How-To Geek

Android phone in a bit of a lull? Before you give it a kick and toss, a small change here and some optimization over there can dramatically improve the speed, performance, and efficiency of your smartphone.

CrossOver, the Windows app compatibility layer for Linux and Mac, just got a massive upgrade. The latest update is now based on Wine 11, allowing Borderlands 4, Helldivers 2, Starfield, and other games to finally work on Mac.

NVMe SSDs are all the rage because they're small, cost-effective, and blazing fast. Unfortunately, if you've built or purchased a PC in recent years, you may have noticed that there aren't nearly as many M.2 NVMe slots on your motherboards as you might like. That is where PCIe bifurcation comes in.

Most of us think of YouTube as a place where the content is made by regular people, rather than professional outfits. For the most part, this is still true, but fundamentally, YouTube is technically no different from any streaming service. Which is why you'll also find honest-to-goodness movies on YouTube that are both legal and free to watch.

You can run pretty much any popular Linux distribution on your Android phone in a few simple steps. With the right scripts, you can even install a fully-featured GUI distro with the desktop environment and window manager of your choice. Let me show you how.

Home Assistant Analytics shows that the MQTT integration is used in nearly half of all active Home Assistant installations. This places it eleventh on the list of the most installed integrations for users of the smart home software. What is it that makes this integration quite so popular?

Before there was Apple Silicon, before there were Intel-powered Mac computers, there were PowerPC Mac computers. If you still have a PowerPC G4 or G5 Mac, it could potentially use the modern web again, thanks to the PowerFox project.

Do you love Linux Mint but think that the desktop looks a bit too plain and boring? Well, if you’re using the Cinnamon edition, you can easily make the desktop more functional using Cinnamon Spices. Here’s a quick overview of what they are and how they work.

Unexpected car repairs are among the most common emergency expenses for American households. Since our vehicles are a necessary part of our everyday routine, the thought of being without one or having to fork over a substantial amount of money for repairs is anxiety-inducing.

The first computers I used in my life had nothing but floppy drives. One for the operating system and one for the software you wanted to run. Even as hard drives and CD-ROM drives appeared on the scene, the humble floppy stuck around for most of that time until USB flash drives finally filled that need.

Looking around at lesser-known operating systems, you've likely come across something called BSD, or FreeBSD. Both Linux and BSD are open source, Unix-like operating systems, but they're different. Here's what you need to know.

Every Linux system is unique, and other Unix-based systems like macOS and BSD introduce even more differences. But they all have a reliable, consistent set of tools at their heart, and these tools help define the Linux experience.

I don't know about you, but I have Olympic fever. It's inspiring to watch the world's best athletes compete at the 2026 Winter Olympics in the Italian regions of Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo. As an American, I'm particularly glued to the competitions featuring Team USA, especially the medal rounds. I even found myself watching Olympic documentaries to get into the patriotic spirit.

It's no secret that Ryobi gets a lot of hate online. You've probably seen videos on social media poking fun at the bright lime-green tools, and asking for advice in a Reddit tool forum will quickly get responses about just how "bad" they are. If that's the case, why are they so popular, and why do DIYers keep buying them?

Have you ever noticed a game on your phone that you don't remember downloading? Have you ever updated your Android phone, only to find a dozen new apps you didn't ask for? If you want to stop this from happening, there are a few things you can try.

Today, portable storage media are common. External SSDs, microSD cards, USB sticks—we all have one (or several) of those. They're no longer seen as revolutionary products, but the Zip drive was one … for a time.

I've gotten a lot of use out of open source projects over the years. Eventually, I decided I wanted to give back. What can you do though when you've never coded an app or have money to contribute? It turns out, a lot.

Once you start a Jellyfin server and give it your personal media collection, you can start streaming it just like you would a regular streaming service. It doesn't cost a dime, and unlike competitors Plex and Emby, it's totally open source. Here's how to get started.

My friends think I’m crazy—and honestly, that’s nothing new. But in August 2024, I made a decision that still blows their minds.

The digital world is messy, noisy, and occasionally hostile, and I've tried to stay at least a little security-conscious as more of my life has moved online. For a long time, that meant using a password manager and calling it a day. Strong, unique passwords everywhere felt like the finish line. The problem is that threats have changed, and habits haven't always kept up. These days, relying on a password manager alone is a lot like locking your front door while leaving the windows open.