HTC has made it their mission to get updates out to its devices as quickly as possible, with new builds slated for release 90-days after Google finalizes a build—this is dubbed HTC Advantage. After Google I/O, the company announced they would have the Android L version of Sen ...more
If you don’t have any little children to blame for an inadvertent or misguided app, book, or music purchase from Apple, you might still have a fighting chance. Apple has a very strict return policy, specifically stating that all sales and rentals of products are final for purc ...more
How do you begin to explain the nostalgia that's felt when you play a game from your childhood? You can't. The only thing that will alleviate this feeling is experiencing it again. We've already shown you how to play PlayStation 1 and Nintendo 64 games on your Nexus 7, but th ...more
In a previous how-to, I showed how to send and receive text messages by wirelessly syncing them from your phone to your Nexus 7 tablet. Some eagle-eyed users may have notice that the Nexus 7 with 3G actually has a SIM card slot. Now, syncing messages over to your tablet may b ...more
Apple has stepped up its emoji game lately, and as a result, there are several iPhone emojis that don't show up on Android devices running older firmware. However, Google responded by adding a next-gen set of Unicode 9.0 emojis to its Android Nougat preview build, meaning that ...more
Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! One key area on the minds of all hackers is how to evade security devices such as an intrusion detection system (IDS) or antivirus (AV) software. This is not an issue if you create your own zero-day exploit, or capture someone else's zero- ...more
The first developer preview of Android Oreo 8.0 was only out for a couple of days before Chainfire created a new root method for it. For the time being, only the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P are supported by this first SuperSU ZIP, as the Pixel's dual-partition layout has created som ...more
With Safestrap bringing custom recovery functionality to the AT&T and Verizon Wireless variants of the Samsung Galaxy S5, it's high time we covered this process for all other versions of the GS5. If you're not familiar with the term "custom recovery", it's a piece of software ...more
Auto manufacturers are slowly starting to debut models with Google's new Android Auto software baked into the dashboard console. Starting with the 2016 model year, we should see vehicles from Honda, Ford, Chevrolet, and many others sporting the new software. Now, many manufac ...more
Even for those of us who enjoy spending time alone at home, at a certain point, it just gets boring. We all need social interaction, but with stay-at-home orders, that can be hard to come by. If you're feeling the itch to hang out with friends and have a good time, you should ...more
Backdoors are convenient to leave behind once you've already found a way into a server, and they can come in handy for a variety of reasons. They're good for developers who want a quick way into machines they're working on, or for systems administrators who want similar access ...more
Waze is the go-to navigation app for millions of drivers, and it's easy to see why. Benefits such crowd-sourced traffic data, police trap locations, and road work avoidance are just the tip of the iceberg. It can almost be overwhelming, but with these simple tips, you'll maste ...more
You may have asked yourself, "How do hackers take my password, if the website owner can't?" The answer is simple. When a website stores your login password for the site, it is run through a cryptographic hash function before it enters the database (if the website isn't Sony). ...more
While modern browsers are robust and provide a lot of functionality, they can be unlocked to do some pretty spectacular things with browser extensions. For hackers and OSINT researchers, these tools can be used to defeat online tracking, log in to SSH devices, and search the i ...more
By default, Android limits your call history to the last 500 incoming, outgoing, or missed calls. When you reach this limit, older entries get trimmed off the bottom of the list and deleted forever. This isn't an issue with storage space, because even the biggest call logs onl ...more
The YouTube app will default to 480p playback when you first open a video. It's supposed to switch to your screen resolution a few seconds in, but this isn't always the case. The regular YouTube app doesn't let you change this behavior, but like most things with Android, there ...more
In this video, a method to play SNES games on the Xbox is demonstrated. Basically, one must set up a Windows Media Center, download and run ZSNES within it, then connect to the WMC with the Xbox. Watch the video to see how it works! And be sure to download ZSNES.
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! My preference for Linux as a hacking platform is well documented, and I have even created a series of tutorials to train new hackers. Without being proficient in Linux, you can't really call yourself a hacker. Every once in while, though, ...more
Ever since QuickPic was sold to a known adware company, there's been a glaring need for lightweight and fast third-party gallery apps on Android. For the folks that don't want to use Google Photos and other cloud-based solutions, a gallery app that loads your locally-stored pi ...more
Google has a habit of starting on new projects for Android, then hiding them away if they didn't quite complete them in time for a major release. We saw this with multi-window mode last year (which is now an official Nougat feature), and this year, there was the hidden night m ...more
Stock Android is a great experience, and it's probably one of the biggest reasons that people purchase a Nexus device over other Android phones. Without carrier or manufacturer modifications to the core software, the entire user interface feels a lot more clean and snappy, and ...more
After an update on Sept. 22, 2020, the Checkra1n jailbreaking tool expanded its compatibility to include iOS 12.0 to iOS 12.2, as well as iOS 13.5.1 to iOS 13.7. More importantly, however, it now can jailbreak iOS 14 on select iPhone models, with more support coming soon. The ...more
There are plenty of legitimate reasons that you might want to record a phone conversation. Let's say you operate a business and take orders over the phone, and you don't want to miss an item. Or perhaps you need to jot down some notes from a recent conference call, and things ...more
Customization of our Android devices, outside of what Google and mobile carriers allow us to do, used to mandate that our devices were rooted and running a custom ROM. While rooting is fairly easy for the Nexus 7, many people don’t like the idea of writing over their core sys ...more
There's a great new web game called Epic Duel out on the internet, and everybody's playing it, but not everybody's hacking it, except you! Outshine them all with this EpicDuel cheat with Cheat Engine 5.5. Learn from this video cheat: how to hack EpicDuel for money (12/31/09). ...more
The international, Exynos-powered Galaxy S7 and S7 edge have had a working root method ever since a few days after release. But the North American variants—those using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 processor—have locked bootloaders, and have proven to be almost unrootable up until ...more
In modern versions of Windows, Microsoft made quite a few changes to Windows Explorer, the first of which is a new name—File Explorer. Another huge change that most will notice is that File Explorer now has a new look sporting the Ribbon interface. The Ribbon interface, which ...more
As most of us know, men and women are (shocker alert) different. Not only are they different, but they view the world an entirely different way. Especially colors. But with the help of a new Android app called Color Grab by Loomatix, now everyone can view colors the same way. ...more
Google has started blocking certain devices from accessing the Google Play Store and other Google services. This is part of an effort to clamp down on OEMs that skirt its certification requirements, but now millions of phones have been uncertified to download or update Google ...more
These days, we increasingly have more and more devices in our everyday possession. While a notebook computer, a tablet, and a smartphone may seem like overkill, they do work to make our lives easier and even help reduce clutter in certain ways. A single one of these devices c ...more
Multitasking has traditionally been one of Android's strengths. As the first mobile operating system to introduce true multi-process management, it even took things a step further after version 4.0 by dedicating a button to your recently-used apps. With the release of Windows ...more
Today, we are going to combine what we learned from the Introduction to Cryptography article with our Java programming skills. If you are new to Java, check out Matthew's Learn Java: Part One for a quick beginner's lesson, or check out some of the Java tutorials directly on Or ...more
Android O doesn't have an official code name yet, but it's certainly got plenty of cool new features. The OS won't officially debut until Q3 2017, but we've gotten our hands on some of the updated stock apps thanks to the Android beta program. Developer krisyarno went ahead a ...more
One of the hardest tradeoffs when installing a non-Sense-based custom ROM on an HTC One is the loss of Beats Audio. Due to a patent restrictions from Beats and compatibility issues, it's currently impossible to port it to a non-Sense ROM, but with ViPER4Android you can get alm ...more
Bloatware remains one of the biggest problems with Android, especially when tied to a carrier. Removing bloatware usually requires you to take extreme measures like rooting. Unfortunately, the Galaxy S10 falls under this annoying umbrella, but there's an easy workaround. Pack ...more
To-do list and reminder apps are a dime a dozen on Google Play, so trying to find the right one for you could take hours as you sift through hundreds of similar apps and widgets. Well, search no more, as we've found one of the most well-designed and easy-to-use reminder apps o ...more
Welcome back, my hacker novitiates! As you know by now, the Metasploit Framework is one of my favorite hacking tools. It is capable of embedding code into a remote system and controlling it, scanning systems for recon, and fuzzing systems to find buffer overflows. Plus, all o ...more
Much like Xposed or Cydia, Magisk has an official repository that makes it easy to download root-level tweaks. These tweaks are called modules, and they can do anything from changing your emojis to installing high-level audio mods. But as it stands, a large number of Magisk mo ...more
When the Nexus 5 was released, a new version of Android came along with it called KitKat. In the 4.4 update were some fancy new UI elements, one of the most noticeable being the translucent decor. By that, I mean the status and navigation bars being semi-transparent. However, ...more
The LG V30 is an amazing device that will contend for best smartphone of 2017. It has all the major features you'd expect from a high-end flagship, and it even includes what's become a rare commodity these days — a headphone jack. However, for the purists out there, the LG UX ...more
NetGuard is a well-established app known for its highly secure firewall, which blocks unwanted web activity from individual apps that can take up both precious bandwidth and battery life. Not quite as well known, however, is the fact there's a second official version of NetGua ...more
This video will show you how to play free ISO / CSO games on your PSP 3000 using ChickHen. The steps performed are as follows: 1. Download the files you needed located here. 2. Check if you have Sony's Firmware 5.03 3. Connect your PSP to the computer. 4. If you don't have S ...more
By default, the Galaxy S9 and S9+ only have 15 media volume steps — in other words, there are only 15 increments between silent and full volume. That's usually fine if you're using your phone's speakers, but if you're wearing headphones, more fine-tuned controls would be helpf ...more
Nintendo may be developing cases that'll turn your iPhone into a gaming device like the Game Boy, but until something materializes there, you're stuck with cheap knockoffs on Amazon or a real Game Boy or Game Boy Color. But there's something else you can do to play eight-bit N ...more
In the midst of furious finger typing on a small non-tactile screen, you're sure to make mistakes—so the majority of keyboards have autocorrect. Generally it works pretty well and is a welcomed feature. Until autocorrect decides to screw you over. Example: My mom asks what I ...more
Even though the Galaxy S8 and S8+ are only just now being released to the public, the software leaks have been rolling in for a while. Everyone seems to have gone crazy for the new look Samsung is pushing out with Samsung Experience, the successor to TouchWiz. As a result, the ...more
There were some new hurdles to clear, and then there were a few more, but legendary root developer Chainfire has created a fully-functional root method for Google's Pixel and Pixel XL flagships. Like past devices, this method relies on the SuperSU ZIP, but now, there's an addi ...more
One of Android's most glaring weaknesses is its lack of an iMessage equivalent. That is, of course, until now. There's one app that will allow Android users to experience iMessage on their non-Apple phone, complete with end-to-end encryption, message effects, and group messagi ...more
If you're jonesing to play some Super Mario Run on your Android phone, you might not be able to get your fix for some time—at least, until Nintendo figures out the best way to keep piracy down and security high. But if you can't wait for the first official appearance of Mario ...more
Google Keyboard, which comes pre-installed on Nexus devices (and is available for all others from the Play Store), is one of the most functional keyboards currently available for Android. With features like gesture-based typing, next-word prediction, and even text expansion ma ...more
If you've gained entry into Google+, one of the first things you should do is adjust your Google account settings. Your settings will now look quite different, and you can adjust your notifications, password retrieval methods, and more. There are many settings that you may not ...more
Everyone's favorite Android modding tool is finally available for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. Thanks to some hard work by Wanam and a few other developers, we can now install the Xposed Framework on Samsung's latest mid-sized flagship phones. But there are a few stipulations—m ...more
When it comes to dictating what happens when the Galaxy Note 3's S Pen is detached, the stock settings that Samsung provides are severely lacking. There are only two measly options: launching Samsung's own Action Memo app, or displaying the Air Command menu. If you want to la ...more
Out of the box, your Android device can be customized in many different ways, and a ton more with root access, but adjusting the actual interface of the system is a little bit more challenging. Changing the status bar size, icon width/length, and positioning of toast notificat ...more
BEATS by Dr. Dre started making their studio-style headphones and speakers over four years ago, which claim to help listeners actually "hear" music as it was intended by the artists, since commodity headphones and earbuds are known for producing lackluster results. But you can ...more
If you've been trying to find a way to download installous onto your iPhone or iPod Touch, this video tutorial shows you just what you need to do.
The Galaxy S9 was announced February 25, and it's jam-packed with features like AR Emojis and and a Dual Aperture camera. You really love the cut of its jib, but maybe you don't have the means to get your hands on one. Well now, you can get the Galaxy S9's notification sounds ...more
You probably know Lenovo from their low-cost Windows PCs here in the states, but something you may not be aware of is that they also make smartphones. Right now, their biggest market is in China, but a rumored merger with BlackBerry could make Lenovo a contender in North Ameri ...more
Samsung's quick settings toggles are insanely useful for accessing settings that you would normally need to dig into menus for. Definitely a case of function over form, though. TouchWiz's bright green on dark blue has to be one of the fugliest color combinations I have ever se ...more
As Android's official app provider, the Google Play Store is packed with thousands of useful programs. But Google's terms of service is extremely restrictive, which means that countless apps simply don't qualify to be hosted on the Google Play Store. As a result, many great a ...more