PC World

Earlier this week, Google announced that it’s planning on deleting millions of accounts made by users who were no longer active. It’s slightly alarming if, perhaps, you have a spam Gmail account dedicated to logins for sites you used exactly once, but most users won’t be affected. But what about millions and millions of YouTube videos from accounts no longer active? Apparently, they won’t be purged along with the rest of the dross, according to a Google staffer. YouTube Creator Liason Rene Ritchie told a concerned Twitter user that the company has “no plans to delete accounts with YT videos,” …

Your dormant Gmail accounts could get wiped later this year if you haven’t logged in for a while—or interacted with any other of Google’s services while logged in. A new update to Google’s policy on inactive personal accounts now puts them on the chopping block after two years, a move that Google says is for better security. According to a blog post, Google reserves the right to delete the entirety of the fallow account, including your Gmail, Drive, YouTube, and Photos content. The purges will begin in December 2023, with ample notice to be provided in advance. Users will receive multiple emai…

You’ve heard of AI art, and AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing. Now you can try out AI music, compliments of Google’s MusicLM. Originally announced in January, MusicLM is now available for you to play with, compliments of what Google calls its AI Test Kitchen. Though you can jump directly to the MusicLM site to try it out, Google may throw up a popup requiring you to sign up for AI Test Kitchen first. You’ll need to provide a Gmail address, and agree that whatever prompts you provide may be reviewed by human members of Google’s team, though anonymized. Google quietly announced the opening of Mu…

It’s hard to trust Google’s new AI-powered search vision when it can’t even correctly summarize the details of its own products. At its Google I/O developer conference on Wednesday, Google laid out the foundation for revamping its iconic search engine, which has followed the same basic formula for years. The company aims to power Google search up with conversational and generative AI — and, most importantly, put those responses before traditional links and everything else. For the most popular search engine in the world, this is a monumental change. Google The problem with that approach is tha…

If you’ve ever struggled to find a feature in Google Sheets, Docs, or Slides, Google has some good news for you—an enhanced tool finder is coming to the toolbar. Earlier this week, Google began rolling out a new search bar, one that’ll allow you to search for name of the menu item or a description of the feature (for example, “who last viewed this document”). Suggestions relevant to your recent actions will also appear when you click into the bar. If you create a file, for example, using the enhanced tool finder will offer suggestions like page setup in Docs, inserting rows or columns in Sheet…

Hey Chrome, are you feeling okay? Because this is the second time in just five days that you’ve been patched for a zero-day vulnerability. Last Friday Google released a patch that fixed an issue in the browser’s JavaScript engine, but today’s bug is in the Skia graphics library. Chrome users on Windows and Mac can download and apply the update right now, while Linux and other platforms should see the update in the next few days. Resist the urge to push that update back, because this isn’t something that you should ignore. Like last week’s bug, it’s being actively exploited “in the wild,” accor…

Google might have given up on the idea of streaming full-powered games to your browser window, but it’s still invested in playing games online without the hassle of local installs. Of course it is: It makes both a browser and laptops that revolve around that browser. A new API called WebGPU will give remote services more direct access to your local GPU hardware, potentially allowing for full 3D games in the browser that blow current options out of the water. According to a blog post on Chrome version 113 (spotted by The Verge), the WebGPU tool is “a new dawn for web graphics.” Google says that…

I’m a proud citizen of the nation of Android since the Nexus One, but I’m strong enough to admit that Apple’s ecosystem has some advantages. Airdrop, for example — the nearby file-sharing system lets you skip out on USB cables and emails-to-yourself in a really elegant way. Google’s Nearby Share is a pale imitation, more or less because it only works between Android and ChromeOS devices. Today that changes: Nearby Share is now available on Windows, making it approximately ten billion times more useful. (That might be a slight exaggeration.) The Windows version of Nearby Share is now available …

At a glance Expert’s RatingProsLarge, bright 2560×1600 displayIdeal wireless and wired connectivityGood display, strong speakersConsUnimpressive designMediocre keyboard and touchpadLackluster webcam and microphoneOur VerdictGoogle might’ve killed Stadia, but gaming Chromebooks are still a thing—and Lenovo’s IdeaPad 5 Gaming Chromebook proves they’re worth your time. Price When Reviewed$569.99 Best Prices Today: Lenovo IdeaPad 5 Gaming Chromebook Retailer Price $569.99 View Deal eBay $569.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Google’s decision to partner with laptop ma…

Already months behind, Google is slowly rolling out its AI-powered chatbot, Bard, today. But Google—once a powerhouse in search—looks like it’s taking an extremely conservative approach to its new chatbot. What is Bard? Google describes it as a “complementary experience to Google Search,” in its blog post Tuesday. Google announced the Bard chatbot in February, noting that it uses a different language model, called LaMDA (or Language Model for Dialogue Applications), which it will use to power the chatbot. But if you’re wondering if Google is taking a mighty swing at chat-powered search? No, no…

Are you tired of hearing about AI features coming to your favorite apps and tools yet? Well too freakin’ bad, here’s Google jumping on the bandwagon. In a sprawling AI topic post this morning, the company announced artificial intelligence text generation going into some of its most commonly-used productivity tools, including Gmail, Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet, and Chat. If that sounds like “all the stuff Google makes to rival Microsoft Office,” it’s not a coincidence. Google is clearly trying to get ahead of its workspace rival, since Microsoft is set to announce new AI features at its F…

Adding a summary to a Google Docs document is useful for both the author and the reader. For the reader, it gives them a brief overview of the document without having to read the whole thing. It also helps the author distill the main points of the document, which can help identify areas that may need improving. The Google Docs summary feature is easy to access, but it’s only available on desktop. If you’re not sure how to access it, you’ve come to the right place. We assembled a comprehensive step-by-step guide below. Check it out. Manually write a summaryOn your desktop PC, launch your browse…

If you’ve ever found yourself scrolling endlessly through a long Google Doc, desperately searching for a specific section or piece of information, then you know the value of a well-organized table of contents. Luckily, creating a table of contents in Google Docs is a quick and easy process that can save you time and frustration. Unfortunately, this feature isn’t available for Google Docs on Android. If you want to insert a table of contents in your document, you’ll need to use the desktop or iOS versions. Luckily for you, we’ve assembled a step-by-step guide on how to create a table of content…

Microsoft is finally doing something that it’s never quite been able to do: connect Windows PCs to an Apple iPhone. As part of the February 2023 update to Windows 11 that Microsoft announced today (technically, Moment 2 for Window 11 22H2) Microsoft announced that it is adding a preview of Phone Link for the Apple iPhone for Windows beta testers. That will allow owners of Windows 11 PCs who own an Apple iPhone to leave their iPhone in their pocket and control it remotely, via their PC, via Bluetooth. But there are still severe limitations compared to Android. When Microsoft pulled the plug on …

Despite what some of my professional colleagues will tell you, ChromeOS is fine. While it basically started as a browser with a Start menu on top of it, Google has spent years diligently improving it and updating its capabilities. If it could only run my rusty old copy of Photoshop, I might just consider using it all the time. However, I have to admit that switching from Windows to ChromeOS has one big pain point and that’s the different keyboard shortcuts for things like window management. But that’s about to change. About Chromebooks (via Tom’s Hardware) reports that the upcoming ChromeOS ve…

Not even a month ago, sharp-eyed Redditors noticed that searching for AMD graphics card drivers on Google served up a shady text ad as the first result. Our advice then (as now) was to be careful when looking for Radeon software, plus maintaining good search habits in general. Life’s far easier when you sidestep malware. At the time, this incident seemed more of a one-off reason for heightened awareness. Even with the more recent report about Bitwarden suffering from a similar issue, using Google seemed mostly business as usual. Turns out though our threat alert should be set much higher—other…

Google is promising a closer collaboration between its Chrome OS, Chromebooks, and Microsoft 365, an unusual commitment given that the two companies are usually fierce rivals in the productivity space. Google said recently that the company will migrate users to a “new integration later this year on Chrome OS, making it easier to install the app and open files.” For most purposes, Chrome OS functions as a primarily web-based experience. Currently, Chrome OS allows users to open Office apps as Progressive Web Apps, or PWAs, which are essentially web apps that can be stored and run locally on a P…

Back in November, Google promised help with tracking shipments—you know, all the many things we bought as gifts for loved ones. No need to click through email links or copy and paste tracking numbers into a different website to get details on our package’s location. You could just open the shipment notification email to get that info. That feature didn’t materialize in time to help us with the deluge of holiday parcels, but it is live now at last. You’ll have to manually enable package tracking yourself and, for the moment, it’s only available on Android and iOS devices through the Gmail app. …

Popular password managers like LastPass and 1Password have had a rough time of it for the last year, and open-source competitor Bitwarden has quickly emerged as an ideal alternative. But with notoriety comes vulnerability: it’s the opposite of security through obscurity. Bitwarden has become so popular that it looks like some unscrupulous actors are trying to take advantage of it, and hosting Google ads for phony, presumably malicious downloads masquerading as the security tool. After users on Bitwarden’s company forums and Reddit started seeing suspicious ads (as chronicled by Bleeping Comput…

Jokes aside about Chrome’s incognito mode, the ability to open a private tab for sensitive browsing is incredibly useful. You can perform searches that you want to keep from affecting your recommendations or appearing in your search history—which applies as much to tax information and medical questions as anything more scintillating. And now on all phones and tablets, you can protect your incognito tabs from prying eyes by locking them down. A quick tweak to Chrome settings on iOS and Android makes biometric or PIN authentication required to view your private tabs whenever you leave the app an…

The U.S. Department of Justice and eight states, including California, filed suit against Google in a Virginia federal court on Tuesday, claiming that the company illegally used its market powers to dominate Internet advertising. In a court filing originally reported on by CNN, the DOJ and the states asked the court to, “at minimum,” force Google to divest itself of its Google Ad Manager suite—including both Google’s publisher ad server, DFP, and Google’s ad exchange, AdX—plus any additional structural relief that the court deemed necessary. Google called the suit “an attempt to pick winners a…

What, exactly, does Google want to do with Fuchsia? The answer isn’t any clearer now than when news broke about the Google-created operating system seven years ago. But after a recent round of Google layoffs, the project may be in peril in a way that long-standing products like Android and Chrome OS are not. The recent reduction in headcount has hit the internal project particularly hard, leaving its future more in question than ever. According to a report by the New York Times, 16 percent of the 400-strong Fuchsia team is getting the axe. That’s a pretty huge cut for any workforce, but Fuchsi…

A painful week for tech industry employees unleashed even more hurt on Friday. This morning, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that the company is laying off 12,000 employees, roughly six percent of Google’s total headcount. Microsoft announced 10,000 job cuts and Amazon announced 18,000 job cuts on Wednesday. “Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth,” Pichai wrote. “To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.” He went on to beat his chest about Google’s prowess in AI, the hottest tech buzzword of 2023. Affected U….

Earlier this week, an alert went out on a popular PC subreddit, warning AMD graphics card owners of a malicious website. The way you would stumble onto the site? Clicking on the first search result in Google for “amd driver.” The link of course was not one picked by Google’s normal search engine algorithm. It was instead an advertisement sitting in the very first search result slot—but labeled so discreetly that an otherwise conscientious new Radeon owner could be duped. These text-based advertisements aren’t a new feature to Google, but their extremely discreet label and styling allow even ol…

Over the past few years we’ve tested a good number of VPN services for the PC and compiled them into a list of our best VPN picks. But we’ve also done extensive VPN testing for Android apps, checking for performance, privacy policies, and extra features to see which service comes out on top on Google’s mobile OS. While some services are good on any platform, others particularly shine when used on Android devices, and we’ve curated a list of our recommendations to help you choose. When determining the best VPNs for Android, we consider several criteria. First, it’s crucial that it is a top perf…

iPads are always in high demand, which means they’re usually difficult to find on sale. But if there’s a good time to find a deal on an Apple tablet, it’s on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. This is especially true if you want one of the most expensive iPad Pros, or if you’re okay with settling for an older model that’s still on the shelf. We’ve scoured the web for the very best iPad deals and discounts to be found. If you want even more tech deals, be sure to check out our complete Black Friday/Cyber Monday coverage. Best Cyber Monday iPad and iPad Mini dealsiPad 64GB (9th gen), $269.99 ($60 off…

iPads are always in high demand, which means they’re usually difficult to find on sale. But if there’s a good time to find a deal on an Apple tablet, it’s on Black Friday. This is especially true if you want one of the most expensive iPad Pros, or if you’re okay with settling for an older model that’s still on the shelf. We’ve scoured the web for the very best iPad deals and discounts to be found. If you want even more tech deals, be sure to check out our complete Black Friday coverage. Best Black Friday iPad and iPad Mini dealsiPad 64GB (9th gen), $269.99 ($60 off) at AmazoniPad 64GB (9th gen…

Apple’s iPads are hot ticket items, and hard to find on sale at any time of the year. And even on Black Friday, you’re more likely to see, say, two hundred bucks off a $1,200 iPad Pro than a discount on the cheapest one available. But that’s just what we have here: the 9th-generation 10-inch iPad (the last one Apple makes with a standard home button) is $60 off, at both Amazon and Best Buy. That brings the price for the base 64GB version down to just $269.99. Both retailers are also offering the discount on higher-capacity models and those with an LTE cellular radio upgrade. That brings the pr…

Black Friday is the biggest shopping event of the year, and the iPad is by far the most popular premium tablet on the market. Combine them, and Black Friday is your best chance to find a good deal on Apple’s coveted slate. We’ve scoured the web for the best iPad deals, and will keep this page updated as the discounts evolve between now, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If you want even more tech deals, be sure to check out our complete Black Friday coverage. Best Black Friday iPad and iPad Mini dealsiPad 64GB (9th gen), $299.00 ($30 off) at WalmartiPad Mini 65GB (6th gen), $399.99 ($100 off) at …

The iPad is the 800-pound gorilla of the tablet market, and Apple knows it. It remains one of the best-selling pieces of consumer electronics ever, so trying to find discounts on the latest and greatest models is an exercise in patience. But if you’re likely to find any deals, it’s on Black Friday. At the time of this writing, the iPad comes in six different models. From smallest to largest: the iPad Mini (6th gen, 8.3 inches), the iPad (9th gen, 10.2 inches and the last with the Home Button design), the newer iPad (10th gen, 10.9 inches), the iPad Air (5th gen, 10.9 inches), the smaller iPad …

Free VPNs aren’t just for PCs. You can also use them to step-up your security and privacy game on an Android phone or tablet. Whether you want extra security for your connection on a public Wi-Fi network, or to get around geo-restrictions for most of your favorite streaming services, a free VPN can help you do it at no additional charge. The problem, of course, is that there are a large number of VPNs available on the Google Play Store. So which ones are worth your time? Our experts have tested a slew of VPNs, both for PCs and Android devices, and have put together a list of the best free opti…

Keeping your Android phone secure without security software is doable, but it’s also risky. That’s especially true if you liberally download apps from the Play Store or use your phone to open a lot of files from email or messaging platforms. If you want to make sure your Android device is secure from these threats, an antivirus app is the way to go. In fact, there are a bunch of completely free services in Google Play, but you want to make sure you’re getting security from a known and reputable company. Because there’s only one thing worse than getting pwned by an app you downloaded: getting p…

Google Stadia, the company’s first foray into the gaming market and a potentially earth-shattering approach to high-end game streaming, is dead. Or at least it will be, once 2023 rolls around. In a somber blog post, Stadia’s general manager Phil Harrison said that the service will be shutting down on January 18 of next year. Most users will have their hardware and software purchases refunded. Stadia was formally announced at the Game Developers Conference in 2019, just three and a half years ago, after a few months of testing the as-yet-unnamed game streaming service. Stadia was introduced wit…

Did you know Google makes laptops? Unless you’re a hardcore fan of the company’s platforms, you might have missed it entirely. Since 2013 Google has made four, count ’em, four different Chromebooks, designed to show off the operating system to the fullest. The Chromebook Pixel, Pixelbook, and Pixelbook Go were all well-received by critics, but generally ignored by consumers. According to a new report, that’s pretty much over: there’s no new Google-made Chromebook on the horizon. The Verge reports that the internal Google team responsible for laptop designs has been split up and reassigned else…

Microsoft spent years trying to make its own mobile operating system work, but that’s in the past, and now it’s all-in with Android. Microsoft makes Android-powered Surface phones, helps you connect Android devices to Windows, and you can even install Android apps in Windows 11. However, the partnership with Amazon’s Appstore provides access to only a handful of useful Android apps. If you want more Android power in Windows 11, you can “sideload” other apps in just a few steps. Getting set upBefore you develop any fanciful ideas about running every Android app under the sun, you should check y…

By now you probably know that you need to exercise caution when installing new programs on your computer. But savvy web users know that the same thing applies to web browser extensions — which are, in a way, merely smaller programs on a more specific platform. Such is the case with a series of five Chrome browser extensions Google recently removed from its official Chrome Web Store repository. The five extensions had been installed by a combined 1.4 million users before Google took them down. According to a report by McAfee security researchers (via Ars Technica), the extensions kept a list of…

Let’s say you want to search for a product on Amazon or a video on YouTube using your computer. The long way would be to open either site in your web browser, then use their respective search boxes to find what you’re looking for. An equally laborious approach would be to search on Google and hope it offers the result you seek. There is, however, a much faster way to search your favorite sites, and it takes less than a minute to set up. Once you’ve done so, you’ll be able to search directly on sites like Amazon, YouTube, Spotify, and Wikipedia with just one click. Search your favorite sites wi…

There are so many different coding languages out there that it’s unlikely anyone could learn them all. Still, if you work as a programmer, it’d be a good idea to have a handle on more than just a few. So we’re offering The Complete Google Go Programming Language for Beginners Course as an affordable option to help you diversify your knowledge base. This course introduces students to Google’s very own programming language, known as Google Go or sometimes just Golang. Students will learn the very basics, discover its advanced features, and find out how it’s used in real-world applications. And s…