Lifehacker

Nothing sucks the air out of a room quite like a relative asking to borrow money from you. No matter how much you love your family, the prospect of loaning your hard-earned money to them can be uncomfortable at the very least.Read more...

A good host always has some sort of libation on hand, but a truly stellar host has a batched cocktail, chilled and ready to pour. Since pre-made cocktails aren’t stirred or shaken, you have to dilute them with a little water, just to round them out and temper the burn. Plain filtered water works fine, but for an extra…Read more...

The Nintendo Switch might not be as powerful as its competitors, but there’s still a lot to love about the system, including its massive library of games spanning multiple console generations, and its ability to seamlessly swap between playing on a TV to playing handheld.

Back in the day, parents braced themselves for The Talk, which we all know covered one topic, one time: Sex. But these days, largely thanks to both the internet and what we all love to refer to as our “political climate,” parents are having all kinds of serious, on-going chats with their kids. The topics range from…Read more...

In 2009, I was 27 years old and a year into my first full-time job with benefits. I was working as an executive assistant at a think tank in Washington, DC, and had ended up in this job after spending the past five years telemarketing, temping, going to grad school to get a MFA in theater, coming out of grad school no…Read more...

Snacking is an art form. Unlike meals, which should be substantial and sustaining, snacks should be edible entertainment, with intense flavors, varying textures, and unexpected tasting notes. From giant pickles to waffled prosciutto, these are our favorite snack hacks of 2019.Read more...

We’ve been through a lot in fitness this year, discussing gym etiquette, body image, ambitious goals and more. Here are our best fitness posts of the year.Read more...

You decided not to go overboard on gifts with your toddler this year. You asked (begged? demanded!) that your family members follow suit. They are still so young, you reasoned. They don’t even really *get* the whole Santa thing, you figured. They’re perfectly happy playing with a soup pot and a wooden spoon, you…Read more...

We saw a lot of unpleasant data breaches this year. So many, that I’d be surprised if you weren’t affected by at least one, if not more. And while I’m not looking forward covering even more calamity in 2020, I think it’s important to take a look back at some of the year’s worst, biggest, and most annoying hacks that…Read more...

Beginning with a 35-day government shutdown and ending just as the House impeaches President Donald Trump, 2019 will forever be known as the year the shit hit the fan in American politics. Lots of crappy things happened this year, including several states’ efforts to pass anti-abortion laws and the uncertain status of…Read more...

Half of the Lifehacker staff can’t work with music on. The other half needs it. Here’s what we listened to this year while working on Lifehacker.

A very special type of solar eclipse is happening tonight, but it will be on the other side of the world from the US, visible in the morning in Saudi Arabia, India, and Malaysia. Fortunately it will be livestreamed, so you can catch it from home at around 10:30 EST tonight.Read more...

HBO is kicking off 2020 with new seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, The New Pope, and Real Time with Bill Maher. It’s also bringing a number of popular films to the platform including 2019’s John Wick: Chapter 3 and Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

It’s Christmas, which means the majority of businesses, stores, and restaurants are closed for the day. If you need to pick up that super last-minute gift or need something to eat, then you do have a handful of options available.

If your 2020 plans involve a trip to the National Parks, the National Park Service announced five dates in 2020 this week that you’ll be able to visit those parks for free.

Amazon is kicking off 2020 with a number of pretty solid additions to Prime Video.Read more...

Chrome 79 is ready for public consumption, and while it adds new features and tweaks, it’s also the last chance most users will have to use a handful of hidden Chrome features.

Hue Play Starter Kit w/ $50 Best Buy Gift Card | $100 | Best BuyRead more...

It’s very trendy to shun all things resolute this time of year. After all, attempting to improve yourself shouldn’t be a once-a-year activity. On the other hand, the end of a year is the perfect time for reflection. It’s a chance to take stock of how we’re doing, professionally and personally, physically and…Read more...

The spending bill that got approved by Congress this week doesn’t offer any tax breaks for people interested in buying electric vehicles. But it does have some retroactive tax credits you can snag if you already have one of these newfangled contraptions.

The holidays aren’t so happy for Fallout 76 players playing on PC. A new hack in the MMORPG allows someone to steal everything in another player’s inventory, seemingly with the snap of a finger.

In this house, we strive to have two types of butter available at all times: cheap cooking butter (kept in the fridge), and snacking butter (kept at room temperature for easy spreading). But I am not a perfect person, and sometimes I forget to refill the butter dish, leaving my kitchen devoid of spreadable snacking…Read more...

I assumed this tip was old news, but I’ve seen a ton of tweets going around that make me feel like a number of holiday gift-givers still don’t know the big secret for giving video games and video game consoles. So, here we are again, fresh with a warm cup of holiday advice that might require you rewrap a present or…Read more...

There are the obvious risks of trying to game the credit card rewards system. You could mess up your calculations for earning signup bonuses and end up in debt. Your credit score could take a hit. Your points could be devalued or the card’s partners could get switched up.

I might be Lifehacker’s parenting editor, but I also took on the unofficial role of the site’s grammar writer this year. Whenever I had to double-check the usage of a word or phrase or recalled a mnemonic device I found useful, I wrote about it. And then I’d get specific reader requests, like, “Can you please write a…Read more...

In a perfect world, we’d all power down our electronic devices at least a half hour before bed, take a bath, read a relaxing book, meditate and then drift off to sleep in our freshly washed lavender-scented sheets. But for me—and around 60 percent of Americans—in reality, this process involves watching TV as we…Read more...

First off, it’s “ToTok,” not “TikTok.” One is a messaging app that turned out to be spyware for the United Arab Emirates; the other is that quirky video app that people use to lipsync with their cats to make funny memes. Keep doing that, but definitely remove ToTok from your device if you’re one of the millions of…Read more...

The next time your morning alarm goes off, use your nine minutes of snooze time to stretch, check in with yourself, and reflect on what you hope to get out of the day.Read more...

The entire Pixel phone lineup recently received a handful of new capabilities thanks to the first “Pixel Feature Drop” update, but it looks like Google managed to sneak in a few extra Pixel 4 updates in as well.

I don’t know if I can speak for everyone, but 2019 was a year that required—nay, demanded—I consume more than a few cocktails. This was bad news for my liver, but great news for my readers, as all that drinking resulted in a lot of cocktail-related pondering and testing, as well as some truly great cocktail hacks.Read more...

If Apple’s three-month free trial for new Apple Music subscribers hasn’t been enough to get you to abandon Spotify, how about a six-month trial?Read more...

Life would be boring without healthy debate, but holy cow, y’all: The comments section on this here website is not for the faint of heart. This year’s most-commented posts reveal how polarizing certain money topics can be. From the simple task of filling your gas tank to thinking about taxes and the presidential…Read more...

With near-daily news about data breaches, hacks, and privacy problems, it’s not unreasonable to want to disappear from the internet. Maybe you’re sick of horribly embarrassing things showing up when potential employers Google your name. Or tired of everyone knowing you live in a garden level dungeon apartment? Or…Read more...

This year the Lifehacker staff listened to journalism, true crime, fiction, chat shows, comedy, and music appreciation. Here are the best podcast episodes we heard in 2019.

Artificial intelligence isn’t just for dystopian algorithms; it also makes for creative entertainment, like when this AI wrote beginning sentences for a bunch of nonexistent novels. Now, an AI stands ready to guide you through an old school text adventure game, a game that doesn’t exist until you start trying to play…Read more...

RAVPower 60W 6-Port Charging Station | $15 | Amazon | Promo code KINJAM28Read more...

That first year, you think it’s such a great idea. You’ll have so much fun hiding this little stuffed animal (little stuffed human? stuffed creature?) around the house. The kids will get so much glee out of discovering what new mischief their elf has gotten into overnight.Read more...

If ever there was a need for travel hacks, it was in 2019—the year of Boeing 737 MAX groundings, mysterious illnesses afflicting tourists, and airlines offering even less legroom by way of basic economy seating. And since this holiday week is likely to become the busiest travel week in 2019, it’s about time someone…Read more...

Sexy stalker-murderer Joe Goldberg is back in the second season of You, which debuts Thursday, the day after Christmas. You’re sprawled on your couch, hungover from interactions with the very real psychopaths with whom you’ve been forced to contend this holiday season, and who better to spend the final days of the…Read more...

It’s that time of year where everyone starts posting their “top” lists for the year. While most sites will provide that information to you directly in a form you can share with the masses, Instagram doesn’t offer a “Top” list directly.

Now there’s even more of a reason to use Mobile Passport: you can use it to renew your passport.

If you missed out on Megabus’s Cyber Monday deal, the bus company is once again offering some pretty cheap tickets for sale today.

If you’ve ever been using a website and wished it had a voice input, now you can add one yourself.

Earlier this week I traveled across the country to my hometown where I’ll be spending the holidays. Also, for the first time in forever, I checked not one but two suitcases, and I’m here to suggest you do the same. Maybe not the two suitcases part, but checking your luggage in general.

If you use Twitter for Android, then you should make sure you’re running the latest version of the app.

A Cozy Hoodie sale at Jachs, a Samsung Galaxy S10 + $50 Amazon Gift Card, and a Nerf, Play-Doh, & Hasbro Games Gold Box lead off Saturday’s best deals from around the web.Read more...

2019's big end-of-year Winter sales on PC gaming platforms like Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store are finally here. These sales often have the biggest discounts on PC games you’ll find all year, making it the best time to pick up a few titles from your wishlist. All three winter sales run from now until January 2,…Read more...

Do beans have as much protein as beef? Is drinking a Coke the same as eating a half dozen donuts? Are there really six slices of bread in every bagel? We’re gonna fact check some of those nutrition memes that are always floating around. Spoiler: if they’re shocking, they’re usually not true.Read more...

When I found out the annual fee for Amazon Prime would increase from $99 to $119 last year, I started thinking about whether I could live without the service.

As Jalopnik’s resident car buying expert and professional car shopper, I get emails. Lots of emails. I’ve decided to pick a few questions and try to help out. This week we are talking about mileage on used cars, bringing kids to dealerships, and advertising lemon law vehicles.Read more...