You sit down at your computer with the best intentions of being productive. Several hours later, you’ve checked your email, read your RSS feeds, posted your status to Facebook, and tried to find the guy you think wrote “The Phantom loves you” in your junior high school yearbook. However, you haven’t gotten any work done. It’s easy to lose track of time on the internet. You keep clicking links and opening new tabs and before you know it, you wonder how you got so far off track and ended up on a Reddit page about what bad movies are worth remaking....

Much like its predecessor, the arrival of GTA V on PC heralded not only a boost in graphics and replayability that remains unmatched by its console brethren, but also the limitless possibility for at-home developers to dive into the source code and see what kind of goodies they can dig up to make their next mod. While some of the early tweaks don’t do much besides make the game more functional, others are about as much dragged out, downright fun that you could expect – just the way GTA likes it....

If you’ve ever used a “Sign In With Facebook” button, or given a third-party app access to your Twitter account, you’ve used OAuth. It’s also used by Google, Microsoft, and LinkedIn, as well as many other account providers. Essentially, OAuth allows you to grant a website access to some information about your account without giving it your actual account password. OAuth for Signing In OAuth has two main purposes on the web at the moment....

Wi-Fi Sense is a feature built into Windows 10. You may see a pop-up saying “Wi-Fi Sense needs permission to use your Facebook account.” It also works with Outlook.com and Skype contacts. This feature allows you to share Wi-Fi login information — network names and passphrases — with your friends. It’s designed to automatically connect Windows 10 devices to shared networks. What is Wi-Fi Sense? RELATED: Windows 10 Is Almost Here: Here’s What You Need to Know...

Whether you’re dealing with images, music, or video files, it’s important to understand the difference between different types of formats and when to use them. Using the wrong format could ruin a file’s quality or make its file size unnecessarily large. Some types of media file formats are “lossy” and some types are “lossless.” We’ll explain what these terms mean, the advantages of each type of file format, and why you should never convert lossy formats to lossless ones....

Why Clear an Android App’s Cache? Android apps create two different types of files on your device—data and cache. Data files contain important stuff like login information and app settings. When you delete data files, you’re essentially resetting the app. Cache files, on the other hand, are temporary. They contain information that isn’t always needed. A common example is a streaming music app pre-downloading a song so it can play without buffering....

Sometimes, the automatic ambient lighting adjustments in Chrome OS just stop working without giving you an explanation. That explanation is actually pretty simple, though, as is the solution to the problem. RELATED: Should You Buy a Chromebook? More new Chromebooks are shipping with ambient light sensors. They work similarly to the sensor on your phone or tablet, allowing the display—and backlit keyboard, if you have one—to automatically adjust to the lighting conditions around you....

Applications can use Windows 10’s location services to view your physical location. You’ll see a system tray icon that reads “Your location has recently been accessed” or “Your location is currently in use” when this happens, and it can get a little annoying. If you don’t like this, you can disable location access entirely, control which applications have permission to view your location, or just hide the icon so it doesn’t keep reappearing and distracting you....

The FCC unanimously approved the new rule. It will prevent broadband providers like Comcast, AT&T, or Verizon from entering into revenue-sharing agreements with landlords, preventing tenants from choosing between all ISPs in their area. Not only that, but if there are any marketing arrangements in place between a specific ISP and a landlord, they need to be disclosed. Additionally, a provider can no longer sell its wiring to a landlord and exclusively leases it back under the new rules....

Computers are like anything else. Myths and urban legends have built up over time, passed from person to person. Some myths once had a grain of truth, but are no longer true thanks to technological progress. A few myths are simple misunderstandings, while others exist to help people make money from you. Windows alone has many unnecessary Windows-tweaking myths build up around it. No, you don’t need to disable services or delete your pagefile....

The requirement to order something is the only one that costs anything, but if you already have a Prime subscription, you’re probably going to order something between now and July 13 anyway. Maybe you’ve been meaning to get a simple flash drive, or your pet could use a new squeaky toy. The only requirement is that the items are Prime-eligible, meaning the Prime logo with a checkmark is visible under the item price....

Data storage technology continues to advance with every passing year, but some of the latest offerings may not be as good of a choice as they first seem. With that in mind, today’s SuperUser Q&A post discusses the pros and cons of M-Discs to help a curious reader make the best choice for storing his data. Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites....

Wait, What Are Cookies Anyway? Browser cookies are small text files provided by different websites that your browser automatically downloads while visiting them. Cookies often contain user preferences that carry over between different pages of the same site, but they can also include identifying information that lets the site know who you are when you visit again later. The drawback is that any website can read cookies written by any other website, so they can easily be used to track your browsing patterns across the web without your knowledge—and many online ad networks do this....

SourceForge and Tucows aren’t the only download sites cleaning up their act. We can finally confirm that Download.com, also known as CNET Download, has ended the installer program that they were so often criticized for. All Downloads Are Now Direct Downloads We’ve been quite critical of Download.com in the past, writing about how clogged our PC became with junk software after we installed their top ten programs. To be fair, Download....

Speed tests are a quick way to see just how fast your internet is. ISPs promise “up to” a certain speed in optimal conditions, but a speed test will confirm how fast—or slow—your connection is. What is a Speed Test? An internet speed test is the best way to get an idea of how fast your connection is right now. The service you connect to often limits your download and upload speeds based on the plan you chose, local congestion, any throttling rules it has, and so on....

For whatever reason, sooner or later we all have someone or something mess around with our keyboards and create ‘interesting’ results. With that in mind, today’s SuperUser Q&A post has a simple and elegant way to help a frustrated reader restore his desktop icon text back to the default appearance. Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites....

Nothing ever vanishes completely from the Internet. Whether a web page has been down for a few minutes or a few years, there are a few ways you can view its content anyway. Option One: Google Cache Google and other search engines download and keep copies of the web pages they index. if a web page is down, you can easily view the most recent copy cached by Google....

Whether you’re composing an essay, article, or legal document, you may have extra details you want to include. Instead of distracting from the main content, you can easily place footnotes in your Google Docs. Footnotes display at the end of the page with the footnote indicator (a number) attached to text in your document. This indicator is formatted as superscript and much less invasive than a string of related text....

Facebook has merged Messenger and Instagram DMs. This means anyone from Facebook can slide into your Instagram DMs. If you prefer keeping your Facebook and Instagram profiles separate, this can be a cause for concern. Thankfully, Instagram allows you to easily cut off this link. Open the Instagram app on your Android phone or iPhone. Navigate to your profile tab by tapping your display picture found in the bottom-right corner of the app....

There are plenty of reasons you might want to blur some part of a photo in Photoshop. Maybe you’re sharing a photo and you want to anonymize some people, or perhaps you want to show off how bad your passport photo is without revealing private information. Whatever the reason, here’s how to blur something in Photoshop. Open the image you want to blur in Photoshop. I’m going to use this photo of me and a friend on a mountain....