How-To Geek

No matter how difficult you try to reduce ads, they are always present to some degree, whether you’re browsing the internet, using a mobile app, watching a streamed TV show or movie, or using a streaming device. You’ll even find them lurking in video games as background videos or in-game images. No matter, the point is that ads have become a supplemental income stream, often turning into a primary one. It's hard to eliminate ads completely in this day and age.

While giant corporations are going all-in on AI, using it to replace staff, crush human content production, and generally set things up to enrich themselves even more, regular folks are realizing they can use AI to eliminate their reliance on these companies.

Rugged dive watches are built to withstand deep ocean exploration and other adventures. They're also elegant fashion statements that reflect your appreciation for old-school craftsmanship and design. You don't need to spend thousands of dollars on high-end luxury brands when you can get a tough and reliable dive watch, like the Citizen Promaster Eco-Drive, which you won't mind risking in adverse conditions.

Google Photos is an excellent gallery app for Android, and it's been my go-to photo viewer for nearly a decade now. I use a Pixel 10 Pro, so I enjoy the extra perks of using Google's suite of apps on my device. Despite all of its add-ons and upsides, Google Photos is missing a feature that could take the app to a whole new level: an interactive map.

For those of us who are devout users of Google Photos, the "Collections" page is a mess. It contains albums, on-device folders, people from photos, and more — and they're always moving around. Thankfully, a new feature brings some much-needed order to the chaos.

The Linux ecosystem has had a busy few months, with Linux 7.4 development getting attention for its unusually active testing cycle, growing use of AI-generated contributions, and continued hardware support improvements. Meanwhile, desktop Linux distributions have been pushing ahead with Wayland adoption, stronger security, and more modern desktop experiences. Fedora Linux 45 is the latest chapter in that evolution.

An aging laptop does not necessarily need a hardware upgrade to feel faster. Sometimes, changing the operating system can make a noticeable difference, particularly when you are running a machine with an older processor and integrated graphics. Linux distros have different desktop environments, background services, and system requirements, all of which can affect everyday performance.

A new Windows 11 update is beginning to roll out to users across the globe, but this update isn't adding flashy new AI features or mindlessly moving things around. Microsoft is delivering on its prior commitments and plenty of insider testing to bring real performance improvements to Windows 11, especially for computers working with only 8GB of memory. In a world where computers and memory have gotten more expensive, these are the updates that make an impact.

I'm a firm believer that the perfect smart home should work almost completely automatically, without any need for pushing buttons, tapping dashboards, or giving voice commands. Sometimes, however, even the best automations can fire when you don't want them to, so I gave Home Assistant a snooze button to solve the problem.

If you’re rocking a desktop PC, there’s a good chance the motherboard it’s built around is based on the ATX (Advanced Technology Extended) or mATX standard, the latter being basically a shorter ATX board.

Sony has officially discontinued its last UHD Blu-ray player, the UBP-X700/K. Considering that Sony has announced it'll stop selling physical copies of its games as of 2028, it's no surprise that the company is quietly ridding itself of devices capable of playing analog media.

Trinkets and toys are fun, but a 3D printer really shows its value when you start fixing stuff with it. That was one of the main reasons why I bought a 3D printer in the first place. With three years of printing under my belt, my home has never been running smoother.

Reolink first teased its OMVI security camera line at CES 2026, before launching three models in June, promising wider coverage, AI-powered tracking, and local video search without the need for subscriptions. The company had originally planned to launch its flagship OMVI X16 PoE in Q3 and is now delivering on that promise despite a slight delay.

Running out of phone storage is bad enough, and paying for a cloud subscription to fix it is an expensive habit. Now, your Windows PC will soon offer a much simpler alternative. Google is building an automatic backup feature into Quick Share that copies your photos and videos on Android phones straight to a computer. There’s no subscription or storage plan attached.

Search APIs are good at telling you where information lives. They're less helpful when you need the information itself. If you've built anything that depends on web data, such as a research tool, a price tracker, or an AI agent that answers questions, you'll know a list of links is only the starting point. Something still has to fetch each page, strip out the navigation and ads, and pull out the parts you care about.

Docker has empowered millions of users to build their own homelabs and ditch many of their pricey subscription services. But just because it's one of the easiest ways to deploy self-hosted apps doesn't mean it's equally efficient at managing them. By default, Docker won't automatically back up your app data, keep your containers updated, or alert you when a service goes down. That's why I make it a point to install these five apps alongside Docker to address these glaring shortcomings and get the most out of my self-hosting setup.

Plenty of cars and aftermarket head units from the last decade support Android Auto, but many of them require a USB connection to work. There are commercial wireless adapters, but they start at around $30; some cost significantly more.

Bambu Lab just unveiled its most impressive 3D printer yet with the H3C, and I’ve spent the last month testing it. This is Bambu Lab’s latest flagship, and it brings some all-new features to the table, like the Swaptek 9-nozzle system with individual filament tubes for each print head and an all-new AMS 3H system that can print while drying. Here’s everything you need to know about the H3C—and why this printer completely changed the game for me on multicolor and multi-material prints.

I've been buying or reviewing flagship Samsung Galaxy phones for over 14 years, and along the way, I've tried everything from Nexus, Pixel, LG (R.I.P.), HTC, Motorola, OnePlus, and more. In the end, I always go back to my Galaxy. And while One UI is a huge part of that, it's far from the only reason.

You can actually do a lot with an ESP32 development board without ever writing a single line of code. From programming LED strips to creating smart home sensors or a network-connected speaker, these five no-code ESP32 projects work straight out of the box using a simple web flasher tool that anyone can use.