How-To Geek

Epic Games' fight with Google is about to pay dividends for American Android users. Google has confirmed that third-party Android app stores in the U.S. will be available through the Play Store beginning July 22, 2026, and can offer Play Store apps.

Amazon Fire tablets aren’t the flashiest devices on the market, but they absolutely provide the most bang for your buck. With Android at the core, you’re not limited to Amazon’s services and proprietary home screen setup—you just have to know how to get around the limitations.

The reality of personal transport can feel a little grim these days. Rising fuel costs, crowded cities, and tougher commutes are commonplace. The good news is that the diversity of solutions has grown as well, including electric scooters.

Microsoft launched the Surface line to showcase what Windows PCs could do. These would be the rockstar systems that made vendors raise their game and take the fight to Apple. And for a while, that worked: at its height, there were clever systems like the detachable Surface Book and tilting Surface Laptop Studio that made Apple look stale.

When you think about your Raspberry Pi, the issues that come up are probably quite lofty. Like what programming language you'll use or figuring out what projects you'd like to do with the GPIO pins.

Every TV today has at least one HDMI port on the side or back. It’s used to stream content from another device to your television—whether that’s a streaming device, tablet, or computer.

We all have apps we have to install on Windows—without them, the OS just feels lacking or incomplete. While some of these are paid or freemium apps like Photoshop and Notion, many are completely free and sometimes more powerful than their premium alternatives. Here are three such free apps I consider must-haves on every Windows installation. In fact, two of these are actually made by Microsoft and should've just been included by default.

We all have apps we just have to install on Windows—without them, the OS just feels lacking or incomplete. While some of these apps are proprietary, like Steam or Photoshop, many are free and open source (FOSS), meaning Microsoft could include them with the OS without having to worry about licensing issues. Here are three such FOSS apps I consider must-haves on every Windows installation—two of which are actually made by Microsoft—that should’ve been included by default.

Samsung Galaxy phones are some of the best around, with endless customization options and packed with underrated features. Unfortunately, many of those aren't enabled by default and go unnoticed. It's easy to overlook the best Galaxy phone features, including one that I use every single day.

Though new appliances often boast of “smart” features, the execution is often disappointing. The truth is that you can bring actually useful smart features to your trusty old appliances with some cheap upgrades and a few minutes of your time.

I'm not a fan of renting your router from your ISP, but I'm also not a fan of advising people to waste their money. If you already have your own router and you're unhappy with your Wi-Fi, you might be tempted to buy one of these useless networking upgrades, but I'm here to say: wait a bit. You may be able to fix the problem without spending a penny instead.

It's a sad fact of life that, when it comes to tech, things often get worse rather than better. Google Search used to be good and is now horrific, streaming services used to be simple and are now horribly fragmented, and printers have become actively hostile. Google's and Amazon's smart speakers are no different, but thankfully there is an alternative that bucks the trend.

Christopher Nolan is a tier above the rest. Few filmmakers wield more power and influence in today's Hollywood than Nolan. His name alone can sell a movie. A "Christopher Nolan movie" is now an event, and his latest offering, The Odyssey, will be one of 2026's lasting memories.

Windows 11 is fairly customizable even without reaching for external solutions. It's just that Microsoft scattered many of its customization options all over the place instead of keeping them together in the Personalization tab. You can find some in other sections of Windows Settings, some are hidden away in places you have to go out of your way to access, and others can only be enabled via PowerShell.

The solar revolution is in full swing, and for good reason. Making free energy while the sun shines is good for you and good for the planet, and a home battery system seems like the next logical step.

Excel's SUMIF and SUMIFS functions both let you add up values that match criteria you specify. The problem is that many people treat them as separate tools: SUMIF for one condition, SUMIFS for multiple conditions.

HP's OmniBook 3 might not pack the latest-and-greatest processor, but it still delivers solid performance for the price. I was actually quite impressed by the IPS display and performance of this mid-range laptop, and I think you will be, too.

Not every week can be a banger of new material on HBO Max, but that's OK. When your back catalog includes some of the best series ever out on television, a quiet week is just an invite to crack open the vault.

Linux isn't really just one operating system. It's the bones of an operating system, in the form of the Linux kernel, but everything beyond that is up for debate.

Android Auto is all about convenience, and for a long time, that's all I cared about. Google Maps and Waze work well enough that it's easy to ignore what they're doing in the background, right up until you look at the actual data categories they pull from your device. Once you see that list, going back to treating them like neutral tools gets a lot harder to do.