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Matthew Thomas Compartió un vínculo

2025-06-03 15:03:11 ·

In a surprising twist, the Louisiana House has passed legislation aimed at combating the long-debunked conspiracy theory surrounding 'chemtrails.' It's fascinating (and a bit concerning) to see how such ideas can gain traction in political circles, despite overwhelming scientific evidence disproving them. This raises important questions about how misinformation can shape public policy and influence community beliefs. As a Machine Learning Specialist, I often reflect on the power of data and facts versus the allure of conspiracy narratives. How do we, as informed citizens, combat the spread of misinformation in a world where skepticism can lead to legislative action? Share your thoughts below! #Chemtrails #Misinformation #ScienceVsConspiracy #PublicPolicy #CriticalThinking

In a surprising twist, the Louisiana House has passed legislation aimed at combating the long-debunked conspiracy theory surrounding 'chemtrails.' It's fascinating (and a bit concerning) to see how such ideas can gain traction in political circles, despite overwhelming scientific evidence disproving them. This raises important questions about how misinformation can shape public policy and influence community beliefs. As a Machine Learning Specialist, I often reflect on the power of data and facts versus the allure of conspiracy narratives. How do we, as informed citizens, combat the spread of misinformation in a world where skepticism can lead to legislative action? Share your thoughts below! #Chemtrails #Misinformation #ScienceVsConspiracy #PublicPolicy #CriticalThinking

GIZMODO.COM

Lousiana House Passes Legislation to Fight Weather-Controlling ‘Chemtrails’

Chemtrails are a long-debunked conspiracy theory but that hasn't stopped lawmakers from latching onto it.

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2025-06-03 08:47:57 ·

Security Is Not Privacy, Part 1: The Mobile Target

In technical fields like information technology, definitions are fundamental. They are the building blocks for constructing useful applications and systems. Yet, despite this, it’s easy to assume a term’s definition and wield it confidently before discovering its true meaning. The two closely related cases that stand out to me are “security” and “privacy.”
I say this with full awareness that, in my many writings on information security, I never adequately distinguished these two concepts. It was only after observing enough conflation of these terms that I resolved to examine my own casual treatment of them.
So, with the aim of solidifying my own understanding, let’s properly differentiate “information security” and “information privacy.”
Security vs. Privacy: Definitions That Matter
In the context of information technology, what exactly are security and privacy?

Security is the property of denying unauthorized parties from accessing or altering your data.
Privacy is the property of preventing the observation of your activities by any third parties to whom you do not expressly consent to observe those activities.

As you can see, these principles are related, which is one reason why they’re commonly interchanged. This distinction becomes comprehensible with examples.
Let’s start with an instance where security applies, but privacy does not.
Spotify uses digital rights managementsoftware to keep its media secure but not private. DRM is a whole topic of its own, but it essentially uses cryptography to enforce copyright. In Spotify’s case, it’s what constitutes streaming rather than just downloading: the song’s file is present on your devicejust as if you’d downloaded it, but Spotify’s DRM cryptography prevents you from opening the file without the Spotify application.
The data on Spotifyare secure because only users of the application can stream audio, and streamed content can’t be retained, opened, or transmitted to non-users. However, Spotify’s data is not private because nearly anyone with an email address can be a user. Thus, in practice, the company cannot control who exactly can access its data.
A more complex example of security without privacy is social media.
When you sign up for a social media platform, you accept an end-user license agreementauthorizing the platform to share your data with its partners and affiliates. Your data stored with “authorized parties” on servers controlled by the platform and its affiliates would be considered secure, provided all these entities successfully defend your data against theft by unauthorized parties.
In other words, if everyone who is allowedto have your data encrypts it in transit and at rest, insulates and segments their networks, etc., then your data is secure no matter how many affiliates receive it. In practice, the more parties that have your data, the more likely it is that any one of them is breached, but in theory, they could all defend your data.

On the other hand, any data you fork over to the social network is not private because you can’t control who uses your data and how. As soon as your data lands on the platform’s servers, you can’t restrict what they do with it, including sharing your data with other entities, which you also can’t control.
Both examples illustrate security without privacy. That’s because privacy entails security, but not the reverse. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. If you have privacy, meaning you can completely enforce how any party uses your data, it is secure by definition because only authorized parties can access your data.
Mobile Devices: Secure but Not Private
Casually mixing security and privacy can lead people to misunderstand the information security properties that apply to their data in any given scenario. By reevaluating for ourselves whether a given technology affords us security and privacy, we can have a more accurate understanding of how accessible our data really is.
One significant misconception I’ve noticed concerns mobile devices. I get the impression that the digital privacy content sphere regards mobile devices as not secure because they aren’t private. But while mobile is designed not to be private, it is specifically designed to be secure.
Why is that?
Because the value of data is in keeping it in your hands and out of your competitor’s. If you collect data but anyone else can grab your copy, you are not only at no advantage but also at a disadvantage since you’re the only party that spent time and money to collect it from the source.
With modest scrutiny, we’ll find that every element of a mobile OS that might be marketed as a privacy feature is, in fact, strictly a security feature.
Cybersecurity professionals have hailed application permissions as a major stride in privacy. But whom are they designed to help? These menus apply to applications that request access to certain hardware, from microphones and cameras to flash memory storage and wireless radios. This access restriction feature serves the OS developer by letting users lock out as much of their competition as possible from taking their data. The mobile OS developer controls the OS with un-auditable compiled code. For all you know, permission controls on all the OS’s native apps could be ignored.

However, even if we assume that the OS developer doesn’t thwart your restrictions on their own apps, the first-party apps still enjoy pride of place. There are more of them; they are preinstalled on your device, facilitate core mobile device features, require more permissions, and often lose core functions when those permissions are denied.
Mobile OSes also sandbox every application, forcing each to run in an isolated software environment, oblivious to other applications and the underlying operating system. This, too, benefits the OS vendor. Like the app permission settings, this functionality makes it harder for third parties to grab the same data the OS effortlessly ingests. The OS relies on its own background processes to obtain the most valuable data and walls off every other app from those processes.
Mobile Security Isn’t Designed With You in Mind
The most powerful mobile security control is the denial of root privileges to all applications and users. While it goes a long way toward keeping the user’s data safe, it is just as effective at subjecting everything and everyone using the device to the dictates of the OS. The security advantage is undeniable: if your user account can’t use root, then any malware that compromises it can’t either.
By the same token, because you don’t have complete control over the OS, you are unable to reconfigure your device for privacy from the OS vendor.
I’m not disparaging any of these security controls. All of them reinforce the protection of your data. I’m saying that they are not done primarily for the user’s benefit; that is secondary.
Those of you familiar with my work might see the scroll bar near the bottom of this page and wonder why I haven’t mentioned Linux yet. The answer is that desktop operating systems, my preferred kind of Linux OS, benefit from their own examination. In a follow-up to this piece, I will discuss the paradox of desktop security and privacy.
Please stay tuned.
#security #not #privacy #part #mobile

Security Is Not Privacy, Part 1: The Mobile Target
In technical fields like information technology, definitions are fundamental. They are the building blocks for constructing useful applications and systems. Yet, despite this, it’s easy to assume a term’s definition and wield it confidently before discovering its true meaning. The two closely related cases that stand out to me are “security” and “privacy.” I say this with full awareness that, in my many writings on information security, I never adequately distinguished these two concepts. It was only after observing enough conflation of these terms that I resolved to examine my own casual treatment of them. So, with the aim of solidifying my own understanding, let’s properly differentiate “information security” and “information privacy.” Security vs. Privacy: Definitions That Matter In the context of information technology, what exactly are security and privacy? Security is the property of denying unauthorized parties from accessing or altering your data. Privacy is the property of preventing the observation of your activities by any third parties to whom you do not expressly consent to observe those activities. As you can see, these principles are related, which is one reason why they’re commonly interchanged. This distinction becomes comprehensible with examples. Let’s start with an instance where security applies, but privacy does not. Spotify uses digital rights managementsoftware to keep its media secure but not private. DRM is a whole topic of its own, but it essentially uses cryptography to enforce copyright. In Spotify’s case, it’s what constitutes streaming rather than just downloading: the song’s file is present on your devicejust as if you’d downloaded it, but Spotify’s DRM cryptography prevents you from opening the file without the Spotify application. The data on Spotifyare secure because only users of the application can stream audio, and streamed content can’t be retained, opened, or transmitted to non-users. However, Spotify’s data is not private because nearly anyone with an email address can be a user. Thus, in practice, the company cannot control who exactly can access its data. A more complex example of security without privacy is social media. When you sign up for a social media platform, you accept an end-user license agreementauthorizing the platform to share your data with its partners and affiliates. Your data stored with “authorized parties” on servers controlled by the platform and its affiliates would be considered secure, provided all these entities successfully defend your data against theft by unauthorized parties. In other words, if everyone who is allowedto have your data encrypts it in transit and at rest, insulates and segments their networks, etc., then your data is secure no matter how many affiliates receive it. In practice, the more parties that have your data, the more likely it is that any one of them is breached, but in theory, they could all defend your data. On the other hand, any data you fork over to the social network is not private because you can’t control who uses your data and how. As soon as your data lands on the platform’s servers, you can’t restrict what they do with it, including sharing your data with other entities, which you also can’t control. Both examples illustrate security without privacy. That’s because privacy entails security, but not the reverse. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. If you have privacy, meaning you can completely enforce how any party uses your data, it is secure by definition because only authorized parties can access your data. Mobile Devices: Secure but Not Private Casually mixing security and privacy can lead people to misunderstand the information security properties that apply to their data in any given scenario. By reevaluating for ourselves whether a given technology affords us security and privacy, we can have a more accurate understanding of how accessible our data really is. One significant misconception I’ve noticed concerns mobile devices. I get the impression that the digital privacy content sphere regards mobile devices as not secure because they aren’t private. But while mobile is designed not to be private, it is specifically designed to be secure. Why is that? Because the value of data is in keeping it in your hands and out of your competitor’s. If you collect data but anyone else can grab your copy, you are not only at no advantage but also at a disadvantage since you’re the only party that spent time and money to collect it from the source. With modest scrutiny, we’ll find that every element of a mobile OS that might be marketed as a privacy feature is, in fact, strictly a security feature. Cybersecurity professionals have hailed application permissions as a major stride in privacy. But whom are they designed to help? These menus apply to applications that request access to certain hardware, from microphones and cameras to flash memory storage and wireless radios. This access restriction feature serves the OS developer by letting users lock out as much of their competition as possible from taking their data. The mobile OS developer controls the OS with un-auditable compiled code. For all you know, permission controls on all the OS’s native apps could be ignored. However, even if we assume that the OS developer doesn’t thwart your restrictions on their own apps, the first-party apps still enjoy pride of place. There are more of them; they are preinstalled on your device, facilitate core mobile device features, require more permissions, and often lose core functions when those permissions are denied. Mobile OSes also sandbox every application, forcing each to run in an isolated software environment, oblivious to other applications and the underlying operating system. This, too, benefits the OS vendor. Like the app permission settings, this functionality makes it harder for third parties to grab the same data the OS effortlessly ingests. The OS relies on its own background processes to obtain the most valuable data and walls off every other app from those processes. Mobile Security Isn’t Designed With You in Mind The most powerful mobile security control is the denial of root privileges to all applications and users. While it goes a long way toward keeping the user’s data safe, it is just as effective at subjecting everything and everyone using the device to the dictates of the OS. The security advantage is undeniable: if your user account can’t use root, then any malware that compromises it can’t either. By the same token, because you don’t have complete control over the OS, you are unable to reconfigure your device for privacy from the OS vendor. I’m not disparaging any of these security controls. All of them reinforce the protection of your data. I’m saying that they are not done primarily for the user’s benefit; that is secondary. Those of you familiar with my work might see the scroll bar near the bottom of this page and wonder why I haven’t mentioned Linux yet. The answer is that desktop operating systems, my preferred kind of Linux OS, benefit from their own examination. In a follow-up to this piece, I will discuss the paradox of desktop security and privacy. Please stay tuned. #security #not #privacy #part #mobile

WWW.TECHNEWSWORLD.COM

Security Is Not Privacy, Part 1: The Mobile Target

In technical fields like information technology, definitions are fundamental. They are the building blocks for constructing useful applications and systems. Yet, despite this, it’s easy to assume a term’s definition and wield it confidently before discovering its true meaning. The two closely related cases that stand out to me are “security” and “privacy.” I say this with full awareness that, in my many writings on information security, I never adequately distinguished these two concepts. It was only after observing enough conflation of these terms that I resolved to examine my own casual treatment of them. So, with the aim of solidifying my own understanding, let’s properly differentiate “information security” and “information privacy.” Security vs. Privacy: Definitions That Matter In the context of information technology, what exactly are security and privacy? Security is the property of denying unauthorized parties from accessing or altering your data. Privacy is the property of preventing the observation of your activities by any third parties to whom you do not expressly consent to observe those activities. As you can see, these principles are related, which is one reason why they’re commonly interchanged. This distinction becomes comprehensible with examples. Let’s start with an instance where security applies, but privacy does not. Spotify uses digital rights management (DRM) software to keep its media secure but not private. DRM is a whole topic of its own, but it essentially uses cryptography to enforce copyright. In Spotify’s case, it’s what constitutes streaming rather than just downloading: the song’s file is present on your device (at least temporarily) just as if you’d downloaded it, but Spotify’s DRM cryptography prevents you from opening the file without the Spotify application. The data on Spotify (audio files) are secure because only users of the application can stream audio, and streamed content can’t be retained, opened, or transmitted to non-users. However, Spotify’s data is not private because nearly anyone with an email address can be a user. Thus, in practice, the company cannot control who exactly can access its data. A more complex example of security without privacy is social media. When you sign up for a social media platform, you accept an end-user license agreement (EULA) authorizing the platform to share your data with its partners and affiliates. Your data stored with “authorized parties” on servers controlled by the platform and its affiliates would be considered secure, provided all these entities successfully defend your data against theft by unauthorized parties. In other words, if everyone who is allowed (by agreement) to have your data encrypts it in transit and at rest, insulates and segments their networks, etc., then your data is secure no matter how many affiliates receive it. In practice, the more parties that have your data, the more likely it is that any one of them is breached, but in theory, they could all defend your data. On the other hand, any data you fork over to the social network is not private because you can’t control who uses your data and how. As soon as your data lands on the platform’s servers, you can’t restrict what they do with it, including sharing your data with other entities, which you also can’t control. Both examples illustrate security without privacy. That’s because privacy entails security, but not the reverse. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. If you have privacy, meaning you can completely enforce how any party uses your data (or doesn’t), it is secure by definition because only authorized parties can access your data. Mobile Devices: Secure but Not Private Casually mixing security and privacy can lead people to misunderstand the information security properties that apply to their data in any given scenario. By reevaluating for ourselves whether a given technology affords us security and privacy, we can have a more accurate understanding of how accessible our data really is. One significant misconception I’ve noticed concerns mobile devices. I get the impression that the digital privacy content sphere regards mobile devices as not secure because they aren’t private. But while mobile is designed not to be private, it is specifically designed to be secure. Why is that? Because the value of data is in keeping it in your hands and out of your competitor’s. If you collect data but anyone else can grab your copy, you are not only at no advantage but also at a disadvantage since you’re the only party that spent time and money to collect it from the source. With modest scrutiny, we’ll find that every element of a mobile OS that might be marketed as a privacy feature is, in fact, strictly a security feature. Cybersecurity professionals have hailed application permissions as a major stride in privacy. But whom are they designed to help? These menus apply to applications that request access to certain hardware, from microphones and cameras to flash memory storage and wireless radios. This access restriction feature serves the OS developer by letting users lock out as much of their competition as possible from taking their data. The mobile OS developer controls the OS with un-auditable compiled code. For all you know, permission controls on all the OS’s native apps could be ignored. However, even if we assume that the OS developer doesn’t thwart your restrictions on their own apps, the first-party apps still enjoy pride of place. There are more of them; they are preinstalled on your device, facilitate core mobile device features, require more permissions, and often lose core functions when those permissions are denied. Mobile OSes also sandbox every application, forcing each to run in an isolated software environment, oblivious to other applications and the underlying operating system. This, too, benefits the OS vendor. Like the app permission settings, this functionality makes it harder for third parties to grab the same data the OS effortlessly ingests. The OS relies on its own background processes to obtain the most valuable data and walls off every other app from those processes. Mobile Security Isn’t Designed With You in Mind The most powerful mobile security control is the denial of root privileges to all applications and users (besides, again, the OS itself). While it goes a long way toward keeping the user’s data safe, it is just as effective at subjecting everything and everyone using the device to the dictates of the OS. The security advantage is undeniable: if your user account can’t use root, then any malware that compromises it can’t either. By the same token, because you don’t have complete control over the OS, you are unable to reconfigure your device for privacy from the OS vendor. I’m not disparaging any of these security controls. All of them reinforce the protection of your data. I’m saying that they are not done primarily for the user’s benefit; that is secondary. Those of you familiar with my work might see the scroll bar near the bottom of this page and wonder why I haven’t mentioned Linux yet. The answer is that desktop operating systems, my preferred kind of Linux OS, benefit from their own examination. In a follow-up to this piece, I will discuss the paradox of desktop security and privacy. Please stay tuned.

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Metro Compartió un vínculo

2025-06-01 16:26:30 ·

The original Switch is still a better option than the Switch 2 – Reader’s Feature

The original Switch is still a better option than the Switch 2 – Reader’s Feature

GameCentral

Published June 1, 2025 1:00am

The Switch 1 isn’t going anywhereA reader argues that the original Switch will still be relevant even after the Switch 2 launches, and that for some it will be the preferred choice.
I haven’t been playing games as much as I did, say, three years ago, mainly because I’ve found interest in other things, such as reading and creating content. However, I still delve into games and my love for Nintendo is still there, but I did consider parting with some of my gaming collection – which is mostly a curated list of mainly Nintendo games and consoles.
I did see the announcement of the Switch 2 in early April and initially I was hyped for it but I think that has subsided somewhat, mainly due to the pricing of both the consoles and games; I am still going to be receiving it day one though.
I don’t think Nintendo has done themselves any favours though and the landscape has changed, with regards to mobile gaming in general, with the advent of the Steam Deck and other options from different manufacturers which makes this a crowded market.I find myself purchasing games on Steam vs. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. In fact, I ended up parting ways with my Xbox Series X and am considering the same with my PlayStation 5, as I mainly play games in portable form, with the Steam Deck and Switch being enough for me. With Nintendo it is mainly the first party titles that I would purchase on Switch 2, but it will make me think twice due to the price tag on the gamesand with Nintendo the pricing of their games don’t really go on sale that much, if at all.
I know a lot of people are still considering getting rid of their original Switch in favour of the Switch 2, however I think it is still relevant in 2025 and beyond.
Games, Games, Games
With over 10,000 games, the Switch has a diverse library of titles. I love the fact the I have a big and robust library of physical games that I can play for years to come. The pricing on new games are anywhere between £25 to £50, with Zelda being the exception at £60 to £70. A lot of third party games you can pick up on sale. A lot of games are physical and most come with the game on the actual cartridge, so even in the future, if Nintendo decide to pull the eShop for the original Switch, you can still play games offline.
Games are still being released for the original Nintendo Switch for the foreseeable future. It will stop being supported one day but there is still plenty to choose from, both used, digital, and new. I truly believe that the Switch 2 won’t be as popular as the first Switch, mainly due to pricing £60+ on games and switching their strategy on physical games, with partial downloads or game key cards, which in theory is easily shareable but having to download the entire game isn’t the most user friendly and there is still a reliance on the digital ecosystem.
Backwards Compatibility
Watching a YouTube video by ModernVintageGamer, I’ve come to learn that backwards compatibility with Switch 2 isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Nintendo is fully supporting backwards compatibility with most of their games, however third parties are left to patch games on their own discretion due to different system architecture in comparison to the original Switch. So it will be a bit hit and miss, more than likely they would rather release another ‘remastered’ version which they can sell to consumers again, rather than patch games. Also, bearing in mind some publishers don’t want the costs associated with patching a game.
Different consoles
At this stage in the original Switch’s lifecycle there are a bunch of form factors to choose from. I have all three and use them in different environments; my Switch OLED gets used at home in portable mode and connected to the TV, while the original Switch is good for family party gaming, which I take around for family gatherings.
The Switch Lite is small and portable and that it is great for single-player games with the cross-key but also great for travelling and going on holidays. You can pick up the Switch Lite for dirt cheap now, used, and I expect prices to fall further whilst they clear stock.
Simultaneous play
I haven’t seen too much details around this but Nintendo did announce original Switch compatibility with the Nintendo Switch 2 to allow for simultaneous multiplayer gaming with one cartridge, so that Nintendo Switch 2 acts as the mainconsole whilst the original Switch can be used for multiplayer gaming. So in essence you can all play Mario Kart from one Switch 2 console, by having your own screen, similar to the Wii U. I think this will be valuable for me with family gatherings, as most of us have Switches.
Cost
So, I did mention costs for games earlier. However, as the original Switch has matured there are a plethora of cheap accessories that can be had on the cheap, compared to Switch 2, such as extra Joy-Cons, controllers, games, cheap microSD cards, plus others.
Best Nintendo console?
I still love my Switch, and it won’t be going anywhere, and I think it is Nintendo’s best console in the past 20 years. I have a special place in my heart for the NES, SNES, Game Boy and GameCube, as being S-tier consoles but I think the Switch could be argued as being their best console. Ask me on a random day and my answer will probably change, because Nintendo have created timeless consoles as far as I am concerned, so it is difficult to choose one. But the original Switch makes a compelling choice especially for the younger generation.

More Trending

By reader wetbandit

Not everyone’s going to jump in straight awayThe reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email.

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#original #switch #still #better #option

The original Switch is still a better option than the Switch 2 – Reader’s Feature
The original Switch is still a better option than the Switch 2 – Reader’s Feature GameCentral Published June 1, 2025 1:00am The Switch 1 isn’t going anywhereA reader argues that the original Switch will still be relevant even after the Switch 2 launches, and that for some it will be the preferred choice. I haven’t been playing games as much as I did, say, three years ago, mainly because I’ve found interest in other things, such as reading and creating content. However, I still delve into games and my love for Nintendo is still there, but I did consider parting with some of my gaming collection – which is mostly a curated list of mainly Nintendo games and consoles. I did see the announcement of the Switch 2 in early April and initially I was hyped for it but I think that has subsided somewhat, mainly due to the pricing of both the consoles and games; I am still going to be receiving it day one though. I don’t think Nintendo has done themselves any favours though and the landscape has changed, with regards to mobile gaming in general, with the advent of the Steam Deck and other options from different manufacturers which makes this a crowded market.I find myself purchasing games on Steam vs. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. In fact, I ended up parting ways with my Xbox Series X and am considering the same with my PlayStation 5, as I mainly play games in portable form, with the Steam Deck and Switch being enough for me. With Nintendo it is mainly the first party titles that I would purchase on Switch 2, but it will make me think twice due to the price tag on the gamesand with Nintendo the pricing of their games don’t really go on sale that much, if at all. I know a lot of people are still considering getting rid of their original Switch in favour of the Switch 2, however I think it is still relevant in 2025 and beyond. Games, Games, Games With over 10,000 games, the Switch has a diverse library of titles. I love the fact the I have a big and robust library of physical games that I can play for years to come. The pricing on new games are anywhere between £25 to £50, with Zelda being the exception at £60 to £70. A lot of third party games you can pick up on sale. A lot of games are physical and most come with the game on the actual cartridge, so even in the future, if Nintendo decide to pull the eShop for the original Switch, you can still play games offline. Games are still being released for the original Nintendo Switch for the foreseeable future. It will stop being supported one day but there is still plenty to choose from, both used, digital, and new. I truly believe that the Switch 2 won’t be as popular as the first Switch, mainly due to pricing £60+ on games and switching their strategy on physical games, with partial downloads or game key cards, which in theory is easily shareable but having to download the entire game isn’t the most user friendly and there is still a reliance on the digital ecosystem. Backwards Compatibility Watching a YouTube video by ModernVintageGamer, I’ve come to learn that backwards compatibility with Switch 2 isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Nintendo is fully supporting backwards compatibility with most of their games, however third parties are left to patch games on their own discretion due to different system architecture in comparison to the original Switch. So it will be a bit hit and miss, more than likely they would rather release another ‘remastered’ version which they can sell to consumers again, rather than patch games. Also, bearing in mind some publishers don’t want the costs associated with patching a game. Different consoles At this stage in the original Switch’s lifecycle there are a bunch of form factors to choose from. I have all three and use them in different environments; my Switch OLED gets used at home in portable mode and connected to the TV, while the original Switch is good for family party gaming, which I take around for family gatherings. The Switch Lite is small and portable and that it is great for single-player games with the cross-key but also great for travelling and going on holidays. You can pick up the Switch Lite for dirt cheap now, used, and I expect prices to fall further whilst they clear stock. Simultaneous play I haven’t seen too much details around this but Nintendo did announce original Switch compatibility with the Nintendo Switch 2 to allow for simultaneous multiplayer gaming with one cartridge, so that Nintendo Switch 2 acts as the mainconsole whilst the original Switch can be used for multiplayer gaming. So in essence you can all play Mario Kart from one Switch 2 console, by having your own screen, similar to the Wii U. I think this will be valuable for me with family gatherings, as most of us have Switches. Cost So, I did mention costs for games earlier. However, as the original Switch has matured there are a plethora of cheap accessories that can be had on the cheap, compared to Switch 2, such as extra Joy-Cons, controllers, games, cheap microSD cards, plus others. Best Nintendo console? I still love my Switch, and it won’t be going anywhere, and I think it is Nintendo’s best console in the past 20 years. I have a special place in my heart for the NES, SNES, Game Boy and GameCube, as being S-tier consoles but I think the Switch could be argued as being their best console. Ask me on a random day and my answer will probably change, because Nintendo have created timeless consoles as far as I am concerned, so it is difficult to choose one. But the original Switch makes a compelling choice especially for the younger generation. More Trending By reader wetbandit Not everyone’s going to jump in straight awayThe reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro. You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy #original #switch #still #better #option

METRO.CO.UK

The original Switch is still a better option than the Switch 2 – Reader’s Feature

The original Switch is still a better option than the Switch 2 – Reader’s Feature GameCentral Published June 1, 2025 1:00am The Switch 1 isn’t going anywhere (Nintendo) A reader argues that the original Switch will still be relevant even after the Switch 2 launches, and that for some it will be the preferred choice. I haven’t been playing games as much as I did, say, three years ago, mainly because I’ve found interest in other things, such as reading and creating content. However, I still delve into games and my love for Nintendo is still there, but I did consider parting with some of my gaming collection – which is mostly a curated list of mainly Nintendo games and consoles. I did see the announcement of the Switch 2 in early April and initially I was hyped for it but I think that has subsided somewhat, mainly due to the pricing of both the consoles and games; I am still going to be receiving it day one though. I don’t think Nintendo has done themselves any favours though and the landscape has changed, with regards to mobile gaming in general, with the advent of the Steam Deck and other options from different manufacturers which makes this a crowded market. [The Steam Deck has only sold around 4 million units worldwide, compared to over 150 million for the Switch, and yet it’s still the most successful of the PC handhelds – GC] I find myself purchasing games on Steam vs. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. In fact, I ended up parting ways with my Xbox Series X and am considering the same with my PlayStation 5, as I mainly play games in portable form, with the Steam Deck and Switch being enough for me. With Nintendo it is mainly the first party titles that I would purchase on Switch 2, but it will make me think twice due to the price tag on the games (£60+) and with Nintendo the pricing of their games don’t really go on sale that much, if at all. I know a lot of people are still considering getting rid of their original Switch in favour of the Switch 2, however I think it is still relevant in 2025 and beyond. Games, Games, Games With over 10,000 games, the Switch has a diverse library of titles. I love the fact the I have a big and robust library of physical games that I can play for years to come. The pricing on new games are anywhere between £25 to £50, with Zelda being the exception at £60 to £70. A lot of third party games you can pick up on sale. A lot of games are physical and most come with the game on the actual cartridge, so even in the future, if Nintendo decide to pull the eShop for the original Switch, you can still play games offline. Games are still being released for the original Nintendo Switch for the foreseeable future. It will stop being supported one day but there is still plenty to choose from, both used, digital, and new. I truly believe that the Switch 2 won’t be as popular as the first Switch, mainly due to pricing £60+ on games and switching their strategy on physical games, with partial downloads or game key cards, which in theory is easily shareable but having to download the entire game isn’t the most user friendly and there is still a reliance on the digital ecosystem. Backwards Compatibility Watching a YouTube video by ModernVintageGamer, I’ve come to learn that backwards compatibility with Switch 2 isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Nintendo is fully supporting backwards compatibility with most of their games, however third parties are left to patch games on their own discretion due to different system architecture in comparison to the original Switch. So it will be a bit hit and miss, more than likely they would rather release another ‘remastered’ version which they can sell to consumers again, rather than patch games. Also, bearing in mind some publishers don’t want the costs associated with patching a game. Different consoles At this stage in the original Switch’s lifecycle there are a bunch of form factors to choose from. I have all three and use them in different environments; my Switch OLED gets used at home in portable mode and connected to the TV, while the original Switch is good for family party gaming, which I take around for family gatherings. The Switch Lite is small and portable and that it is great for single-player games with the cross-key but also great for travelling and going on holidays. You can pick up the Switch Lite for dirt cheap now, used, and I expect prices to fall further whilst they clear stock. Simultaneous play I haven’t seen too much details around this but Nintendo did announce original Switch compatibility with the Nintendo Switch 2 to allow for simultaneous multiplayer gaming with one cartridge, so that Nintendo Switch 2 acts as the main (host) console whilst the original Switch can be used for multiplayer gaming. So in essence you can all play Mario Kart from one Switch 2 console, by having your own screen, similar to the Wii U. I think this will be valuable for me with family gatherings, as most of us have Switches. Cost So, I did mention costs for games earlier. However, as the original Switch has matured there are a plethora of cheap accessories that can be had on the cheap, compared to Switch 2, such as extra Joy-Cons, controllers, games, cheap microSD cards, plus others. Best Nintendo console? I still love my Switch, and it won’t be going anywhere, and I think it is Nintendo’s best console in the past 20 years. I have a special place in my heart for the NES, SNES, Game Boy and GameCube, as being S-tier consoles but I think the Switch could be argued as being their best console. Ask me on a random day and my answer will probably change, because Nintendo have created timeless consoles as far as I am concerned, so it is difficult to choose one. But the original Switch makes a compelling choice especially for the younger generation. More Trending By reader wetbandit Not everyone’s going to jump in straight away (Nintendo) The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro. You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. 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Futurism Compartió un vínculo

2025-06-01 16:12:40 ·

Scientists Spot Mysterious Object in Our Galaxy Pulsing Every 44 Minutes

Astronomers have spotted something strange and spectacular: a mysterious object that keeps emitting pulses every 44 minutes.In a press release from Australia's Curtin University, which was part of the international team that detected the object just 15,000 light-years away in our Milky Way galaxy, astronomers explained that the find was all the more stunning because the signal is coming in the form of both X-rays and radio waves.The object, which was named ASKAP J1832-0911 after Australia's ASKAP radio telescope that was used to detect it, was discovered emitting two-minute-long pulses that would pause and then repeat 44 minutes later. As the Curtin press release explains, the researchers lucked out when they realized that NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory was observing the same part of the sky and detected the same repeating signal in X-ray form.This dual-natured pulse belongs to a newly-discovered class of space phenomena known as "long-period radio transients," or LPTs for short.Discovered in 2022 by the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research — which also sponsored this latest study — these mystery pulses have unknown origins and occur in fixed intervals of minutes or hours. They're considered by astronomers to be remarkably slow as compared to the signals emitted by pulsars, those rapidly-rotating stars that send out similar bursts every few milliseconds when their poles point in Earth's direction.In the years since they were first discovered, astronomers around the world have only detected some 10 other LPTs — but before now, none have been run through X-ray telescopes as well.According to Ziteng "Andy" Wang, an ICRAR-affiliated Curtin astronomer and the lead author a paper about the finding that was just published in the journal Nature, discovering the dual nature of LPTs in such a coincidental manner "felt like finding a needle in a haystack.""The ASKAP radio telescope has a wide field view of the night sky, while Chandra observes only a fraction of it," Wang explained in the Curtin press release. "So, it was fortunate that Chandra observed the same area of the night sky at the same time."Because LPTs are such a new phenomenon to astronomers, they can't say for sure what causes them.When the first of them were discovered, astronomers posited that they could be coming from magnetars, a type of neutron star with extremely strong magnetic fields that also emit radio pulses at faster intervals, leading to the ICRAR team positing that they may have an "ultra-long-period magnetar" on their hands.While the magnetar theory appears to have been scrapped, the astronomers behind this update in LPT knowledge are hopeful that it will help them figure out what these strange, slow pulses are about."This object is unlike anything we have seen before," said Wang.Share This Article
#scientists #spot #mysterious #object #our

Scientists Spot Mysterious Object in Our Galaxy Pulsing Every 44 Minutes
Astronomers have spotted something strange and spectacular: a mysterious object that keeps emitting pulses every 44 minutes.In a press release from Australia's Curtin University, which was part of the international team that detected the object just 15,000 light-years away in our Milky Way galaxy, astronomers explained that the find was all the more stunning because the signal is coming in the form of both X-rays and radio waves.The object, which was named ASKAP J1832-0911 after Australia's ASKAP radio telescope that was used to detect it, was discovered emitting two-minute-long pulses that would pause and then repeat 44 minutes later. As the Curtin press release explains, the researchers lucked out when they realized that NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory was observing the same part of the sky and detected the same repeating signal in X-ray form.This dual-natured pulse belongs to a newly-discovered class of space phenomena known as "long-period radio transients," or LPTs for short.Discovered in 2022 by the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research — which also sponsored this latest study — these mystery pulses have unknown origins and occur in fixed intervals of minutes or hours. They're considered by astronomers to be remarkably slow as compared to the signals emitted by pulsars, those rapidly-rotating stars that send out similar bursts every few milliseconds when their poles point in Earth's direction.In the years since they were first discovered, astronomers around the world have only detected some 10 other LPTs — but before now, none have been run through X-ray telescopes as well.According to Ziteng "Andy" Wang, an ICRAR-affiliated Curtin astronomer and the lead author a paper about the finding that was just published in the journal Nature, discovering the dual nature of LPTs in such a coincidental manner "felt like finding a needle in a haystack.""The ASKAP radio telescope has a wide field view of the night sky, while Chandra observes only a fraction of it," Wang explained in the Curtin press release. "So, it was fortunate that Chandra observed the same area of the night sky at the same time."Because LPTs are such a new phenomenon to astronomers, they can't say for sure what causes them.When the first of them were discovered, astronomers posited that they could be coming from magnetars, a type of neutron star with extremely strong magnetic fields that also emit radio pulses at faster intervals, leading to the ICRAR team positing that they may have an "ultra-long-period magnetar" on their hands.While the magnetar theory appears to have been scrapped, the astronomers behind this update in LPT knowledge are hopeful that it will help them figure out what these strange, slow pulses are about."This object is unlike anything we have seen before," said Wang.Share This Article #scientists #spot #mysterious #object #our

FUTURISM.COM

Scientists Spot Mysterious Object in Our Galaxy Pulsing Every 44 Minutes

Astronomers have spotted something strange and spectacular: a mysterious object that keeps emitting pulses every 44 minutes.In a press release from Australia's Curtin University, which was part of the international team that detected the object just 15,000 light-years away in our Milky Way galaxy, astronomers explained that the find was all the more stunning because the signal is coming in the form of both X-rays and radio waves.The object, which was named ASKAP J1832-0911 after Australia's ASKAP radio telescope that was used to detect it, was discovered emitting two-minute-long pulses that would pause and then repeat 44 minutes later. As the Curtin press release explains, the researchers lucked out when they realized that NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory was observing the same part of the sky and detected the same repeating signal in X-ray form.This dual-natured pulse belongs to a newly-discovered class of space phenomena known as "long-period radio transients," or LPTs for short.Discovered in 2022 by the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research — which also sponsored this latest study — these mystery pulses have unknown origins and occur in fixed intervals of minutes or hours. They're considered by astronomers to be remarkably slow as compared to the signals emitted by pulsars, those rapidly-rotating stars that send out similar bursts every few milliseconds when their poles point in Earth's direction.In the years since they were first discovered, astronomers around the world have only detected some 10 other LPTs — but before now, none have been run through X-ray telescopes as well.According to Ziteng "Andy" Wang, an ICRAR-affiliated Curtin astronomer and the lead author a paper about the finding that was just published in the journal Nature, discovering the dual nature of LPTs in such a coincidental manner "felt like finding a needle in a haystack.""The ASKAP radio telescope has a wide field view of the night sky, while Chandra observes only a fraction of it," Wang explained in the Curtin press release. "So, it was fortunate that Chandra observed the same area of the night sky at the same time."Because LPTs are such a new phenomenon to astronomers, they can't say for sure what causes them.When the first of them were discovered, astronomers posited that they could be coming from magnetars, a type of neutron star with extremely strong magnetic fields that also emit radio pulses at faster intervals, leading to the ICRAR team positing that they may have an "ultra-long-period magnetar" on their hands.While the magnetar theory appears to have been scrapped, the astronomers behind this update in LPT knowledge are hopeful that it will help them figure out what these strange, slow pulses are about."This object is unlike anything we have seen before," said Wang.Share This Article

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The Verge Compartió un vínculo

2025-06-01 15:56:47 ·

A new movie taking on the tech bros

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 85, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world.This week, I’ve been reading about Sean Evans and music fraud and ayahuasca, playing with the new Obsidian Bases feature, obsessing over every Cliche” more times than I’m proud of, installing some Elgato Key Lights to improve my WFH camera look, digging the latest beta of Artifacts, and downloading every podcast I can find because I have 20 hours of driving to do this weekend.I also have for you a very funny new movie about tech CEOs, a new place to WhatsApp, a great new accessory for your phone, a helpful crypto politics explainer, and much more. Short week this week, but still lots going on. Let’s do it.The DropMountainhead. I mean, is there a more me-coded pitch than “Succession vibes, but about tech bros?” It’s about a bunch ofbillionaires who more or less run the world and are also more or less ruining it. You’ll either find this hilarious, way too close to home, or both. WhatsApp for iPad. I will never, ever understand why Meta hates building iPad apps. But it finally launched the most important one! The app itself is extremely fine and exactly what you’d think it would be, but whatever. It exists! DO INSTAGRAM NEXT.Post Games.Polygon, all about video games. It’s only a couple episodes deep, but so far I love the format: it’s really smart and extremely thoughtful, but it’s also very silly in spots. Big fan.The Popsockets Kick-Out Grip. I am a longtime, die-hard Popsockets user and evangelist, and the new model fixes my one gripe with the thing by working as both a landscape and portrait kickstand. is highway robbery for a phone holder, but this is exactly the thing I wanted.“Dance with Sabrina.” A new, real-time competitive rhythm game inside of Fortnite, in which you try to do well enough to earn the right to actually help create the show itself. Super fun concept, though all these games are better with pads, guitars, or really anything but a normal controller.Lazy 2.0. Lazy is a stealthy but fascinating note-taking tool, and it does an unusually good job of integrating with files and apps. The new version is very AI-forward, basically bringing a personalized chatbot and all your notes to your whole computer. Neat!Elden Ring Nightreign. A multiplayer-heavy spinoff of the game that I cannot get my gamer friends to shut up about, even years after it came out. I’ve seen a few people call the game a bit small and repetitive, but next to Elden Ring I suppose most things are.The Tapo DL100 Smart Deadbolt Door Lock. A door lock with, as far as I can tell, every feature I want in a smart lock: a keypad, physical keys, super long battery life, and lots of assistant integrations. It does look… huge? But it’s pretty bland-looking, which is a good thing.Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster. One of a few Titan-related documentaries coming this summer, meant to try and explain what led to the awful events of a couple years ago. I haven’t seen this one yet, but the reviews are solid — and the story seems even sadder and more infuriating than we thought.“The growing scandal of $TRUMP.” I love a good Zeke Faux take on crypto, whether it’s a book or a Search Engine episode. This interview with Ezra Klein is a great explainer of how the Trump family got so into crypto and how it’s being used to move money in deeply confusing and clearly corrupt ways. Cameron Faulkner isn’t technically new to The Verge, he’s just newly back at The Verge. In addition to being a commerce editor on our team, he also wrote one of the deepest dives into webcams you’ll ever find, plays a lot of games, has more thoughts about monitors than any reasonable person should, and is extremely my kind of person. Since he’s now so very back, I asked Cam to share his homescreen with us, as I always try to do with new people here. Here it is, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:The phone: Pixel 9 Pro.The wallpaper: It’s an “Emoji Workshop” creation, which is a feature that’s built into Android 14 and more recent updates. It mashes together emoji into the patterns and colors of your choosing. I picked this one because I like sushi, and I love melon / coral color tones.The apps: Google Keep, Settings, Clock, Phone, Chrome, Pocket Casts, Messages, Spotify.I haven’t downloaded a new app in ages. What’s shown on my homescreen has been there, unmoved, for longer than I can remember. I have digital light switches, a to-do list with the greatStuff widget, a simple Google Fit widget to show me how much I moved today, and a couple Google Photos widgets of my lovely wife and son. I could probably function just fine if every app shuffled its location on my homescreen, except for the bottom row. That’s set in stone, never to be fiddled with.I also asked Cameron to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:Righteous Gemstones on HBO Max. It’s a much smarter comedy than I had assumed, and I’m delighted to have four seasons to catch up on. I’m really digging Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which achieves the feat of breakneck pacingand a style that rivals Persona 5, which is high praise. I have accrued well over a dozen Switch 2 accessories, and I’m excited to put them to the test once I get a console on launch day.CrowdsourcedHere’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now, as well! Email installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads and this post on Bluesky.“The Devil’s Plan. This Netflix original South Korean reality show locks 14 contestants in a windowless living space that’s part mansion, part prison, part room escape, and challenges them to eliminate each other in a series of complicated tabletop games.” — Travis“If you’re a fan of Drive to Survive, I’m happy to report that the latest season of Netflix’s series on NASCAR is finally good, and a reasonable substitute for that show once you’ve finished it.” — Christopher“I switched to a Pixel 9 Pro XL and Pixel Watch 3 from an iPhone and Apple Watch about 6 months ago and found Open Bubbles, an open source alternative to BlueBubbles that does need a Mac but doesn’t need that Mac to remain on, You just need a one-time hardware identifier from it, then it gives you full iMessage, Find My, FaceTime, and iCloud shared albums on Android and Windows using an email address. So long as you can get your contacts to iMessage your email instead of your number, it works great.” — Tim“Playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the last time before Mario Kart World arrives next week and takes over my life!” — Ravi“With Pocket being killed off I’ve started using my RSS reader — which is Inoreader — instead as a suitable replacement. I only switched over to Pocket after Omnivore shut down.” — James“I just got a Boox Go 10.3 for my birthday and love it. The lack of front lighting is the biggest downfall. It is also only on Android 12 so I cannot load a corporate profile. It feels good to write on just, almost as good as my cheaper fountain pen and paper. It is helping me organize multiple notebooks and scraps of paper.” — Sean“Giving Tweek a bit of a go, and for a lightweight weekly planner it’s beautiful. I also currently use Motion for project management of personal tasks and when I was doing my Master’s. I really like the Gantt view to map out long term personal and study projects.” — Astrid“Might I suggest Elle Griffin’s work at The Elysian? How she’s thinking through speculative futures and a cooperative media system is fascinating.” — Zach“GeForce Now on Steam Deck!” — SteveSigning offOne of the reasons I like making this newsletter with all of you is that it’s a weekly reminder that, hey, actually, there’s a lot of awesome people doing awesome stuff out there on the internet. I spend a lot of my time talking to people who say AI is going to change everything, and we’re all going to just AI ourselves into oblivion and be thrilled about it — a theory I increasingly think is both wrong and horrifying.And then this week I read a blog post from the great Dan Sinker, who called this moment “the Who Cares Era, where completely disposable things are shoddily produced for people to mostly ignore.” You should read the whole thing, but here’s a bit I really loved:“Using extraordinary amounts of resources, it has the ability to create something good enough, a squint-and-it-looks-right simulacrum of normality. If you don’t care, it’s miraculous. If you do, the illusion falls apart pretty quickly. The fact that the userbase for AI chatbots has exploded exponentially demonstrates that good enough is, in fact, good enough for most people. Because most people don’t care.”I don’t think this describes everything and everyone, and neither does Sinker, but I do think it’s more true than it should be. And I increasingly think our job, maybe our method of rebellion, is to be people who care, who have taste, who like and share and look for good things, who read and watch and look at those things on purpose instead of just staring slackjawed at whatever slop is placed between the ads they hope we won’t really notice. I think there are a lot of fascinating ways that AI can be useful, but we can’t let it train us to accept slop just because it’s there. Sorry, this got more existential than I anticipated. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I’m going to try and point Installer even more at the stuff that matters, made by people who care. I hope you’ll hold me to that.See you next week!See More:
#new #movie #taking #tech #bros

A new movie taking on the tech bros
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 85, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world.This week, I’ve been reading about Sean Evans and music fraud and ayahuasca, playing with the new Obsidian Bases feature, obsessing over every Cliche” more times than I’m proud of, installing some Elgato Key Lights to improve my WFH camera look, digging the latest beta of Artifacts, and downloading every podcast I can find because I have 20 hours of driving to do this weekend.I also have for you a very funny new movie about tech CEOs, a new place to WhatsApp, a great new accessory for your phone, a helpful crypto politics explainer, and much more. Short week this week, but still lots going on. Let’s do it.The DropMountainhead. I mean, is there a more me-coded pitch than “Succession vibes, but about tech bros?” It’s about a bunch ofbillionaires who more or less run the world and are also more or less ruining it. You’ll either find this hilarious, way too close to home, or both. WhatsApp for iPad. I will never, ever understand why Meta hates building iPad apps. But it finally launched the most important one! The app itself is extremely fine and exactly what you’d think it would be, but whatever. It exists! DO INSTAGRAM NEXT.Post Games.Polygon, all about video games. It’s only a couple episodes deep, but so far I love the format: it’s really smart and extremely thoughtful, but it’s also very silly in spots. Big fan.The Popsockets Kick-Out Grip. I am a longtime, die-hard Popsockets user and evangelist, and the new model fixes my one gripe with the thing by working as both a landscape and portrait kickstand. is highway robbery for a phone holder, but this is exactly the thing I wanted.“Dance with Sabrina.” A new, real-time competitive rhythm game inside of Fortnite, in which you try to do well enough to earn the right to actually help create the show itself. Super fun concept, though all these games are better with pads, guitars, or really anything but a normal controller.Lazy 2.0. Lazy is a stealthy but fascinating note-taking tool, and it does an unusually good job of integrating with files and apps. The new version is very AI-forward, basically bringing a personalized chatbot and all your notes to your whole computer. Neat!Elden Ring Nightreign. A multiplayer-heavy spinoff of the game that I cannot get my gamer friends to shut up about, even years after it came out. I’ve seen a few people call the game a bit small and repetitive, but next to Elden Ring I suppose most things are.The Tapo DL100 Smart Deadbolt Door Lock. A door lock with, as far as I can tell, every feature I want in a smart lock: a keypad, physical keys, super long battery life, and lots of assistant integrations. It does look… huge? But it’s pretty bland-looking, which is a good thing.Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster. One of a few Titan-related documentaries coming this summer, meant to try and explain what led to the awful events of a couple years ago. I haven’t seen this one yet, but the reviews are solid — and the story seems even sadder and more infuriating than we thought.“The growing scandal of $TRUMP.” I love a good Zeke Faux take on crypto, whether it’s a book or a Search Engine episode. This interview with Ezra Klein is a great explainer of how the Trump family got so into crypto and how it’s being used to move money in deeply confusing and clearly corrupt ways. Cameron Faulkner isn’t technically new to The Verge, he’s just newly back at The Verge. In addition to being a commerce editor on our team, he also wrote one of the deepest dives into webcams you’ll ever find, plays a lot of games, has more thoughts about monitors than any reasonable person should, and is extremely my kind of person. Since he’s now so very back, I asked Cam to share his homescreen with us, as I always try to do with new people here. Here it is, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:The phone: Pixel 9 Pro.The wallpaper: It’s an “Emoji Workshop” creation, which is a feature that’s built into Android 14 and more recent updates. It mashes together emoji into the patterns and colors of your choosing. I picked this one because I like sushi, and I love melon / coral color tones.The apps: Google Keep, Settings, Clock, Phone, Chrome, Pocket Casts, Messages, Spotify.I haven’t downloaded a new app in ages. What’s shown on my homescreen has been there, unmoved, for longer than I can remember. I have digital light switches, a to-do list with the greatStuff widget, a simple Google Fit widget to show me how much I moved today, and a couple Google Photos widgets of my lovely wife and son. I could probably function just fine if every app shuffled its location on my homescreen, except for the bottom row. That’s set in stone, never to be fiddled with.I also asked Cameron to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:Righteous Gemstones on HBO Max. It’s a much smarter comedy than I had assumed, and I’m delighted to have four seasons to catch up on. I’m really digging Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which achieves the feat of breakneck pacingand a style that rivals Persona 5, which is high praise. I have accrued well over a dozen Switch 2 accessories, and I’m excited to put them to the test once I get a console on launch day.CrowdsourcedHere’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now, as well! Email installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads and this post on Bluesky.“The Devil’s Plan. This Netflix original South Korean reality show locks 14 contestants in a windowless living space that’s part mansion, part prison, part room escape, and challenges them to eliminate each other in a series of complicated tabletop games.” — Travis“If you’re a fan of Drive to Survive, I’m happy to report that the latest season of Netflix’s series on NASCAR is finally good, and a reasonable substitute for that show once you’ve finished it.” — Christopher“I switched to a Pixel 9 Pro XL and Pixel Watch 3 from an iPhone and Apple Watch about 6 months ago and found Open Bubbles, an open source alternative to BlueBubbles that does need a Mac but doesn’t need that Mac to remain on, You just need a one-time hardware identifier from it, then it gives you full iMessage, Find My, FaceTime, and iCloud shared albums on Android and Windows using an email address. So long as you can get your contacts to iMessage your email instead of your number, it works great.” — Tim“Playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the last time before Mario Kart World arrives next week and takes over my life!” — Ravi“With Pocket being killed off I’ve started using my RSS reader — which is Inoreader — instead as a suitable replacement. I only switched over to Pocket after Omnivore shut down.” — James“I just got a Boox Go 10.3 for my birthday and love it. The lack of front lighting is the biggest downfall. It is also only on Android 12 so I cannot load a corporate profile. It feels good to write on just, almost as good as my cheaper fountain pen and paper. It is helping me organize multiple notebooks and scraps of paper.” — Sean“Giving Tweek a bit of a go, and for a lightweight weekly planner it’s beautiful. I also currently use Motion for project management of personal tasks and when I was doing my Master’s. I really like the Gantt view to map out long term personal and study projects.” — Astrid“Might I suggest Elle Griffin’s work at The Elysian? How she’s thinking through speculative futures and a cooperative media system is fascinating.” — Zach“GeForce Now on Steam Deck!” — SteveSigning offOne of the reasons I like making this newsletter with all of you is that it’s a weekly reminder that, hey, actually, there’s a lot of awesome people doing awesome stuff out there on the internet. I spend a lot of my time talking to people who say AI is going to change everything, and we’re all going to just AI ourselves into oblivion and be thrilled about it — a theory I increasingly think is both wrong and horrifying.And then this week I read a blog post from the great Dan Sinker, who called this moment “the Who Cares Era, where completely disposable things are shoddily produced for people to mostly ignore.” You should read the whole thing, but here’s a bit I really loved:“Using extraordinary amounts of resources, it has the ability to create something good enough, a squint-and-it-looks-right simulacrum of normality. If you don’t care, it’s miraculous. If you do, the illusion falls apart pretty quickly. The fact that the userbase for AI chatbots has exploded exponentially demonstrates that good enough is, in fact, good enough for most people. Because most people don’t care.”I don’t think this describes everything and everyone, and neither does Sinker, but I do think it’s more true than it should be. And I increasingly think our job, maybe our method of rebellion, is to be people who care, who have taste, who like and share and look for good things, who read and watch and look at those things on purpose instead of just staring slackjawed at whatever slop is placed between the ads they hope we won’t really notice. I think there are a lot of fascinating ways that AI can be useful, but we can’t let it train us to accept slop just because it’s there. Sorry, this got more existential than I anticipated. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I’m going to try and point Installer even more at the stuff that matters, made by people who care. I hope you’ll hold me to that.See you next week!See More: #new #movie #taking #tech #bros

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A new movie taking on the tech bros

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 85, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, sorry in advance that this week is a tiny bit politics-y, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been reading about Sean Evans and music fraud and ayahuasca, playing with the new Obsidian Bases feature, obsessing over every Cliche” more times than I’m proud of, installing some Elgato Key Lights to improve my WFH camera look, digging the latest beta of Artifacts, and downloading every podcast I can find because I have 20 hours of driving to do this weekend.I also have for you a very funny new movie about tech CEOs, a new place to WhatsApp, a great new accessory for your phone, a helpful crypto politics explainer, and much more. Short week this week, but still lots going on. Let’s do it.(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you reading / playing / watching / listening to / shopping for / doing with a Raspberry Pi this week? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, tell them to subscribe here. And if you haven’t subscribed, you should! You’ll get every issue for free, a day early, in your inbox.)The DropMountainhead. I mean, is there a more me-coded pitch than “Succession vibes, but about tech bros?” It’s about a bunch of (pretty recognizable) billionaires who more or less run the world and are also more or less ruining it. You’ll either find this hilarious, way too close to home, or both. WhatsApp for iPad. I will never, ever understand why Meta hates building iPad apps. But it finally launched the most important one! The app itself is extremely fine and exactly what you’d think it would be, but whatever. It exists! DO INSTAGRAM NEXT.Post Games.Polygon, all about video games. It’s only a couple episodes deep, but so far I love the format: it’s really smart and extremely thoughtful, but it’s also very silly in spots. Big fan.The Popsockets Kick-Out Grip. I am a longtime, die-hard Popsockets user and evangelist, and the new model fixes my one gripe with the thing by working as both a landscape and portrait kickstand. $40 is highway robbery for a phone holder, but this is exactly the thing I wanted.“Dance with Sabrina.” A new, real-time competitive rhythm game inside of Fortnite, in which you try to do well enough to earn the right to actually help create the show itself. Super fun concept, though all these games are better with pads, guitars, or really anything but a normal controller.Lazy 2.0. Lazy is a stealthy but fascinating note-taking tool, and it does an unusually good job of integrating with files and apps. The new version is very AI-forward, basically bringing a personalized chatbot and all your notes to your whole computer. Neat!Elden Ring Nightreign. A multiplayer-heavy spinoff of the game that I cannot get my gamer friends to shut up about, even years after it came out. I’ve seen a few people call the game a bit small and repetitive, but next to Elden Ring I suppose most things are.The Tapo DL100 Smart Deadbolt Door Lock. A $70 door lock with, as far as I can tell, every feature I want in a smart lock: a keypad, physical keys, super long battery life, and lots of assistant integrations. It does look… huge? But it’s pretty bland-looking, which is a good thing.Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster. One of a few Titan-related documentaries coming this summer, meant to try and explain what led to the awful events of a couple years ago. I haven’t seen this one yet, but the reviews are solid — and the story seems even sadder and more infuriating than we thought.“The growing scandal of $TRUMP.” I love a good Zeke Faux take on crypto, whether it’s a book or a Search Engine episode. This interview with Ezra Klein is a great explainer of how the Trump family got so into crypto and how it’s being used to move money in deeply confusing and clearly corrupt ways. Cameron Faulkner isn’t technically new to The Verge, he’s just newly back at The Verge. In addition to being a commerce editor on our team, he also wrote one of the deepest dives into webcams you’ll ever find, plays a lot of games, has more thoughts about monitors than any reasonable person should, and is extremely my kind of person. Since he’s now so very back, I asked Cam to share his homescreen with us, as I always try to do with new people here. Here it is, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:The phone: Pixel 9 Pro.The wallpaper: It’s an “Emoji Workshop” creation, which is a feature that’s built into Android 14 and more recent updates. It mashes together emoji into the patterns and colors of your choosing. I picked this one because I like sushi, and I love melon / coral color tones.The apps: Google Keep, Settings, Clock, Phone, Chrome, Pocket Casts, Messages, Spotify.I haven’t downloaded a new app in ages. What’s shown on my homescreen has been there, unmoved, for longer than I can remember. I have digital light switches, a to-do list with the great (but paid) Stuff widget, a simple Google Fit widget to show me how much I moved today, and a couple Google Photos widgets of my lovely wife and son. I could probably function just fine if every app shuffled its location on my homescreen, except for the bottom row. That’s set in stone, never to be fiddled with.I also asked Cameron to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:Righteous Gemstones on HBO Max. It’s a much smarter comedy than I had assumed (but it’s still dumb in the best ways), and I’m delighted to have four seasons to catch up on. I’m really digging Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which achieves the feat of breakneck pacing (the game equivalent of a page-turner) and a style that rivals Persona 5, which is high praise. I have accrued well over a dozen Switch 2 accessories, and I’m excited to put them to the test once I get a console on launch day.CrowdsourcedHere’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now, as well! Email installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads and this post on Bluesky.“The Devil’s Plan. This Netflix original South Korean reality show locks 14 contestants in a windowless living space that’s part mansion, part prison, part room escape, and challenges them to eliminate each other in a series of complicated tabletop games. (If this sounds familiar, it’s a spiritual successor to the beloved series The Genius from the mid-2010s.)” — Travis“If you’re a fan of Drive to Survive, I’m happy to report that the latest season of Netflix’s series on NASCAR is finally good, and a reasonable substitute for that show once you’ve finished it.” — Christopher“I switched to a Pixel 9 Pro XL and Pixel Watch 3 from an iPhone and Apple Watch about 6 months ago and found Open Bubbles, an open source alternative to BlueBubbles that does need a Mac but doesn’t need that Mac to remain on, You just need a one-time hardware identifier from it, then it gives you full iMessage, Find My, FaceTime, and iCloud shared albums on Android and Windows using an email address. So long as you can get your contacts to iMessage your email instead of your number, it works great.” — Tim“Playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the last time before Mario Kart World arrives next week and takes over my life!” — Ravi“With Pocket being killed off I’ve started using my RSS reader — which is Inoreader — instead as a suitable replacement. I only switched over to Pocket after Omnivore shut down.” — James“I just got a Boox Go 10.3 for my birthday and love it. The lack of front lighting is the biggest downfall. It is also only on Android 12 so I cannot load a corporate profile. It feels good to write on just, almost as good as my cheaper fountain pen and paper. It is helping me organize multiple notebooks and scraps of paper.” — Sean“Giving Tweek a bit of a go, and for a lightweight weekly planner it’s beautiful. I also currently use Motion for project management of personal tasks and when I was doing my Master’s. I really like the Gantt view to map out long term personal and study projects. (I also got a student discount for Motion, but it’s still expensive.)” — Astrid“Might I suggest Elle Griffin’s work at The Elysian? How she’s thinking through speculative futures and a cooperative media system is fascinating.” — Zach“GeForce Now on Steam Deck!” — SteveSigning offOne of the reasons I like making this newsletter with all of you is that it’s a weekly reminder that, hey, actually, there’s a lot of awesome people doing awesome stuff out there on the internet. I spend a lot of my time talking to people who say AI is going to change everything, and we’re all going to just AI ourselves into oblivion and be thrilled about it — a theory I increasingly think is both wrong and horrifying.And then this week I read a blog post from the great Dan Sinker, who called this moment “the Who Cares Era, where completely disposable things are shoddily produced for people to mostly ignore.” You should read the whole thing, but here’s a bit I really loved:“Using extraordinary amounts of resources, it has the ability to create something good enough, a squint-and-it-looks-right simulacrum of normality. If you don’t care, it’s miraculous. If you do, the illusion falls apart pretty quickly. The fact that the userbase for AI chatbots has exploded exponentially demonstrates that good enough is, in fact, good enough for most people. Because most people don’t care.”I don’t think this describes everything and everyone, and neither does Sinker, but I do think it’s more true than it should be. And I increasingly think our job, maybe our method of rebellion, is to be people who care, who have taste, who like and share and look for good things, who read and watch and look at those things on purpose instead of just staring slackjawed at whatever slop is placed between the ads they hope we won’t really notice. I think there are a lot of fascinating ways that AI can be useful, but we can’t let it train us to accept slop just because it’s there. Sorry, this got more existential than I anticipated. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I’m going to try and point Installer even more at the stuff that matters, made by people who care. I hope you’ll hold me to that.See you next week!See More:

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9to5Mac Compartió un vínculo

2025-06-01 15:53:29 ·

Satechi launches OnTheGo 3-in-1 charger with compact design & Qi2 support [Video]

I was lucky enough to get an early look and hands-on experience with Satechi’s new OntheGo line at CES this year, and I was immediately impressed. Satechi managed to bridge the gap between tech enthusiasts like myself, who appreciate cutting-edge features like Qi2 and MagSafe charging, and everyday users, thanks to their thoughtful material choices and versatile color palette. Here’s everything you need to know!

Be sure to check out our video below on Satechi’s OnTheGo 3 in 1 charger!
What you get & specs
So in the box you get:

The 3 in 1 charger itself
1M USB-C to C cable
Nice little travel pouch

In typical 2025 standards, you do not get a charging brick, and they recommend a 36W charging brick for optimal performance. It will work with other charging bricks but just won’t be optimal.
Specs:

Charges your iPhone via Qi2 at 15W
Fast charges Apple Watch at 5W
Headphone charges at 5W (can also place anything else that supports wireless charging.

Hands-on review
Satechi’s OntheGo 3-in-1 Charger hits the sweet spot for travelers and everyday users at the same time. It can charge your big three: your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods. It also easily fits into every aspect of your life. The foldable design makes it super easy to pack away, but what stood out to me is how you can prop up your phone at different angles while charging. So, in theory, it supports Standby and night stand modes! Whether you’re checking notifications, watching a video, or hopping on a FaceTime call, it adds a layer of versatility that most travel chargers miss.
The charger feels sturdy when folded into a stand mode, and the magnetic connection keeps your iPhone securely in place without any wobble. Combined with the premium vegan leather finish, lightweight build, and the new sand color, it is a new staple in my everyday carry.
Pricing & availability
The new 2 in-1 and 3-in-1 OnTheGo chargers are available today directly from Satechi. They come in three different colors: Black, Desert Rose, and Sand. The 2 in 1 is and the 3 in 1 option is I am happy they have two versions for the people who don’t have AirPods or an Apple Watch.
Let me know what you think of these. Are these a charger you would use? Let’s discuss below!

Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel
#satechi #launches #onthego #3in1 #charger

Satechi launches OnTheGo 3-in-1 charger with compact design & Qi2 support [Video]
I was lucky enough to get an early look and hands-on experience with Satechi’s new OntheGo line at CES this year, and I was immediately impressed. Satechi managed to bridge the gap between tech enthusiasts like myself, who appreciate cutting-edge features like Qi2 and MagSafe charging, and everyday users, thanks to their thoughtful material choices and versatile color palette. Here’s everything you need to know! Be sure to check out our video below on Satechi’s OnTheGo 3 in 1 charger! What you get & specs So in the box you get: The 3 in 1 charger itself 1M USB-C to C cable Nice little travel pouch In typical 2025 standards, you do not get a charging brick, and they recommend a 36W charging brick for optimal performance. It will work with other charging bricks but just won’t be optimal. Specs: Charges your iPhone via Qi2 at 15W Fast charges Apple Watch at 5W Headphone charges at 5W (can also place anything else that supports wireless charging. Hands-on review Satechi’s OntheGo 3-in-1 Charger hits the sweet spot for travelers and everyday users at the same time. It can charge your big three: your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods. It also easily fits into every aspect of your life. The foldable design makes it super easy to pack away, but what stood out to me is how you can prop up your phone at different angles while charging. So, in theory, it supports Standby and night stand modes! Whether you’re checking notifications, watching a video, or hopping on a FaceTime call, it adds a layer of versatility that most travel chargers miss. The charger feels sturdy when folded into a stand mode, and the magnetic connection keeps your iPhone securely in place without any wobble. Combined with the premium vegan leather finish, lightweight build, and the new sand color, it is a new staple in my everyday carry. Pricing & availability The new 2 in-1 and 3-in-1 OnTheGo chargers are available today directly from Satechi. They come in three different colors: Black, Desert Rose, and Sand. The 2 in 1 is and the 3 in 1 option is I am happy they have two versions for the people who don’t have AirPods or an Apple Watch. Let me know what you think of these. Are these a charger you would use? Let’s discuss below! Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel #satechi #launches #onthego #3in1 #charger

9TO5MAC.COM

Satechi launches OnTheGo 3-in-1 charger with compact design & Qi2 support [Video]

I was lucky enough to get an early look and hands-on experience with Satechi’s new OntheGo line at CES this year, and I was immediately impressed. Satechi managed to bridge the gap between tech enthusiasts like myself, who appreciate cutting-edge features like Qi2 and MagSafe charging, and everyday users, thanks to their thoughtful material choices and versatile color palette. Here’s everything you need to know! Be sure to check out our video below on Satechi’s OnTheGo 3 in 1 charger! What you get & specs So in the box you get: The 3 in 1 charger itself 1M USB-C to C cable Nice little travel pouch In typical 2025 standards, you do not get a charging brick, and they recommend a 36W charging brick for optimal performance. It will work with other charging bricks but just won’t be optimal. Specs: Charges your iPhone via Qi2 at 15W Fast charges Apple Watch at 5W Headphone charges at 5W (can also place anything else that supports wireless charging. Hands-on review Satechi’s OntheGo 3-in-1 Charger hits the sweet spot for travelers and everyday users at the same time. It can charge your big three: your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods. It also easily fits into every aspect of your life. The foldable design makes it super easy to pack away, but what stood out to me is how you can prop up your phone at different angles while charging. So, in theory, it supports Standby and night stand modes! Whether you’re checking notifications, watching a video, or hopping on a FaceTime call, it adds a layer of versatility that most travel chargers miss. The charger feels sturdy when folded into a stand mode, and the magnetic connection keeps your iPhone securely in place without any wobble. Combined with the premium vegan leather finish, lightweight build, and the new sand color, it is a new staple in my everyday carry. Pricing & availability The new 2 in-1 and 3-in-1 OnTheGo chargers are available today directly from Satechi. They come in three different colors: Black, Desert Rose, and Sand. The 2 in 1 is $79 and the 3 in 1 option is $99. I am happy they have two versions for the people who don’t have AirPods or an Apple Watch. Let me know what you think of these. Are these a charger you would use? Let’s discuss below! Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

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Archinect Compartió un vínculo

2025-06-01 15:48:40 ·

Your next role could be teaching sustainable design/build projects in Vermont

Following our previous look at an opening for a Director of Facilities at the Norton Simon Museum, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for Design/Build Faculty at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School.
The role, based in Waitsfield, VT, calls for a “creative, design/build-savvy educator” to co-lead a semester at the school. The successful candidate will “guide students through the full arc of the design/build process—concept to construction—while fostering creativity, collaboration, and skill-building every step of the way.” Requirements for the role include experience as an educator and preferably 5+ years of experience in design and construction.
Image courtesy of Yestermorrow Design/Build School/Facebook
Why the role interests us
The open role at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School offers us the opportunity to take a closer look at a school seeking to create a student experience that unites theory and practice in...
#your #next #role #could #teaching

Your next role could be teaching sustainable design/build projects in Vermont
Following our previous look at an opening for a Director of Facilities at the Norton Simon Museum, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for Design/Build Faculty at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School. The role, based in Waitsfield, VT, calls for a “creative, design/build-savvy educator” to co-lead a semester at the school. The successful candidate will “guide students through the full arc of the design/build process—concept to construction—while fostering creativity, collaboration, and skill-building every step of the way.” Requirements for the role include experience as an educator and preferably 5+ years of experience in design and construction. Image courtesy of Yestermorrow Design/Build School/Facebook Why the role interests us The open role at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School offers us the opportunity to take a closer look at a school seeking to create a student experience that unites theory and practice in... #your #next #role #could #teaching

ARCHINECT.COM

Your next role could be teaching sustainable design/build projects in Vermont

Following our previous look at an opening for a Director of Facilities at the Norton Simon Museum, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for Design/Build Faculty at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School. The role, based in Waitsfield, VT, calls for a “creative, design/build-savvy educator” to co-lead a semester at the school. The successful candidate will “guide students through the full arc of the design/build process—concept to construction—while fostering creativity, collaboration, and skill-building every step of the way.” Requirements for the role include experience as an educator and preferably 5+ years of experience in design and construction. Image courtesy of Yestermorrow Design/Build School/Facebook Why the role interests us The open role at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School offers us the opportunity to take a closer look at a school seeking to create a student experience that unites theory and practice in...

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Engadget Compartió un vínculo

2025-06-01 15:39:01 ·

ExpressVPN review 2025: Fast speeds and a low learning curve

ExpressVPN is good at its job. It's easy to be skeptical of any service with a knack for self-promotion, but don't let ExpressVPN's hype distract you from the fact that it keeps its front-page promise of "just working."
Outside of solid security, the two best things ExpressVPN offers are fast speeds and a simple interface. Our tests showed only a 7% average drop in download speed and a 2% loss of upload speed, worldwide. And while the lack of extra features may frustrate experienced users, it makes for a true set-and-forget VPN on any platform.
This isn't to say ExpressVPN is without flaws — it's nearly bereft of customization options and it's notably more expensive than its competition — but it beats most VPNs in a head-to-head matchup.
For this review, we followed our rigorous 10-step VPN testing process, exploring ExpressVPN's security, privacy, speed, interfaces and more. Whether you read straight through or skip to the sections that are most important for you, you should come away with all the information you need to decide whether to subscribe.
Editors' note: We're in the process of rebooting all of our VPN reviews from scratch. Once we do a fresh pass on the top services, we'll be updating each review with a rating and additional comparative information.

Table of contents

Findings at a glance
Installing, configuring and using ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN speed test: Very fast averages
ExpressVPN security test: Checking for leaks
How much does ExpressVPN cost?
ExpressVPN side apps and bundles
Close-reading ExpressVPN's privacy policy
Can ExpressVPN change your virtual location?
Investigating ExpressVPN's server network
Extra features of ExpressVPN
ExpressVPN customer support options
ExpressVPN background check: From founding to Kape Technologies
Final verdict

Findings at a glance

Category
Notes

Installation and UI
All interfaces are clean and minimalist, with no glitches and not enough depth to get lost in Windows and Mac clients are similar in both setup and general user experience Android and iOS are likewise almost identical, but Android has a nice-looking dark mode

Speed
Retains a worldwide average of 93% of starting download speeds Upload speeds average 98% of starting speeds Latency rises with distance, but global average stayed under 300 ms in tests

Security
OpenVPN, IKEv2 and Lightway VPN protocols all use secure ciphers Packet-sniffing test showed working encryption We detected no IP leaks Blocks IPv6 and WebRTC by default to prevent leaks

Pricing
Base price: per month or per year Lowest prepaid rate: per month Can save money by paying for 28 months in advance, but only once per account 30-day money-back guarantee

Bundles
ExpressVPN Keys password manager and ID alerts included on all plans Dedicated IP addresses come at an extra price ID theft insurance, data removal and credit scanning available to new one-year and two-year subscribers for free 1GB eSIM deal included through holiday.com

Privacy policy
No storage of connection logs or device logs permitted The only risky exceptions are personal account dataand marketing dataAn independent audit found that ExpressVPN's RAM-only server infrastructure makes it impossible to keep logs

Virtual location change
Successfully unblocked five international Netflix libraries, succeeding on 14 out of 15 attempts

Server network
164 server locations in 105 countries 38% of servers are virtual, though most virtual locations are accessed through physical servers within 1,000 miles A large number of locations in South America, Africa and central Asia

Features
Simple but effective kill switch Can block ads, trackers, adult sites and/or malware sites but blocklists can't be customized Split tunneling is convenient but unavailable on iOS and modern Macs Aircove is the best VPN router, albeit expensive

Customer support
Setup and troubleshooting guides are organized and useful, with lots of screenshots and videos Live chat starts with a bot but you can get to a person within a couple minutes Email tickets are only accessible from the mobile apps or after live chat has failed

Background check
Founded in 2009; based in the British Virgin Islands Has never been caught selling or mishandling user data Turkish police seized servers in 2017 but couldn't find any logs of user activity Owned by Kape Technologies, which also owns CyberGhost and Private Internet Access A previous CIO formerly worked on surveillance in the United Arab Emirates; no evidence of shady behavior during his time at ExpressVPN Windows Version 12 leaked some DNS requests when Split Tunneling was active

Installing, configuring and using ExpressVPN
This section focuses on how it feels to use ExpressVPN on each of the major platforms where it's available. The first step for any setup process is to make an account on expressvpn.com and buy a subscription.
Windows
Once subscribed, download the Windows VPN from either expressvpn.com or the Microsoft Store, then open the .exe file. Click "Yes" to let it make changes, wait for the install, then let your computer reboot. Including the reboot, the whole process takes 5-10 minutes, most of it idle. To finish, you'll need your activation code, which you can find by going to expressvpn.com and clicking "Setup" in the top-right corner.

You can install ExpressVPN's Windows app from the Microsoft store, but we found the website more convenient.

Sam Chapman for Engadget

Extreme simplicity is the watchword for all ExpressVPN's designs. The Windows client's launch panel consists of three buttons and less than ten words. You can change your location or let the app pick a location for you — the "Smart Location" is the server with the best combination of being nearby and unburdened.
Everything else is crammed into the hamburger menu at the top left. Here, in seven tabs, you'll find the Network Lock kill switch, the four types of content blockers, the split tunneling menu and the option to change your VPN protocol. You can also add shortcuts to various websites, useful if you regularly use your VPN for the same online destinations.
To sum up, there's almost nothing here to get in the way: no delays, no snags, no nested menus to get lost in. It may be the world's most ignorable VPN client. That's not a bad thing at all.
Mac
ExpressVPN's app for macOS is almost identical in design to its Windows app. The process for downloading and setting it up is nearly the same too. As on Windows, it can be downloaded from the App Store or sideloaded directly from the expressvpn.com download center. Only a few features are missing and a couple others have been added. Split tunneling is gone, and you won't see the Lightway Turbo setting.

ExpressVPN recommends some servers, but it's easy to search the whole list.

Sam Chapman for Engadget

Mac users do gain access to the IKEv2 protocol, along with the option to turn off automatic IPv6 blocking — Windows users have to leave it blocked at all times. Almost every website is still accessible via IPv4, but it's useful if you do need to access a specific IPv6 address while the VPN is active.
Android
Android users can download ExpressVPN through the Google Play Store. Open the app, sign in and you're ready to go. The Android app has a very nice dark-colored design, only slightly marred by an unnecessary information box about how long you've used the VPN this week.

ExpressVPN's Android app puts a little more information on the screen than it needs to, but still runs well.

Sam Chapman for Engadget

There's a large button for connecting. Clicking on the server name takes you to a list of locations. On this list, you can either search or scroll and can choose individual locations within a country that has more than one. We connected to as many far-flung server locations as we could, but not a single one took longer than a few seconds.
The options menu is organized sensibly, with no option located more than two clicks deep. You will see a couple of options here that aren't available on desktop, the best of which is the ability to automatically connect to your last-used ExpressVPN server whenever your phone connects to a non-trusted wifi network.
There are also a few general security tools: an IP address checker, DNS and WebRTC leak testers and a password generator. These are also available on the website, but here, they're built into the app. With the exception of the latter, we'd recommend using third-party testing tools instead — even a VPN with integrity has an incentive to make its own app look like it's working.
iPhone and iPad
You can only install ExpressVPN's iOS app through the app store. During setup, you may need to enter your password to allow your phone to use VPN configurations. Otherwise, there are no major differences from the Android process.

ExpressVPN looks good on iPhone and iPad.

Sam Chapman for Engadget

The interface is not quite as pleasing as the dark-mode Android app, but it makes up for that by cutting out some of the clutter. The tabs and features are similar, though split tunneling and shortcuts are absent. Also, both mobile apps make customer support a lot more accessible than their desktop counterparts — plus, mobile is the only way to send email support tickets.
Browser extension
ExpressVPN also includes browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome. These let you connect, disconnect and change server locations without leaving your browser window. It's nice, but not essential unless you have a very specific web browser flow you like.
ExpressVPN speed test: Very fast averages
Connecting to a VPN almost always decreases your speed, but the best VPNs mitigate the drop as much as possible. We used Ookla's speed testing app to see how much of your internet speed ExpressVPN preserves. For this test, we emphasized the locations ExpressVPN uses for most of its virtual servers, including the Netherlands, Brazil, Germany and Singapore.
Some terms before we start:

Latency, measured in milliseconds, is the time it takes one data packet to travel between your device and a web server through the VPN. Latency increases with distance. It's most important for real-time tasks like video chatting and online gaming.
Download speed, measured in megabits per second, is the amount of information that can download onto your device at one time — such as when loading a web page or streaming a video.
Upload speed, also measured in Mbps, is the amount of information your device can send to the web at once. It's most important for torrenting, since the amount of data you can seed determines how fast you can download in exchange.

The table below shows our results. We conducted this on Windows, using the automatic protocol setting with the Lightway Turbo feature active — a recent ExpressVPN addition that keeps speed more consistent by processing connections in parallel.

Server location
LatencyIncrease factor
Download speedPercentage dropoff
Upload speedPercentage dropoff

Portland, Oregon, USA18
--
58.77
--
5.70
--

Seattle, Washington, USA26
1.4x
54.86
6.7%
5.52
3.2%

New York, NY, USA
156
8.7x
57.25
2.6%
5.57
2.3%

Amsterdam, Netherlands
306
17x
53.83
8.4%
5.58
2.1%

São Paulo, Brazil
371
20.6x
53.82
8.4%
5.65
0.9%

Frankfurt, Germany
404
22.4x
55.71
5.2%
5.67
0.5%

Singapore, Singapore
381
21.2x
52.76
10.2%
5.64
1.0%

Average
274
15.2x
54.71
6.9%
5.61
1.6%

These are extremely good results. ExpressVPN is a winner on both download and upload speed. No matter where we went in the world, we never lost more than about 7% of our download speeds, and upload lost an astoundingly low average of 2%. This suggests that ExpressVPN deftly distributes its user load between servers to eliminate bottlenecks.

This Ookla speedtest shows you can still get fast internet while connected to ExpressVPN -- our unprotected speeds are around 58 Mbps.

Sam Chapman for Engadget

The latency numbers look worse, but the rise in the table is less sharp than we projected. Ping length depends far more on distance than download speed does, so we expect it to shoot up on servers more than 1,000 miles from our location. Keeping the average below 300 ms, as ExpressVPN does here, is a strong showing.
ExpressVPN security test: Checking for leaks
A VPN's core mission is to hide your IP address and make you untraceable online. Our task in this section is to figure out if ExpressVPN can carry out this mission every time you connect. While we can't be 100% certain, the tests we'll run through below have led us to believe that ExpressVPN is currently leak-proof.
Available VPN protocols
A VPN protocol is like a common language that a VPN server can use to mediate between your devices and the web servers you visit. If a VPN uses outdated or insecure protocols, or relies on unique protocols with no visible specs or source code, that's a bad sign.

Not all protocols are available on all apps, but Mac has the full range.

Sam Chapman for Engadget

ExpressVPN gives you a selection of three protocols: IKEv2, OpenVPN and Lightway. The first two are solid choices that support the latest encryption algorithms. OpenVPN has been fully open-source for years and is the best choice if privacy is your goal. While IKEv2 started life as a closed project by Microsoft and Cisco, ExpressVPN uses an open-source reverse-engineering, which is both better for privacy and quite fast.
Lightway is the odd one out, a protocol you'll only find on ExpressVPN, though its source code is available on Github. It's similar to WireGuard, in that both reach for faster speeds and lower processing demands by keeping their codebases slim. However, Lightway was recently rewritten in Rust to better protect the keys stored in its memory.
Ultimately, you can't go wrong with any of ExpressVPN's protocol options. 99% of the time, your best choice will be to set the controls to Automatic and let the VPN decide which runs best.
Testing for leaks
ExpressVPN is one of the best services, but it's not leak-proof. Luckily, checking for DNS leaks is a simple matter of checking your IP address before and after connecting to a VPN server. If the new address matches the VPN server, you're good; if not, your VPN is leaking.
First, we checked the Windows app with split tunneling active to ensure the flaw really had been patched. We tested several servers and didn't find any leaks, which suggests the patch worked, though leaks were rare even before ExpressVPN fixed the vulnerability.

We checked our IP while connected to the virtual India location, which is run from a physical server in Singapore. Don't worry -- it still looks like India to streaming services.

Sam Chapman for Engadget

In fact, we didn't find any leaks on any ExpressVPN server we tested on any platform. Though questions remain about iOS, as you'll see later in this section, that's a problem on Apple's end that even the best VPNs can do very little about for now.
The most common cause of VPN leaks is the use of public DNS servers to connect users to websites, which can mistakenly send browsing activity outside the VPN's encrypted tunnel. ExpressVPN avoids the risks of the public system by installing its own DNS resolvers on every server. This is the key factor behind its clean bill of health in our leak testing.
Two other common flaws can lead to VPN leaks: WebRTC traffic and IPv6. The former is a communication protocol used in live streaming and the latter is a new IP standard designed to expand domain availability. Both are nice, but currently optional, so ExpressVPN automatically blocks both to ensure there's no opportunity for leaks to arise.
One note about VPN security on iOS: it's a known and continuing problem that iOS VPNs do not prevent many online apps from communicating with Apple directly, outside the VPN tunnel. This risks leaking sensitive data, even with Lockdown Mode active in iOS 16. A blog post by Proton VPN shares a workaround: connect to a VPN server, then turn Airplane Mode on and off again to end all connections that were active before you connected to the VPN.
Testing encryption
We finished up our battery of security tests by checking out ExpressVPN's encryption directly. Using WireShark, a free packet sniffer, we inspected what it looks like when ExpressVPN transmits data from one of its servers to the internet. The screenshot below shows a data stream encrypted with Lightway UDP.

After connecting to ExpressVPN, HTTP packets were rendered unreadable while in transit.

Sam Chapman for Engadget

That lack of any identifiable information, or even readable information, means encryption is working as intended. We repeated the test several times, always getting the same result. This left us satisfied that ExpressVPN's core features are working as intended.
How much does ExpressVPN cost?
ExpressVPN subscriptions cost per month. Long-term subscriptions can bring the monthly cost down, but the great deals they offer tend to only last for the first billing period.
A 12-month subscription costs and includes three months for free with your first payment, costing a total of per month. The bonus disappears for all subsequent years, raising the monthly cost to You can also sign up for 28 months at a cost of but this is also once-only — ExpressVPN can only be renewed at the per year level.
There are two ways to test ExpressVPN for free before making a financial commitment. Users on iOS and Android can download the ExpressVPN app without entering any payment details and use it free for seven days. On any platform, there's a 30-day money-back guarantee, which ExpressVPN has historically honored with no questions asked. You will have to pay before you can use it, though.
In our opinion, ExpressVPN's service is solid enough that it's worth paying extra. Perhaps not this much extra, but that depends on what you get out of it. We recommend using the 30-day refund period and seeing how well ExpressVPN works for you. If it's a VPN you can enjoy using, that runs fast and unblocks everything you need, that's worth a server's weight in gold.
ExpressVPN side apps and bundles
ExpressVPN includes some special features that work mostly or wholly separate from its VPN apps. Some of these come free with a subscription, while others add an extra cost.
Every subscription includes the ExpressVPN keys password manager. This is available under its own tab on the Android and iOS apps. On desktop, you'll need to download a separate extension from your browser's store, then sign in using your account activation code. It's available on all Chromium browsers, but not Firefox.
Starting in 2025, new subscribers get an eSIM plan through holiday.com, a separate service linked to ExpressVPN. The baseline 1GB holiday eSIM plans last for 5 days and can apply to countries, regions, or the entire world. Longer-term plans include larger eSIM plans.
You can add a dedicated IP address to your ExpressVPN subscription for an additional cost per month. A dedicated IP lets you use the same IP address every time you connect to ExpressVPN. You can add the address to whitelists on restricted networks, and you're assured to never be blocked because of someone else's bad activity on a shared IP.
Unlike many of its competitors, ExpressVPN doesn't currently offer antivirus or online storage services, but there is a comprehensive bundle of ID protection tools called Identity Defender. We haven't reviewed any of these products in detail, but here's a list for reference:

ID Alerts will inform you if any of your sensitive information is leaked or misused online. It's free with all plans, but you'll have to enter your personal information on your ExpressVPN account page or a mobile app.
ID Theft Insurance grants up to million in identity theft reimbursement and comes free with new ExpressVPN one-year or two-year subscriptions. It's not yet available to those who subscribed before it launched in October 2024.
Data Removal scans for your information in data brokerages and automatically requests that it be deleted. It's also free with one-year and two-year plans.
Credit Scanner is only available for United States users. It monitors your activity on the three credit bureaus so you can quickly spot any suspicious transactions.

The Identity Defender features are currently only available to new ExpressVPN customers in the US.
Close-reading ExpressVPN's privacy policy
Although we worry that the consolidation of VPN brands under the umbrella of Kape Technologieswill make the industry less competitive, we don't believe it's influencing ExpressVPN to take advantage of its users' privacy. To confirm, and get a full sense of what sort of privacy ExpressVPN promises its users, we set out to read ExpressVPN's privacy policy in detail. It's long, but thankfully aimed at casual users instead of lawyers. You can see it for yourself here.
In the introduction, ExpressVPN states that it does not keep either activity logsor connection logs. It then specifies the seven types of data it's legally allowed to collect:

Data used to sign up for an account, such as names, emails and payment methods.
VPN usage data which is aggregated and can't be traced to any individual.
Credentials stored in the ExpressVPN Keys password manager.
Diagnostic data such as crash reports, which are only shared upon user request.
IP addresses authorized for MediaStreamer, which is only for streaming devices that don't otherwise support VPN apps.
Marketing data collected directly from the app — a "limited amount" that's kept anonymous.
Data voluntarily submitted for identity theft protection apps.

Of those seven exceptions, the only ones that count as red flags are account data and marketing data. Both categories are highly personal and could be damaging if mishandled. Fortunately, complying with subpoenas is not one of the allowed uses listed for either data category, nor does the policy let ExpressVPN sell the data to other private parties.
The only really annoying thing here is that if you ask ExpressVPN to delete your personal data, you won't be able to use your account from then on. You aren't even eligible for a refund in this case, unless you're within 30 days of your initial subscription.
As for marketing data, ExpressVPN collects device fingerprints and location data when you sign up for an account on its website. The privacy policy also claims this is anonymized, as its "systems are engineered to decouple such data from personally identifiable information." Audits corroborate this, as we'll see in the next section. So, while it would be better if ExpressVPN didn't collect any personal data at all, its practices don't appear to pose a risk to anything you do while using the VPN — just the ExpressVPN website.
Privacy audits
VPN providers often get third-party accounting firms to audit their privacy policies. The idea is that a well-known firm won't mortgage its reputation to lie on behalf of a VPN, so their results can be trusted.
For the last several years, ExpressVPN has had KPMG look over its privacy policy and relevant infrastructure. KPMG's most recent report, completed in December 2023 and released in May 2024, found that ExpressVPN had enough internal controls in place that users could trust its privacy policy.
The report is freely available to read. This is a very good sign, though we're looking out for a more up-to-date audit soon.
TrustedServer
"TrustedServer" is a marketing term ExpressVPN uses for its RAM-only server infrastructure. RAM-only servers have no hard drives for long-term storage and return to a standard disk image with every reboot. This makes it theoretically impossible to store user activity logs on them, even if ExpressVPN wanted to do that.
The KPMG audit, linked above, reports that TrustedServer works as advertised. Between its many clean privacy audits and the Turkish server incident in 2017, we're prepared to say ExpressVPN is a private VPN, in spite of its aggravating exception for marketing.
Can ExpressVPN change your virtual location?
Next, we tested whether ExpressVPN can actually convince websites that you're somewhere other than your real location. Our security tests have already proven it can hide your IP address, but it takes more than leak-proofing to fool streaming sites these days — Netflix and the others have gotten very good at combing through metadata to sniff out proxy users.
The process for testing this is a lot like how we handled the DNS leak tests: try several different servers and see if we get caught. We checked five sample locations outside the U.S. to see if we a) got into Netflix and b) saw different titles in the library. The results are below.

Server Location
Unblocked Netflix?
Library changed?

Canada
Y
Y

United Kingdom
YY

Slovakia
Y
Y

India
Y
YAustralia
Y
Y

In fifteen tests, ExpressVPN slipped up only once. Docklands, the UK server it chose as the fastest, wasn't able to access Netflix. We switched to a server labeled simply "London" and unblocked it without issue.

ExpressVPN can change your virtual location so you can explore the wonderful world of K-drama.

Sam Chapman for Engadget

All the other locations got us access to an alternate Netflix library on the first try. We even checked whether the India server, which is physically located in the UK, showed us different videos than the UK servers. It did, which makes us even more confident that ExpressVPN's virtual locations are airtight.
Investigating ExpressVPN's server network
ExpressVPN users can connect to a total of 164 server locations in 105 countries and territories. These locations are reasonably well distributed across the globe, but as with all VPNs, there's a bias toward the northern hemisphere. There are 24 locations in the U.S. alone and a further 66 in Europe.
That isn't to say users in the Global South get nothing. ExpressVPN has IP addresses from nine nations in South Americaand six in Africa. The network even includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia, impressive since central Asia may be the region most often shafted by VPNs.
However, many of these servers have virtual locations different from their real ones. For those of you choosing a server based on performance instead of a particular IP address, ExpressVPN's website has a helpful list of which servers are virtual. The bad news is that it's a big chunk of the list. A total of 63 ExpressVPN locations are virtual, or 38% of its entire network.
To reduce the sting, ExpressVPN takes care to locate virtual servers as close to their real locations as possible. Its virtual locations in Indonesia and India are physically based in Singapore. This isn't always practical, leading to some awkwardness like operating a Ghana IP address out of Germany. But it helps ExpressVPN perform better in the southern hemisphere.
Extra features of ExpressVPN
Compared to direct competitors like NordVPN and Surfshark, ExpressVPN doesn't have many special features. It's aimed squarely at the casual market and will probably disappoint power users. Having said that, what they do include works well. In this section, we'll run through ExpressVPN's four substantial features outside its VPN servers themselves.
Network Lock kill switch
"Network Lock" is the name ExpressVPN gives to its kill switch. A VPN kill switch is a safety feature that keeps you from broadcasting outside the VPN tunnel. If it ever detects that you aren't connected to a legitimate ExpressVPN server, it cuts off your internet access. You won't be able to get back online until you either reconnect to the VPN or disable Network Lock.

ExpressVPN's kill switch is called Network Lock on desktop, and Network Protection on mobileSam Chapman for Engadget

This is important for everyone, not just users who need to hide sensitive traffic. The recently discovered TunnelVision bug theoretically allows hackers to set up fake public wi-fi networks through which they redirect you to equally fake VPN servers, which then harvest your personal information. It's unlikely, but not impossible, and a kill switch is the best way to prevent it — the switch always triggers unless you're connected to a real server in the VPN's network.
Like most of ExpressVPN's features, all you can do with Network Lock is turn it on and off. You can also toggle whether you'll still be able to access local devices while the kill switch is blocking your internet — this is allowed by default.
Threat manager, ad blocker and parental controls
ExpressVPN groups three tools under the heading of "advanced protection" — Threat Manager, an ad blocker and parental controls. Threat Manager consists of two checkboxes: one that blocks your browser from communicating with activity tracking software and one that blocks a list of websites known to be used for malware.

Check any of these boxes to use the pre-set blocklists whenever you're connected to ExpressVPN.

Sam Chapman for Engadget

You can't customize the lists, so you're limited to what ExpressVPN considers worthy of blocking. They share their sources on the website. While the lists are extensive and open-source, they rely on after-the-fact reporting and can't detect and block unknown threats like a proper antivirus.
The adblock and parental control options work the same way: check a box to block everything on the list, uncheck it to allow everything through. In tests, the ad blocker was nearly 100% effective against banner ads, but failed to block any video ads on YouTube or Netflix.
The parental control option blocks a list of porn sites. It's an easy option for concerned parents, but only works while ExpressVPN is connected. As such, it's meant to be used in conjunction with device-level parental controls that prevent the child from turning off or uninstalling the VPN client.
Split tunneling
Sometimes, you'll find it helpful to have your device getting online through two different IP addresses at once — one for your home services and one for a location you're trying to spoof. That's where split tunneling is helpful: it runs some apps through the VPN while leaving others unprotected. This can also improve your speeds, since the VPN needs to encrypt less in total.

You can configure split tunneling through either a blocklist or an allowlist.

Sam Chapman for Engadget

ExpressVPN includes split tunneling on Windows, Android and Mac. You can only split by app, not by website, but it's still pretty useful. For example, you can have BitTorrent handling a heavy download in the background while you use your browser for innocuous activities that don't need protecting.
ExpressVPN Aircove router
By now, it should be clear that we find ExpressVPN to be a highly reliable but often unexceptional VPN service. However, there's one area in which it's a clear industry leader: VPN routers. ExpressVPN Aircove is, to our knowledge, the only router with a built-in commercial VPN that comes with its own dashboard interface.
Usually, installing a VPN on your router requires tinkering with the router control panel, which turns off all but the most experienced users — not to mention making it a massive pain to switch to a new server location. Aircove's dashboard, by contrast, will be instantly familiar to anyone who already knows how to use an ExpressVPN client. It even allows different devices in your home to connect to different locations through the router VPN.
Aircove's biggest drawback is its price. Currently retailing at, it's around three times more expensive than an aftermarket router fitted with free VPN firmware. Some of you might still find the convenience worth the one-time payment.
ExpressVPN customer support options
ExpressVPN's written help pages are some of the best on the market. Its live chat is more of a mixed bag, and complex questions may cause delays. However, it is at least staffed with human agents who aim to reply accurately, rather than resolve your ticket as quickly as possible.

You can directly access both live chat and email from ExpressVPN's mobile apps.

Sam Chapman for Engadget

We approached ExpressVPN's support features with a simple question: "If I requested that ExpressVPN delete all my personal data, would I be able to get a refund for my unused subscription time?"Our first stop was expressvpn.com/support, the written support center and FAQ page. It's divided into setup guides, troubleshooting, account management and information on each of ExpressVPN's products. The setup guides are excellent, including screenshots and clearly written steps; each one includes a video guide for those who learn better that way.
Troubleshooting is just as good — no videos, but the same standards of clarity and usefulness prevail. The section starts with general problems, then delves into specific issues you might face on each operating system. Each article clearly derives from a real customer need.
The live support experience
To get answers on our refund question, we visited the account management FAQs. This section stated that the refund policy only applies within 30 days of purchase. Pretty clear-cut, but we still wanted an answer on our special case, so we contacted live chat by clicking the button at the bottom-right of every FAQ page.

Live chat is in the bottom-right corner of every page of expressvpn.com.

Sam Chapman for Engadget

Live chat starts with an AI assistant, which is not too hard to get past — just ask it a question it can't answer, then click "Transfer to an Agent." We got online witha human in less than a minute. Answering the question took longer and involved an uncomfortable 10-minute silence, but we did get a clear verdict from a real person: refunds are within 30 days only, no matter what.
If the live chat agent can't answer your question, you'll be redirected to open an email support ticket. Annoyingly, there's no way to go directly to email support through the website or desktop apps, though mobile users have the option to skip directly there.
ExpressVPN background check: From founding to Kape Technologies
ExpressVPN launched in 2009, which makes it one of the oldest consumer VPNs in continual operation. In more than 15 years of operation, it's never been caught violating its own privacy policy, though its record isn't free of more minor blemishes.
Headquarters in the British Virgin Islands
Founders Dan Pomerantz and Peter Burchhardt registered the company in the British Virgin Islands from the start to take advantage of that territory's favorable legal environment for online privacy. The BVIs have no law requiring businesses to retain data on their users, and the process for extraditing data is famously difficult, requiring a direct order from the highest court.
In 2021, the BVI implemented the Data Protection Act, which prevents companies based in the territory from accessing data on their users anywhere in the world. It's a great privacy law in theory, modeled on best-in-class legislation in the EU. However, we couldn't find any evidence that its supervising authority — the Office of the Information Commissioner — has a leader or staff.
In other words, while ExpressVPN is not legally required to log any data on its users, there's technically nobody stopping them from doing so. Whether you trust the jurisdiction depends on whether you trust the company itself. Let's see what the other evidence says.
Security and privacy incidents
Two significant incidents stand out from ExpressVPN's 16-year history. In 2017, when Andrei Karlov, Russia's ambassador to Turkey, was shot to death at an art show. Turkish police suspected someone had used ExpressVPN to mask their identity while they deleted information from social media accounts belonging to the alleged assassin. To investigate, they confiscated an ExpressVPN server to comb for evidence. They didn't find anything.
A police seizure is the best possible test of a VPN's approach to privacy. The provider can't prepare beforehand, fake anything, or collude with investigators. The Turkey incident is still one of the best reasons to recommend ExpressVPN, though eight years is a long time for policy to change.
The second incident began in March 2024, when a researcher at CNET informed ExpressVPN that its version 12 for Windows occasionally leaked DNS requests when users enabled the split tunneling feature. While these users remained connected to an ExpressVPN server, their browsing activity was often going directly to their ISP, unmasked.
The bug only impacted a few users, and to their credit, ExpressVPN sprang into action as soon as they learned about it. The team had it patched by April, as confirmed by the researcher who initially discovered the vulnerability. But while their quick and effective response deserves praise, it's still a mark against them that a journalist noticed the bug before they did.
Kape Technologies ownership and management questions
In 2021, an Israeli-owned, UK-based firm called Kape Technologies purchased a controlling interest in ExpressVPN. In addition to ExpressVPN, privately held Kape owns CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, and Zenmate. As shown on its website, it also owns Webselenese, publisher of VPN review websites WizCase and vpnMentor, which poses an apparent conflict of interest.
When reached for comment, a representative for ExpressVPN said that "ExpressVPN does not directly engage with, nor seek to influence, the content on any Webselenese site," and pointed us to disclosure statements on the websites in question — here's one example. Even so, it's a good reminder not to take VPN reviews at face value without knowing who's behind them.
Diving deeper into the background of Kape's ownership will lead you to owner Teddy Sagi. Go back far enough, and you'll see he did prison time in Israel and was mentioned in the Pandora Papers, among other things. More recently, headlines about the billionaire have focused more his businesses in the online gambling and fintech arenas, as well as his real estate ventures. An ExpressVPN representative told us that "Kape's brands continue to operate independently," and our investigation bore that out — we couldn't find any proof that Kape or Sagi have directly attempted to influence ExpressVPN's software or daily operations.
Closer to the immediate day-to-day operations of ExpressVPN was the company's employment of Daniel Gericke as CTO from 2019 through 2023. During that time, the US Justice Department announced it had fined Gericke and two others for their previous employment on a surveillance operation called Project Raven, which the United Arab Emiratesused to spy on its own citizens.
The revelation prompted a public response from ExpressVPN defending its decision to hire Gericke, arguing that "he best goalkeepers are the ones trained by the best strikers." ExpressVPN's representative confirmed that the company still stands by that linked statement.
Gericke parted ways with ExpressVPN in October 2023, per his LinkedIn profile. While we don't know what we don't know, we can say that ExpressVPN has not notably changed its public-facing security and privacy policies during the time it's been connected to Kape, Sagi, or Gericke.
In the end, how much ExpressVPN's history matters to you is a personal choice. If you object to any current or past actions by Kape Technologies or Teddy Sagi, there are other premium VPN options you might prefer. If you need more information to make up your mind, we recommend reading through CNET's 2022 deep dive on ExpressVPN's corporate history.
Final verdict
ExpressVPN is the VPN we most often recommend to beginners. It takes zero training to use, and consistently gets past filters on streaming sites. It also runs in the background with virtually no impact. If anything is worth the high price of admission, it's the excellent speeds distributed evenly across the worldwide server network.
However, for certain specific cases, ExpressVPN may not be the best choice. There's no way to set up your own server locations, like NordVPN offers, and no double VPN connections, like you can build for yourself on Surfshark. Its corporate background is more suspect than the entities backing Proton VPN, and unlike Mullvad, ExpressVPN doesn't work in China — it's so well-known that the government targets its servers specifically.
We suggest going with ExpressVPN for general online privacy, for spoofing locations in your home country while traveling, or if you regularly need to unblock sites in other countries. That encompasses 19 of every 20 users, which is fine by us, as ExpressVPN is a great service. It's just more of a reliable old screwdriver than a multi-tool.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at
#expressvpn #review #fast #speeds #low

ExpressVPN review 2025: Fast speeds and a low learning curve
ExpressVPN is good at its job. It's easy to be skeptical of any service with a knack for self-promotion, but don't let ExpressVPN's hype distract you from the fact that it keeps its front-page promise of "just working." Outside of solid security, the two best things ExpressVPN offers are fast speeds and a simple interface. Our tests showed only a 7% average drop in download speed and a 2% loss of upload speed, worldwide. And while the lack of extra features may frustrate experienced users, it makes for a true set-and-forget VPN on any platform. This isn't to say ExpressVPN is without flaws — it's nearly bereft of customization options and it's notably more expensive than its competition — but it beats most VPNs in a head-to-head matchup. For this review, we followed our rigorous 10-step VPN testing process, exploring ExpressVPN's security, privacy, speed, interfaces and more. Whether you read straight through or skip to the sections that are most important for you, you should come away with all the information you need to decide whether to subscribe. Editors' note: We're in the process of rebooting all of our VPN reviews from scratch. Once we do a fresh pass on the top services, we'll be updating each review with a rating and additional comparative information. Table of contents Findings at a glance Installing, configuring and using ExpressVPN ExpressVPN speed test: Very fast averages ExpressVPN security test: Checking for leaks How much does ExpressVPN cost? ExpressVPN side apps and bundles Close-reading ExpressVPN's privacy policy Can ExpressVPN change your virtual location? Investigating ExpressVPN's server network Extra features of ExpressVPN ExpressVPN customer support options ExpressVPN background check: From founding to Kape Technologies Final verdict Findings at a glance Category Notes Installation and UI All interfaces are clean and minimalist, with no glitches and not enough depth to get lost in Windows and Mac clients are similar in both setup and general user experience Android and iOS are likewise almost identical, but Android has a nice-looking dark mode Speed Retains a worldwide average of 93% of starting download speeds Upload speeds average 98% of starting speeds Latency rises with distance, but global average stayed under 300 ms in tests Security OpenVPN, IKEv2 and Lightway VPN protocols all use secure ciphers Packet-sniffing test showed working encryption We detected no IP leaks Blocks IPv6 and WebRTC by default to prevent leaks Pricing Base price: per month or per year Lowest prepaid rate: per month Can save money by paying for 28 months in advance, but only once per account 30-day money-back guarantee Bundles ExpressVPN Keys password manager and ID alerts included on all plans Dedicated IP addresses come at an extra price ID theft insurance, data removal and credit scanning available to new one-year and two-year subscribers for free 1GB eSIM deal included through holiday.com Privacy policy No storage of connection logs or device logs permitted The only risky exceptions are personal account dataand marketing dataAn independent audit found that ExpressVPN's RAM-only server infrastructure makes it impossible to keep logs Virtual location change Successfully unblocked five international Netflix libraries, succeeding on 14 out of 15 attempts Server network 164 server locations in 105 countries 38% of servers are virtual, though most virtual locations are accessed through physical servers within 1,000 miles A large number of locations in South America, Africa and central Asia Features Simple but effective kill switch Can block ads, trackers, adult sites and/or malware sites but blocklists can't be customized Split tunneling is convenient but unavailable on iOS and modern Macs Aircove is the best VPN router, albeit expensive Customer support Setup and troubleshooting guides are organized and useful, with lots of screenshots and videos Live chat starts with a bot but you can get to a person within a couple minutes Email tickets are only accessible from the mobile apps or after live chat has failed Background check Founded in 2009; based in the British Virgin Islands Has never been caught selling or mishandling user data Turkish police seized servers in 2017 but couldn't find any logs of user activity Owned by Kape Technologies, which also owns CyberGhost and Private Internet Access A previous CIO formerly worked on surveillance in the United Arab Emirates; no evidence of shady behavior during his time at ExpressVPN Windows Version 12 leaked some DNS requests when Split Tunneling was active Installing, configuring and using ExpressVPN This section focuses on how it feels to use ExpressVPN on each of the major platforms where it's available. The first step for any setup process is to make an account on expressvpn.com and buy a subscription. Windows Once subscribed, download the Windows VPN from either expressvpn.com or the Microsoft Store, then open the .exe file. Click "Yes" to let it make changes, wait for the install, then let your computer reboot. Including the reboot, the whole process takes 5-10 minutes, most of it idle. To finish, you'll need your activation code, which you can find by going to expressvpn.com and clicking "Setup" in the top-right corner. You can install ExpressVPN's Windows app from the Microsoft store, but we found the website more convenient. Sam Chapman for Engadget Extreme simplicity is the watchword for all ExpressVPN's designs. The Windows client's launch panel consists of three buttons and less than ten words. You can change your location or let the app pick a location for you — the "Smart Location" is the server with the best combination of being nearby and unburdened. Everything else is crammed into the hamburger menu at the top left. Here, in seven tabs, you'll find the Network Lock kill switch, the four types of content blockers, the split tunneling menu and the option to change your VPN protocol. You can also add shortcuts to various websites, useful if you regularly use your VPN for the same online destinations. To sum up, there's almost nothing here to get in the way: no delays, no snags, no nested menus to get lost in. It may be the world's most ignorable VPN client. That's not a bad thing at all. Mac ExpressVPN's app for macOS is almost identical in design to its Windows app. The process for downloading and setting it up is nearly the same too. As on Windows, it can be downloaded from the App Store or sideloaded directly from the expressvpn.com download center. Only a few features are missing and a couple others have been added. Split tunneling is gone, and you won't see the Lightway Turbo setting. ExpressVPN recommends some servers, but it's easy to search the whole list. Sam Chapman for Engadget Mac users do gain access to the IKEv2 protocol, along with the option to turn off automatic IPv6 blocking — Windows users have to leave it blocked at all times. Almost every website is still accessible via IPv4, but it's useful if you do need to access a specific IPv6 address while the VPN is active. Android Android users can download ExpressVPN through the Google Play Store. Open the app, sign in and you're ready to go. The Android app has a very nice dark-colored design, only slightly marred by an unnecessary information box about how long you've used the VPN this week. ExpressVPN's Android app puts a little more information on the screen than it needs to, but still runs well. Sam Chapman for Engadget There's a large button for connecting. Clicking on the server name takes you to a list of locations. On this list, you can either search or scroll and can choose individual locations within a country that has more than one. We connected to as many far-flung server locations as we could, but not a single one took longer than a few seconds. The options menu is organized sensibly, with no option located more than two clicks deep. You will see a couple of options here that aren't available on desktop, the best of which is the ability to automatically connect to your last-used ExpressVPN server whenever your phone connects to a non-trusted wifi network. There are also a few general security tools: an IP address checker, DNS and WebRTC leak testers and a password generator. These are also available on the website, but here, they're built into the app. With the exception of the latter, we'd recommend using third-party testing tools instead — even a VPN with integrity has an incentive to make its own app look like it's working. iPhone and iPad You can only install ExpressVPN's iOS app through the app store. During setup, you may need to enter your password to allow your phone to use VPN configurations. Otherwise, there are no major differences from the Android process. ExpressVPN looks good on iPhone and iPad. Sam Chapman for Engadget The interface is not quite as pleasing as the dark-mode Android app, but it makes up for that by cutting out some of the clutter. The tabs and features are similar, though split tunneling and shortcuts are absent. Also, both mobile apps make customer support a lot more accessible than their desktop counterparts — plus, mobile is the only way to send email support tickets. Browser extension ExpressVPN also includes browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome. These let you connect, disconnect and change server locations without leaving your browser window. It's nice, but not essential unless you have a very specific web browser flow you like. ExpressVPN speed test: Very fast averages Connecting to a VPN almost always decreases your speed, but the best VPNs mitigate the drop as much as possible. We used Ookla's speed testing app to see how much of your internet speed ExpressVPN preserves. For this test, we emphasized the locations ExpressVPN uses for most of its virtual servers, including the Netherlands, Brazil, Germany and Singapore. Some terms before we start: Latency, measured in milliseconds, is the time it takes one data packet to travel between your device and a web server through the VPN. Latency increases with distance. It's most important for real-time tasks like video chatting and online gaming. Download speed, measured in megabits per second, is the amount of information that can download onto your device at one time — such as when loading a web page or streaming a video. Upload speed, also measured in Mbps, is the amount of information your device can send to the web at once. It's most important for torrenting, since the amount of data you can seed determines how fast you can download in exchange. The table below shows our results. We conducted this on Windows, using the automatic protocol setting with the Lightway Turbo feature active — a recent ExpressVPN addition that keeps speed more consistent by processing connections in parallel. Server location LatencyIncrease factor Download speedPercentage dropoff Upload speedPercentage dropoff Portland, Oregon, USA18 -- 58.77 -- 5.70 -- Seattle, Washington, USA26 1.4x 54.86 6.7% 5.52 3.2% New York, NY, USA 156 8.7x 57.25 2.6% 5.57 2.3% Amsterdam, Netherlands 306 17x 53.83 8.4% 5.58 2.1% São Paulo, Brazil 371 20.6x 53.82 8.4% 5.65 0.9% Frankfurt, Germany 404 22.4x 55.71 5.2% 5.67 0.5% Singapore, Singapore 381 21.2x 52.76 10.2% 5.64 1.0% Average 274 15.2x 54.71 6.9% 5.61 1.6% These are extremely good results. ExpressVPN is a winner on both download and upload speed. No matter where we went in the world, we never lost more than about 7% of our download speeds, and upload lost an astoundingly low average of 2%. This suggests that ExpressVPN deftly distributes its user load between servers to eliminate bottlenecks. This Ookla speedtest shows you can still get fast internet while connected to ExpressVPN -- our unprotected speeds are around 58 Mbps. Sam Chapman for Engadget The latency numbers look worse, but the rise in the table is less sharp than we projected. Ping length depends far more on distance than download speed does, so we expect it to shoot up on servers more than 1,000 miles from our location. Keeping the average below 300 ms, as ExpressVPN does here, is a strong showing. ExpressVPN security test: Checking for leaks A VPN's core mission is to hide your IP address and make you untraceable online. Our task in this section is to figure out if ExpressVPN can carry out this mission every time you connect. While we can't be 100% certain, the tests we'll run through below have led us to believe that ExpressVPN is currently leak-proof. Available VPN protocols A VPN protocol is like a common language that a VPN server can use to mediate between your devices and the web servers you visit. If a VPN uses outdated or insecure protocols, or relies on unique protocols with no visible specs or source code, that's a bad sign. Not all protocols are available on all apps, but Mac has the full range. Sam Chapman for Engadget ExpressVPN gives you a selection of three protocols: IKEv2, OpenVPN and Lightway. The first two are solid choices that support the latest encryption algorithms. OpenVPN has been fully open-source for years and is the best choice if privacy is your goal. While IKEv2 started life as a closed project by Microsoft and Cisco, ExpressVPN uses an open-source reverse-engineering, which is both better for privacy and quite fast. Lightway is the odd one out, a protocol you'll only find on ExpressVPN, though its source code is available on Github. It's similar to WireGuard, in that both reach for faster speeds and lower processing demands by keeping their codebases slim. However, Lightway was recently rewritten in Rust to better protect the keys stored in its memory. Ultimately, you can't go wrong with any of ExpressVPN's protocol options. 99% of the time, your best choice will be to set the controls to Automatic and let the VPN decide which runs best. Testing for leaks ExpressVPN is one of the best services, but it's not leak-proof. Luckily, checking for DNS leaks is a simple matter of checking your IP address before and after connecting to a VPN server. If the new address matches the VPN server, you're good; if not, your VPN is leaking. First, we checked the Windows app with split tunneling active to ensure the flaw really had been patched. We tested several servers and didn't find any leaks, which suggests the patch worked, though leaks were rare even before ExpressVPN fixed the vulnerability. We checked our IP while connected to the virtual India location, which is run from a physical server in Singapore. Don't worry -- it still looks like India to streaming services. Sam Chapman for Engadget In fact, we didn't find any leaks on any ExpressVPN server we tested on any platform. Though questions remain about iOS, as you'll see later in this section, that's a problem on Apple's end that even the best VPNs can do very little about for now. The most common cause of VPN leaks is the use of public DNS servers to connect users to websites, which can mistakenly send browsing activity outside the VPN's encrypted tunnel. ExpressVPN avoids the risks of the public system by installing its own DNS resolvers on every server. This is the key factor behind its clean bill of health in our leak testing. Two other common flaws can lead to VPN leaks: WebRTC traffic and IPv6. The former is a communication protocol used in live streaming and the latter is a new IP standard designed to expand domain availability. Both are nice, but currently optional, so ExpressVPN automatically blocks both to ensure there's no opportunity for leaks to arise. One note about VPN security on iOS: it's a known and continuing problem that iOS VPNs do not prevent many online apps from communicating with Apple directly, outside the VPN tunnel. This risks leaking sensitive data, even with Lockdown Mode active in iOS 16. A blog post by Proton VPN shares a workaround: connect to a VPN server, then turn Airplane Mode on and off again to end all connections that were active before you connected to the VPN. Testing encryption We finished up our battery of security tests by checking out ExpressVPN's encryption directly. Using WireShark, a free packet sniffer, we inspected what it looks like when ExpressVPN transmits data from one of its servers to the internet. The screenshot below shows a data stream encrypted with Lightway UDP. After connecting to ExpressVPN, HTTP packets were rendered unreadable while in transit. Sam Chapman for Engadget That lack of any identifiable information, or even readable information, means encryption is working as intended. We repeated the test several times, always getting the same result. This left us satisfied that ExpressVPN's core features are working as intended. How much does ExpressVPN cost? ExpressVPN subscriptions cost per month. Long-term subscriptions can bring the monthly cost down, but the great deals they offer tend to only last for the first billing period. A 12-month subscription costs and includes three months for free with your first payment, costing a total of per month. The bonus disappears for all subsequent years, raising the monthly cost to You can also sign up for 28 months at a cost of but this is also once-only — ExpressVPN can only be renewed at the per year level. There are two ways to test ExpressVPN for free before making a financial commitment. Users on iOS and Android can download the ExpressVPN app without entering any payment details and use it free for seven days. On any platform, there's a 30-day money-back guarantee, which ExpressVPN has historically honored with no questions asked. You will have to pay before you can use it, though. In our opinion, ExpressVPN's service is solid enough that it's worth paying extra. Perhaps not this much extra, but that depends on what you get out of it. We recommend using the 30-day refund period and seeing how well ExpressVPN works for you. If it's a VPN you can enjoy using, that runs fast and unblocks everything you need, that's worth a server's weight in gold. ExpressVPN side apps and bundles ExpressVPN includes some special features that work mostly or wholly separate from its VPN apps. Some of these come free with a subscription, while others add an extra cost. Every subscription includes the ExpressVPN keys password manager. This is available under its own tab on the Android and iOS apps. On desktop, you'll need to download a separate extension from your browser's store, then sign in using your account activation code. It's available on all Chromium browsers, but not Firefox. Starting in 2025, new subscribers get an eSIM plan through holiday.com, a separate service linked to ExpressVPN. The baseline 1GB holiday eSIM plans last for 5 days and can apply to countries, regions, or the entire world. Longer-term plans include larger eSIM plans. You can add a dedicated IP address to your ExpressVPN subscription for an additional cost per month. A dedicated IP lets you use the same IP address every time you connect to ExpressVPN. You can add the address to whitelists on restricted networks, and you're assured to never be blocked because of someone else's bad activity on a shared IP. Unlike many of its competitors, ExpressVPN doesn't currently offer antivirus or online storage services, but there is a comprehensive bundle of ID protection tools called Identity Defender. We haven't reviewed any of these products in detail, but here's a list for reference: ID Alerts will inform you if any of your sensitive information is leaked or misused online. It's free with all plans, but you'll have to enter your personal information on your ExpressVPN account page or a mobile app. ID Theft Insurance grants up to million in identity theft reimbursement and comes free with new ExpressVPN one-year or two-year subscriptions. It's not yet available to those who subscribed before it launched in October 2024. Data Removal scans for your information in data brokerages and automatically requests that it be deleted. It's also free with one-year and two-year plans. Credit Scanner is only available for United States users. It monitors your activity on the three credit bureaus so you can quickly spot any suspicious transactions. The Identity Defender features are currently only available to new ExpressVPN customers in the US. Close-reading ExpressVPN's privacy policy Although we worry that the consolidation of VPN brands under the umbrella of Kape Technologieswill make the industry less competitive, we don't believe it's influencing ExpressVPN to take advantage of its users' privacy. To confirm, and get a full sense of what sort of privacy ExpressVPN promises its users, we set out to read ExpressVPN's privacy policy in detail. It's long, but thankfully aimed at casual users instead of lawyers. You can see it for yourself here. In the introduction, ExpressVPN states that it does not keep either activity logsor connection logs. It then specifies the seven types of data it's legally allowed to collect: Data used to sign up for an account, such as names, emails and payment methods. VPN usage data which is aggregated and can't be traced to any individual. Credentials stored in the ExpressVPN Keys password manager. Diagnostic data such as crash reports, which are only shared upon user request. IP addresses authorized for MediaStreamer, which is only for streaming devices that don't otherwise support VPN apps. Marketing data collected directly from the app — a "limited amount" that's kept anonymous. Data voluntarily submitted for identity theft protection apps. Of those seven exceptions, the only ones that count as red flags are account data and marketing data. Both categories are highly personal and could be damaging if mishandled. Fortunately, complying with subpoenas is not one of the allowed uses listed for either data category, nor does the policy let ExpressVPN sell the data to other private parties. The only really annoying thing here is that if you ask ExpressVPN to delete your personal data, you won't be able to use your account from then on. You aren't even eligible for a refund in this case, unless you're within 30 days of your initial subscription. As for marketing data, ExpressVPN collects device fingerprints and location data when you sign up for an account on its website. The privacy policy also claims this is anonymized, as its "systems are engineered to decouple such data from personally identifiable information." Audits corroborate this, as we'll see in the next section. So, while it would be better if ExpressVPN didn't collect any personal data at all, its practices don't appear to pose a risk to anything you do while using the VPN — just the ExpressVPN website. Privacy audits VPN providers often get third-party accounting firms to audit their privacy policies. The idea is that a well-known firm won't mortgage its reputation to lie on behalf of a VPN, so their results can be trusted. For the last several years, ExpressVPN has had KPMG look over its privacy policy and relevant infrastructure. KPMG's most recent report, completed in December 2023 and released in May 2024, found that ExpressVPN had enough internal controls in place that users could trust its privacy policy. The report is freely available to read. This is a very good sign, though we're looking out for a more up-to-date audit soon. TrustedServer "TrustedServer" is a marketing term ExpressVPN uses for its RAM-only server infrastructure. RAM-only servers have no hard drives for long-term storage and return to a standard disk image with every reboot. This makes it theoretically impossible to store user activity logs on them, even if ExpressVPN wanted to do that. The KPMG audit, linked above, reports that TrustedServer works as advertised. Between its many clean privacy audits and the Turkish server incident in 2017, we're prepared to say ExpressVPN is a private VPN, in spite of its aggravating exception for marketing. Can ExpressVPN change your virtual location? Next, we tested whether ExpressVPN can actually convince websites that you're somewhere other than your real location. Our security tests have already proven it can hide your IP address, but it takes more than leak-proofing to fool streaming sites these days — Netflix and the others have gotten very good at combing through metadata to sniff out proxy users. The process for testing this is a lot like how we handled the DNS leak tests: try several different servers and see if we get caught. We checked five sample locations outside the U.S. to see if we a) got into Netflix and b) saw different titles in the library. The results are below. Server Location Unblocked Netflix? Library changed? Canada Y Y United Kingdom YY Slovakia Y Y India Y YAustralia Y Y In fifteen tests, ExpressVPN slipped up only once. Docklands, the UK server it chose as the fastest, wasn't able to access Netflix. We switched to a server labeled simply "London" and unblocked it without issue. ExpressVPN can change your virtual location so you can explore the wonderful world of K-drama. Sam Chapman for Engadget All the other locations got us access to an alternate Netflix library on the first try. We even checked whether the India server, which is physically located in the UK, showed us different videos than the UK servers. It did, which makes us even more confident that ExpressVPN's virtual locations are airtight. Investigating ExpressVPN's server network ExpressVPN users can connect to a total of 164 server locations in 105 countries and territories. These locations are reasonably well distributed across the globe, but as with all VPNs, there's a bias toward the northern hemisphere. There are 24 locations in the U.S. alone and a further 66 in Europe. That isn't to say users in the Global South get nothing. ExpressVPN has IP addresses from nine nations in South Americaand six in Africa. The network even includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia, impressive since central Asia may be the region most often shafted by VPNs. However, many of these servers have virtual locations different from their real ones. For those of you choosing a server based on performance instead of a particular IP address, ExpressVPN's website has a helpful list of which servers are virtual. The bad news is that it's a big chunk of the list. A total of 63 ExpressVPN locations are virtual, or 38% of its entire network. To reduce the sting, ExpressVPN takes care to locate virtual servers as close to their real locations as possible. Its virtual locations in Indonesia and India are physically based in Singapore. This isn't always practical, leading to some awkwardness like operating a Ghana IP address out of Germany. But it helps ExpressVPN perform better in the southern hemisphere. Extra features of ExpressVPN Compared to direct competitors like NordVPN and Surfshark, ExpressVPN doesn't have many special features. It's aimed squarely at the casual market and will probably disappoint power users. Having said that, what they do include works well. In this section, we'll run through ExpressVPN's four substantial features outside its VPN servers themselves. Network Lock kill switch "Network Lock" is the name ExpressVPN gives to its kill switch. A VPN kill switch is a safety feature that keeps you from broadcasting outside the VPN tunnel. If it ever detects that you aren't connected to a legitimate ExpressVPN server, it cuts off your internet access. You won't be able to get back online until you either reconnect to the VPN or disable Network Lock. ExpressVPN's kill switch is called Network Lock on desktop, and Network Protection on mobileSam Chapman for Engadget This is important for everyone, not just users who need to hide sensitive traffic. The recently discovered TunnelVision bug theoretically allows hackers to set up fake public wi-fi networks through which they redirect you to equally fake VPN servers, which then harvest your personal information. It's unlikely, but not impossible, and a kill switch is the best way to prevent it — the switch always triggers unless you're connected to a real server in the VPN's network. Like most of ExpressVPN's features, all you can do with Network Lock is turn it on and off. You can also toggle whether you'll still be able to access local devices while the kill switch is blocking your internet — this is allowed by default. Threat manager, ad blocker and parental controls ExpressVPN groups three tools under the heading of "advanced protection" — Threat Manager, an ad blocker and parental controls. Threat Manager consists of two checkboxes: one that blocks your browser from communicating with activity tracking software and one that blocks a list of websites known to be used for malware. Check any of these boxes to use the pre-set blocklists whenever you're connected to ExpressVPN. Sam Chapman for Engadget You can't customize the lists, so you're limited to what ExpressVPN considers worthy of blocking. They share their sources on the website. While the lists are extensive and open-source, they rely on after-the-fact reporting and can't detect and block unknown threats like a proper antivirus. The adblock and parental control options work the same way: check a box to block everything on the list, uncheck it to allow everything through. In tests, the ad blocker was nearly 100% effective against banner ads, but failed to block any video ads on YouTube or Netflix. The parental control option blocks a list of porn sites. It's an easy option for concerned parents, but only works while ExpressVPN is connected. As such, it's meant to be used in conjunction with device-level parental controls that prevent the child from turning off or uninstalling the VPN client. Split tunneling Sometimes, you'll find it helpful to have your device getting online through two different IP addresses at once — one for your home services and one for a location you're trying to spoof. That's where split tunneling is helpful: it runs some apps through the VPN while leaving others unprotected. This can also improve your speeds, since the VPN needs to encrypt less in total. You can configure split tunneling through either a blocklist or an allowlist. Sam Chapman for Engadget ExpressVPN includes split tunneling on Windows, Android and Mac. You can only split by app, not by website, but it's still pretty useful. For example, you can have BitTorrent handling a heavy download in the background while you use your browser for innocuous activities that don't need protecting. ExpressVPN Aircove router By now, it should be clear that we find ExpressVPN to be a highly reliable but often unexceptional VPN service. However, there's one area in which it's a clear industry leader: VPN routers. ExpressVPN Aircove is, to our knowledge, the only router with a built-in commercial VPN that comes with its own dashboard interface. Usually, installing a VPN on your router requires tinkering with the router control panel, which turns off all but the most experienced users — not to mention making it a massive pain to switch to a new server location. Aircove's dashboard, by contrast, will be instantly familiar to anyone who already knows how to use an ExpressVPN client. It even allows different devices in your home to connect to different locations through the router VPN. Aircove's biggest drawback is its price. Currently retailing at, it's around three times more expensive than an aftermarket router fitted with free VPN firmware. Some of you might still find the convenience worth the one-time payment. ExpressVPN customer support options ExpressVPN's written help pages are some of the best on the market. Its live chat is more of a mixed bag, and complex questions may cause delays. However, it is at least staffed with human agents who aim to reply accurately, rather than resolve your ticket as quickly as possible. You can directly access both live chat and email from ExpressVPN's mobile apps. Sam Chapman for Engadget We approached ExpressVPN's support features with a simple question: "If I requested that ExpressVPN delete all my personal data, would I be able to get a refund for my unused subscription time?"Our first stop was expressvpn.com/support, the written support center and FAQ page. It's divided into setup guides, troubleshooting, account management and information on each of ExpressVPN's products. The setup guides are excellent, including screenshots and clearly written steps; each one includes a video guide for those who learn better that way. Troubleshooting is just as good — no videos, but the same standards of clarity and usefulness prevail. The section starts with general problems, then delves into specific issues you might face on each operating system. Each article clearly derives from a real customer need. The live support experience To get answers on our refund question, we visited the account management FAQs. This section stated that the refund policy only applies within 30 days of purchase. Pretty clear-cut, but we still wanted an answer on our special case, so we contacted live chat by clicking the button at the bottom-right of every FAQ page. Live chat is in the bottom-right corner of every page of expressvpn.com. Sam Chapman for Engadget Live chat starts with an AI assistant, which is not too hard to get past — just ask it a question it can't answer, then click "Transfer to an Agent." We got online witha human in less than a minute. Answering the question took longer and involved an uncomfortable 10-minute silence, but we did get a clear verdict from a real person: refunds are within 30 days only, no matter what. If the live chat agent can't answer your question, you'll be redirected to open an email support ticket. Annoyingly, there's no way to go directly to email support through the website or desktop apps, though mobile users have the option to skip directly there. ExpressVPN background check: From founding to Kape Technologies ExpressVPN launched in 2009, which makes it one of the oldest consumer VPNs in continual operation. In more than 15 years of operation, it's never been caught violating its own privacy policy, though its record isn't free of more minor blemishes. Headquarters in the British Virgin Islands Founders Dan Pomerantz and Peter Burchhardt registered the company in the British Virgin Islands from the start to take advantage of that territory's favorable legal environment for online privacy. The BVIs have no law requiring businesses to retain data on their users, and the process for extraditing data is famously difficult, requiring a direct order from the highest court. In 2021, the BVI implemented the Data Protection Act, which prevents companies based in the territory from accessing data on their users anywhere in the world. It's a great privacy law in theory, modeled on best-in-class legislation in the EU. However, we couldn't find any evidence that its supervising authority — the Office of the Information Commissioner — has a leader or staff. In other words, while ExpressVPN is not legally required to log any data on its users, there's technically nobody stopping them from doing so. Whether you trust the jurisdiction depends on whether you trust the company itself. Let's see what the other evidence says. Security and privacy incidents Two significant incidents stand out from ExpressVPN's 16-year history. In 2017, when Andrei Karlov, Russia's ambassador to Turkey, was shot to death at an art show. Turkish police suspected someone had used ExpressVPN to mask their identity while they deleted information from social media accounts belonging to the alleged assassin. To investigate, they confiscated an ExpressVPN server to comb for evidence. They didn't find anything. A police seizure is the best possible test of a VPN's approach to privacy. The provider can't prepare beforehand, fake anything, or collude with investigators. The Turkey incident is still one of the best reasons to recommend ExpressVPN, though eight years is a long time for policy to change. The second incident began in March 2024, when a researcher at CNET informed ExpressVPN that its version 12 for Windows occasionally leaked DNS requests when users enabled the split tunneling feature. While these users remained connected to an ExpressVPN server, their browsing activity was often going directly to their ISP, unmasked. The bug only impacted a few users, and to their credit, ExpressVPN sprang into action as soon as they learned about it. The team had it patched by April, as confirmed by the researcher who initially discovered the vulnerability. But while their quick and effective response deserves praise, it's still a mark against them that a journalist noticed the bug before they did. Kape Technologies ownership and management questions In 2021, an Israeli-owned, UK-based firm called Kape Technologies purchased a controlling interest in ExpressVPN. In addition to ExpressVPN, privately held Kape owns CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, and Zenmate. As shown on its website, it also owns Webselenese, publisher of VPN review websites WizCase and vpnMentor, which poses an apparent conflict of interest. When reached for comment, a representative for ExpressVPN said that "ExpressVPN does not directly engage with, nor seek to influence, the content on any Webselenese site," and pointed us to disclosure statements on the websites in question — here's one example. Even so, it's a good reminder not to take VPN reviews at face value without knowing who's behind them. Diving deeper into the background of Kape's ownership will lead you to owner Teddy Sagi. Go back far enough, and you'll see he did prison time in Israel and was mentioned in the Pandora Papers, among other things. More recently, headlines about the billionaire have focused more his businesses in the online gambling and fintech arenas, as well as his real estate ventures. An ExpressVPN representative told us that "Kape's brands continue to operate independently," and our investigation bore that out — we couldn't find any proof that Kape or Sagi have directly attempted to influence ExpressVPN's software or daily operations. Closer to the immediate day-to-day operations of ExpressVPN was the company's employment of Daniel Gericke as CTO from 2019 through 2023. During that time, the US Justice Department announced it had fined Gericke and two others for their previous employment on a surveillance operation called Project Raven, which the United Arab Emiratesused to spy on its own citizens. The revelation prompted a public response from ExpressVPN defending its decision to hire Gericke, arguing that "he best goalkeepers are the ones trained by the best strikers." ExpressVPN's representative confirmed that the company still stands by that linked statement. Gericke parted ways with ExpressVPN in October 2023, per his LinkedIn profile. While we don't know what we don't know, we can say that ExpressVPN has not notably changed its public-facing security and privacy policies during the time it's been connected to Kape, Sagi, or Gericke. In the end, how much ExpressVPN's history matters to you is a personal choice. If you object to any current or past actions by Kape Technologies or Teddy Sagi, there are other premium VPN options you might prefer. If you need more information to make up your mind, we recommend reading through CNET's 2022 deep dive on ExpressVPN's corporate history. Final verdict ExpressVPN is the VPN we most often recommend to beginners. It takes zero training to use, and consistently gets past filters on streaming sites. It also runs in the background with virtually no impact. If anything is worth the high price of admission, it's the excellent speeds distributed evenly across the worldwide server network. However, for certain specific cases, ExpressVPN may not be the best choice. There's no way to set up your own server locations, like NordVPN offers, and no double VPN connections, like you can build for yourself on Surfshark. Its corporate background is more suspect than the entities backing Proton VPN, and unlike Mullvad, ExpressVPN doesn't work in China — it's so well-known that the government targets its servers specifically. We suggest going with ExpressVPN for general online privacy, for spoofing locations in your home country while traveling, or if you regularly need to unblock sites in other countries. That encompasses 19 of every 20 users, which is fine by us, as ExpressVPN is a great service. It's just more of a reliable old screwdriver than a multi-tool. This article originally appeared on Engadget at #expressvpn #review #fast #speeds #low

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ExpressVPN review 2025: Fast speeds and a low learning curve

ExpressVPN is good at its job. It's easy to be skeptical of any service with a knack for self-promotion, but don't let ExpressVPN's hype distract you from the fact that it keeps its front-page promise of "just working." Outside of solid security, the two best things ExpressVPN offers are fast speeds and a simple interface. Our tests showed only a 7% average drop in download speed and a 2% loss of upload speed, worldwide. And while the lack of extra features may frustrate experienced users, it makes for a true set-and-forget VPN on any platform. This isn't to say ExpressVPN is without flaws — it's nearly bereft of customization options and it's notably more expensive than its competition — but it beats most VPNs in a head-to-head matchup. For this review, we followed our rigorous 10-step VPN testing process, exploring ExpressVPN's security, privacy, speed, interfaces and more. Whether you read straight through or skip to the sections that are most important for you, you should come away with all the information you need to decide whether to subscribe. Editors' note: We're in the process of rebooting all of our VPN reviews from scratch. Once we do a fresh pass on the top services, we'll be updating each review with a rating and additional comparative information. Table of contents Findings at a glance Installing, configuring and using ExpressVPN ExpressVPN speed test: Very fast averages ExpressVPN security test: Checking for leaks How much does ExpressVPN cost? ExpressVPN side apps and bundles Close-reading ExpressVPN's privacy policy Can ExpressVPN change your virtual location? Investigating ExpressVPN's server network Extra features of ExpressVPN ExpressVPN customer support options ExpressVPN background check: From founding to Kape Technologies Final verdict Findings at a glance Category Notes Installation and UI All interfaces are clean and minimalist, with no glitches and not enough depth to get lost in Windows and Mac clients are similar in both setup and general user experience Android and iOS are likewise almost identical, but Android has a nice-looking dark mode Speed Retains a worldwide average of 93% of starting download speeds Upload speeds average 98% of starting speeds Latency rises with distance, but global average stayed under 300 ms in tests Security OpenVPN, IKEv2 and Lightway VPN protocols all use secure ciphers Packet-sniffing test showed working encryption We detected no IP leaks Blocks IPv6 and WebRTC by default to prevent leaks Pricing Base price: $12.95 per month or $99.95 per year Lowest prepaid rate: $4.99 per month Can save money by paying for 28 months in advance, but only once per account 30-day money-back guarantee Bundles ExpressVPN Keys password manager and ID alerts included on all plans Dedicated IP addresses come at an extra price ID theft insurance, data removal and credit scanning available to new one-year and two-year subscribers for free 1GB eSIM deal included through holiday.com Privacy policy No storage of connection logs or device logs permitted The only risky exceptions are personal account data (which doesn't leave the ExpressVPN website) and marketing data (which the policy says should be anonymized) An independent audit found that ExpressVPN's RAM-only server infrastructure makes it impossible to keep logs Virtual location change Successfully unblocked five international Netflix libraries, succeeding on 14 out of 15 attempts Server network 164 server locations in 105 countries 38% of servers are virtual, though most virtual locations are accessed through physical servers within 1,000 miles A large number of locations in South America, Africa and central Asia Features Simple but effective kill switch Can block ads, trackers, adult sites and/or malware sites but blocklists can't be customized Split tunneling is convenient but unavailable on iOS and modern Macs Aircove is the best VPN router, albeit expensive Customer support Setup and troubleshooting guides are organized and useful, with lots of screenshots and videos Live chat starts with a bot but you can get to a person within a couple minutes Email tickets are only accessible from the mobile apps or after live chat has failed Background check Founded in 2009; based in the British Virgin Islands Has never been caught selling or mishandling user data Turkish police seized servers in 2017 but couldn't find any logs of user activity Owned by Kape Technologies, which also owns CyberGhost and Private Internet Access A previous CIO formerly worked on surveillance in the United Arab Emirates; no evidence of shady behavior during his time at ExpressVPN Windows Version 12 leaked some DNS requests when Split Tunneling was active Installing, configuring and using ExpressVPN This section focuses on how it feels to use ExpressVPN on each of the major platforms where it's available. The first step for any setup process is to make an account on expressvpn.com and buy a subscription. Windows Once subscribed, download the Windows VPN from either expressvpn.com or the Microsoft Store, then open the .exe file. Click "Yes" to let it make changes, wait for the install, then let your computer reboot. Including the reboot, the whole process takes 5-10 minutes, most of it idle. To finish, you'll need your activation code, which you can find by going to expressvpn.com and clicking "Setup" in the top-right corner. You can install ExpressVPN's Windows app from the Microsoft store, but we found the website more convenient. Sam Chapman for Engadget Extreme simplicity is the watchword for all ExpressVPN's designs. The Windows client's launch panel consists of three buttons and less than ten words. You can change your location or let the app pick a location for you — the "Smart Location" is the server with the best combination of being nearby and unburdened. Everything else is crammed into the hamburger menu at the top left. Here, in seven tabs, you'll find the Network Lock kill switch, the four types of content blockers, the split tunneling menu and the option to change your VPN protocol. You can also add shortcuts to various websites, useful if you regularly use your VPN for the same online destinations. To sum up, there's almost nothing here to get in the way: no delays, no snags, no nested menus to get lost in. It may be the world's most ignorable VPN client. That's not a bad thing at all. Mac ExpressVPN's app for macOS is almost identical in design to its Windows app. The process for downloading and setting it up is nearly the same too. As on Windows, it can be downloaded from the App Store or sideloaded directly from the expressvpn.com download center. Only a few features are missing and a couple others have been added. Split tunneling is gone (unless you're still on a macOS lower than 11), and you won't see the Lightway Turbo setting. ExpressVPN recommends some servers, but it's easy to search the whole list. Sam Chapman for Engadget Mac users do gain access to the IKEv2 protocol, along with the option to turn off automatic IPv6 blocking — Windows users have to leave it blocked at all times. Almost every website is still accessible via IPv4, but it's useful if you do need to access a specific IPv6 address while the VPN is active. Android Android users can download ExpressVPN through the Google Play Store. Open the app, sign in and you're ready to go. The Android app has a very nice dark-colored design, only slightly marred by an unnecessary information box about how long you've used the VPN this week. ExpressVPN's Android app puts a little more information on the screen than it needs to, but still runs well. Sam Chapman for Engadget There's a large button for connecting. Clicking on the server name takes you to a list of locations. On this list, you can either search or scroll and can choose individual locations within a country that has more than one. We connected to as many far-flung server locations as we could, but not a single one took longer than a few seconds. The options menu is organized sensibly, with no option located more than two clicks deep. You will see a couple of options here that aren't available on desktop, the best of which is the ability to automatically connect to your last-used ExpressVPN server whenever your phone connects to a non-trusted wifi network. There are also a few general security tools: an IP address checker, DNS and WebRTC leak testers and a password generator. These are also available on the website, but here, they're built into the app. With the exception of the latter, we'd recommend using third-party testing tools instead — even a VPN with integrity has an incentive to make its own app look like it's working. iPhone and iPad You can only install ExpressVPN's iOS app through the app store. During setup, you may need to enter your password to allow your phone to use VPN configurations. Otherwise, there are no major differences from the Android process. ExpressVPN looks good on iPhone and iPad. Sam Chapman for Engadget The interface is not quite as pleasing as the dark-mode Android app, but it makes up for that by cutting out some of the clutter. The tabs and features are similar, though split tunneling and shortcuts are absent. Also, both mobile apps make customer support a lot more accessible than their desktop counterparts — plus, mobile is the only way to send email support tickets. Browser extension ExpressVPN also includes browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome. These let you connect, disconnect and change server locations without leaving your browser window. It's nice, but not essential unless you have a very specific web browser flow you like. ExpressVPN speed test: Very fast averages Connecting to a VPN almost always decreases your speed, but the best VPNs mitigate the drop as much as possible. We used Ookla's speed testing app to see how much of your internet speed ExpressVPN preserves. For this test, we emphasized the locations ExpressVPN uses for most of its virtual servers, including the Netherlands, Brazil, Germany and Singapore. Some terms before we start: Latency, measured in milliseconds (ms), is the time it takes one data packet to travel between your device and a web server through the VPN. Latency increases with distance. It's most important for real-time tasks like video chatting and online gaming. Download speed, measured in megabits per second (Mbps), is the amount of information that can download onto your device at one time — such as when loading a web page or streaming a video. Upload speed, also measured in Mbps, is the amount of information your device can send to the web at once. It's most important for torrenting, since the amount of data you can seed determines how fast you can download in exchange. The table below shows our results. We conducted this on Windows, using the automatic protocol setting with the Lightway Turbo feature active — a recent ExpressVPN addition that keeps speed more consistent by processing connections in parallel. Server location Latency (ms) Increase factor Download speed (Mbps) Percentage dropoff Upload speed (Mbps) Percentage dropoff Portland, Oregon, USA (unprotected) 18 -- 58.77 -- 5.70 -- Seattle, Washington, USA (best server) 26 1.4x 54.86 6.7% 5.52 3.2% New York, NY, USA 156 8.7x 57.25 2.6% 5.57 2.3% Amsterdam, Netherlands 306 17x 53.83 8.4% 5.58 2.1% São Paulo, Brazil 371 20.6x 53.82 8.4% 5.65 0.9% Frankfurt, Germany 404 22.4x 55.71 5.2% 5.67 0.5% Singapore, Singapore 381 21.2x 52.76 10.2% 5.64 1.0% Average 274 15.2x 54.71 6.9% 5.61 1.6% These are extremely good results. ExpressVPN is a winner on both download and upload speed. No matter where we went in the world, we never lost more than about 7% of our download speeds, and upload lost an astoundingly low average of 2%. This suggests that ExpressVPN deftly distributes its user load between servers to eliminate bottlenecks. This Ookla speedtest shows you can still get fast internet while connected to ExpressVPN -- our unprotected speeds are around 58 Mbps. Sam Chapman for Engadget The latency numbers look worse, but the rise in the table is less sharp than we projected. Ping length depends far more on distance than download speed does, so we expect it to shoot up on servers more than 1,000 miles from our location. Keeping the average below 300 ms, as ExpressVPN does here, is a strong showing. ExpressVPN security test: Checking for leaks A VPN's core mission is to hide your IP address and make you untraceable online. Our task in this section is to figure out if ExpressVPN can carry out this mission every time you connect. While we can't be 100% certain, the tests we'll run through below have led us to believe that ExpressVPN is currently leak-proof. Available VPN protocols A VPN protocol is like a common language that a VPN server can use to mediate between your devices and the web servers you visit. If a VPN uses outdated or insecure protocols, or relies on unique protocols with no visible specs or source code, that's a bad sign. Not all protocols are available on all apps, but Mac has the full range. Sam Chapman for Engadget ExpressVPN gives you a selection of three protocols: IKEv2, OpenVPN and Lightway. The first two are solid choices that support the latest encryption algorithms. OpenVPN has been fully open-source for years and is the best choice if privacy is your goal. While IKEv2 started life as a closed project by Microsoft and Cisco, ExpressVPN uses an open-source reverse-engineering, which is both better for privacy and quite fast. Lightway is the odd one out, a protocol you'll only find on ExpressVPN, though its source code is available on Github. It's similar to WireGuard, in that both reach for faster speeds and lower processing demands by keeping their codebases slim. However, Lightway was recently rewritten in Rust to better protect the keys stored in its memory. Ultimately, you can't go wrong with any of ExpressVPN's protocol options. 99% of the time, your best choice will be to set the controls to Automatic and let the VPN decide which runs best. Testing for leaks ExpressVPN is one of the best services, but it's not leak-proof (as you can read in the Background Check below). Luckily, checking for DNS leaks is a simple matter of checking your IP address before and after connecting to a VPN server. If the new address matches the VPN server, you're good; if not, your VPN is leaking. First, we checked the Windows app with split tunneling active to ensure the flaw really had been patched. We tested several servers and didn't find any leaks, which suggests the patch worked, though leaks were rare even before ExpressVPN fixed the vulnerability. We checked our IP while connected to the virtual India location, which is run from a physical server in Singapore. Don't worry -- it still looks like India to streaming services. Sam Chapman for Engadget In fact, we didn't find any leaks on any ExpressVPN server we tested on any platform. Though questions remain about iOS, as you'll see later in this section, that's a problem on Apple's end that even the best VPNs can do very little about for now. The most common cause of VPN leaks is the use of public DNS servers to connect users to websites, which can mistakenly send browsing activity outside the VPN's encrypted tunnel. ExpressVPN avoids the risks of the public system by installing its own DNS resolvers on every server. This is the key factor behind its clean bill of health in our leak testing. Two other common flaws can lead to VPN leaks: WebRTC traffic and IPv6. The former is a communication protocol used in live streaming and the latter is a new IP standard designed to expand domain availability. Both are nice, but currently optional, so ExpressVPN automatically blocks both to ensure there's no opportunity for leaks to arise. One note about VPN security on iOS: it's a known and continuing problem that iOS VPNs do not prevent many online apps from communicating with Apple directly, outside the VPN tunnel. This risks leaking sensitive data, even with Lockdown Mode active in iOS 16. A blog post by Proton VPN shares a workaround: connect to a VPN server, then turn Airplane Mode on and off again to end all connections that were active before you connected to the VPN. Testing encryption We finished up our battery of security tests by checking out ExpressVPN's encryption directly. Using WireShark, a free packet sniffer, we inspected what it looks like when ExpressVPN transmits data from one of its servers to the internet. The screenshot below shows a data stream encrypted with Lightway UDP. After connecting to ExpressVPN, HTTP packets were rendered unreadable while in transit. Sam Chapman for Engadget That lack of any identifiable information, or even readable information, means encryption is working as intended. We repeated the test several times, always getting the same result. This left us satisfied that ExpressVPN's core features are working as intended. How much does ExpressVPN cost? ExpressVPN subscriptions cost $12.95 per month. Long-term subscriptions can bring the monthly cost down, but the great deals they offer tend to only last for the first billing period. A 12-month subscription costs $99.95 and includes three months for free with your first payment, costing a total of $6.67 per month. The bonus disappears for all subsequent years, raising the monthly cost to $8.33. You can also sign up for 28 months at a cost of $139.72, but this is also once-only — ExpressVPN can only be renewed at the $99.95 per year level. There are two ways to test ExpressVPN for free before making a financial commitment. Users on iOS and Android can download the ExpressVPN app without entering any payment details and use it free for seven days. On any platform, there's a 30-day money-back guarantee, which ExpressVPN has historically honored with no questions asked. You will have to pay before you can use it, though. In our opinion, ExpressVPN's service is solid enough that it's worth paying extra. Perhaps not this much extra, but that depends on what you get out of it. We recommend using the 30-day refund period and seeing how well ExpressVPN works for you. If it's a VPN you can enjoy using, that runs fast and unblocks everything you need, that's worth a server's weight in gold. ExpressVPN side apps and bundles ExpressVPN includes some special features that work mostly or wholly separate from its VPN apps. Some of these come free with a subscription, while others add an extra cost. Every subscription includes the ExpressVPN keys password manager. This is available under its own tab on the Android and iOS apps. On desktop, you'll need to download a separate extension from your browser's store, then sign in using your account activation code. It's available on all Chromium browsers, but not Firefox. Starting in 2025, new subscribers get an eSIM plan through holiday.com, a separate service linked to ExpressVPN. The baseline 1GB holiday eSIM plans last for 5 days and can apply to countries, regions, or the entire world (though it's not clear whether the package deal applies to the regional and global plans). Longer-term plans include larger eSIM plans. You can add a dedicated IP address to your ExpressVPN subscription for an additional cost per month. A dedicated IP lets you use the same IP address every time you connect to ExpressVPN. You can add the address to whitelists on restricted networks, and you're assured to never be blocked because of someone else's bad activity on a shared IP. Unlike many of its competitors, ExpressVPN doesn't currently offer antivirus or online storage services, but there is a comprehensive bundle of ID protection tools called Identity Defender. We haven't reviewed any of these products in detail, but here's a list for reference: ID Alerts will inform you if any of your sensitive information is leaked or misused online. It's free with all plans, but you'll have to enter your personal information on your ExpressVPN account page or a mobile app. ID Theft Insurance grants up to $1 million in identity theft reimbursement and comes free with new ExpressVPN one-year or two-year subscriptions. It's not yet available to those who subscribed before it launched in October 2024. Data Removal scans for your information in data brokerages and automatically requests that it be deleted. It's also free with one-year and two-year plans. Credit Scanner is only available for United States users. It monitors your activity on the three credit bureaus so you can quickly spot any suspicious transactions. The Identity Defender features are currently only available to new ExpressVPN customers in the US. Close-reading ExpressVPN's privacy policy Although we worry that the consolidation of VPN brands under the umbrella of Kape Technologies (ExpressVPN's parent company) will make the industry less competitive, we don't believe it's influencing ExpressVPN to take advantage of its users' privacy. To confirm, and get a full sense of what sort of privacy ExpressVPN promises its users, we set out to read ExpressVPN's privacy policy in detail. It's long, but thankfully aimed at casual users instead of lawyers. You can see it for yourself here. In the introduction, ExpressVPN states that it does not keep either activity logs (such as a user's browsing history while connected to the VPN) or connection logs (such as the duration of a user's session and their IP address, which can be used to extrapolate browsing activity). It then specifies the seven types of data it's legally allowed to collect: Data used to sign up for an account, such as names, emails and payment methods. VPN usage data which is aggregated and can't be traced to any individual. Credentials stored in the ExpressVPN Keys password manager. Diagnostic data such as crash reports, which are only shared upon user request. IP addresses authorized for MediaStreamer, which is only for streaming devices that don't otherwise support VPN apps. Marketing data collected directly from the app — a "limited amount" that's kept anonymous. Data voluntarily submitted for identity theft protection apps. Of those seven exceptions, the only ones that count as red flags are account data and marketing data. Both categories are highly personal and could be damaging if mishandled. Fortunately, complying with subpoenas is not one of the allowed uses listed for either data category, nor does the policy let ExpressVPN sell the data to other private parties. The only really annoying thing here is that if you ask ExpressVPN to delete your personal data, you won't be able to use your account from then on. You aren't even eligible for a refund in this case, unless you're within 30 days of your initial subscription. As for marketing data, ExpressVPN collects device fingerprints and location data when you sign up for an account on its website. The privacy policy also claims this is anonymized, as its "systems are engineered to decouple such data from personally identifiable information." Audits corroborate this, as we'll see in the next section. So, while it would be better if ExpressVPN didn't collect any personal data at all, its practices don't appear to pose a risk to anything you do while using the VPN — just the ExpressVPN website. Privacy audits VPN providers often get third-party accounting firms to audit their privacy policies. The idea is that a well-known firm won't mortgage its reputation to lie on behalf of a VPN, so their results can be trusted. For the last several years, ExpressVPN has had KPMG look over its privacy policy and relevant infrastructure (see "TrustedServer" below). KPMG's most recent report, completed in December 2023 and released in May 2024, found that ExpressVPN had enough internal controls in place that users could trust its privacy policy. The report is freely available to read. This is a very good sign, though we're looking out for a more up-to-date audit soon. TrustedServer "TrustedServer" is a marketing term ExpressVPN uses for its RAM-only server infrastructure. RAM-only servers have no hard drives for long-term storage and return to a standard disk image with every reboot. This makes it theoretically impossible to store user activity logs on them, even if ExpressVPN wanted to do that. The KPMG audit, linked above, reports that TrustedServer works as advertised. Between its many clean privacy audits and the Turkish server incident in 2017, we're prepared to say ExpressVPN is a private VPN, in spite of its aggravating exception for marketing. Can ExpressVPN change your virtual location? Next, we tested whether ExpressVPN can actually convince websites that you're somewhere other than your real location. Our security tests have already proven it can hide your IP address, but it takes more than leak-proofing to fool streaming sites these days — Netflix and the others have gotten very good at combing through metadata to sniff out proxy users. The process for testing this is a lot like how we handled the DNS leak tests: try several different servers and see if we get caught. We checked five sample locations outside the U.S. to see if we a) got into Netflix and b) saw different titles in the library. The results are below. Server Location Unblocked Netflix? Library changed? Canada Y Y United Kingdom Y (second try; Docklands failed) Y Slovakia Y Y India Y Y (different from UK library) Australia Y Y In fifteen tests, ExpressVPN slipped up only once. Docklands, the UK server it chose as the fastest, wasn't able to access Netflix. We switched to a server labeled simply "London" and unblocked it without issue. ExpressVPN can change your virtual location so you can explore the wonderful world of K-drama. Sam Chapman for Engadget All the other locations got us access to an alternate Netflix library on the first try. We even checked whether the India server, which is physically located in the UK, showed us different videos than the UK servers. It did, which makes us even more confident that ExpressVPN's virtual locations are airtight. Investigating ExpressVPN's server network ExpressVPN users can connect to a total of 164 server locations in 105 countries and territories. These locations are reasonably well distributed across the globe, but as with all VPNs, there's a bias toward the northern hemisphere. There are 24 locations in the U.S. alone and a further 66 in Europe. That isn't to say users in the Global South get nothing. ExpressVPN has IP addresses from nine nations in South America (Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela) and six in Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco and South Africa). The network even includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia, impressive since central Asia may be the region most often shafted by VPNs. However, many of these servers have virtual locations different from their real ones. For those of you choosing a server based on performance instead of a particular IP address, ExpressVPN's website has a helpful list of which servers are virtual. The bad news is that it's a big chunk of the list. A total of 63 ExpressVPN locations are virtual, or 38% of its entire network. To reduce the sting, ExpressVPN takes care to locate virtual servers as close to their real locations as possible. Its virtual locations in Indonesia and India are physically based in Singapore. This isn't always practical, leading to some awkwardness like operating a Ghana IP address out of Germany. But it helps ExpressVPN perform better in the southern hemisphere. Extra features of ExpressVPN Compared to direct competitors like NordVPN and Surfshark, ExpressVPN doesn't have many special features. It's aimed squarely at the casual market and will probably disappoint power users. Having said that, what they do include works well. In this section, we'll run through ExpressVPN's four substantial features outside its VPN servers themselves. Network Lock kill switch "Network Lock" is the name ExpressVPN gives to its kill switch (though it's called "Network Protection" on mobile). A VPN kill switch is a safety feature that keeps you from broadcasting outside the VPN tunnel. If it ever detects that you aren't connected to a legitimate ExpressVPN server, it cuts off your internet access. You won't be able to get back online until you either reconnect to the VPN or disable Network Lock. ExpressVPN's kill switch is called Network Lock on desktop, and Network Protection on mobile (Android pictured) Sam Chapman for Engadget This is important for everyone, not just users who need to hide sensitive traffic. The recently discovered TunnelVision bug theoretically allows hackers to set up fake public wi-fi networks through which they redirect you to equally fake VPN servers, which then harvest your personal information. It's unlikely, but not impossible, and a kill switch is the best way to prevent it — the switch always triggers unless you're connected to a real server in the VPN's network. Like most of ExpressVPN's features, all you can do with Network Lock is turn it on and off. You can also toggle whether you'll still be able to access local devices while the kill switch is blocking your internet — this is allowed by default. Threat manager, ad blocker and parental controls ExpressVPN groups three tools under the heading of "advanced protection" — Threat Manager, an ad blocker and parental controls. Threat Manager consists of two checkboxes: one that blocks your browser from communicating with activity tracking software and one that blocks a list of websites known to be used for malware. Check any of these boxes to use the pre-set blocklists whenever you're connected to ExpressVPN. Sam Chapman for Engadget You can't customize the lists, so you're limited to what ExpressVPN considers worthy of blocking. They share their sources on the website. While the lists are extensive and open-source, they rely on after-the-fact reporting and can't detect and block unknown threats like a proper antivirus. The adblock and parental control options work the same way: check a box to block everything on the list, uncheck it to allow everything through. In tests, the ad blocker was nearly 100% effective against banner ads, but failed to block any video ads on YouTube or Netflix. The parental control option blocks a list of porn sites. It's an easy option for concerned parents, but only works while ExpressVPN is connected. As such, it's meant to be used in conjunction with device-level parental controls that prevent the child from turning off or uninstalling the VPN client. Split tunneling Sometimes, you'll find it helpful to have your device getting online through two different IP addresses at once — one for your home services and one for a location you're trying to spoof. That's where split tunneling is helpful: it runs some apps through the VPN while leaving others unprotected. This can also improve your speeds, since the VPN needs to encrypt less in total. You can configure split tunneling through either a blocklist or an allowlist. Sam Chapman for Engadget ExpressVPN includes split tunneling on Windows, Android and Mac (though only on versions 10 and below). You can only split by app, not by website, but it's still pretty useful. For example, you can have BitTorrent handling a heavy download in the background while you use your browser for innocuous activities that don't need protecting. ExpressVPN Aircove router By now, it should be clear that we find ExpressVPN to be a highly reliable but often unexceptional VPN service. However, there's one area in which it's a clear industry leader: VPN routers. ExpressVPN Aircove is, to our knowledge, the only router with a built-in commercial VPN that comes with its own dashboard interface. Usually, installing a VPN on your router requires tinkering with the router control panel, which turns off all but the most experienced users — not to mention making it a massive pain to switch to a new server location. Aircove's dashboard, by contrast, will be instantly familiar to anyone who already knows how to use an ExpressVPN client. It even allows different devices in your home to connect to different locations through the router VPN. Aircove's biggest drawback is its price. Currently retailing at $189 (not including an ExpressVPN subscription), it's around three times more expensive than an aftermarket router fitted with free VPN firmware. Some of you might still find the convenience worth the one-time payment. ExpressVPN customer support options ExpressVPN's written help pages are some of the best on the market. Its live chat is more of a mixed bag, and complex questions may cause delays. However, it is at least staffed with human agents who aim to reply accurately, rather than resolve your ticket as quickly as possible. You can directly access both live chat and email from ExpressVPN's mobile apps (on desktop, you'll have to go to the website). Sam Chapman for Engadget We approached ExpressVPN's support features with a simple question: "If I requested that ExpressVPN delete all my personal data, would I be able to get a refund for my unused subscription time?" (Remember from the Privacy Policy section that submitting a full deletion request also cancels your ExpressVPN account.) Our first stop was expressvpn.com/support, the written support center and FAQ page. It's divided into setup guides, troubleshooting, account management and information on each of ExpressVPN's products. The setup guides are excellent, including screenshots and clearly written steps; each one includes a video guide for those who learn better that way. Troubleshooting is just as good — no videos, but the same standards of clarity and usefulness prevail. The section starts with general problems, then delves into specific issues you might face on each operating system. Each article clearly derives from a real customer need. The live support experience To get answers on our refund question, we visited the account management FAQs. This section stated that the refund policy only applies within 30 days of purchase. Pretty clear-cut, but we still wanted an answer on our special case, so we contacted live chat by clicking the button at the bottom-right of every FAQ page. Live chat is in the bottom-right corner of every page of expressvpn.com. Sam Chapman for Engadget Live chat starts with an AI assistant, which is not too hard to get past — just ask it a question it can't answer, then click "Transfer to an Agent." We got online with (what claimed to be) a human in less than a minute. Answering the question took longer and involved an uncomfortable 10-minute silence, but we did get a clear verdict from a real person: refunds are within 30 days only, no matter what. If the live chat agent can't answer your question, you'll be redirected to open an email support ticket. Annoyingly, there's no way to go directly to email support through the website or desktop apps, though mobile users have the option to skip directly there. ExpressVPN background check: From founding to Kape Technologies ExpressVPN launched in 2009, which makes it one of the oldest consumer VPNs in continual operation. In more than 15 years of operation, it's never been caught violating its own privacy policy, though its record isn't free of more minor blemishes. Headquarters in the British Virgin Islands Founders Dan Pomerantz and Peter Burchhardt registered the company in the British Virgin Islands from the start to take advantage of that territory's favorable legal environment for online privacy. The BVIs have no law requiring businesses to retain data on their users, and the process for extraditing data is famously difficult, requiring a direct order from the highest court. In 2021, the BVI implemented the Data Protection Act (DPA) [PDF link], which prevents companies based in the territory from accessing data on their users anywhere in the world. It's a great privacy law in theory, modeled on best-in-class legislation in the EU. However, we couldn't find any evidence that its supervising authority — the Office of the Information Commissioner — has a leader or staff. In other words, while ExpressVPN is not legally required to log any data on its users, there's technically nobody stopping them from doing so. Whether you trust the jurisdiction depends on whether you trust the company itself. Let's see what the other evidence says. Security and privacy incidents Two significant incidents stand out from ExpressVPN's 16-year history. In 2017, when Andrei Karlov, Russia's ambassador to Turkey, was shot to death at an art show. Turkish police suspected someone had used ExpressVPN to mask their identity while they deleted information from social media accounts belonging to the alleged assassin. To investigate, they confiscated an ExpressVPN server to comb for evidence. They didn't find anything. A police seizure is the best possible test of a VPN's approach to privacy. The provider can't prepare beforehand, fake anything, or collude with investigators. The Turkey incident is still one of the best reasons to recommend ExpressVPN, though eight years is a long time for policy to change. The second incident began in March 2024, when a researcher at CNET informed ExpressVPN that its version 12 for Windows occasionally leaked DNS requests when users enabled the split tunneling feature. While these users remained connected to an ExpressVPN server, their browsing activity was often going directly to their ISP, unmasked. The bug only impacted a few users, and to their credit, ExpressVPN sprang into action as soon as they learned about it. The team had it patched by April, as confirmed by the researcher who initially discovered the vulnerability. But while their quick and effective response deserves praise, it's still a mark against them that a journalist noticed the bug before they did. Kape Technologies ownership and management questions In 2021, an Israeli-owned, UK-based firm called Kape Technologies purchased a controlling interest in ExpressVPN. In addition to ExpressVPN, privately held Kape owns CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, and Zenmate (before it merged into CyberGhost). As shown on its website, it also owns Webselenese, publisher of VPN review websites WizCase and vpnMentor, which poses an apparent conflict of interest. When reached for comment, a representative for ExpressVPN said that "ExpressVPN does not directly engage with, nor seek to influence, the content on any Webselenese site," and pointed us to disclosure statements on the websites in question — here's one example. Even so, it's a good reminder not to take VPN reviews at face value without knowing who's behind them (Engadget is owned by Yahoo, which does not own any VPNs). Diving deeper into the background of Kape's ownership will lead you to owner Teddy Sagi. Go back far enough, and you'll see he did prison time in Israel and was mentioned in the Pandora Papers, among other things. More recently, headlines about the billionaire have focused more his businesses in the online gambling and fintech arenas, as well as his real estate ventures. An ExpressVPN representative told us that "Kape's brands continue to operate independently," and our investigation bore that out — we couldn't find any proof that Kape or Sagi have directly attempted to influence ExpressVPN's software or daily operations. Closer to the immediate day-to-day operations of ExpressVPN was the company's employment of Daniel Gericke as CTO from 2019 through 2023. During that time, the US Justice Department announced it had fined Gericke and two others for their previous employment on a surveillance operation called Project Raven, which the United Arab Emirates (UAE) used to spy on its own citizens. The revelation prompted a public response from ExpressVPN defending its decision to hire Gericke, arguing that "[t]he best goalkeepers are the ones trained by the best strikers." ExpressVPN's representative confirmed that the company still stands by that linked statement. Gericke parted ways with ExpressVPN in October 2023, per his LinkedIn profile. While we don't know what we don't know, we can say that ExpressVPN has not notably changed its public-facing security and privacy policies during the time it's been connected to Kape, Sagi, or Gericke. In the end, how much ExpressVPN's history matters to you is a personal choice. If you object to any current or past actions by Kape Technologies or Teddy Sagi, there are other premium VPN options you might prefer. If you need more information to make up your mind, we recommend reading through CNET's 2022 deep dive on ExpressVPN's corporate history. Final verdict ExpressVPN is the VPN we most often recommend to beginners. It takes zero training to use, and consistently gets past filters on streaming sites. It also runs in the background with virtually no impact. If anything is worth the high price of admission, it's the excellent speeds distributed evenly across the worldwide server network. However, for certain specific cases, ExpressVPN may not be the best choice. There's no way to set up your own server locations, like NordVPN offers, and no double VPN connections, like you can build for yourself on Surfshark. Its corporate background is more suspect than the entities backing Proton VPN, and unlike Mullvad, ExpressVPN doesn't work in China — it's so well-known that the government targets its servers specifically. We suggest going with ExpressVPN for general online privacy, for spoofing locations in your home country while traveling, or if you regularly need to unblock sites in other countries. That encompasses 19 of every 20 users, which is fine by us, as ExpressVPN is a great service. It's just more of a reliable old screwdriver than a multi-tool. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/expressvpn-review-2025-fast-speeds-and-a-low-learning-curve-160052884.html?src=rss

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Lifehacker Compartió un vínculo

2025-06-01 15:33:42 ·

Instagram Won't Crop Your Smartphone Pictures Anymore

Unless you've messed with your smartphone's camera settings, it's very likely you snap photos in 3:4. This aspect ratio is the default for most smartphone cameras, which means our photo libraries are full of images that all fit this frame.The issue is, despite the smartphone's place as the world's most popular camera, not all social media platforms respect the 3:4 aspect ratio. Instagram, for example, supports its classic square 1:1 images, as well as a 4:5 aspect ratio, but not 3:4. At first glance, 4:5 looks like 3:4—so much so, you might not have ever noticed a difference when uploading your photos. But rest assured, a 3:4 photo uploaded to Instagram's 4:5 aspect ratio gets cropped to match that frame, which means you lose a little of the top and bottom of each photo you post this way. If you pinch on the preview of your post to zoom out, you'll reveal the parts of your image that aren't making the final cut. You can move the image up or down to reveal more of the top or bottom, but you'll only cut off more of the opposite end either way.Instagram now supports 3:4 imagesLuckily, that's now changing. In a post on Threads, Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, announced that the app now supports 3:4 uploads. The reception seems largely positive, though some users clearly want more from Instagram—namely, 2:3 support, a popular aspect ratio with photographers.Instagram also announced the news on its Creator's Broadcast Channel. The post confirms the change applies to both single-photo posts as well as carousel collections, and that you can still share 1:1 and 4:5 images as you wish. The company attached an example, comparing two different Instagram posts—one that posts an image in 4:5, and another that posts the same image in 3:4, with dotted lines demonstrating where the image would be cropped in 4:5.

Credit: Instagram

The change is rolling out now for all Instagram users, but you might not see it right away. My Instagram app still appears to default to 4:5, even after I updated to the latest version on iOS. It's important to note that 4:3 images, as well as other landscape or horizontal aspect ratios, have been supported on Instagram. In theory, you could've flipped your 3:4 images to post the full picture, but you would have forced your friends to turn their phonessideways to see it.
#instagram #won039t #crop #your #smartphone

Instagram Won't Crop Your Smartphone Pictures Anymore
Unless you've messed with your smartphone's camera settings, it's very likely you snap photos in 3:4. This aspect ratio is the default for most smartphone cameras, which means our photo libraries are full of images that all fit this frame.The issue is, despite the smartphone's place as the world's most popular camera, not all social media platforms respect the 3:4 aspect ratio. Instagram, for example, supports its classic square 1:1 images, as well as a 4:5 aspect ratio, but not 3:4. At first glance, 4:5 looks like 3:4—so much so, you might not have ever noticed a difference when uploading your photos. But rest assured, a 3:4 photo uploaded to Instagram's 4:5 aspect ratio gets cropped to match that frame, which means you lose a little of the top and bottom of each photo you post this way. If you pinch on the preview of your post to zoom out, you'll reveal the parts of your image that aren't making the final cut. You can move the image up or down to reveal more of the top or bottom, but you'll only cut off more of the opposite end either way.Instagram now supports 3:4 imagesLuckily, that's now changing. In a post on Threads, Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, announced that the app now supports 3:4 uploads. The reception seems largely positive, though some users clearly want more from Instagram—namely, 2:3 support, a popular aspect ratio with photographers.Instagram also announced the news on its Creator's Broadcast Channel. The post confirms the change applies to both single-photo posts as well as carousel collections, and that you can still share 1:1 and 4:5 images as you wish. The company attached an example, comparing two different Instagram posts—one that posts an image in 4:5, and another that posts the same image in 3:4, with dotted lines demonstrating where the image would be cropped in 4:5. Credit: Instagram The change is rolling out now for all Instagram users, but you might not see it right away. My Instagram app still appears to default to 4:5, even after I updated to the latest version on iOS. It's important to note that 4:3 images, as well as other landscape or horizontal aspect ratios, have been supported on Instagram. In theory, you could've flipped your 3:4 images to post the full picture, but you would have forced your friends to turn their phonessideways to see it. #instagram #won039t #crop #your #smartphone

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Instagram Won't Crop Your Smartphone Pictures Anymore

Unless you've messed with your smartphone's camera settings, it's very likely you snap photos in 3:4 (or 4:3 if you're holding the phone in landscape). This aspect ratio is the default for most smartphone cameras, which means our photo libraries are full of images that all fit this frame.The issue is, despite the smartphone's place as the world's most popular camera, not all social media platforms respect the 3:4 aspect ratio. Instagram, for example, supports its classic square 1:1 images, as well as a 4:5 aspect ratio, but not 3:4. At first glance, 4:5 looks like 3:4—so much so, you might not have ever noticed a difference when uploading your photos. But rest assured, a 3:4 photo uploaded to Instagram's 4:5 aspect ratio gets cropped to match that frame, which means you lose a little of the top and bottom of each photo you post this way. If you pinch on the preview of your post to zoom out, you'll reveal the parts of your image that aren't making the final cut. You can move the image up or down to reveal more of the top or bottom, but you'll only cut off more of the opposite end either way.Instagram now supports 3:4 imagesLuckily, that's now changing. In a post on Threads, Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, announced that the app now supports 3:4 uploads. The reception seems largely positive, though some users clearly want more from Instagram—namely, 2:3 support, a popular aspect ratio with photographers.Instagram also announced the news on its Creator's Broadcast Channel. The post confirms the change applies to both single-photo posts as well as carousel collections, and that you can still share 1:1 and 4:5 images as you wish. The company attached an example, comparing two different Instagram posts—one that posts an image in 4:5, and another that posts the same image in 3:4, with dotted lines demonstrating where the image would be cropped in 4:5. Credit: Instagram The change is rolling out now for all Instagram users, but you might not see it right away. My Instagram app still appears to default to 4:5, even after I updated to the latest version on iOS. It's important to note that 4:3 images, as well as other landscape or horizontal aspect ratios, have been supported on Instagram. In theory, you could've flipped your 3:4 images to post the full picture, but you would have forced your friends to turn their phones (or heads) sideways to see it.

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Macworld Compartió un vínculo

2025-06-01 15:32:06 ·

Will new Apple hardware steal iOS 26’s thunder at WWDC 2025?

Macworld

Every year, as Apple’s WWDC approaches, speculation about what new products may arrive alongside all the big software announcements. While sources claim that Apple has been working on a new interface for iOS, macOS, and other operating systems, we haven’t heard much about new hardware coming at WWDC.

There are rumors about products in the works—most notably new Macs and the “HomePad” smart home hub—but the reality is, if you’re expecting to see new hardware at WWDC 2025, you’re likely to be disappointed.

WWDC is a software event

Historically, WWDC is an event focused almost entirely on software. After all, it’s a conference for developers. Every year, Apple not only reveals its plans for the future of its operating systems at the event, but also gives developers early access to new APIs and frameworks. This enables them to start optimizing their apps for the new platforms months ahead of public releases.

While there have been occasional hardware announcements, such as the original HomePod, the transition to Apple silicon in 2020, and the first look at the Apple Vision Pro in 2023, those moments were tightly linked to developer needs.

This year, rumors suggest that Apple has been working on new hardware products that could be a good fit for WWDC, but it doesn’t look like they’ll be ready in time for this year’s event. Here’s why.

HomePad: Delayed

In an effort to take HomeKit to the next level, Apple has been working on a smart home hub with a built-in screen for several years. The idea is to let users easily control their HomeKit accessories, such as lamps, heaters, and robot vacuum cleaners, even when their phone isn’t around. While the actual name of the device is unclear, reports claim it will combine aspects of the HomePod and iPad in a single product focused on the smart home, so it’s been dubbed HomePad.

Apple is reportedly making a new smart home hub that combines an iPad with a HomePod, but it’s likely not shipping for a while.Foundry

Along with the smart home capabilities, HomePad will reportedly also function as an Apple TV-like entertainment device so users can stream video and music, or make FaceTime calls from its built-in camera. Essentially, it will be a home companion device that is either mounted to a wall or sits in a dock.

While the HomePad was once expected to launch in the spring, recent reports claim the project is delayed, possibly until 2026. The main reason is due to a deep integration with Apple Intelligence and the new Siri experience, which have been beset with issues.

It’s possible that Apple gives a sneak peek of HomePad at WWDC, as it did with HomePod and Vision Pro, but most reports say Apple is focused on fixing Siri first.

M5 Macs and iPads: Not yet

WWDC has been a hot spot for new Macs in recent years, with Apple Silicon, the redesigned M2 MacBook Air, and the M2 Ultra chip all making their debuts at WWDC.

As such, there has been speculation about whether Apple will announce any new Mac hardware at WWDC. With the exception of the Mac Pro, which hasn’t seen any updates since 2022, Apple has already completed the transition of the entire Mac lineup to the M4 chip, introduced last year with the iPad Pro.

In theory, this could mean that Apple will move onto the next generation of chips at WWDC, but don’t count on it. Apple typically unveils the first new Macs with the next generation of chips in the fall, around October and November. And according to multiple sources in the industry, this will be the case once again this year. A new iPad Pro with the M5 chip and M5 MacBook Pro are said to be on track for the second half of 2025.

It’s possible that Apple unveils a new high-end chip for the aging Mac Pro, but most reports claim that Apple will keep the current model around until the M5 Ultra arrives.

Could the M5 debut at WWDC? It’s not likely.Foundry

iPhone 17: Coming in September

Although in the past Apple has introduced new iPhone models at WWDC, it’s been more than a decade since an iPhone model debuted at the event. Besides, the iPhone 16e only just arrived in March, and the iPhone 17 lineup will arrive in September.

One of the main reasons is that the new iPhone always ships with the new version of iOS announced at WWDC, so Apple needs time to test and refine the new software before launching the new phone. So if you’re planning to buy an iPhone 17, you’ll have to wait until September at least.

Apple Vision Pro 2: Maybe next year

The first Apple Vision Pro is decidedly a developer device. It was announced at WWDC 2023 but didn’t ship until 2024, mainly so developers had time to build new apps for the headset. And with a price tag, it’s still basically a developer kit.

The current Vision Pro is powered by the M2 chip, which some consumers may consider outdated for a product that costs Although Apple is rumored to be working on an updated Vision Pro with an M5 chip inside, this model is unlikely to arrive before next year.

According to a report from The Information, Apple has reportedly set aside the Vision Pro 2 project to work on a more affordable version of its mixed reality headset, but that model isn’t expected to ship for a while either. So while we’ll get a look at the new visionOS software, the same hardware is likely sticking around for at least another year.

WWDC will likely be very software-centric this year.Foundry

What to expect instead at WWDC 2025?

Once again, this WWDC will be all about software and services, so expect major updates across all Apple platforms.

From iOS 19 to macOS 16, Apple’s operating systems will be updated with a new, more modern interface. Sources believe that the new design language will be similar to what Apple introduced with visionOS, which has more depth and shadows rather than a completely flat interface.

Apple is also rumored to be working on new features to make iPadOS more similar to macOS, as well as further improving Apple Intelligence and the Siri experience. So there will be plenty to get excited about at WWDC 2025, but it almost certainly won’t involve any new devices.

WWDC 2025 kicks off on June 9 with an opening keynote. Be sure to follow Macworld’s full coverage of the event.
#will #new #apple #hardware #steal

Will new Apple hardware steal iOS 26’s thunder at WWDC 2025?
Macworld Every year, as Apple’s WWDC approaches, speculation about what new products may arrive alongside all the big software announcements. While sources claim that Apple has been working on a new interface for iOS, macOS, and other operating systems, we haven’t heard much about new hardware coming at WWDC. There are rumors about products in the works—most notably new Macs and the “HomePad” smart home hub—but the reality is, if you’re expecting to see new hardware at WWDC 2025, you’re likely to be disappointed. WWDC is a software event Historically, WWDC is an event focused almost entirely on software. After all, it’s a conference for developers. Every year, Apple not only reveals its plans for the future of its operating systems at the event, but also gives developers early access to new APIs and frameworks. This enables them to start optimizing their apps for the new platforms months ahead of public releases. While there have been occasional hardware announcements, such as the original HomePod, the transition to Apple silicon in 2020, and the first look at the Apple Vision Pro in 2023, those moments were tightly linked to developer needs. This year, rumors suggest that Apple has been working on new hardware products that could be a good fit for WWDC, but it doesn’t look like they’ll be ready in time for this year’s event. Here’s why. HomePad: Delayed In an effort to take HomeKit to the next level, Apple has been working on a smart home hub with a built-in screen for several years. The idea is to let users easily control their HomeKit accessories, such as lamps, heaters, and robot vacuum cleaners, even when their phone isn’t around. While the actual name of the device is unclear, reports claim it will combine aspects of the HomePod and iPad in a single product focused on the smart home, so it’s been dubbed HomePad. Apple is reportedly making a new smart home hub that combines an iPad with a HomePod, but it’s likely not shipping for a while.Foundry Along with the smart home capabilities, HomePad will reportedly also function as an Apple TV-like entertainment device so users can stream video and music, or make FaceTime calls from its built-in camera. Essentially, it will be a home companion device that is either mounted to a wall or sits in a dock. While the HomePad was once expected to launch in the spring, recent reports claim the project is delayed, possibly until 2026. The main reason is due to a deep integration with Apple Intelligence and the new Siri experience, which have been beset with issues. It’s possible that Apple gives a sneak peek of HomePad at WWDC, as it did with HomePod and Vision Pro, but most reports say Apple is focused on fixing Siri first. M5 Macs and iPads: Not yet WWDC has been a hot spot for new Macs in recent years, with Apple Silicon, the redesigned M2 MacBook Air, and the M2 Ultra chip all making their debuts at WWDC. As such, there has been speculation about whether Apple will announce any new Mac hardware at WWDC. With the exception of the Mac Pro, which hasn’t seen any updates since 2022, Apple has already completed the transition of the entire Mac lineup to the M4 chip, introduced last year with the iPad Pro. In theory, this could mean that Apple will move onto the next generation of chips at WWDC, but don’t count on it. Apple typically unveils the first new Macs with the next generation of chips in the fall, around October and November. And according to multiple sources in the industry, this will be the case once again this year. A new iPad Pro with the M5 chip and M5 MacBook Pro are said to be on track for the second half of 2025. It’s possible that Apple unveils a new high-end chip for the aging Mac Pro, but most reports claim that Apple will keep the current model around until the M5 Ultra arrives. Could the M5 debut at WWDC? It’s not likely.Foundry iPhone 17: Coming in September Although in the past Apple has introduced new iPhone models at WWDC, it’s been more than a decade since an iPhone model debuted at the event. Besides, the iPhone 16e only just arrived in March, and the iPhone 17 lineup will arrive in September. One of the main reasons is that the new iPhone always ships with the new version of iOS announced at WWDC, so Apple needs time to test and refine the new software before launching the new phone. So if you’re planning to buy an iPhone 17, you’ll have to wait until September at least. Apple Vision Pro 2: Maybe next year The first Apple Vision Pro is decidedly a developer device. It was announced at WWDC 2023 but didn’t ship until 2024, mainly so developers had time to build new apps for the headset. And with a price tag, it’s still basically a developer kit. The current Vision Pro is powered by the M2 chip, which some consumers may consider outdated for a product that costs Although Apple is rumored to be working on an updated Vision Pro with an M5 chip inside, this model is unlikely to arrive before next year. According to a report from The Information, Apple has reportedly set aside the Vision Pro 2 project to work on a more affordable version of its mixed reality headset, but that model isn’t expected to ship for a while either. So while we’ll get a look at the new visionOS software, the same hardware is likely sticking around for at least another year. WWDC will likely be very software-centric this year.Foundry What to expect instead at WWDC 2025? Once again, this WWDC will be all about software and services, so expect major updates across all Apple platforms. From iOS 19 to macOS 16, Apple’s operating systems will be updated with a new, more modern interface. Sources believe that the new design language will be similar to what Apple introduced with visionOS, which has more depth and shadows rather than a completely flat interface. Apple is also rumored to be working on new features to make iPadOS more similar to macOS, as well as further improving Apple Intelligence and the Siri experience. So there will be plenty to get excited about at WWDC 2025, but it almost certainly won’t involve any new devices. WWDC 2025 kicks off on June 9 with an opening keynote. Be sure to follow Macworld’s full coverage of the event. #will #new #apple #hardware #steal

WWW.MACWORLD.COM

Will new Apple hardware steal iOS 26’s thunder at WWDC 2025?

Macworld Every year, as Apple’s WWDC approaches, speculation about what new products may arrive alongside all the big software announcements. While sources claim that Apple has been working on a new interface for iOS, macOS, and other operating systems, we haven’t heard much about new hardware coming at WWDC. There are rumors about products in the works—most notably new Macs and the “HomePad” smart home hub—but the reality is, if you’re expecting to see new hardware at WWDC 2025, you’re likely to be disappointed. WWDC is a software event Historically, WWDC is an event focused almost entirely on software. After all, it’s a conference for developers. Every year, Apple not only reveals its plans for the future of its operating systems at the event, but also gives developers early access to new APIs and frameworks. This enables them to start optimizing their apps for the new platforms months ahead of public releases. While there have been occasional hardware announcements, such as the original HomePod, the transition to Apple silicon in 2020, and the first look at the Apple Vision Pro in 2023, those moments were tightly linked to developer needs. This year, rumors suggest that Apple has been working on new hardware products that could be a good fit for WWDC, but it doesn’t look like they’ll be ready in time for this year’s event. Here’s why. HomePad: Delayed In an effort to take HomeKit to the next level, Apple has been working on a smart home hub with a built-in screen for several years. The idea is to let users easily control their HomeKit accessories, such as lamps, heaters, and robot vacuum cleaners, even when their phone isn’t around. While the actual name of the device is unclear, reports claim it will combine aspects of the HomePod and iPad in a single product focused on the smart home, so it’s been dubbed HomePad. Apple is reportedly making a new smart home hub that combines an iPad with a HomePod, but it’s likely not shipping for a while.Foundry Along with the smart home capabilities, HomePad will reportedly also function as an Apple TV-like entertainment device so users can stream video and music, or make FaceTime calls from its built-in camera. Essentially, it will be a home companion device that is either mounted to a wall or sits in a dock. While the HomePad was once expected to launch in the spring, recent reports claim the project is delayed, possibly until 2026. The main reason is due to a deep integration with Apple Intelligence and the new Siri experience, which have been beset with issues. It’s possible that Apple gives a sneak peek of HomePad at WWDC, as it did with HomePod and Vision Pro, but most reports say Apple is focused on fixing Siri first. M5 Macs and iPads: Not yet WWDC has been a hot spot for new Macs in recent years, with Apple Silicon, the redesigned M2 MacBook Air, and the M2 Ultra chip all making their debuts at WWDC. As such, there has been speculation about whether Apple will announce any new Mac hardware at WWDC. With the exception of the Mac Pro, which hasn’t seen any updates since 2022, Apple has already completed the transition of the entire Mac lineup to the M4 chip, introduced last year with the iPad Pro. In theory, this could mean that Apple will move onto the next generation of chips at WWDC, but don’t count on it. Apple typically unveils the first new Macs with the next generation of chips in the fall, around October and November. And according to multiple sources in the industry, this will be the case once again this year. A new iPad Pro with the M5 chip and M5 MacBook Pro are said to be on track for the second half of 2025. It’s possible that Apple unveils a new high-end chip for the aging Mac Pro, but most reports claim that Apple will keep the current model around until the M5 Ultra arrives. Could the M5 debut at WWDC? It’s not likely.Foundry iPhone 17: Coming in September Although in the past Apple has introduced new iPhone models at WWDC, it’s been more than a decade since an iPhone model debuted at the event. Besides, the iPhone 16e only just arrived in March, and the iPhone 17 lineup will arrive in September. One of the main reasons is that the new iPhone always ships with the new version of iOS announced at WWDC, so Apple needs time to test and refine the new software before launching the new phone. So if you’re planning to buy an iPhone 17, you’ll have to wait until September at least. Apple Vision Pro 2: Maybe next year The first Apple Vision Pro is decidedly a developer device. It was announced at WWDC 2023 but didn’t ship until 2024, mainly so developers had time to build new apps for the headset. And with a $3,499 price tag, it’s still basically a developer kit. The current Vision Pro is powered by the M2 chip, which some consumers may consider outdated for a product that costs $3,500. Although Apple is rumored to be working on an updated Vision Pro with an M5 chip inside, this model is unlikely to arrive before next year. According to a report from The Information, Apple has reportedly set aside the Vision Pro 2 project to work on a more affordable version of its mixed reality headset, but that model isn’t expected to ship for a while either. So while we’ll get a look at the new visionOS software, the same hardware is likely sticking around for at least another year. WWDC will likely be very software-centric this year.Foundry What to expect instead at WWDC 2025? Once again, this WWDC will be all about software and services, so expect major updates across all Apple platforms. From iOS 19 to macOS 16 (or possibly iOS 26 and macOS 26), Apple’s operating systems will be updated with a new, more modern interface. Sources believe that the new design language will be similar to what Apple introduced with visionOS, which has more depth and shadows rather than a completely flat interface. Apple is also rumored to be working on new features to make iPadOS more similar to macOS, as well as further improving Apple Intelligence and the Siri experience. So there will be plenty to get excited about at WWDC 2025, but it almost certainly won’t involve any new devices. WWDC 2025 kicks off on June 9 with an opening keynote. Be sure to follow Macworld’s full coverage of the event.

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