Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2022 i PCWorld

Windows releases have a lot in common with Star Trek movies: They seem to alternate between positive and negative in terms of reception. Windows 7 was generally well regarded at launch back in 2009, as was Windows 10 in 2015. Windows 8, the awkward middle child that tried some huge user interface changes in 2012, was not. Windows 8.1, the last major update to the OS, will officially end support early next year. And Microsoft can’t wait to tell you about it. As The Verge reports, anyone still using Windows 8.1 will get notifications about the end of software updates sometime next month. They’ll have until January 10 to find a new operating system or face the web without any backup in the way of security updates. It might be…

Since the introduction of the AM4 socket, AMD’s Threadripper ultra-high-end CPUs have been coveted as the very top of the consumer chip market. But AMD skipped Threadripper releases beyond the Ryzen 3000-based series released in early 2020, and as Ryzen 5000 bows out of the marketplace, the company is only releasing Pro variants of Threadripper 59XX chips. With pricing announced for these industrial-grade chips, and with AMD confirming that non-Pro Threadripper chips are going the way of the dodo, that leaves consumers wanting to build high-powered machines in a lurch. The cheapest of the confirmed Threadrippers, the 24-core, 48-thread Threadripper Pro 5965 WX, will cost an incredible $2,399 when it’s made available to end users. That’s $1,000 more than the cheapest high-end desktop Threadripper of the previous generation, the 3960X.…

For years, I’ve assumed that most people don’t need third-party antivirus tools and have passed this suggestion along to others. After all, Microsoft’s Windows Security suite, also known as Windows Defender or Microsoft Defender, provides built-in virus protection for your PC, and it’s free. I’ve been using it for years, and the last time I can recall having virus problems on my PC was well over a decade ago. And yet, looking around for confirmation of this long-held belief quickly turns up an alternate universe, full of experts who insist that everyone should be paying for antivirus software. This advice comes not just from the companies that sell antivirus suites, but from reputable sites that perform antivirus software reviews (PCWorld included). On top of that, nearly every laptop I’ve reviewed…

I’ll just cut to the chase: The Teamgroup Cardea A440 Pro (TM8FPR002) ripped though our test suite in fine fashion, besting such fast drives as Seagate’s FireCuda 530 and SK Hynix’s Platinum P41—our current pick for best NVMe PCIe 4.0. Let’s take a look at how it compares in all other respects. PRICE, DESIGN, SPECS There are two choices in heat dissipation available for the A440 Pro: the thin graphene type shown in the images, and a rather large aluminum heatsink. Most users will be fine with the graphene, and it’s obviously the choice for laptop upgrades, but gamers or pros putting continuous stress on the drive can keep the temps down and avoid thermal throttling by using the larger heatsink. The 1TB flavor of the A440 Pro costs $136—not bad…

The Alienware x15 R2 returns in the same exciting design that made the Alienware x15 R1 so unique—sharing, among other things, its Lunar White chassis and dazzling RGB Tron Ring lighting. Adding to the fancy looks, it packs a lethal hardware combination that delivers performance worthy of elite gamers, a zippy 12th-gen Intel CPU, and RTX 3080 Ti GPU. Its small quirks, such as its hard-to-reach rear ports and middling battery life, are dwarfed by its other winning features, like the beautiful, buttery smooth 15.6-inch QHD display. For $3,350, it doesn’t come cheap, but when the scales tip so heavily in favor of performance and style, this laptop remains a class act worth buying. SPECIFICATIONS Our review unit is packing an Intel Core i7-12700H CPU, an RTX 3080 Ti GPU,…

Not all of us have the talent to whip up a piece of art at a moment’s notice. But algorithms using machine learning are learning how to create “AI art” based on text prompts—and you can use them, too. It’s fantastically fun. Algorithms like DALL-E (and eventually, DALL-E 2), DALL-E mini, Craiyon, Midjourney, Meta’s Make-A-Scene, and more are learning how to examine publicly available art and learn what makes them art—or at least digest the various elements and style of a photo or artistic work and recombine them into something new. Sure, you can argue whether they’re, in fact, making “art,” but the creations are unique, original, and compelling. Simply put, AI art uses a text prompt: something specific like McDonalds at the bottom of the sea, for example, or…

Microsoft’s new free video editor, Clipchamp, is incredible: simple, deep, and intuitive, with enough features to create a simple meme or a sophisticated commercial video. It’s one of the best creative tools Microsoft offers, and you’ve probably never even heard of it! In September 2021, Microsoft acquired Clipchamp, a small video-editing application that competes (and still does) with Microsoft’s own built-in Video Editor app within Windows 10 and Windows 11. Clipchamp, though, is light-years ahead. Microsoft has said Clipchamp will eventually be added directly to Windows, but for now the Clipchamp app is available for free from the Microsoft Store. It’s unfortunate that Microsoft launched Clipchamp alongside an outrageous pricing scheme that it has largely revoked since. Now Microsoft allows you to freely export as many videos as you like at 1080p…

Brave is probably best known among hardcore geeks as one of Chrome’s challengers. But for a while now, the company has offered more than just a privacy-minded browser. A year ago, it launched the beta for a search engine, too—and recently, on its first anniversary, Brave Search hit a milestone of 2.5 billion queries, with a peak of 14.1 million queries in one day. For a nascent search engine, these numbers are big. As Brave claims in a blog post, it’s won this achievement faster than Google (who took over a year to meet the same goal), plus run circles around DuckDuckGo. Its privacy-oriented rival took four years to cross the same threshold. Brave Search is now the default search engine for the company’s Brave browser. In addition to exiting its…

All the talk right now is about hardware capable of faster and faster speeds. PCIe 5.0 in particular has gotten a lot of attention with Intel’s 12th-generation Alder Lake and AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 7000 processors often in the news as of late. These next-gen CPUs bring support for the cutting-edge specification to mainstream PCs. Such widespread adoption can put pressure on to get the fastest model possible when buying an SSD, especially in the wake of recent announcements of consumer PCIe 5.0 drives that are face-meltingly fast. But as exciting as new tech is, you can still live a very speedy digital life with a less cutting-edge SSD, without giving up too much responsiveness in the process. In fact, waiting for high-end specs to trickle down to a mid-range budget can be advantageous…

There’s always a bigger fish, as a wise man once said. In the case of Nvidia’s newest graphics card, every single fish is bigger. The GeForce GTX 1630 is an updated version of the GT 1030 that was released in 2018. It’s an upgrade over the previous design, but it’s still the weakest card with a GTX label by a wide, wide margin. The new design was launched without a press release or review units, unlike AMD’s recent super-low-end RX 6500 XT. Just how low-end is this new card? The next step up in Nvidia’s Turing GPU-based GTX 16-series lineup is the already-pokey GTX 1650, which features double the memory bandwidth (128-bit versus just 64-bit), almost double the CUDA cores (896 versus 512). The GTX 1630 does feature considerably higher base and…

In recent years, the cloud gaming market has gained a number of new names, and none has been more hyped than Google Stadia. Launched in late 2019, it ran into a few stumbling blocks along the way, but its pivot to focusing on third-party game hosting has seen it flourish. Now a mainstay in the cloud streaming industry, Stadia has a lot to offer. We tested both the free and Pro versions of the service. Let’s see how it all stands up. THE PLANS Google Stadia comes in two forms: free and Pro. With the free access, you’re able to play a select few free games, such as Destiny 2, or games that you bought for Stadia at up to 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second, including any online…

If you have a Chromebook or don’t want yet another program on your Windows desktop there is an alternative to a full VPN: a Chrome extension. Many people are looking for a VPN solely to use with their web browser anyway. So why bother with the full program? With an extension you can have your browser appear as if it’s somewhere else, while the rest of your desktop programs use the local IP address. Even better, depending on your needs, you can get this service for free. There are a number of free “VPN” extensions in the Chrome Web Store. The problem is the same with all other types of free services, however. Namely, which ones do you trust? All of the extension recommendations we have here have been tested…

First, the good news: Most modern PC monitors are rather decent. Their minimum brightness, contrast, and color accuracy have improved significantly over the past decade. It’s a great time to upgrade even if you stick to budget monitors. If you want a quick, easy recommendation: Go for a 24-inch monitor with 1080p resolution or a 27-inch monitor with 1440p resolution. An IPS panel is preferable, though VA is also good. Gamers can spend a little more to snag either option with a 144Hz refresh rate, which offers a smoother and more responsive experience. Check our reviews for the latest models. Not sure that’s right for you, or want to know more about the tech? Here’s the lay of the land. MONITOR TYPES: TN, IPS, VA, AND OLED PANELS The technology…

Chrome might be the most popular browser around, but it’s not the only one based on Chromium, Google’s open-source project. Rival browsers also rely on the same code. That competition often dangles unique features to tempt users into switching, but Opera long ago caught my attention with the sheer number of goodies stuffed into its browser. In fact, I abandoned Chrome for years because of Opera. Flexibility, efficiency, privacy—the creators of Opera seemed to know exactly what I wanted. Even though I’ve since started using Chrome again, Opera still holds a powerful place in my heart. I still use it daily as part of my multi-browser habits, both on desktop and mobile. Why? Here are the top 10 reasons—and I left a few off the list to keep this article from…

Google recently strengthened its ambitions to become your only password manager with several security updates across the Chrome and mobile, including iOS. Google said it will administer site logins on Android, create new passwords for those that may have been compromised, and more. Google declined to offer a timetable for these changes to be implemented, saying that they would roll out over the next couple of months. Interestingly, Google said it would step in to manage passwords on iPhones. You can already authorize Google to manage and store passwords on Android devices, of course, but Google said it will offer iPhones the same capability. With Apple’s tendency to strictly manage apps and their implementation on iOS, Google seems to be sidestepping Apple by moving some of this functionality to its browser.…

The rise of game streaming is a godsend for PC gamers who prefer Linux to Windows, since the systems generally work just fine in any modern browser and don’t require custom development for the operating system. But gamers on Linux who embraced Xbox Game Pass and its streaming component aren’t satisfied with the image quality they’re getting. It’s now been verified that streaming Game Pass games to Linux results in poorer quality than Windows. The difference isn’t extreme, but it’s noticeable enough that it caught the attention of Reddit users on the XCloud sub. The Reddit user performed a few tests, which Ars Technica verified, by manually changing browser user agent strings to imitate running Linux on identical machines. Indeed, the resolution and sharpness for the “Linux” test was shown to…

Are you looking for a laptop that can do it all, whether you’re at your desk or traveling across the country? The Dell XPS 17 might be your next choice. This massive laptop is a versatile machine that’s enjoyable to use day-to-day and packs strong overall performance. The display is also beautiful and battery life is impressive. While the keyboard is nothing to write home about, we feel the pros far outweigh the cons. Read on to learn more. SPECS AND FEATURES The base Dell XPS 17 has an Intel Core i5-12500H processor with integrated graphics, 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 1920×1200 display. My review sample packs multiple upgrades, however, including an Intel Core i7-12700H processor, Nvidia RTX 3060 mobile graphics, and a 4K touchscreen. CPU: Intel…

The LG DualUp 28MQ780-B is a strange monitor that instantly generated controversy when it appeared at CES 2022. Some were left scratching their heads. Others swore it would perfectly fit their setup. I can see where both sides are coming from—but, ultimately, the monitor left me convinced it will find a loyal audience. THE SPECS The LG DualUp 28MQ780-B has just one unusual specification, but it’s a doozy: a 28-inch, 16:18 aspect ratio display with 2560×2880 resolution, similar to cramming two standard 2560×1440 monitors on top of each other. Odds are you’ve never used a monitor like it. Display size: 28-inch, 16:18 aspect ratio Native resolution: 2560×2880 Panel type: IPS Refresh rate: 60Hz HDR: Yes, HDR10 Adaptive sync: No Ports: 2x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort, 1x USB-C with DisplayPort Alternate Mode…

I used to pay nothing for the software services I rely on—email, password manager, cloud storage, and more. And those I did need upgraded features for, I could pay once and be set for awhile. But the bar for privacy and security has risen (an unfortunate side effect of modern tech life), and most companies have ditched one-and-done software licenses in favor of paid subscriptions. Weaving together a comprehensive set of basics can add up fast, especially given all the other subscriptions in our lives. The good news is, you don’t have to shell out cash for everything. Some free options cover enough to be more than adequate. The trick is knowing when to scrimp and when to splurge. This guide will help you wrap your head around free versus…

Being the victim of phone hacking is a nightmare. The worst case of phone hacking is that the threat actor gains access to your online accounts, such as your social media, email, online shopping accounts, or worse, your banking information. This would force you to go through the headache of changing a ton of passwords, having to lock your credit, contacting your bank and online shopping vendors (Amazon, eBay, and so on), and trying to pinpoint everything else the hacker had access to. It’s always better to be proactive instead of reactive. Don’t wait until you get hacked to care about your privacy and security. Take steps to protect yourself now. Here are eight simple precautions you can take to remain safe from would-be hackers. 1. USE A PASSCODE LOCK…