How-To Geek

Windows may be the most popular desktop OS, but it's not the most capable one. Linux outshines Windows in a number of areas—from full control over how your desktop looks to reviving decade-old hardware abandoned by Microsoft’s OS. To prove my point, here are five things Linux can do, but Windows can't!

When Android storage starts running low, we usually point fingers at apps, videos, and other large files and start deleting them. While that can help, there are many overlooked storage hogs that take up more space than you’d expect. Let’s look at what they are and how you can clear out that clutter.

If you're nostalgic for the era of CRT TVs and think you might want to use one to watch shows and movies, you might want to think about what you're getting yourself into.

Have you heard people talking about Docker but have no idea what it is or if you need it? Docker is a fantastic tool that I think belongs in every homelab—here’s what Docker is, and why it is the one tool that makes my homelab easy to manage.

The average American now must spend over $50,000 for that new car smell, with luxury buyers paying even more. However, in the pre-owned market, you can bring home a premium luxury SUV that will exceed most expectations and will cost only about $20,000. And we are not talking about an SUV with 300,000 miles that has been sitting at the bottom of a lake for six months.

Modern smartphones are expensive devices, and if you're not careful, the costs can spiral even further. There are some common smartphone habits that could be costing you a significant amount of money.

It's fair to say that streaming has completely revolutionized the way that many of us consume media. While streaming offers convenience, there are some key reasons why owning physical media is still superior.

This week, a message popped up on my wife's Facebook page. It asked her if she wanted to continue seeing ads on Facebook and Instagram, or whether she would prefer to remove ads by paying a monthly fee. I was intrigued by how much Meta was charging for the ad-free service.

Winter is tough on your car. Snow and ice make driving more challenging, cold temperatures can cause starting issues, and, more often than not, frozen doors leave you scrambling to find another way to get to work in the early morning hours.

Own a Kindle Scribe and looking for avenues to use it beyond reading and jotting down notes? Here are eight things you can do with it that go beyond its battle-tested use cases.

Do you still pay for third-party antivirus software like Norton or McAfee? You may be surprised to learn that there’s no real benefit to doing so. Software like this is mostly obsolete today.

In recent weeks, Microsoft has focused on improving Excel's end-to-end efficiency. Whether you're looking to create complex files more efficiently, import data via formulas and clean it in the cloud, get help to fix errors, or send your analysis as PDF reports, these updates are set to transform your February workflow.

Self-hosting is both an entertaining hobby if you like computers, and a reasonable way to save a few dollars if you swap out your subscription services for something you host yourself. It does come with a bit of risk, however, if you put your self-hosted services online so they're accessible from the internet. I was curious about what kind of attacks my server was getting, so I set up a honeypot to see what happened.

Home Assistant can feel intimidating, especially when there are a whole bunch of extra terms that you need to understand. Here’s a cheat sheet so that you can quickly get up to speed.

Linux has a somewhat contradictory reputation. On the one hand, it's known as a rock-solid operating system that never goes wrong and offers countless hours of uptime. On the other hand, it's also known for being easy to break in the wrong hands when you start digging around under the hood.

We tend to think of the M.2 NVMe slots on our computer motherboards as "SSD" slots used only for storage. However, fundamentally, these are just a different form factor for the PCIe slots we plug all sorts of peripherals into. Most of the time these days, an M.2 NVMe slot offers four lanes of PCIe connectivity, which makes it equivalent to a PCIe 4X slot in its full-size form.

When we think "high-tech" we tend to think of devices like smartphones that have a short life cycle. When it comes to home appliances that we don't replace often, it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the latest washing machines, vacuums, stoves, and other mundane devices are still pretty much the same as they've always been.

Among all automakers today, there is a renewed focus on customer service and the dealership experience. Not unlike many industries, legacy auto manufacturers and their dealer networks face the same headwinds in attracting consumers. They are competing against emerging brands, negative public perceptions, and the background noise of everyday life.

If you don't have $100 (or more) for a standalone Windows license, then you can download any distro of Linux for free right now and have a working computer in just a few minutes. However, the cost of something can be measured in more than just dollar bills, and there are more than a few ways Linux ends up costing you more than a commercial operating system like Windows or macOS.

Paramount+ has released its February lineup, and tucked amongst all the glowing mid-season TV premieres are new shows and movies worth highlighting. Most notably, the month kicks off with the 68th Annual Grammy Awards and features the series finale of Showtime’s frantically thrilling character study Coldwater.