Unplug Laptop Keyboard

If you're a long-time Spark user, you'll know that one of the only drawbacks to the app used to be its lack of rich text-editing tools such as hyperlinking. If you needed to link out to a site in an email, your best bet was to grab a computer to get the job done. Well, close t ...more

The microphone in a Windows computer is accessible to most applications running on the device at all times and completely without security limitations. Information gathered from recorded audio conversations taking place in the surrounding area of a compromised computer can be ...more

There's no debating that the Galaxy S8 and S8+ are top contenders for the most beautifully designed handsets of 2017, but the same can't be said for their TouchWiz interface, which has been met with lukewarm reception at best. Changing the UI by flashing a custom ROM has alwa ...more

Oftentimes, seemingly insignificant, nondescript features have the most impact on enhancing our Android's usability. A great example is Nougat's inclusion of customizable Quick Settings tiles, which adds greatly to the user experience by letting individuals tailor their expand ...more

Up until now, enabling full-time Immersive Mode on an Android device has been a tedious task which required you to run individual ADB commands each time you wanted to toggle it on or off. This was a shame, too, since Immersive Mode helps reclaim lots of screen real estate by a ...more

Android 7.0 Nougat has finally arrived—well, technically, it's in the process of arriving on Nexus devices across the globe. Google uses a staged rollout system to prevent excessive server load when issuing Android updates, which means even though Nougat has made its official ...more

Windows 10 has so many new features that we couldn't even cover them all with one article. From keyboard shortcuts to revamped search functions and all-new window gestures, Microsoft definitely piled on the fresh functionality in the latest version of their operating system. ...more

There are many hacks for increasing productivity, but so many depend on tricking your own mind or behavior. When it comes to motivation in the workplace, though, sometimes the space within which you work dictates how you behave and the work you produce. So if you want to incre ...more

Heads up! We've done a new, more thorough review of the best Android file-sharing apps. You can check that out here. Our old file-sharing app roundup can still be viewed below for posterity. Update: The 4 Best File-Sharing Apps for Android (2018) We've come to a point where ...more

If you've ever wiped your computer without having a proper backup of your operating system, or just wanted to cause some havoc online, chances are you've had to rely on Linux to help you out, specifically the Ubuntu distro. Ubuntu doesn't get a lot of love compared to powerho ...more

Sitting in a cubicle and never seeing sunlight during the workday is unpleasant to even think about—and sitting in a flourescent-light cube can have terrible effects on both our work performance and overall attitude. Yet there are ways to counteract the effects of cubicle sitt ...more

The world of root is upon us, folks. While the LG G3 has be available for purchase for a couple of months now, rooting had been a shaky subject. International and T-Mobile variants enjoyed root from day one, while various security patches left the AT&T and Verizon Wireless var ...more

When Apple recently unveiled iOS 8, many of the newly-added features in their mobile OS seemed eerily familiar to Android users. This is probably because the vast majority of these new features have been available in Android for quite some time. If imitation truly is the sinc ...more

The older I get, the more my Friday nights involve watching Netflix at home with a bottle of Maker's Mark and a box of Oreos. Netflix is a big part of my life, and I'm not alone. YouTube and Netflix make up over 50% of all activity on the Internet, so it might be worth your ti ...more

The only thing better than programming MicroPython is programming MicroPython over Wi-Fi. So once you set up MicroPython on a microcontroller and have it on its own power source, you won't need to use a data cable to connect to it whenever you need to interact with it, program ...more

For modders, there are few tools more important than TWRP. TeamWin's custom recovery makes flashing mods like Magisk, Xposed, and custom ROMs incredibly easy, and it lets you root your phone at the press of a button. On top of that, it can make complete backups of your phone i ...more

Despite concerns with SafetyNet, Google actually cares about root. Every phone they sell has an unlockable bootloader, so you can toggle a setting and send a Fastboot command, then start flashing custom firmware right away. The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL continue this tradition, a ...more

The sheer variety of Android devices on the market is staggering—one report suggests there are well over 24,000 distinct phones and tablets floating around out there. When you consider that each manufacturer adds a few tweaks to the Android code base here and there, that makes ...more

As one of the most powerful Android apps for connecting your phone or tablet to your other devices in various ways, Pushbullet had always been a fan—and Gadget Hacks—favorite. However, ever since late last year, many of the app's popular and once-free features now require a c ...more

If you use Google Chrome as your default desktop/laptop browser, then Chrome OS will be pretty easy to get up and running if transitioning from Windows or macOS. Google has created an operating system that is fast, lightweight, and versatile enough to be adopted by pros and no ...more

Is your Mac starting to feel messy and sluggish after using iOS 8 on your iPhone every day? Even with all of the iOS-friendly features built in to Mac OS X Yosemite, your Mac can still feel kind of "old" in comparison to an iOS device—but it doesn't have to. Using the tips and ...more

It used to be easy to hack tethering—root your device and install a third-party or modded tethering app. But snuck in amongst the changes in Android 4.3, a new data-monitoring service of sorts made its debut. There used to be a time when your data connection was yours. You pai ...more

A macOS computer can reveal a lot of information about the owner, including which Wi-Fi network they have permission to access. With an Arduino-based attack, we'll use a five-dollar setup to inject a rogue Wi-Fi network and steal the list of trusted Wi-Fi networks, allowing us ...more

If you want to get started sniffing Wi-Fi networks, you usually need to start with a wireless network adapter. But thanks to a Wi-Fi sniffing library written in Arduino and the ultra-cheap ESP8266 chip, you might not need one. For less than $10 in electronics, you can build a ...more

A powered-off MacBook can be compromised in less than three minutes. With just a few commands, it's possible for a hacker to extract a target's password hash and crack it without their knowledge. The goal in this article is to acquire a target's .plist file which contains the ...more

Samsung isn't known for its timely rollout of major Android updates, and Android 9.0 Pie won't be an exception. If we go by their Oreo update timeline, we can expect Android Pie to officially touch down for the Galaxy S9 and S9+ sometime around November, with the final version ...more

It's easy to run Kali Linux from a live USB on nearly any available computer, but many publicly accessible laptops and desktops will be locked down to prevent such use. School, work, or library PCs can be secured with a BIOS password, which is often an easily recovered default ...more

Don't think because your MacBook is using FileVault disk encryption your device is secure or immune to hackers. Here's how to find out if that FileVault password is strong enough to withstand an attack from a motivated attacker. FileVault, created by Apple in 2003, is a hard ...more

The conversation of which operating system is most secure, macOS vs. Windows, is an ongoing debate. Most will say macOS is more secure, but I'd like to weigh in by showing how to backdoor a MacBook in less than two minutes and maintain a persistent shell using tools already bu ...more

Security-minded users can reduce the risk of phishing by enabling Advanced Protection on important Google accounts, requiring a U2F security token to log in. Using these keys isn't intuitive on most popular smartphone platforms, and you can find yourself locked out if you don' ...more

There's no doubt Kali has established itself as the most popular penetration distribution available. However, just because it's the fan favorite of beginners and security researchers doesn't make it right for everyone. Manjaro Linux is a beginner-friendly Arch-based distributi ...more

While there aren't as many ways to customize your iPhone like there is on Android, there are still a lot of apps out there that can help streamline and enhance your experience beyond Apple's own default options — and we've hand-picked over 100 essentials. No matter if you've ...more

While hackers adore the command line, working with the GUI (graphical user interface) of an operating system has some advantages. This is especially true when it comes to post-exploitation. When we can control the mouse and keyboard of a remote computer, we can truly say we ha ...more

A PirateBox creates a network that allows users to communicate wirelessly, connecting smartphones and laptops even when surrounding infrastructure has been disabled on purpose or destroyed in a disaster. Using a Raspberry Pi, we will make a wireless offline server that hosts f ...more

It would only make sense that Google is one of the most active app developers on the Android platform, particularly when you consider that they develop the platform itself. From my count, there are an astounding 117 unique apps that the search giant and its subsidiaries have p ...more

Windows 10 is officially here, and frankly, there's a ton of new features in Microsoft's latest operating system. From the return of the Start menu to the new Edge browser, Windows 10 can take some getting used to. Luckily, we've done a lot of the leg work for you, and what f ...more

While Touch ID has been a part of the iPhone's legacy since 2013, Apple waited until 2016 to add biometrics to its MacBook lineup, and it's not as impressive. An iPhone with Touch ID can register up to five fingerprints, but Macs can only register a maximum of three per accoun ...more

In the last decade, the number of people working remotely in the US has increased dramatically, and so has their need for technology and software to supplement that remote work. Whether you work from home or a coworking office space, the requirement for highly compatible and h ...more

A powered-off Windows 10 laptop can be compromised in less than three minutes. With just a few keystrokes, it's possible for a hacker to remove all antivirus software, create a backdoor, and capture webcam images and passwords, among other highly sensitive personal data. The ...more

While there are many ways to see the exact battery life left on your iPhone, you can take all the work out of it by making your iPhone verbally tell you the current percentage every time you start or stop charging it. Best of all, this trick works whether you use wired or wire ...more

For many of us, our work phone and our personal phone are one and the same. Just any old phone isn't going to cut it when you need to meet a deadline — a phone with built-in features that make it easier to get things done is almost a must. For this article, we defined product ...more

Windows 10 and macOS have poor reputations when it comes to customer privacy and user policies. Our hacking Windows 10 and hacking macOS articles might make it seem like a reasonably secure operating system doesn't exist. But I'm here to tell you that there is a viable alterna ...more

In the tech world, our data is always under attack. When you download and install a new app, it can be difficult to know what information the app is actually accessing. Thankfully, a new emphasis on privacy in iOS 14 changes the game, exposing more of what your apps want acces ...more

If you want to control electronic devices, such as a relay or motor, you can do so using MicroPython with an ESP8266 and web browser. Usually, you'd program an ESP8266 using Arduino, but C++, which Arduino uses, is not always the easiest programming language for beginners to l ...more

While Apple and Samsung have started integrating depth sensors into the iPad Pro and Galaxy smartphones, more advanced AR experiences are arriving for standard smartphone cameras on Android devices. Earlier this month, Niantic began rolling out updates for Pokémon GO that add ...more

Your smartphone stays with you everywhere you go, so it's only a matter of time before you spill coffee all over it or drop it on the ground. For some of you, it has already happened, perhaps even multiple times. That's why we thought it was important to find out which flagshi ...more

The Pixel 5 is a great value proposition in this era of $1,500 phones. With its reasonable price tag, fully open-sourced software, and unlockable bootloader, it's also an ideal phone for rooting. The process of rooting the Pixel 5 is a tried and true method: Unlock the bootlo ...more

If you live in the US, it's pretty simple: The Google Pixel 4a is the best phone for rooting and modding in 2020. Its price keeps the risk-reward ratio nice and low, and its unlockable bootloader makes it easy to modify virtually any aspect of Android. But recent updates to A ...more

Airgeddon is a multi-Bash network auditor capable of Wi-Fi jamming. This capability lets you target and disconnect devices from a wireless network, all without joining it. It runs on Kali, and we'll cover installing, configuring, and using its jamming functionalities on a smal ...more

Rumors about the 2022 iPhone series stirred well before the iPhone 13 models were even released. While Apple remains quiet on the next big iPhone, as it always does, we're seeing more and more leaks and reveals for the iPhone 14 series as we lead up to a likely fall release. ...more