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Signal When it comes to WhatsApp alternatives, Signal is at the forefront. Its popularity is largely because of the company’s stance on user privacy. Signal is an end-to-end encrypted app, just like WhatsApp. The messaging service promises that all your data is encrypted and can’t be viewed by Signal or third parties. It’s a relatively small company run by a not-for-profit organization and survives on donations. RELATED: What Is Signal, and Why Is Everyone Using It?...

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Play Video Breath of the Wild rewrote much of the formula for open-world adventures, and its legacy can be seen across the gaming landscape. Originally destined for the Wii U, Nintendo decided to delay this Zelda entry to launch alongside the Nintendo Switch, and the game remains just as playable now as it did in 2017. This is the first truly open-world game in the Legend of Zelda franchise, but there’s no prior knowledge required to enjoy it if it’s your first outing....

What Is Xbox Smart Delivery? The idea behind the new Smart Delivery feature is simple: Once you’ve purchased one version of an Xbox game that supports Smart Delivery, you’ll always have access to it, even on future (and past) models of the Xbox. This will allow players to seamlessly move between multiple consoles and console generations as often as they like. The graphics, including video resolution, will change depending on which console generation they’re on, but it will always be optimized for that console specifically....

Before Microsoft and Intel dominated the PC market with a common platform, the CP/M operating system did something similar for small business machines in the late 1970s and early 1980s—until MS-DOS pulled the rug out from under it. Here’s more about CP/M, and why it lost out to MS-DOS. What Was CP/M, Anyway? CP/M was a text-based operating system created by American programmer Gary Kildall of Digital Research in 1974....

Everybody loves a quick fix and, thankfully, a lot of simple Windows optimizations are easy to apply. If you’re dealing with a sluggish Windows PC, you owe it to yourself to try one (or all!) of these tweaks. Audit Your Startup Programs You know how letting your web browser get bogged down with a pile of extensions just ruins the browsing experience? Well, Windows isn’t much different. Except instead of extensions, the dead weight comes from loading everything and the kitchen sink when Windows starts....

What Is Apple Silicon? Apple Silicon refers to Apple’s new class of processors seen on the Mac (and also the iPad) beginning in 2020. Previously, Apple used the same 64-bit x86 architecture seen in PCs, with chips made exclusively by Intel. Going forward, Apple is using ARM-based chips that are more like iPhone systems-on-chip (SoCs) than traditional PC processors. Apple Silicon and x86 use two very different processor architectures. The differences are complex but one of the key takeaways is that ARM-based processors use a simplified instruction set that is better suited to mobile applications, which means they consume less power than their x86 counterparts....

Outlook Online can detect when an email contains reservation or booking information and automatically adds the details to your calendar. Here’s how to turn the automatic feature on and choose what gets added to your schedule. By default, Outlook Online will automatically add flight, car, and hotel reservations to your calendar. You can choose to turn those off, if you want, and also choose to have any of the following events automatically added:...

The central processing unit (CPU) in your computer does the computational work—running programs, basically. But modern CPUs offer features like multiple cores and hyper-threading. Some PCs even use multiple CPUs. We’re here to help sort it all out. RELATED: Why You Can’t Use CPU Clock Speed to Compare Computer Performance The clock speed for a CPU used to be enough when comparing performance. Things aren’t so simple anymore. A CPU that offers multiple cores or hyper-threading may perform significantly better than a single-core CPU of the same speed that doesn’t feature hyper-threading....

You can open PowerPoint from the Windows Command Prompt. Using this method, you can add additional parameters that let you do things like start PowerPoint in Safe Mode for troubleshooting, or start with a specific template. How to Run PowerPoint with a Command There are two ways to open PowerPoint from the Command Prompt—one of which you need to know to find out which directory the “powerpnt.exe” file is located in....

Here’s How Much Electricity Christmas Lights Use As you would expect, there is a significant difference in the cost of running traditional and incandescent and LED Christmas lights—not unlike the big difference between using traditional incandescent bulbs in your home and LED bulbs. Let’s look at how much energy each type uses. Traditional Incandescent Bulbs Traditional Christmas lights are little incandescent bulbs. They come in two major flavors. “Mini” Christmas lights are the type with tiny little cylindrical bulbs that look like tiny fairy-sized glass candles....

Windows Defender, integrated into Windows 10, runs in the background and scans your files for malware. To improve performance for tasks like compiling code or running virtual machines, you can add an exclusion and Windows Defender will never scan those files. Exclusions can also help if you’re running into false positives where Windows Defender marks legitimate files as malware. Warning: Be careful about what you exclude. Windows Defender won’t scan your excluded files and directories for malware....

Google Assistant has so many features that it can be hard to keep track of them all. One of the most futuristic and powerful features is Interpreter Mode. If you use this feature often, you should create a home screen shortcut. While there are plenty of apps for language translation, Google Assistant’s Interpreter Mode aims to be more than these. As the name implies, Interpreter Mode is meant to facilitate conversations between people who speak different languages....

Sticky notes are great for quickly noting something down and making sure it’s easily accessible. You can bring some of the same functionality to your iPhone home screen thanks to widgets that were first introduced in iOS 14. RELATED: How to Add and Remove Widgets from the Home Screen on iPhone The Sticky Widgets app closely mimics the real-life sticky notes experience. Once you add a widget (in small, medium, or large size), you can tap on it to edit the text....

It’s good computer hygiene to clear your browsing data from time to time. But if you share a computer, it might be best to do this every time you close the browser. Thankfully, Microsoft Edge lets you automatically delete your browsing history. The Microsoft Edge web browser on Windows 10 and Mac lets you clear your browsing and personal data each time you quit the browser. In fact, Edge lets you do this with a keyboard shortcut as well....

Turn on Reader View on iPhone, iPad, and Mac If you’re new to Reader Mode, here’s the rundown. When you open a supported page (most articles on the web are supported) on Safari for iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you will see an “aA” button in the URL bar. RELATED: How to Use and Tweak Reader Mode in Safari On your iPhone or iPad, simply tap and hold this button to enter Reader View....

Black colors may look washed out and gray if you connect your PC to its display via an HDMI cable, and it’s not your display’s fault. This is due to the way your graphics card is converting data to colors, and there’s an easy fix. RGB Full vs. RGB Limited PCs, TVs, and other devices represent colors using a range of numbers. “RGB Full” represents colors using values from 0 to 255....

Minecraft is a game that lends itself to hundreds of hours of exploration and building. Don’t let your creations go up in a puff of dying-hard-drive smoke; read on as we show you how to locate and (automatically) back up your critical Minecraft files. Why Back Up Your Minecraft Universe As you can imagine the word around the neighborhood is that those How-To Geek guys know computers and love Minecraft, so we’ve received more than a few panicked phone calls and knocks on the door from neighborhood parents whose children’s elaborate Minecraft creations have gone missing....

There are some people you never want to hear from. You can’t stop them from sending you emails, but you can set up Microsoft Outlook to automatically delete the emails as soon as they arrive. Here’s how. There are two primary methods for automatically deleting emails in Outlook: Rules and Sweep. Rules are exactly what they sound like—rules for the Outlook client to follow. You can set up a rule that tells Outlook to permanently delete emails from a particular sender as soon as they arrive....

The primary email address for your Microsoft account is what you use to sign into Windows and other Microsoft services. If you’d prefer to use a different address than the one you signed up with–even a non-Microsoft address–it’s an easy change to make. If you’re using a Microsoft account to sign into Windows, you’re not stuck using the account you signed up with. Maybe you originally created an Outlook.com address, but prefer to use your Gmail address instead....

Tired of seeing backgrounds provided by Microsoft on your Windows 10 lock screen? With a trip to Settings, you can choose a custom background image or even set up a custom slideshow from a group of images. Here’s how to set it up. First, open “Settings” by clicking the “Start” button and selecting the small gear. Or you can press Windows+i on your keyboard. In “Settings,” select “Personalization.” In “Personalization,” select “Lock screen” from the sidebar....