A new central staircase leads to a contemporary basement free of Hausmannian flourishes. Batiik Studio signals the shift with a mix of contemporary materials: a white resin banister curls onto a silvery travertine platform sourced from Artefacts, while bespoke cherry wood shelving rises along the wall. A Rosanna Lefeuvre painting completes the picture. Without erasing the flamboyant bones of the home, Benichou and Jallet skirted around them, crafting wall panels for select sections—like a single stretch in the living room, or a wall behind the primary bedroom’s headboard—that protect and sometimes curve around moldings, scaling back the grandeur. Sculptural by nature and rendered in white, each new plane—some smooth and matte, some textured like the surface of a painting—runs along decorative stretches of molding like a veil, creating clean and contemporary surfaces for hanging art.With Haussmannian details to spare throughout the apartment, the new walls aren’t permanent (future owners can remove them, revealing the original walls again), but eclipse key sections where moldings are almost oppressive. The edited version, a more artful form of White-Out, adds a new contemporary layer that gives the home, and the owners’ art, room to breathe.Clad in white materials that match the walls and with no overhead storage, the cooking area virtually disappears. “The client didn’t want the kitchen to look like a kitchen,” adds Benichou, nodding to the sculptural island. A minimal, travertine Garnier & Linker Lipari task light hangs over granite countertops sourced from Paris’s Artefacts. Vintage Scandinavian stools add texture along with a mixed-media artwork by Eva Jospin, and a Batiik Studio–designed wooden door leads to a new work kitchen (to hide any mess). Batiik Studio designed a one-of-a-kind dining table that breaks into two pieces, depending on how many guests are over (the fixed smaller piece creates space along the wall for things like sculptures and flowers when not in use). With boulder-like legs and a curving shape, it adds complexity against the room’s rectangular symmetry. Frédéric Pellenq chairs from Kolkhoze and a vintage Louis Poulsen Artichoke light enhance the contrast. Beyond the walls, new horizontal surfaces make space for sculptural pieces. In the living room, a faceted fireplace in gray-toned travertine adds sharp geometry to the ornate space. Jutting out on either side and along the mantle are plinth-like surfaces for objects tall and small. In the kitchen’s dining area, Benichou and Jallet flexed their talent for bespoke furniture, creating a dramatic ceramic-topped wooden table that swoops into the center of the room—a stage for rotating sculptures and dinner parties alike.The apartment’s modern basement was, literally, a whole different story. There were no ornate moldings with which to compete, no historic charms to challenge. And so it was a blank slate for Benichou and Jallet to do what they do best: create.With only a small window in the crafts room, using white across all surfaces—even bespoke storage and a resin floor—made the space as bright as possible. A vintage wooden table paired with vintage Pierre Chapo stools atop a beige Toulemonde Bochart Lion rug give warmth to the pristine palette.

In a chilling sign of how far law enforcement surveillance has encroached on personal liberties, that a sheriff’s office in Texas searched data from more than 83,000 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras to track down a woman suspected of self-managing an abortion. The officer searched 6,809 different camera networks maintained by surveillance tech company Flock Safety, including states where abortion access is protected by law, such as Washington and Illinois. The search record listed the reason plainly: “had an abortion, search for female.” Screenshot of data After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade, states were given sweeping authority to ban and even criminalize abortion. In Texas—where the officer who conducted this search is based—abortion is now almost entirely banned. But in Washington and Illinois, where many of the searched Flock cameras are located, abortion remains legal and protected as a fundamental right up to fetal viability. The post-Dobbs legal landscape has also opened the door for law enforcement to exploit virtually any form of data—license plates, phone records, geolocation data—to pursue individuals across state lines. has documented more than 1,800 agencies have deployed ALPRs, but at least 4,000 agencies are able to run searches through some agencies in Flock's network. Many agencies share the data freely with other agencies across the country, with little oversight, restriction, or even standards for accessing data.  While this particular data point explicitly mentioned an abortion, scores of others in the audit logs released through public records requests simply list "investigation" as the reason for the plate search, with no indication of the alleged offense. That means other searches targeting someone for abortion, or another protected right in that jurisdiction, could be effectively invisible. This case underscores our growing concern: that the mass surveillance infrastructure—originally sold as a tool to find stolen cars or missing persons—is now being used to target people seeking reproductive healthcare. This unchecked, warrant-less access that allows law enforcement to surveil across state lines blurs the line between “protection” and persecution. From Missing Cars to Monitoring Bodies EFF has long warned about the dangers of ALPRs, which scan license plates, log time and location data, and build a detailed picture of people's movements. Companies like Flock Safety and Motorola Solutions offer law enforcement agencies access to nationwide databases of these readers, and in some cases, allow them to stake out locations like abortion clinics, or create “hot lists” of license plates to track in real time. Flock's technology also allows officers to search for a vehicle based on attributes like color, make and model, even without a plate number. The threat is compounded by how investigations often begin. A report published by If/When/How on the criminalization of self-managed abortion found that about a quarter of adult cases (26%) were reported to law enforcement by acquaintances entrusted with information, such as “friends, parents, or intimate partners” and another 18% through “other” means. This means that with ALPR tech, a tip from anyone can instantly escalate into a nationwide manhunt. And as Kate Bertash of the Digital Defense Fund explained to 404 Media, anti-abortion activists have long been documenting the plates of patients and providers who visit reproductive health facilities—data that can now be easily cross-referenced with ALPR databases. The 404 Media report proves that this isn’t a hypothetical concern. In 2023, a months-long EFF investigation involving hundreds of public records requests uncovered that many California police departments were sharing records containing detailed driving profiles of local residents with out-of-state agencies, despite state laws explicitly prohibiting this. This means that even in so-called “safe” states, your data might end up helping law enforcement in Texas or Idaho prosecute you—or your doctor.  That’s why we demanded that 75 California police departments stop sharing ALPR data with anti-abortion states, an effort that has largely been successful. Surveillance and Reproductive Freedom Cannot Coexist We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Lawmakers who support reproductive rights must recognize that abortion access and mass surveillance are incompatible.  The systems built to track stolen cars and issue parking tickets have become tools to enforce the most personal and politically charged laws in the country. What began as a local concern over privacy has escalated into a national civil liberties crisis. Yesterday’s license plate readers have morphed into today’s reproductive dragnet. Now, it’s time for decisive action. Our leaders must roll back the dangerous surveillance systems they've enabled. We must enact strong, enforceable state laws to limit data sharing, ensure proper oversight, and dismantle these surveillance pipelines before they become the new normal–or even just eliminate the systems altogether.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.QLEDs attempt to look like OLED TVs without the hefty price tag, and within QLEDs, there is diversity in price. A great mid-tier QLED is TCL's QM7, which I got to review. But you can find budget QLEDs for cheaper: That's where the Hisense QD6 QLED, currently $379.99 (originally $499.99), half the price of the QM7 for the same 65-inch size and matching the lowest price it has ever been, according to price-tracking tools. And you still get a lot of the nice features normally found on mid-tier or higher TVs. Hisense 43-inch QD6 QLED TV $199.99 at Amazon $299.99 Save $100.00 Get Deal Get Deal $199.99 at Amazon $299.99 Save $100.00 Hisense 55-inch QD6 QLED TV $258.99 at Amazon $379.99 Save $121.00 Get Deal Get Deal $258.99 at Amazon $379.99 Save $121.00 Hisense 65-inch QD6 QLED TV $379.99 at Amazon $499.99 Save $120.00 Get Deal Get Deal $379.99 at Amazon $499.99 Save $120.00 Hisense 75-inch QD6 QLED TV $549.99 at Amazon $675.00 Save $125.01 Get Deal Get Deal $549.99 at Amazon $675.00 Save $125.01 Hisense 85-inch QD6 QLED TV $897.99 at Amazon $1,065.00 Save $167.01 Get Deal Get Deal $897.99 at Amazon $1,065.00 Save $167.01 SEE 2 MORE The Hisense QD6QF is the 2025 Fire TV version of the 2024 Hisense QD65NF. As mentioned, this is a budget QLED TV, meaning it won't have the same number of dimming zones or contrast you can find on higher-end QLEDs, but you're still getting a QLED with some surprising features usually reserved for more expensive TVs. Gamers will enjoy up to a 120Hz refresh rate, which can make their game feel smoother. It also has a Game Mode Plus, which reduces the input lag and enhances picture quality for video games, and VRR, which reduces screen tearing and stuttering. For movies and TV shows, the TV supports Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and HDR10+, all of which are great at the price this TV is currently going for. Since this is a Fire TV, you can stream movies that support those premium formats from apps like HBO Max and Netflix. You also get the voice remote feature to call for Alexa, and there's an AI feature that claims to enhance low-resolution content up to 4K, but we won't know how good that performs until this TV gets hands-on testing. Also, since this is a Fire TV, remember you can install Kodi to virtually stream anything for free.

The Switch 2 is nearly here. On June 5, those of us who were lucky enough to snag preorders will start receiving their consoles, and will be able to play new games like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza.Of course, Nintendo's new console isn't only compatible with Switch 2 games. It will play your original Switch games too. The thing is, it isn't as simple as with other backwards compatible consoles: The Switch 2 uses emulation to run original Switch titles, so it isn't playing those games natively. That works for the most part—Nintendo says virtually all first-party Switch games can run on Switch 2 without issue, and the same is true for most "partner" games. However, some games run into problems with the emulation on Switch 2. Certain titles have issues when starting up (e.g. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Rocket League, and FINAL FANTASY), while others are "playable," but suffer in-game compatibility issues (e.g. ALIEN: ISOLATION, Fall Guys, and Overcooked! All You Can Eat). Nintendo is investigating the issue for these titles, so hopefully they'll all eventually be able to run on Switch 2 as well as they do on the original Switch. These Switch games are getting updates for Switch 2 In fact, there's already a list of titles with fixes on the way. Nintendo says 49 games with current problems running on Switch 2 will receive updates by system launch or shortly after to fix those issues. (The exception is Fortnite, which is apparently getting a true Switch 2 version rather than an update.)You can see the full list of games to be updated for Switch 2 below: 112 OperatorACA NEOGEO ART OF FIGHTING 2ACA NEOGEO SAMURAI SHODOWN IIACA NEOGEO THE KING OF FIGHTERS '95ACA NEOGEO THE KING OF FIGHTERS '96ACTIVE LIFE Outdoor ChallengeAirheadAlchemy GardenBaron: Fur Is Gonna FlyBatman: The Enemy Within Beyond the Ice Palace 2Boot Hill BountiesBus Simulator 2023: City DriverDeath ComingDOOM EternalEggy Party ENDER MAGNOLIA: Bloom in the MistEverspace - Stellar EditionFables Mosaic: Snow White and the Seven DwarfsFitness BoxingFloor KidsFortnite (a Switch 2 version is in the works)FRAMED CollectionGal Guardians: Demon PurgeGas Guzzlers ExtremeGuns, Gore and CannoliIsland Flight SimulatorKorean Drone Flying Tour Jeju Island-1Mexican Train Dominoes GoldMonster Energy Supercross - The Official VideogameMUSYNXNBA 2K25Nova-111OMG Police - Car Chase TV SimulatorParents Vs KidsPerseverance: Complete EditionPizza TowerProcess of EliminationSlayin 2STAR WARS: Dark Forces RemasterSuper Mega Baseball 3The Jackbox Party PackThe Jackbox Party Pack 2Travis Strikes Again: No More HeroesVictor Vran Overkill EditionWho Wants to Be a Millionaire?WolfFang 空牙2001 SkullFang 空牙外伝 Saturn Tribute BoostedWorld of Tanks BlitzXtreme SportsUnfortunately, there's no true timeline for when these games will receive their updates. Nintendo's "by launch or shortly after" pledge is quite vague: Will some games be patched? Will most? Which ones? How long after launch is "shortly after?" The silver lining is that the fixes are on their way. If you have any of these Switch games, or you happen to buy them with your Switch 2, keep an eye out for these updates.

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

Why is nobody talking about the PS5 anymore? – Reader’s Feature GameCentral Published June 1, 2025 7:00am Whatever happened to the PS5? (Sony) A reader worries that Sony’s strange behaviour over the last few years has seen the PS5 become sidelined and ignored compared to other formats. For years now, I’ve been reading people, both here and elsewhere online, asking what has happened to Sony and why they’re acting the way they do now. The lack of showcases, the general lack of communication, the obsession with live service games, and the reduction in new single-player games… it’s obvious to everyone and yet we’ve never had an explanation or an acknowledgement from Sony that anything unusual is happening. I think it’s pretty obvious that we’re not going to get one either. Sony are just going to carry on being weird and pretending that’s what they were always like. They’ve been like this for well over two years now, so anyone buying a PlayStation 5 in that time will never know anything else. There is a problem though – well there’s multiple, obviously – but the thing I can’t help but notice at the moment is how little people talk about the PlayStation 5 anymore. The Switch 2 is eating up a lot of bandwidth right now but it’s not just that. The PlayStation 5 feels played out, a disappointment and unexciting, just part of the gaming furniture and nothing more. The Switch 2 launch is coming up, but people have been talking excitedly about it for months now. A new console is obviously a rare thing, that’s always going to draw attention, but the PC as a gaming format has also been a big topic for the last year or so. It’s far more popular than I have ever known and now seems to be the default format for games, rather than any console. That’s the position the PlayStation 5 should have but it’s not really how it’s turned out. You could argue even the Xbox has been more a topic of conversation recently, even if that’s in a negative way. But at least people don’t forget it exists. It looks like we probably won’t get a PlayStation showcase this month, since they’ve already missed their usual May slot, and the rumours say maybe not one until September. That’s ridiculous. Not only do we know virtually nothing about Ghost Of Yōtei, but there’s nothing confirmed for next year yet, except Saros (had to look up that spelling). Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet and Marvel’s Wolverine don’t have any year confirmed yet and that’s all we know about in terms of games made by Sony themselves. I’m not going to speculate on why this is happening or when it might end, because frankly I haven’t got a clue, but I do know that it’s having a very negative effect on PlayStation’s reputation, in a way people aren’t talking about enough. The PlayStation 5 just seems invisible now, something that’s always there but which nobody cares about and definitely something nobody is excited about. Will this change if they announce a new game? Well, it didn’t with Ghost Of Yōtei. You could say that’s not really their biggest franchise, and you’d be right, but the longer Sony carries on in zombie mode the harder it is going to be to get anyone’s attention. It won’t be long before it needs The Last Of Us Part 3 or God Of War 3 before there’s any kind of a reaction, but I don’t see those games happening anytime soon. Sony is so out of touch they think fans will wait forever for whatever news they can be bothered to tell us, and then we’ll be amazed and excited, but I don’t think that’s true anymore. More Trending The PlayStation 6 seems to be only a year away and the sad thing is that means the PlayStation 5 is just going to fade away, forgotten and underused. How can a console be this successful and yet be such an utter failure and disappointment at the same time? I wouldn’t have thought it possible and yet here we are. By reader Corsair PC gaming has seen a major boost in the last few years (Microsoft) 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. 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

Reading Time: 9 minutes Email provides a direct, two-way communication line to your target audience, which makes it, in a sense, more social than marketing channels like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. However, this doesn’t automatically lead to high open rates or email engagement. You need to know when the best time to send an email is and how often you should send them. Without a well-thought-out schedule, you’ll likely overwhelm your customers’ inboxes. In this post, we’ll discuss email scheduling and cadence best practices, along with the best day and time to send email marketing messages. Let’s jump in.   What is Email Cadence? Email cadence is the ideal frequency and most impactful time for your business to send marketing emails to your subscribers. It’s a process that involves experimentation, testing, and adjustments, as you’ll need to understand your subscribers’ preferences and modify your email schedule accordingly. It matters because it will greatly impact the success of email marketing campaigns, specifically engagement and your relationship with your subscriber list. Send too many emails, and they’ll likely unsubscribe. Get the timing wrong, and you’ll see an impact in your open rates.   The Best Time to Send an Email: By Industry and Day There isn’t a universal email cadence to replicate, as it varies by industry. That said, the best time to send an email is typically at the start of the workday between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. on weekdays, with Tuesdays and Thursdays being the most effective days. This is why it’s crucial that you dig into the averages for your industry, conveniently set out for you in this table based on the data collected. It’s a good place to start, especially if you’re new to email marketing and don’t have your own data yet. Industry Best Day To Send Emails Best Time To Send Emails Retail and Ecommerce Monday (for conversions) and Sunday (for opens) 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. and again 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. Financial  Friday (for conversions) and Sunday (for opens) 8:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. and again 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Media and entertainment Thursday (for conversions and opens) 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. and again 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.   An Ideal Sales Cadence Email Template (by MoEngage) Once you’ve identified the best time to send emails for your industry, you can plan your email marketing campaign around these times. We’ve created this sales cadence email template for a hypothetical brand, StrideGo, a subscription-based fitness app, to help you see how this will look in practice. It shows how to plot out your emails so you can balance frequency with the best times to send an email.   From sales to subscriber re-engagement, there are various ways you can tweak this template to match your campaign goal, as the following examples from well-known B2C brands illustrate.   Email Cadence Examples From Top Brands Some of the best email cadence examples come from brands that have turned email into one of their most effective channels. From limited-time flash sales to regular content updates that help build your brand as a thought leader, here are some ways you can approach email cadence, timing, and content. 1. Grammarly | Flash Sale Campaign goal: Promote a flash sale Grammarly’s email campaign serves as a good example of how to strike the right balance between staying top of mind without becoming an annoyance. The first email succinctly links the offer with their subscribers’ pain point, which increases their chance of opening it. They then wait two days before sending a follow-up email to remind subscribers that the offer will soon end. To capitalize on the powerful effect of urgency, they wait until the day the offer ends to send their final reminder. What this email campaign does well: Grammarly doesn’t solely rely on the massive discount to drive subscriptions. They take it one step further by linking their software with their potential new subscribers’ pain points. It’s a great example of a customer relationship email. 2. Airbnb | Announcing New Updates Source: https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/host-news-updates-to-our-review-policy-new-sustainability-resources-and-more   Campaign goal: Highlight new blog content and product updates Airbnb sends monthly email newsletters that share industry news, product updates, and learning resources. On the surface, it functions as an email newsletter, but it’s also an effective tool for establishing thought leadership. Industry news isn’t as exciting or time-sensitive as sales, so it makes sense for this type of email to be scheduled on a monthly basis only. What this email campaign does well: The newsletter helps to build brand awareness and encourages product discovery. The strategic placement of several calls to action (CTAs) per email also helps to generate website traffic. 3. McDonald’s | Personalized Updates Source: https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/smiles-davis-your-january-account-in-review Campaign goal: Update customers about their loyalty points See how they’re proudly announcing their email marketing cadence? Each month, McDonald’s sends a statement that summarizes loyalty program members’ activity for the past month and current status. It’s an effective tool for engaging their most loyal customers to grow their customer loyalty even further. What this email campaign does well: The personalized content makes regular diners feel special. Plus, the fact that it visualizes how many points they’re away from a reward, along with the only-once-a-month email cadence, serves as good encouragement to visit McDonald’s more often. How? Well, when customers receive the email once a month stating the reward, it serves as a slight nudge to pay a visit in the hope of winning more rewards!   5 Best Practices for Email Marketing Cadence Here are five email cadence best practices that will help you drive noteworthy results for you to replicate (and let you get the best use out of your email cadence tool). 1. Create a Customer Journey Each email marketing campaign should have a specific goal, whether that’s to create brand awareness or drive webinar registrations. Creating and mapping the customer journey will ensure that you know where your target audience typically starts and what type of message they’ll need at which point to move them toward your goal. If you have clarity on the typical steps your target audience takes and their behavior, your email communication will improve the customer experience. Each message will be relevant and valuable. 2. Segment Your List Email preferences differ from one segment to the next. For example, your frequent shoppers generally like to receive regular promotional emails with exclusive deals. On the other hand, occasional buyers would rather receive fewer emails and resonate better with educational emails. Segmenting your email list allows you to send daily emails to those in your most engaged group, while weekly emails are reserved for another group. 3. Personalize Content One of the most crucial email cadence best practices is content personalization. In addition to adjusting your email frequency to your segment’s preferences, you should also tailor the actual content so that it’s relevant to specific recipients. Generic content quickly gets ignored, while location-based product recommendations feel useful. For your email cadence to click, you need recipients to click on the CTAs, and personalized content will encourage engagement. The added benefit of using email personalization is that once your open and click-through rates improve, you can also increase your email frequency. 4. Test and Tweak Like with virtually anything in life, it takes time before you find your rhythm. The same applies to email cadence. A/B testing will allow you to see if your frequency and timing work and give you the data you need to improve your campaigns. You can, for example, send specials to half of your frequent shoppers daily, while the other half receive specials only weekly. Alternatively, you can send the whole segment the same email on the same days at the same time, and then experiment with the best time to send an email. 5. Let Subscribers Select Email Preferences While you still need to do your own rigorous testing, give your email subscribers the option to choose how often they want to receive emails from your brand. It’s as easy as adding a link in your email signature that takes them to a page where they can select which emails they choose to receive. You can even take it one step further and let them choose the frequency by type of message. For example, they might want to hear about deals weekly, while company news is best served only once a month. This also allows them to change the frequency at a later stage, should their needs change. Aside from making your job easier, it also gives your subscribers an alternative to unsubscribing from your emails altogether.   Top 3 Email Cadence Software and Tools There are several great email cadence tools that can automate much of the labor involved in identifying the best time to send an email campaign. Here’s a quick look that highlights the core and unique features of three such software solutions. 1. Best for Cross-Channel Customer Engagement: MoEngage   MoEngage’s enterprise-ready, cross-channel customer engagement platform gives your team the data and insight they need to personalize customer experiences. For help specifically with email cadence, you can use it to design relevant emails that match your customers’ preferences and meet them where they’re at in their journey. What makes it such a unique email cadence tool is its deep focus on customer engagement. It doesn’t just send emails but also helps you understand the why and when behind engagement. For example, it has a “Best Time to Send” feature that uses advanced data analysis to make sense of historical customer interactions. How pricing works: MoEngage keeps pricing simple and flexible by offering only two plans (Growth and Enterprise) and dozens of features available to be purchased as add-ons. What makes it stand out: MoEngage’s impressive predictive capabilities let you tailor your emails to your customers’ next best action, ensuring they receive timely, relevant content time and again. 2. Best for Email Scheduling for Small Businesses: Klaviyo Klaviyo’s marketing automation platform offers tools for email and SMS marketing. With its built-in data platform and drag-and-drop editor, you can easily create customizable templates and send personalized emails. You can, for example, use data like browsing history, past purchases, and subscription status to send relevant and timely updates. It also has a Smart Send Time feature to help specifically with the best time to send an email. How pricing works: Plans start at $45 per month based on features and the number of monthly emails you want to send. What makes it stand out: As it integrates with platforms like Shopify, you can use real-time customer data to personalize your communication. 3. Best for Inbound Marketing: HubSpot HubSpot is an all-in-one solution that businesses can use to attract and engage their target audience across the entire journey. It offers various hubs (like sales, marketing, and operations) built to work together and integrations with more than 1,000 third-party apps that expand its capabilities even further. To help with email cadence, you can check out Cadence, a multi-channel sales prospecting tool available in its app marketplace. It will tell you who to email and allow you to automate sequence steps. How pricing works: Depending on the platform solutions you need, pricing ranges from $15 per month per seat to $4,700 per month per seat for seven seats. What makes it stand out: HubSpot is built around inbound marketing and combines everything you’ll need for lead nurturing to customer support into one interface.   Manage Your Email Cadence With MoEngage When you’re creating your email marketing strategy, you should also plan for the best time to send an email. If you send your email at 4 a.m. on a Saturday, it will only be buried with dozens of other emails when your recipients finally make time to check their inbox. You want to find out at what time your subscribers are most likely going to open their inbox and ensure your email reaches them at this time. In addition to the day and time, you also need to consider the email cadence. Here’s an idea: why not remove the guesswork altogether? With MoEngage’s Best Time to Send (BTS) feature, you can reach out to your customers at just the right moment. What’s more, MoEngage’s AI engine, Sherpa AI, keeps updating the best time to send an email based on changing customer behavior. Want to see this super-cool feature in action? Schedule a 1:1 demo today. The post When is the Best Time to Send an Email? appeared first on MoEngage.

DeepSeek's R1 update, plus the rest of the AI news this week. Credit: Thomas Fuller / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty Images This week, DeepSeek released an updated version of its R1 model on HuggingFace, reigniting the open-source versus closed-source competition. The updated version, called DeekSeek-R1-0528, has 685 billion parameters, an upgrade from January's version, which had 671 billion. Unlike OpenAI and Google's models, which are famously closed-source, DeepSeek's model weights are publicly available. According to the benchmarks, the R1-0528 update has improved reasoning and inference capabilities and is closing the gap with OpenAI's o3 and Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro. DeepSeek also introduced a distilled version of R1-0528 using Alibaba's Qwen3 8B model. This is an example of a lightweight model that is less capable but also requires less computing power. DeepSeek-R1-0528-Qwen3-8B outperforms both Google's latest lightweight model Gemini-2.5-Flash-Thinking-0520 and OpenAI's o3-mini in certain benchmarks. But the bigger deal is that DeekSeek's distilled model can reportedly run on a single GPU, according to TechCrunch. You May Also Like To… distill all this information, the Chinese rival is catching up to its U.S. competitors with an open-weight approach that's cheaper and more accessible. Plus, DeepSeek continues to prove that AI models may not require as much computing power as OpenAI, Google, and other AI heavyweights currently use. Suffice to say, watch this space.That said, DeepSeek's models also have their drawbacks. According to one AI developer (via TechCrunch), the new DeepSeek update is even more censored than its previous version when it comes to criticism of the Chinese government. Of course, a lot more happened in the AI world over the past few days. After last week's parade of AI events from Google, Anthropic, and Microsoft, this week was lighter on product and feature news. That's one reason DeepSeek's R1 update captured the AI world's attention this week. In other AI news, Anthropic finally gets voice mode, AI influencers go viral, Anthropic's CEO warns of mass layoffs, and an AI-generated kangaroo. Google's Veo 3 takes the internet by stormOn virtually every social media platform, users are freaking out about the new Veo 3, Google's new AI video model. The results are impressive, and we're already seeing short films made entirely with Veo 3. Not bad for a product that came out 11 days ago. Not to be outdone by AI video artists, a reporter from The Wall Street Journal made a short film about herself and a robot using Veo 3.Mashable's Tech Editor Timothy Werth recapped Veo's big week and had a simple conclusion: We're so cooked.More AI product news: Claude's new voice mode and the beginning of the agentic browser eraAfter last week's barrage, this week was lighter on the volume of AI news. But what was announced this week is no less significant.  Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up! Anthropic finally introduced its own voice mode for Claude to compete with ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini. The feature is currently in beta on mobile for the Claude app and will even be available to free plans with a limit of 20 to 30 voice conversations per day. Anthropic says you can ask Claude to summarize your calendar or read documents out loud. Paying subscribers can connect to Google Workspace for Calendar, Gmail, and Docs access. OpenAI is exploring the ability to sign into third-party apps with ChatGPT. We don't know much yet, but the company posted an interest form on its site for developers using Codex, its engineering agent, to add this capability to their own apps. It may not sound like a big deal, but it basically means users could easily link their personalized ChatGPT memories and settings to third-party apps, much like the way it works when you sign into a new app with your Google account.Opera announced a new agentic AI browser called Neon. "Much more than a place to view web pages, Neon can browse with you or for you, take action, and help you get things done," the announcement read. That includes a chatbot interface within the browser and the ability to fill in web forms for tasks like booking trips and shopping. The announcement, which included a promo video of a humanoid robot browsing the robot, which is scant on details but says Neon will be a "premium subscription product" and has a waitlist to sign up.The browser has suddenly become a new frontier for agentic AI, now that it's capable of automating web search tasks. Perplexity is working on a similar tool called Comet, and The Browser Company pivoted from its Arc browser to a more AI-centric browser called Dia. All of this is happening while Google might be forced to sell off Chrome, which OpenAI has kindly offered to take off its hands. Dario Amodei's prediction about AI replacing entry-level jobs is already starting to happenAnthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned in an interview with Axios that AI could "wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs." Amodei's predictions might be spot on because a new study from VC firm SignalFire found that hiring for entry-level jobs is down to 7 percent from 25 percent in the previous year. Some of that is due to changes in the economic climate, but AI is definitely a factor since firms are opting to automate the less-technical aspects of work that would've been taken on by new hires.  Related Stories The latest in AI culture: That AI-generated kangaroo, Judge Judy, and everything elseGoogle wants you to know its AI overviews reach 1.5 billion people a month. They probably don't want you to know AI Overviews still struggles to count, spell, and know what year it is. As Mashable's Tim Marcin put it, would AI Overviews pass concussion protocol?The proposal of a 10-year ban on states regulating AI is pretty unpopular, according to a poll from Common Sense Media. The survey found that 57 percent of respondents opposed the moratorium, including half of the Republican respondents. As Mashable's Rebecca Ruiz reported, "the vast majority of respondents, regardless of their political affiliation, agreed that Congress shouldn't ban states from enacting or enforcing their own youth online safety and privacy laws."In the private sector, The New York Times signed a licensing deal with Amazon to allow their editorial content to be used for Amazon's AI models. The details are unclear, but from the outside, this seems like a change of tune from the Times, which is currently suing OpenAI for copyright infringement for allegedly using its content to train its models. That viral video of an emotional support kangaroo holding a plane ticket and being denied boarding? It's AI-generated, of course. Slightly more obvious, but no less creepy is another viral trend of using AI to turn public figures like Emmanuel Macron and Judge Judy into babies. These are strange AI-slop-infested times we're living in. AI has some positive uses too. This week, we learned about a new humanoid robot from HuggingFace called HopeJr (with engineering by The Robot Studio), which could be available for sale later this year for just $3,000.And to end this recap on a high note, the nonprofit Colossal Foundation has developed an AI algorithm to detect the bird calls of the near-extinct tooth-billed pigeon. Also known as the "little dodo," the tooth-billed pigeon is Samoa's national bird, and scientists are using the bioacoustic algorithm to locate and protect them. Want to get the latest AI news, from new product features to viral trends? Check back next week for another AI news recap, and in the meantime, follow @cecily_mauran and @mashable for more news.Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems. Topics OpenAI DeepSeek Cecily Mauran Tech Reporter Cecily is a tech reporter at Mashable who covers AI, Apple, and emerging tech trends. Before getting her master's degree at Columbia Journalism School, she spent several years working with startups and social impact businesses for Unreasonable Group and B Lab. Before that, she co-founded a startup consulting business for emerging entrepreneurial hubs in South America, Europe, and Asia. You can find her on X at @cecily_mauran.

With just days to go before WWDC, the consensus is that Apple will unveil a big, visionOS-inspired redesign across its operating systems. And while some might be dreading a repeat of the iOS 7 announcement from a decade ago, it’s been long enough that many readers might not remember (or may have never even seen) what that overhaul actually looked like. So here’s a quick refresher on what happened, and why this year will likely (I mean, hopefully?) be different. The years between 2011 and 2013 were pretty busy at Apple. Following Steve Jobs’ passing, Apple fired Scott Forstall (then SVP of iOS Software) over the botched release of Apple Maps. That left a gap in software design leadership, which was filled by Jony Ive, who also led hardware design. Soon after, rumors began swirling that he was planning a major visual overhaul of the entire system. Flat In the run-up to WWDC 2013, the Wall Street Journal reported that Ive had been working on “a more ‘flat design’ that is starker and simpler,” a sharp departure from the great skeuomorphic visuals of the time (think linen textures, paper-like folders, glass effects, and yes, Corinthian leather). Some time after that, 9to5Mac exclusively shared mockups of the redesign, which had been leaked to Mark Gurman. It was chaos. I vividly remember thinking it was reckless to publish such unfairly primitive sketches of what would certainly be a more polished overhaul. After weeks of intense debate and fierce expectations that the rumors had been wrong, Apple introduced iOS 7: In the years that followed, Apple scaled back its over-flattening of the system, evolving toward what we have today. Now, that’s about to change once again. Why iOS 26 probably won’t be like iOS 7 Currently, most reports tend to agree that the redesign will be deeply influenced by the visual language of visionOS, with its translucent layers, depth effects, and soft glassy textures. And even if you’re like me and you’ve never worn an Apple Vision Pro, chances are you’ve seen what visionOS looks like. Apple has already laid the groundwork, so the change won’t be such a jarring surprise, like with iOS 7. And from a design perspective, speaking as someone who’s worked in graphic design for over two decades, the best move Apple could make is exactly what’s been reported: updating all systems at once. If you’ve ever had to adapt interfaces and key visuals to multiple concepts, such as wide, narrow, square, rectangular, big, small, etc., you know that with every new aspect ratio, you become a little more familiar and more comfortable with each individual element. By starting out with the virtually boundless, unconstrained environment of visionOS, then increasingly moving to smaller interfaces across macOS, iPadOS, iOS, and watchOS, every decision informs past and future visual adaptations. In other words, a redesign this broad can be iterative in both directions. Will it be beautiful? That’s subjective. Even iOS 7 had a handful of defenders. But one thing is certain: Apple’s design team knows how much this moment matters. This is the biggest task they’ve been given since Ive left the company, and they are well aware of the contentious history of iOS design updates. The mere fact that the new design hasn’t leaked yet points to the absence of dissidents inside the team, and considering how close we are to the announcement, that’s already a victory in itself. 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

Macworld People have high hopes for the Apple Watch in 2025 after the Apple Watch Series 10 disappointed in 2024. Despite rumors of major design changes, the Apple Watch 10 turned out to be more or less identical to every Apple Watch sold over the last few years. The display was just a tad larger and the body was slightly thinner, but overall it was very similar to the Series 9. At this point you might look to the old adage: “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. Apple’s Watch follows a proven formula that has brought a lot of success. It should be no surprise that the company isn’t rocking the boat. That might be forgivable, but Apple didn’t even update the Apple Watch Ultra or Apple Watch SE in 2024, leaving both with an older processor generation. Luckily this year it looks like Apple will deliver some long awaited Apple Watch features. Read on to find out what’s in store for Apple Watch Series 11 in the fall of 2025? Here’s what we’ve heard so far about the 2025 Apple Watch. We’ll run though what’s expected for each Apple Watch model below, starting with the Apple Watch Series 11. Apple Watch Series 11: Release date Launch at September iPhone event: Tuesday September 9 (probable) Pre-order from September 12 On sale from September 19 For years now, Apple has announced the new Apple Watch together with the new iPhone at a September event, with both products going on sale the following week. We haven’t heard anything to make us think that won’t be the case again this year. The most likely date is the second Tuesday of September, which is September 9. Pre-orders for the Apple Watch Series 11 will probably begin that Friday (September 12) with general availability in stores a week later (September 19). Apple Watch Series 11: Price Likely to start at $399, unless Apple has to raise prices Ever since the Apple Watch Series 3, Apple has kept starting prices the same for the aluminum Apple Watch and we don’t expect a price hike this year. This means that the Series 11 will start at $399 and the larger version will cost $429, with an extra $100 for cellular capability and higher prices for various bands. With the Series 10, Apple also offered a titanium case for $699/$749, which includes LTE like the Ultra. Rumors suggest Apple will keep that option around with the Series 11, likely at the same price. However, no discussion of future Apple product pricing is complete without mentioning U.S. tariffs, which are changing rapidly and could have a big impact on pricing. It’s simply too difficult to predict whether tariffs will increase the Apple Watch’s price, the odds are significant. Apple Watch Series 11: Design The Apple Watch Series 11 is likely to look nearly identical to the Series 10.Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry Rumors throughout 2024 told us to expect more significant changes to the Apple Watch design last year, and then the Series 10 debuted and it looked like a very slightly flattened Series 9. This year, there aren’t even any rumors of big design changes. Currently, all signs point to an Apple Watch that is identical in appearance to the Series 10, with the possible exception of new colors, possibly sky blue to match the MacBook Air and iPhone 17. Apple Watch SE 3: Release date, price and design Launch at September iPhone event: Tuesday September 9 (probable) Pre-order from September 12 On sale from September 19 Apple hasn’t updated the Apple Watch SE since 2022 and that update was an extremely minor one, bringing a new chip and crash detection with a lower price of $249. It was initially rumored that 2024 would bring a substantial update to the budget watch with a plastic redesign, but that didn’t happen. Then Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reported that a plastic SE redesign would arrive in 2025 alongside the Series 11. However, a rumor in March claimed that the new Apple Watch SE had run into production issues and was in “serious jeopardy.” So Apple may need to switch to an aluminum design for the new SE or stick with the current model for another year. The Apple Watch SE hasn’t been updated since 2022.Henry Burrell / Foundry Apple Watch Ultra 3: Release date, price and design Launch at September iPhone event: Tuesday September 9 (probable) Pre-order from September 12 On sale from September 19 We do expect that there will be an Apple Watch Ultra 3 in 2025. Rumors so far point to 5G and satellite texting capabilities, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The Apple Watch Ultra 2025 might also be slimmer. And yes, the display might be even larger. In addition to that you can expect all the features coming to the Apple Watch Series 11. Apple Watch 2025: Features coming to the Apple Watch Apple has been working on incorporating a microLED display on the Apple Watch for several years, according to various leaks and rumors, but it’s not expected to debut on the Series 11 this year. Some think this display shift will come to Apple Watch Ultra first, but even that isn’t expected in 2025. Health We’re not expecting any new health sensors. Apple’s blood glucose monitoring initiative is still years from ending up in a watch, it seems, and while there have been rumors of high blood pressure monitoring, that’s apparently not quite ready to appear this year, either. Specs So what will be new? You can bet on a new S11 SiP (system in package), offering somewhat better performance. Don’t expect a big boost in battery life, though—that has been a near constant 18 hours for nearly the entire lifespan of the watch. Apple Intelligence and the new Siri could be one of the new features of watchOS 12 and the Apple Watch Series 11.Michael Simon/IDG Apple Intelligence AI is a key aspect of almost every new Apple product now, and rumors suggest Apple is working on bringing some AI features to the Apple Watch. The actual AI models probably won’t be able to run on the watch; rather, the watch will gather data, the processing will be done on your iPhone, and then the watch will display results or notifications. Many of the new AI features will likely debut as part of watchOS 12, but some might be kept as Series 11 exclusives in order to help differentiate the hardware. 5G and Satelite It’s also rumored that the Apple Watch Ultra 3 will support 5G cellular and satellite messaging, which could also come to the Series 11. Apple debuted a wireless chip in the iPhone 16e, but it’s not clear whether it’s small or efficient enough for the Apple Watch yet. No changes? The Series 11 could just be a ‘Series 10s’ We criticized the Apple Watch Series 8 for being largely the same as the Series 7, and the Series 9 for being almost identical to the Series 8. This looks like it could be another one of those years, where there are only very minor changes to the Apple Watch that you won’t even notice in everyday use. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad watch, or that Apple is in trouble. There is virtually no competition for the Apple Watch, and as long as Apple keeps pressing forward with watchOS software features, it’s likely to keep selling a lot of Apple Watches. But if you’re hoping for a major change to the Apple Watch hardware, you’ll probably have to wait another year or more.