Google bought this smart home hub just to kill it
MakeUseOfby Chris Hachey30 Aug 2026
Do you ever find old devices and pieces of technology that you haven't seen in years in a box or in your basement that you completely forgot about?
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makeuseof.comadded August 2026
top 16%The delimiter trick that stops Claude from asking questions when you just want a quick answer
MakeUseOfby Saikat Basu30 Aug 2026
I was researching a chapter outline for a book project when Claude stopped to ask me three questions about the book's direction.
Linux is great for laptops, but it still struggles with these 5 hardware features
MakeUseOfby Oluwademilade Afolabi30 Aug 2026
Installing Linux on a laptop no longer feels like signing up for a weekend of driver roulette. Pick hardware with decent Linux support and the essentials will usually fall into place right away...
Your Samsung phone has a built-in photo fixer that saves you from opening another app
MakeUseOfby Judy Sanhz30 Aug 2026
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve taken a picture in a hurry, only to realize later that it was either too dark or on the blurry side.
There's only one Control Panel dialog left that Windows Settings hasn't replaced
MakeUseOfby Oluwademilade Afolabi30 Aug 2026
Windows 11 has gotten surprisingly good at steering me away from Control Panel. If I right-click This PC and choose Properties, I end up in Settings.
Microsoft said I can’t install Windows 11 on my device, so I installed Linux instead
MakeUseOfby Gregory Gibson30 Aug 2026
My old Samsung Galaxy TabPro S LTE is the sort of device that’s an absolute shame to leave behind.
Amazon just gave Kindle owners two new reasons to look at Kobo
MakeUseOfby Oliver Haslam30 Aug 2026
Amazon has pushed a key change to the use of DRM on its Kindle platform that has users up in arms.
Apple’s most annoying iPhone decision aged better than I expected
MakeUseOfby Christine Persaud30 Aug 2026
There's nothing quite like unboxing a slick new iPhone. You spend a lot, and everything from the actual hardware to the packaging it comes in suggests luxury.
These three letters can turn bargain Cat6 into the worst cable to bury behind drywall
MakeUseOfby Jonathon Jachura30 Aug 2026
Bulk Cat6 has gotten cheap. Search for a 1,000-foot spool and you'll turn up listings that undercut the name brands by half, all promising the same gigabit speeds.
You’re probably plugging these 5 devices into the wrong TV ports
MakeUseOfby Pankil Shah30 Aug 2026
Your TV can connect to half a dozen different devices — a soundbar, streaming stick, external drive, AV receiver, gaming console and even a PC.
7 bad movies from great directors that are still worth watching anyway
MakeUseOfby Dan Selcke30 Aug 2026
Ridley Scott, the director behind classics like Alien and Blade Runner, has a new movie out in theaters: The Dog Stars, a post-apocalyptic thriller set in a world where most of humanity has been...
55+ PDF tools fit inside this Docker container — my files never leave the house
MakeUseOfby Tashreef Shareef30 Aug 2026
If you deal with sensitive PDF documents, you probably don't want to use a tool that would send them to a third-party server over the internet. That makes self-hosted PDF apps a great alternative.
I spent years refusing big phones until the Pixel 11 Pro XL changed my mind
MakeUseOfby Shimul Sood30 Aug 2026
For the past few years, I’ve naturally gravitated toward compact phones like the Pixel 8, Galaxy S25, Pixel 10a, and iPhone 17.
These 4 free tools made my old Windows laptop useful again
MakeUseOfby Digvijay Kumar30 Aug 2026
Years of Windows updates and software installs slowly turned my old Asus Vivobook into a sluggish mess, where even opening a few browser tabs makes the cooling fan scream.
After 10 years of owning a smart TV, I finally installed a VPN — and it changed everything
MakeUseOfby Anwesha Roy30 Aug 2026
Call me lazy, but after over a decade of using smart televisions, I’ve never once tried using a VPN.
Prime Video's strangest time-travel series never tells you if the time travel is real
MakeUseOfby Jack Mitchell30 Aug 2026
Most time travel stories try to convince us their plotlines are somehow plausible. From Back to the Future to Interstellar, they establish rules, explain paradoxes, and eventually reveal how...
Don't buy a Wi-Fi extender; every alternative is better
MakeUseOfby Jonathon Jachura30 Aug 2026
My first fix for a dead zone was the obvious one: a cheap Wi-Fi extender, the kind that sells for around $20, plugged into a hallway outlet. It helped a little, and it frustrated me a lot.
I checked my Claude Code usage and found four hidden token drains I never knew about
MakeUseOfby Abhijith N Arjunan30 Aug 2026
I love almost everything about Claude Code, but I hate how quickly Claude Code sessions eat through my session limits!
Android Auto isn’t just for cars — I use it beside my PC
MakeUseOfby Pankil Shah30 Aug 2026
The thing that makes Android Auto different from just using your phone is that it’s designed to be boring.
Must-see Marvel movies to watch if you've never seen a single one
MakeUseOfby Charlene Badasie29 Aug 2026
If you've somehow made it this far without seeing a single Marvel movie, the good news is that you don't need to wade through over 30 films to understand what everyone's been talking about.