their unbelievably popular chicken sandwich released last year, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen has managed to hold onto our attention. They’ve recently rebranded, and started offering free delivery through their app at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, including making a donation to No Kid…Read more...

It’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights. It’s time to virtually attend a live Q&A with three longtime employee Muppets employees tonight. That’s right: Tonight at 7 p.m. EST, the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York, is livestreaming an event featuring Craig Shemin, a longtime employee of…Read more...

Some folks like to quibble about whether smartphone games are “true” video games (especially Zynga’s fare), but I’ve always felt that a game’s a game no matter where you play it. Playing games on a smartphone is no different than playing games on a console or PC in my book—and there are, right now, about 100 million…Read more...

Tax Day is coming. Did you forget? I don’t blame you. America’s worst annual holiday was moved from April 15 to July 15 back in March, and if you weren’t expecting to get a refund, you probably put the task aside.Read more...

I don’t care how many Hitman games IO Interactive cranks out, I’ll play every single one of them, even though all of them involve doing the exact same thing: poring over sprawling levels to find the perfect spots from which to execute covert assassinations. And, in my case, scrambling to finish your objectives without…Read more...

In recent weeks, police departments across the country have used so-called “sound cannons” to control and disperse crowds of protestors. Officially known as Long Range Acoustic Devices, or LRADs, these speakers are essentially sound-based weapons that allow law enforcement to broadcast high-frequency audio at a…Read more...

Forwarding ports on your router so devices can talk to the outside world is a pain in the butt, so it makes sense why a technology like UPnP sounds so convenient. This automatic process assumes that it’s safe to expose your network to the internet when internal programs request access—which is generally true, unless…Read more...

Dumbbells and kettlebells may still be hard to come by, but containers of water are widely available and nearly free. The trick is finding something that’s the right weight, without being too awkward. In this week’s installment of our improvised equipment challenge, we’ll be working out with water jugs.Read more...

What are you watching this weekend? Every afternoon since quarantine began in earnest we’ve been hunting down and highlighting the best viewing options around—and tonight we’re doing it one final time.

If you’ve ever seen a turtle crossing the road—common in the springtime and early summer—you’ll help both the turtle and drivers if you can get it safely out of the way.

A few years back, I heard someone refer to St. Germaine as “bartender’s ketchup.” That really stuck with me. The elderflower liqueur was near-ubiquitous in the late 2000s, popping up on trendy cocktail menus everywhere and dominating nearly every drink it graced. I never got wildly into St. Germaine, but I like the…Read more...

Since the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic—even back in January and February before things really started to get bad in the U.S.—there has been some mixed messaging when it comes to wearing masks. At Lifehacker, we’ve been fortunate that our senior health editor, Beth Skwarecki, has been on the case this whole…Read more...

You and your kids are probably not doing much air travel these days, but while we’re all mostly grounded, JetBlue has created a new video series to connect with, entertain and educate kids who have an interest in airplanes and airports.

When St. Louis-based food writer Robin Caldwell wants to order vegetables from one of her favorite restaurants, she calls before she puts in a DoorDash order. “I called the owner and I said, ‘If I give DoorDash this money, and I’m telling you I want your pork chop dinner...I want you to send me three canisters of…Read more...

One of the many ways Signal safeguards your data is by saving everything locally to your phone or tablet rather than on external servers. That’s great for privacy, but it makes it a pain to migrate your account to a new device. Thankfully, Signal now lets iOS and iPadOS users wirelessly transfer their account data…Read more...

If you order from Amazon a lot—or if you take full advantage of Prime video and Amazon Music benefits—Amazon Prime’s $119 annual fee may be a great value. But if that’s too steep a price for your shopping and streaming habits, there are a few ways to get Prime benefits for free (or cheap). Here’s how to do it.

Summer vacation is here. For many of us, it’s been with a mix of relief and dread that we kick the 2019-20 school year to the curb and enter a summer that seems to spread out endlessly before us. Hey, remember when kids used to play with each other? Like, in person?Read more...

Looking for something to watch tonight? Every afternoon we’re hunting down and highlighting the best viewing options around.Read more...

It’s been roughly three months (or 47 years...who’s counting?) since we’ve started social distancing. Despite the “distance,” many of us have found ourselves physically closer to our partners and significant others.Read more...

Disposable face masks are an efficient way of protecting yourself and others during the coronavirus pandemic—as long as you dispose of them correctly.

If you use a rewards credit card to earn toward travel, you’re probably biding your time and holding onto those points and miles until you feel comfortable packing your bags again.Read more...

Emulsifying hard cheese and pasta water into a perfectly smooth sauce is basically a graduate-level course in Pasta Thermodynamics. The pan must be hot enough to melt the cheese evenly, but not so hot that it seizes—or, in the case of pasta carbonara, you wind up with a big bowl of scrambled eggs.Read more...

Gyms in many areas are reopening, or will be soon, and a lot of us can’t freaking wait to get back to normal workouts. (I myself have a well-equipped home gym, but I dream of the day I can get back to a proper squat rack.) But let’s talk about the proper mindset to have when you first go back, so you don’t set…Read more...

If your kid is getting a tired of lockdown-based isolation, single-player gameplay and not interacting with their friends, it may be time to help them take their gaming online. To that end, I have compiled a list of my five favorite time-wasters your kid can play virtually with their pals—plus a bonus, classic pick…Read more...

When even the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is starting to get nervous about your unpatched Windows 10 system, maybe it’s time to make sure you’ve downloaded everything you need from Windows Update.Read more...

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (3 Months) | $23 | AmazonRead more...

We have a plethora of options when it comes to choosing luggage—and yet black luggage seems to be, like, 80% of the luggage I see in my travels. But why? Black luggage is harder to identify and easy to nab (if you’re a thief). If you can’t do away with black luggage for more differently hued options, there’s no need…Read more...

The IRS started to reopen its phone lines after the coronavirus pandemic forced it to shut down its call centers. But you may still struggle to get a real person on the phone.

Speaking up matters, but that doesn’t have to be just metaphorical. If you attend a protest, you may find yourself chanting, cheering, shouting, and otherwise using your voice to be heard loud and clear. The fight against injustice is a marathon, though, not a sprint, so you’ll want to be able to shout again another…Read more...

It’s been a long time coming, but eBay’s mobile app is finally getting a dark mode, meaning shoppers will be able to track their bids late into the night without frying their retinas.

After months of discussion, a brief period of optimism, and then the onset of a global pandemic, it’s official: We’re in a recession.

Removing books you’ve finished from your Kindle has always been possible, but with one catch. Whatever you remove from your device persists in your account. It’s not gone forever, it’s simply gone from the specific Kindle device you’re using.

Chicken salad is not usually perceived as “sexy.” It is a potluck food, a church supper food, an uninspired baby or wedding shower option, often under-seasoned and over-dressed. Bad chicken salad can put you off the category entirely. But good chicken salad? Good chicken salad can be transcendent.Read more...

Looking for something to watch tonight? Every afternoon we’re hunting down and highlighting the best viewing options around.

With the pandemic hitting across the globe, many American travelers have gotten stuck while living or traveling abroad. And with worldwide protests erupting, those stuck Americans may feel called to participate in local demonstrations—which could possibly lead them to be arrested. Here’s what to do if you find…Read more...

Jane Elliot spent her career trying to give white people the slightest taste of the discrimination and racism that people of color experience throughout their entire lives. It started in 1968, in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., when she devised an exercise for the students in her third grade…Read more...

As demonstrations against police brutality and racial injustice continue around the country, apps that blur faces and delete metadata have become a necessary part of any protester’s tool set. Such apps prevent unwanted surveillance and tracking of those in the images and the photographers snapping the shots.

The next time you find yourself staring down a difficult, time-consuming or boring task, don’t tell yourself that you’ll do it later. Tell yourself that it’s going to be difficult, time-consuming and boring. Acknowledge that you’re going to hate every minute of it. Let yourself accept that it’s going to suck—and then,…Read more...

If you are in a position to donate money to organizations aimed at addressing police violence or systemic racism, consider making your donation a recurring, monthly one rather than a single lump sum. Over the course of a year, a small monthly donation can add up to a lot more than a one-time donation, while also…Read more...

Many Americans spent the last few weeks doing very little driving in the name of social distancing and, while the travel break may have allowed commuters to cut down on their driving, adherence to stay-at-home orders has left cars vulnerable to rodent infestations.Read more...

The Blender Bottle is an item “healthy people” own and use, so I’ve never spent a ton of time thinking about it. But that little whisk ball inside the spouted plastic bottle is destined for more than merely blending protein powder—that whisk ball is made for alcoholic greatness.Read more...

You may have seen headlines recently that “patients without symptoms” aren’t driving the spread of the coronavirus. That would seem to suggest that all our measures about masks and distancing are useless—but that’s a misunderstanding of the evidenceRead more...

Distraction is just a fingerprint or screen pattern away all the time—and when you’re driving, that’s just not safe. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that in 2018, 400,000 people were injured in distracted driving accidents and 2,841 were killed.

Breaking up sucks. It sucks even more when you weigh external factors. Who gets the cat? Who gets the friend group? Who gets to keep the video games? If you’re currently struggling with that last question, we’ve collected some expert advice that might help you.

These past few weeks, we’ve seen countless examples of ‘less lethal’ police weapons being used against protesters, including rubber bullets, bean bag rounds and sponge grenades. Although these weapons—which all have names that make them sound like toys—are certainly less lethal than traditional bullets, they can still…Read more...

The World Health Organization announced new guidance on masks late last week, spurring another wave of eyerolling about how “they” keep changing their minds. Previously the WHO did not recommend that healthy people wear masks; now they say that people over 60 and people with underlying health conditions should wear…Read more...

As the parent of a sports-obsessed 10-year-old, I was grateful that I was able to relive the Michael Jordan era with my son by watching The Last Dance, ESPN’s series chronicling the Chicago Bulls’ 1997-98 championship season. I was even more pleased that it led to us having in-depth conversations about Jesse Helms’…Read more...