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If you use LastPass, you should take the Security Challenge. It will scan your vault for compromised, weak, reused, and old passwords and recommend passwords you should change. LastPass will give you a numerical security score, too. Other password managers may have similar features, too. For example, 1Password has the Watchtower feature, which identifies problems like weak, reused, and compromised passwords and recommends passwords you should change. How to Take the Security Challenge If you’re a LastPass user, you can access the challenge via the browser extension, on the web, or in the mobile app....

What Is StartPage? StartPage is a search engine that provides results from Google, with a privacy policy that more closely resembles DuckDuckGo’s. The Dutch company has a long-standing agreement to provide search results from Google, so you can still enjoy what many consider to be the “best” search results on the web. Previously known as Ixquick, StartPage’s predecessor launched in 1998 (the same year as Google) as a “meta search” engine that aggregated results from a variety of search engines....

If you’re shutting down your iPhone and you see the message “iPhone Findable After Power Off,” you might wonder what it means. Here’s an explanation—and how to disable it if you’d like. How Does it Work? Starting with iOS 15, certain recent models of iPhone (such as iPhone 13) can be remotely located while powered off thanks to the Find My network and the Find My app. This is possible because even when powered off, the iPhone provides a small amount of reserve power to the Bluetooth, UWB, and NFC chips....

Have you ever opened up Task Manager and noticed the System Idle Process is using 90% or more of your CPU? Contrary to what you might think, that’s not a bad thing. Here’s what that process actually does. RELATED: What Is This Process and Why Is It Running on My PC? This article is part of our ongoing series explaining various processes found in Task Manager, like Runtime Broker, svchost....

Why Inbox Zero Matters Let’s deal with the second part of the question first: Why should you care what Inbox Zero is? If you’ve got any interest in taming your inbox or more generally in being efficient and productive, Inbox Zero is something you need to know about. Inbox Zero is a Big Thing that has been around since 2006. It’s been the subject of many presentations and even books....

Wi-Fi Assist is a new feature on iOS 9, which is garnering a lot of attention. We want to discuss Wi-Fi Assist today, explain what is does and, most importantly, disable it if necessary. If you have upgraded your iPhone to iOS 9 or have elected to purchase a new iPhone, then you have been gifted a rather wonderful new feature called Wi-Fi Assist. While many news sources are sounding the alarm over Wi-Fi Assist possibly costing users with limited mobile data plans, our opinion is maybe not....

If you’re familiar with the Windows 10 Recycle Bin for deleting files and you just switched to Mac, you might wonder where the equivalent is on a Mac. It’s called “Trash,” and it’s located in the Dock. Here’s how to use it. The Recycle Bin Is “Trash” or “Bin” on a Mac Since 1984, all versions of the Mac desktop operating system have included a trash can (waste bin), which is formally called “Trash” in the United States and “Bin” in some territories....

iPhones with Touch ID look different than iPhones with Face ID, and it can also change how you use certain features on your device. Here’s how to spot a phone with Touch ID—and a list of models that support the feature. What Is Touch ID? Touch ID is a biometric authentication feature that recognizes your fingerprint to verify your identity. To use it, you gently place your finger on the Touch ID sensor build into the home button....

If you’ve taken a photo with a digital camera, you might have seen areas of the photo flash black—like they do in the GIF below—when you review your images. This black flashing is colloquially referred to as the “blinkies.” The areas that flash black show where the highlights have been clipped or blown; in other words, the parts of your image that are overexposed and have been recorded by the camera as pure white....

Gmail’s “Undo Send” feature is much-loved here at How-To Geek, but you can get the same option in Outlook.com and the Microsoft Outlook desktop application. Here’s how to set them up. The option in Outlook.com and Microsoft Outlook works the same as in Gmail: When you enable it, Outlook will wait a few seconds before sending emails. After you click the “Send” button, you have a few seconds to click the “Undo” button....

Wi-Fi Analyzer for Android is the complete package. Not only will it show you the channels used by nearby wireless networks on a slick graph, it’ll recommend the ideal channel to reduce interference on your wireless network. Once you’ve selected the ideal channel, you can flick over to the signal strength meter. With the meter in the palm of your hand, you can walk around to analyze your coverage area, find dead spots and identify interfering objects....

There’s always a lot of chatter about computer graphics cards, thanks to bigger and better models every few months. It’s not always clear who actually needs one, though. Let’s take a look at what they are, and whether or not they’re a good fit for your PC. The Difference Between Integrated and Dedicated GPUs The headline of this article is a bit of a trick question, in a way. Every desktop and laptop computer needs a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) of some sort....

Macs have a lot of advantages. Maybe you like the simplicity of macOS, the sexy industrial design, or work in a creative field where they’re pretty much a requirement. But if you’re also a gamer, you may be wondering: can they handle the games you want to play as well as Windows? Can You Play Games on a Mac? Macs are made of the same components as any other PC....

Microsoft quietly announced that Disk Cleanup is now deprecated, news that was buried at the bottom of a blog post about Windows 10’s Storage Sense. Disk Cleanup isn’t going away immediately but is on its way out the door. Twenty Years of Disk Cleanup Disk Cleanup deserves a better send-off than a tiny note at the end of a Microsoft blog post. We’ve been using Disk Cleanup for over 20 years since it debuted in Windows 98....

Most manufacturers and carriers offer some sort of trade-in program for old phones when you buy a new one. The thing is, you can get a lot more money if you just sell your phone yourself. A Closer Look at Trade In “Deals” Let’s use the new Galaxy S9 as the example. If you want to buy Samsung’s latest flagship, you can buy it outright if you want—but the company also has a trade-in program....

Hubs Were the Brains of the Smarthome For a long time, if you wanted control of all your smarthome devices in one place from one app, a smarthome hub was the way to go. Smarthome hubs did the best job of connecting everything from Wi-Fi outlets to Z-wave smart locks. They introduced routines, automation, and a handy dashboard to control everything in one dedicated place. Devices made by different manufacturers could work in tandem when connected to a hub....

Word lets you hide text so you can read or print your document as if the text isn’t there. This might seem pointless—why not just remove the text if you don’t want someone to read it—but hidden text does have some interesting uses. Let’s take a look at what hidden text is (and what it isn’t), why you might want to hide text, and how to do it. What is Hidden Text?...

Other developers create these modules. The options vary from the useful, like Alexa or presence detection (through a camera or Passive Infrared sensor), to the entertaining, like snowflakes and Spotify playback info. We recommend mmm-awesome-alexa as it appears to be well maintained by an active developer, although there are other Alexa modules for the Magic Mirror software. If you would prefer to install Google Assistant, Google offers a complete tutorial for installing Assistant on a Raspberry Pi, including steps, images, and download links....

Apple’s focus on health doesn’t end with the Apple Watch. The Health app on your iPhone is a treasure trove of information, but some of it can be hard to find. Why not set up favorites to make it more accessible? Third-party apps and the Apple Watch itself feed data right into Health, so it’s probably been quietly collecting mountains of data without you really noticing. That’s great, but the Health app isn’t exactly Apple’s most user-friendly creation....

While changing your browser’s font may not be the most pressing issue, sometimes it is fun to make a change. That’s why we are going to teach you how to change the default font in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Internet Explorer. Note: the instructions for Chrome and Firefox should work in any operating system. Obviously Internet Explorer only runs on Windows, so these settings would only work there....