MakeUseOf

I crashed Windows three ways to find the best diagnostic tool, it's not what Microsoft ships

Tashreef Shareef — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 12:00:14 GMT

When a Windows PC crashes, it's hard to tell what triggered it. Often, it's a bad driver or newly installed hardware such as a new memory module or a USB device. However, if that's not the case, the built-in Windows tools like Event Viewer and Reliability Monitor can be hit or miss. Sometimes they can tell what went wrong; other times they fail to catch the culprit.

Blue switches feel amazing until you use them for 8 hours straight

Yadullah Abidi — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 11:00:15 GMT

For a long time, I assumed the keyboard switch I enjoyed the most would naturally be the one that helped me type best. Blue switches seemed to confirm that theory. They were crisp, deliberate, and wonderfully noisy. Every keystroke felt like a tiny mechanical event rather than an input that just went to my computer. Then one day, I decided to try a handful of other switches.

This one Windows command freed up 10GB of space I didn’t know I had

Pankil Shah — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 10:30:15 GMT

Storage is precious (and now expensive too), so anyone running a PC with a smaller SSD has to manage it smartly. That also means doing everything possible to stop Windows itself from wasting space.

I ditched my cloud password manager for KeePassXC, and I feel more secure than ever

Oluwaseun Bamisile — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 10:00:14 GMT

For a long time, I've used LastPass, a cloud-based password manager. I even paid the $3-per-month subscription fee for the extra perks, and I stuck with it even after its infamous 2022 security breach. But then, LastPass had another security incident this year, and although it wasn't as damaging as the 2022 incident, it became an eye-opener for me.

I didn’t realize Windows could tell me this much about my SSD

Oluwaseun Bamisile — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 23:01:14 GMT

Every device, whether mechanical or electronic, eventually suffers from wear and tear, and SSDs are no exception. The more you use one, the more its memory cells are eventually subjected to wear.

I built the Android privacy setup Google doesn’t give you out of the box

Sagar Naresh — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 21:00:15 GMT

I always felt Android's privacy options were half-baked. Even though it gives a lot of tools for manual control, to be frank, I often feel the built-in toggles aren't enough. I spent a few weeks building a stronger setup, and the best part was that all these apps are available free of cost. The only thing is that they aren't apps you can get from the Play Store. These are third-party apps, fully safe and secure, that improve your Android's privacy features. You can get them from F-Droid, which is a Play Store alternative, except for one app. If you've already tweaked Android's default privacy settings and still feel watched, these are the apps that you need to install.

I stopped using Task Manager after finding System Informer's hidden troubleshooting powers

Kanika Gogia — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 20:00:15 GMT

Whenever my PC acted weirdly, I used to hit the Ctrl + Shift + Esc key combo. That’s the ritual of every Windows user. Task Manager feels familiar and gives me a quick view of what’s consuming my resources. After all, we all have been using it for years. The problem is that Task Manager often tells me what's happening without telling me why. It works fine when I want to close a frozen app or find out what's eating up my RAM. However, when I need more information like why I can’t close an application, Task Manager hits a wall.

I've used Bitwarden for years and didn't know about these 6 hidden settings that boost your security

Afam Onyimadu — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 19:30:14 GMT

After setting up Bitwarden a few years ago, I've barely bothered to change any settings because it just works. Having tried several password managers, I decided to revisit Bitwarden to see if I was leaving any real security improvements unused.

This Samsung routine fixed a battery problem I didn’t know I could automate

Brandon Miniman — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 19:00:15 GMT

Have you ever woken up to a dead battery just because your phone's charger came loose, or perhaps your phone's alignment on its wireless charger shifted?

I nearly disabled this useless-sounding router setting until I learned what it actually does

Tashreef Shareef — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 18:30:15 GMT

When trying to troubleshoot Wi-Fi connectivity issues on my old Android phone, I was fiddling with QoS-style features, hoping that something would fix the problem. While doing so, I also turned off a rather useless-sounding feature called Wi-Fi WMM.