MakeUseOf

I keep my smart TV off Wi-Fi and still stream everything — this is my setup

Brady Snyder — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 23:00:18 GMT

Smart TVs are the standard in 2026, but they're completely unnecessary in my home. I use streaming boxes, dongles, and other accessories to watch my favorite shoes and movies without depending on my TV's operating system. Using the smart features built into your TV might save you a few bucks early on, but they come at a cost. Connect your smart TV to a network, and it'll start collecting data and feeding you ads.

VLC is secretly the most powerful media tool on your PC — and you've barely scratched the surface

Shaheer Khan — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 22:00:19 GMT

VLC media player is a name synonymous with most PC users — after all, it is the best free media player without ads or unnecessary clutter. You get support for practically every media format there is with an easy-to-use interface. VLC doesn't look like it does anything over-the-top; it just packs every functionality you'd want from a media player.

5 Ryobi tools under $100 that punch way above the price

Jonathon Jachura — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 21:00:19 GMT

Ryobi's aisle is full of tools I bought on impulse, bracing for them to quit on me early. Plenty have proved me wrong for years now. None of the five here ran me more than $100, and I caught three on sale for noticeably less. That's the part I keep returning to: each one quietly erased a problem I'd been working around, and what I paid never matched what I got back. Every price below is the bare-tool cost, the number that matters once you own a couple of ONE+ batteries. If you've written the brand off as cheap junk, I'd push back on that, and these five are where I'd start.

I get what Claude Design offers for free, thanks to this open-source clone

Mahnoor Faisal — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 20:00:18 GMT

Up until a few months ago, my biggest complaint with AI tools was the fact that they were getting more and more expensive to use, and the free tiers simply didn't cut it anymore. I've since accepted that there's no escaping paying for these tools now, and I've begun to write them off as a work expense. Girl math, I know.

There's only one way to browse that truly leaves no trace, but it has a huge issue

Gavin Phillips — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 19:31:19 GMT

Incognito windows are a false sense of security. Your ISP can still see what you're doing, and the websites you visit still fingerprint your browser.

I stopped filtering Excel data with Advanced Filter after finding one function that does it better

Adaeze Uche — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 19:00:20 GMT

For a long time, the Advanced Filter in Excel was my go-to tool whenever I needed to extract specific rows from a dataset. It handled the job reliably every time, provided I set up the criteria range correctly. The main drawback was that whenever my data or search criteria changed, I had to reopen the dialog box and rerun the filter.

I fixed my home's Wi-Fi dead zones with a phone I'd thrown in a drawer

Pankil Shah — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 18:30:18 GMT

I have a pretty solid router, but there’s this one corner of my apartment that gets almost no signal. And yes, that’s after trying all the usual tricks to improve the coverage. So a Wi-Fi extender felt like the only viable option. But instead of buying one, I ended up using an old Android phone as a Wi-Fi extender. The whole setup took just a few minutes, and, most importantly, it completely eliminated the dead zones in my home.

SSD prices are sky high, but these 3 Prime Day deals make upgrading hurt less

Shaheer Khan — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 18:15:34 GMT

The AI-driven memory shortage has made it hard for PC users to buy new hardware. It started with memory, but spread to other types of hardware. Now, on average, SSD prices have risen a little over twofold, and the NAND shortage isn't getting any better anytime soon — we expect the same memory conditions to last for at least a few more years.

This entire operating system fits in 12 MB, and yes, it boots faster than Windows

Yadullah Abidi — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 18:00:18 GMT

Windows may be the most popular operating system on the planet, but it's far from the fastest. It takes up way too much space, is full of bloatware you don't need out of the box, and on a loaded system, boot times can be excruciating. Now there are lightweight operating systems that can run on any system and make any slow PC fast, and most of those are Linux-based.

Codex's plan mode made me stop planning in Claude first

Yasir Mahmood — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 17:30:19 GMT

For a long stretch, every build I worked on started in Claude. I'd talk through the approach there, the order of the work, the parts most likely to break, and only then move to Codex to actually write it. That split held up because newer models had gotten much better at the planning part, but the thinking and the building still lived in different tabs. Then Codex added Plan mode, the thinking moved into the project itself, and the Claude step fell away.