Blogroll

Plex is great, but setting up and maintaining a home server is more effort than many people want. If you only want to use it for music and audiobooks, you don't need to go to that trouble. You might already have a simpler alternative that you're ignoring. It's YouTube Music.

Google is changing the way we install Android apps from developers that haven't registered with Google. There will be ramifications for those of us who use Android with open-source apps and alternative app stores. Google says these changes are in the name of security, and that's valid—but what about the far more numerous and far more dangerous threats that exist inside the Play Store?

The picture above is of a wireless USB dongle, and if you've used proprietary 2.4Ghz USB mice, keyboards, or game controllers, you know that your computer doesn't know the difference between those devices and wired USB versions of them.

Online prediction platform, Polymarket, is starting to block IP addresses from VPNs and asking some users to identify themselves, The Information first reported.

Due to regional regulations and international sanctions, Polymarket is blocked in 33 countries and several regions. But people in those places could, in theory, use a VPN, or Virtual Private Network, to mask their real location. According to The Information, Polymarket has now made it harder to use VPNs. It's blocking certain IP addresses associated with VPNs and blocking accounts with suspicious connection patterns.

If it doesn't start enforcing its official policy, Polymarket could risk regulatory action, The Information reported.

Polymarket is also apparently asking some customers for their identities to "access faster trading technology," the report states. This marks a shift from the market's previous model of anonymous trading, TechRadar reported.

The news comes during a broader crackdown on VPNs in the U.S. and elsewhere. Utah now bans using VPNs to visit porn sites, though the law doesn't go into effect for Aylo websites like Pornhub until Sept. The UK is also considering a VPN ban for children following a spike in usage after the enactment of its age verification law, the Online Safety Act.

Age verification laws require proof of age, like a government ID or a facial scan, to see explicit content or content otherwise deemed "harmful to minors." Two studies on the burgeoning laws state that they don't work to keep minors off porn sites, and instead infringe on adults' First Amendment rights in the case of U.S. laws.

Last year, First Amendment experts warned Mashable of VPN bans as "second-order censorship." When people work around the initial law, in this case, age verification, then further regulations ensue.

A used sports sedan market is full of compromises, but every so often a model comes along that completely breaks the usual value equation. Most buyers expect to choose between performance, luxury, or affordability, yet a few rare vehicles manage to blend all three into a single package once depreciation kicks in. That’s exactly where this Korean performance sedan now sits, offering serious power, a refined cabin, and everyday usability for the price of a new economy car.

Android is often seen as a Google product, and in many ways it is. Google and its services sit at the center of the experience, but underneath all of that, Android is still built on an open-source foundation, which means the core system doesn’t actually require Google to function the way most people assume it does.

Some smart home devices are so good that I fall in love with them the instant I start using them. That's not always the case, however. There are plenty of smart home devices that I soon grew to hate, although I still use some of them every day.

If your Netflix queue has been feeling a little repetitive lately, it might be time to revisit some of the platform’s most critically acclaimed original shows and refresh your watch list.

If you've just moved into a new home and found out it has Cat5e Ethernet wiring, don't fret. The same goes if you're considering upgrading your home Ethernet from Cat5e to Cat6 or Cat6a but don't want to turn your house into a trench while running new cabling. Cat5e is, in fact, more than fast enough for most people. Unless you specifically need 10Gbps connections all over your house, you should stick with Cat5e wiring.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, major rental car companies sold off more than 770,000 vehicles to stay afloat amid the lockdowns. When national travel returned faster than expected after the lockdowns ended, those same companies didn't have enough cars to meet demand, and daily rates nearly doubled at airports across the country.

Website builder Wix has laid off 20 percent of its staff, amounting to 1,000 employees, Reuters and others have reported.

On May 28, Wix cofounder and CEO Avishai Abrahami shared his internal message to the Wix team on X, stating that the reasons behind the layoff are the strengthening of the Israeli shekel against the U.S. dollar (Wix is an Israeli company) and the "fast evolution of AI capabilities."

"As the majority of our teams are Israel-based, a very meaningful portion of our costs are shekel-denominated, while our revenue is largely dollar-denominated," Abrahami wrote of the former. "This creates a structural pressure on our ability to operate at our current scale. It is a reality that directly shapes what is sustainable for our company."

In terms of AI, Abrahami wrote that companies need to adapt to AI changes in order to compete, and that "We are moving to a structure with fewer levels between any member of our leadership and the most junior person on the team."

It's only the latest announcement of a major tech company laying off workers to usher in AI, including Meta, Snap, Amazon, and Pinterest. A Dec. 2025 report stated that AI was linked to 50,000 job cuts last year.

If you spend time around serious Linux users, you'll likely hear a reference to "swap space." Or maybe you wondered what the swap partition that your Linux installation program created is. Virtual memory and swap space can be confusing. Here's what you need to know on Linux.

The combination of Termux and Android devices is the perfect pairing for any home lab enthusiast or tech hobbyist. Fire Tablets, in particular, offer a unique twist on home lab experimentation.

Changing your DNS server used to feel straightforward. Pick Google, Cloudflare, Quad9, or whatever else. Type in some IP addresses. Call it a day.

Ryobi once offered a clever fix to many issues, but time has proven to be the death of a few of them. As tools age, we find better, easier ways to use them, and problems of the past tend to disappear even more quickly than their solutions did. Ryobi was fixing niche problems while it was fixing garage problems, but that time has ended. Today, you may have something in your pocket or garage that caused the end of a tool line. Luckily, this only meant that problems disappeared, since their solutions are gone too.

When you use Linux, there are two dominant and well-established desktop environments that reign supreme: KDE and GNOME. I prefer GNOME, but there's one KDE feature so good that I've found a way not to do without.

In April, Reuters reported that Meta would track U.S. employees' mouse movements and keystrokes to train its AI agents. Weeks later, Meta laid off 8,000 employees, citing its AI push. Now, the company is facing backlash from remaining employees over the tracking tool, called Model Capability Initiative (MCI), which may also violate European Union privacy rules, Reuters reports.

Last month, the company apparently told U.S. employees that it launched MCI to track how they work — including clicks and dropdown menu navigation — to build AI agents that can perform software tasks, Reuters reported. They were also told this would only impact employees in the U.S. and that privacy safeguards were in place.

Some employees have already complained about MCI, calling Meta an "Employee Data Extraction Factory," Reuters reported. One complaint is that the tool is using so much data that workers' home internet usage has spiked, and in some cases, using a month's quota in days. Another complaint is that MCI is more over-reaching than Meta lets on, extending to code changes, a computer's sleep and wake cycles, and URLs copied to a computer's clipboard.

An internal post about this apparently disappeared, two Meta employees told Reuters. Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold told the outlet that the post was "fundamentally inaccurate."

In a document reviewed by Reuters, Meta stated that MCI would capture the contents of any email or direct message sent to U.S. employees, regardless of the sender's location. According to a legal expert who spoke to Reuters, this may violate the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The question is whether data collection of EU resident data is considered "incidental" and whether the tool can pass a "purpose limitation" test.

Arnold told Reuters that MCI was installed only on U.S. employees' computers and that, "In the interest of transparency, we notified non-U.S. employees ‌that it was deployed on the computers of U.S. colleagues they may email or ⁠chat with in the normal course of business."

"We carefully considered and mitigated potential privacy risks in both the development and deployment of this tool, and we are committed to complying with applicable laws and regulations," Arnold stated to Reuters.

Earlier this month, Mashable reported that Meta (along with Google and TikTok) faces complaints from the EU regarding protections against financial scams.

Layoffs at other major tech companies this year, including Snapchat, Amazon, and Pinterest, have been pinned on AI. In 2025, AI was linked to 50,000 job cuts.

I love Android, but that's mostly because I can install whichever apps I need to fix the issues I have with how things ship out of the box. When setting up a new phone, I start by disabling disappointing apps and installing replacements. Here are four of the open source alternatives I turn to for features that the default Google apps just don't handle.

Over the past decade, Fedora has earned its reputation as the go-to cutting-edge Linux distro. But the landscape has changed. Today, several popular distros offer newer packages, faster updates, and comparable stability—making Fedora no longer the obvious default for Linux power users.

Installing Linux has a reputation for being difficult or technical, and depending on your choices, it could be. You'll find dozens of tutorials about dual-booting from one drive and manually working with partitions. Luckily, for the vast majority of people, none of that is necessary.