MakeUseOf

I changed what happens when I tap a link on Android and there's no reason to do it the old way anymore

Isaac Akinleye — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 22:00:17 GMT

Tapping a link is usually automatic. I see something interesting in a newsletter or group chat, tap it, and the page opens. What I rarely see are the tracking parameters and redirects that go unnoticed. Even short links hide where they land until you open them.

Only one major phone maker won’t let you turn off battery throttling

Pankil Shah — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 21:00:18 GMT

The weakest link in a modern smartphone is the battery. It’s the one component that degrades faster than anything else. So yes, it’s no surprise that manufacturers like Google, Samsung, and Apple have all started offering features like an 80% charge limit to help slow that process down.

The $27 tool that should touch every outlet before your screwdriver does

Jonathon Jachura — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 20:31:17 GMT

When I replaced a handful of standard receptacles with USB outlets around my house, the tool that mattered most cost less than a pizza. It was the Klein Tools NCVT1PKIT, a plug-in receptacle tester and a non-contact voltage pen sold together for about $27. I bought it in 2024, and it has since caught at least one bad assumption I made about which breaker fed which outlet.

It fits in the same slot as a graphics card, but this PCIe card doesn’t render a single frame

Shaheer Khan — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 20:00:18 GMT

Consumer hardware has come a long way, to the point where some data-center workloads are now being replicated at desktop scale. To play with local AI, desktop GPUs are ideal companions for complex parallel processing, especially RTX cards with dedicated AI hardware.

Your Kindle can hold 70,000 books that cost nothing, and most owners never load one

Jonathon Jachura — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 19:30:18 GMT

Scroll through most Kindle libraries, and you’ll find store purchases, a few Prime Reading loans, and maybe a free first-in-series novel. What you rarely see is anything from the biggest free library on the internet.

5 local AI apps that finally make running an LLM on my phone worth it

Bryan M. Wolfe — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 19:00:17 GMT

My first try at local AI on a phone was a bare-bones chat app back in 2024. I loaded a tiny 1B model, asked it a handful of questions, and got slow, shaky answers. It lasted about a week before I deleted it. ChatGPT was always one tap away, and it was smarter.

This new sci-fi mystery thriller is already breaking records on Netflix

Dan Selcke — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 18:30:17 GMT

Netflix remains the biggest and best streaming service out there because of the sheer depth and breadth of its offerings. It's always getting new stuff, and a lot of that stuff ends up being good, popular, or both.

I deleted these 29 apps from One UI 9 on my Samsung phone and freed up 13.15GB of storage

Brady Snyder — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 18:00:18 GMT

As a reviewer, my three eSIMs fly in and out of review units throughout the year. That said, I always buy an iPhone and Android phone for personal use. For the foreseeable future, that Android phone is the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8. I took advantage of a fantastic carrier deal that locks me into keeping the Galaxy Z Fold 8 for the next three years, and I'm completely fine with that. But before this Samsung foldable becomes my daily driver, I need to clean up One UI 9.

I gave my smart home its own DNS and finally stopped my privacy settings from breaking it

Yadullah Abidi — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 17:30:17 GMT

I have a network-wide privacy setup for my home network that works beautifully until it doesn't. Pi-hole blocked trackers on my laptops and phones, but the same aggressive lists periodically break smart TVs, delay camera notifications, or leave a cloud-dependent bulb hanging off the internet.

Replacing these 4 Windows apps is my favorite performance upgrade

Afam Onyimadu — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 17:00:18 GMT

It's easy to blame hardware whenever Windows starts dragging or when you don't seem to get the best daily performance from your PC. This might push you to start exploring prices for RAM and larger SSDs. These changes will help, but I've found that the most immediate fixes don't require a budget.