Inhoudsopgave van March 2025 - PCWorld

Microsoft will release the last update for Windows 10 with the Patchday on October 14, 2025, after which this version of Windows will no longer receive any updates. What does this mean for users? WINDOWS 10 IS NOT IMMEDIATELY INSECURE OR NO LONGER USABLE First of all, there is no need to panic about this date. Windows 10 will theoretically continue to run indefinitely, as Microsoft is not discontinuing the functionality of the operating system, there will “only” be no more updates from November. This means that you can continue to use Windows 10 in principle, but no more security gaps will be closed, for example. Of course, given that cyberattacks on companies and private individuals continue to increase, this can be a problem for Windows 10 users in the…

I think it’s fair to say that people are frustrated with Google these days between the deluge of advertisements and AI-powered results of questionable utility. Normally, swearing at your computer only helps in a placebo effect, but it turns out that throwing in an F-bomb might actually improve the quality of Google search results. Heads up, there’s going to be a lot of swearing in this article, absolutely none of which I will enjoy. I’m definitely not giggling like a third grader while I write this—nope, not at all. Ars Technica reports that the latest tech tip making the rounds on social media is that you can disable Google’s Gemini AI-powered search overviews if you add some casual cursing to your search query. Some cursory testing shows that, indeed, modifying your…

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 are real, but they’re not as spectacular as many gamers hoped at first glance—at least when you aren’t using DLSS 4. I’m worried about what that means for the $550 RTX 5070 PC that gamers seemed so jazzed about, and whether the entire RTX 50-series could wind up being a flop if DLSS 4’s fantastic new Multi Frame Generation fails to pick up steam fast. (It should!) And I have the numbers to back up my fears. The Blackwell-powered RTX 50-series doesn’t deliver much improvement in value or raw rendering performance from generation to generation, full stop. The GeForce RTX 5090 brute forces its way atop the benchmark charts, thanks to Nvidia cramming it with 33 percent more CUDA cores than the RTX 4090, which…

Acer is all in with AI computers, having now released half a dozen machines with the AI oomph to qualify for Microsoft’s in-development Copilot designation. The largest of them so far is the Acer Swift 16 AI, which sports a lovely 16-inch OLED screen and the latest Intel Lunar Lake CPU. This laptop is thin and light with a gorgeous display and ample connectivity options. The keyboard and trackpad are solid, notwithstanding the rather unnecessary LED AI indicator. However, there are faster computers out there for the same price, and the AI features could be more robust. It’s good for the MSRP but even better if you can find it on sale. SPECS AND FEATURES Acer has used several different chipsets for its AI PCs, and some machines have multiple…

Small, compact, and versatile, the X1 Max is nice 10Gbps pocket data-transportation if you don’t deal with large amounts of data. When you do, performance heads south in a hurry. FEATURES The X1 Max is as typical as a USB thumb drive gets in terms of shape. It’s a svelte black rectangle around 2.5 inches long, 0.8 inches wide, and 0.3 inches thick. Weight is a negligible 0.42 ounces. However, typical stops there, as you can tell by the two removable end caps. Pop off the larger one for a Type-A connector, and the shorter one for a Type-C connector—no adapters required. Cool. The internals are obviously 10Gbps USB and NVMe, given the 1GBps top speed we saw. The five-year warranty Teamgroup provides is exceptional for a USB thumb drive,…

Remember when you first signed up for Netflix streaming? It was nice. A few bucks a month for tons of good movies, some pretty decent original shows, zero ads, and you could finally ditch the nightmare that was cable. Fast-forward to 2025, and streaming is the nightmare. It splits up everything you want to watch across a dozen different platforms, all of which now have ads just so they can make you pay to remove them. They remove content constantly, they’re full to bursting with things you don’t care about or need (Hades the video game, a dozen horrible Christmas movies every year, and NFL games on the same ticket, what?) and the price is always, always, always going up. From the consumer perspective, streaming video services are objectively worse…

In a few months, Windows 10 will take its final bow. That means folks will have to start paying for security updates, which has many people thinking about buying a new computer. One alternative to Windows 11 computers is the Chromebook, a laptop that exclusively runs Google’s ChromeOS operating system. There are many advantages to switching to a Chromebook. Not only are they largely virus-free, but they’re also very affordable. Google also has a new Welcome Back feature that summarizes your recent activity, formatting it as an easy-to-follow visual overview. WHAT IS A CHROMEBOOK? When the first Chromebooks were released just over a decade ago, these inexpensive, extremely stripped-down models were limited to services that could be run via a web browser. Since then, Chromebooks have grown and today’s models…

Bill Gates was once the embodiment of the computer industry. Though the co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft retired over a decade ago to pursue full-time philanthropy, people still listen when he talks—and in a recent interview, he talked about Intel. Intel is having a rough time of late. The chipmaker’s stock is practically in freefall. It’s had high-profile failures for its most powerful CPUs, and rivals AMD and especially Nvidia are kicking its silicon butt in the AI arms race. In December, the company’s CEO, Pat Gelsinger, stepped down after working for Intel on and off for decades. Yeah, it’s bad. Intel is also one of Microsoft’s most important partners, so it’s no surprise that the company’s woes came up in an interview with the Associated Press. “I am stunned…

Bitwarden is a beloved password manager for good reason—it’s feature-rich and its paid subscriptions cost bare pennies ($10 a year). The service is also proactive about continually strengthening security for its users. Here’s the latest security update for cloud-hosted personal accounts: Starting in February, if you don’t have two-factor authentication enabled, a confirmation code will be sent to your email address when logging in from unrecognized devices. It must be entered to approve the sign-in attempt. In its announcement of the new feature, Bitwarden says a unrecognized device is any previously not used to log in, one where the Bitwarden app was uninstalled or one that had its Bitwarden login cookies wiped. The service will treat all of these scenarios as new devices, forcing this verification step. On the whole, this…

You may have heard the news about the PowerSchool breach—hackers breaking into a software system that helps schools keep track of student data, then demanding a ransom in exchange for not leaking the information. Depending on the school and its data storage practices, the student data stolen can include social security numbers, in addition to names, addresses, and birth dates. Bad actors having your child’s name and social security number is a risk with potential far-reaching consequences. Scammers can trash their ability to open a credit card, get a bank account, land a job, or secure an apartment. And since most people don’t expect a child to be targeted this way, the damage often has long set in by the time it’s discovered. While PowerSchool recently announced it would provide…

When you think of VPNs, ExpressVPN is likely one of the first names that pops into your head. That’s no surprise as the company has grown into a household name over recent years and become synonymous with online privacy. It is, and has been, one of the most trustworthy and notable VPN providers on the market from the very beginning. And with each successive year the service just keeps improving. Since our last review, ExpressVPN has undertaken two more independent security audits, launched post-quantum encryption for all apps, and added its own suite of identity-theft protection tools. It has become a one-stop privacy and security powerhouse. ExpressVPN in brief: P2P allowed: Yes Simultaneous device connections: 8 Business location: British Virgin Islands Number of servers: 3,000-plus Number of country locations: 105…

Ring offers one of the best smart home security ecosystems on the market, encompassing everything from security cameras and video doorbells to indoor and outdoor lighting, sensors, and professionally monitored home security systems. The flexible Ring Battery Doorbell, introduced late last year, makes for a great introduction to that ecosystem. But that recommendation comes with a caveat: You’ll need to sign up for a Ring Home subscription if you want to unlock all this product’s features—and that includes the ability to record video. Without one, you’ll receive notifications when someone rings your doorbell, but you’ll only be able to get a live view of what’s happening in front of its camera. I’m going to assume you know that already, so I’ll explain how much those subscriptions cost and what they include…

Love Microsoft Copilot? Hate Microsoft Copilot? It doesn’t really matter: Chances are that if you’ve signed up for Microsoft 365, you’re now paying more for Microsoft’s integration of Copilot features, which was done without your consent. But there’s a way out, for now. Microsoft is making available “classic” versions of its Microsoft 365 Personal and Microsoft 365 Family plans that remove the Copilot surcharge. But, as Microsoft said when it announced the changes, these new Classic plans are available for a limited time. This article will show you how to switch back. Right now, here’s what you’ll see when you sign up for Microsoft 365, with the option to pay $12.99 a month and $9.99 a month, too. Those reflect the higher rates with the Copilot surcharge included. To obtain…

Invented back in 1971, the floppy disk is remembered as one of the most iconic and reliable disk storage solutions. Specifically, it was the 3.5-inch floppy that became a literal icon, one we still use today on buttons meant for saving data (even as Gen Zers scratch their heads over it). Today, the 3.5-inch floppy disk is out of production, but you might have a few in your possession. Can you still use them on modern PCs? Surprisingly, yes! Windows 11 can handle them without too much pain. Here’s what you need to know. WHY USE A FLOPPY DISK? The 3.5-inch floppy disk dominated the disk storage medium for more than a decade, and hundreds of millions of disks were produced. Many of them are still sitting in attics and…

USB labeling has long been a mystery for consumers. Terms like “USB 3.2 Gen 2” or “SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps” have caused more confusion than clarity, and shopping for USB accessories can feel like a crapshoot. The good news is that the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) is trying to clean things up with newly simplified logos and icons that better convey USB speed and performance at a glance. This move by the USB-IF comes in response to criticism that existing version designations—such as “USB 3.2” or “USB4v2”—are too complicated. Instead of emphasizing technical terms, why not focus on what consumers actually care about—how fast data is transferred, how much power can be transmitted, and so on. The change should make it easier to understand the capabilities of any USB device or cable…

Microsoft is taking an aggressive step toward lowering the price of top-tier AI reasoning, placing what appears to be unlimited access to OpenAI’s o1 model directly within Copilot’s new “Think Deeper” feature. What’s important here is the word “free”: OpenAI released the o1 model in December, and company chief executive Sam Altman promised that it would be the most powerful model available. But it came with a catch: two subscriptions. OpenAI’s ChatGPT Pro charges a whopping $200 a month for unlimited access to the model. The company’s $20 a month service, ChatGPT Plus, also allows access to the o1 model, but with limited access. On Wednesday, Microsoft’s chief of Microsoft AI, Mustafa Suleyman, announced that access to the o1 model would be available to Copilot users “everywhere at no cost”.…

The wait is finally over. The long-awaited GeForce RTX 5090 landed on store shelves at the start of this year—and friends, the flagship graphics card for Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture is an absolute monster. It should be for $2,000, of course. While the RTX 5090’s leap in raw gaming performance isn’t anywhere as massive as the 4090’s was over its predecessor, it blows the pants off any GPU we’ve ever seen before, with no notable flaws in its technical configuration. But while raw gaming performance is welcome, I suspect that the GeForce RTX 50-series will live or die on the back of DLSS 4, a new generation of Nvidia’s vaunted AI-powered performance-boosting technologies. A lot of Blackwell’s improvements were focused on Nvidia’s AI tensor cores, and Blackwell was designed hand-in-hand…

Logitech is generally the go-to brand for PC accessories, as long as you’re not hunting for gaming gear. And Logitech makes good stuff (though there are a few exceptions, but it also demands top dollar for its high-end accessories. The MX Keys Mini goes for a cool $100, and is hard to find at a significant discount. Enter Keychron. Generally known for its mechanical boards, the company has been releasing an absolute torrent of designs, including a nonmechanical take on the sleek and slim designer keyboard. The B1 Pro is, if not a blatant ripoff of the MX Keys Mini, definitely inspired by it and other similar boards like the Apple Magic Keyboard. Here’s the twist: It’s better than both of them. While lacking a bit of polish, Keychron’s little board…

Even if you aren’t a huge techie, you probably know about all the big, mainstream apps that are fundamental to how we use our PCs. I’m talking Word, Outlook, Chrome, Slack, Dropbox, and so on. You know, right? But there are many, many, many awesome free apps out there that can seriously improve your PC and your workflows, unlock new tools and features, and just make your PC experience better overall. If you want to wring a little more out of your PC, here are some of the best hidden gem apps that are super useful and available for free. 1. FERDIUM FOR CENTRALIZING ALL THE WEB APPS AND SERVICES YOU USE IN ONE PLACE If you have a lot of permanently open browser tabs for all the different web…

A new year means another tax season—and all the associated headaches. That means not just navigating the byzantine maze of U.S. tax code, but dodging related scams. One particular tax scam is especially thorny since it can happen right under your nose. In an attempt to collect a refund, a fraudster files a tax return in your name. But you won’t know it until you go to file yourself and discover a mess to untangle. The risk of this happening is higher in 2025 after last year’s repeated data breaches. At this point, most everyone’s personal information (including social security numbers) is findable somewhere on the dark web. Fortunately, the IRS makes this kind of scam easy to block. On the agency’s website, you can request an identity protection PIN,…