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Running AI locally is seen as the private alternative to ChatGPT and similar services. For plain chat, that holds up. But Ollama and LM Studio connect to the internet on their own, and an AI agent with shell access can send data out, as Cohere's Qwen test showed. Here is how to turn off the online features of both apps and cut agents off from the internet on Windows and Mac.

Mimic is in early access on Steam and Epic. Testing explored every role on an RTX 5060 laptop, plus the Icarus map, affixes, and Android and DLSS performance at 1080p.

A CAPTCHA, an error message or an install guide for Claude or ChatGPT tells you to press Win + R, paste and hit Enter. Doing that installs malware on your own computer. Here is how ClickFix works on Windows and Mac, how to recognize the lures and what to do if you have already run the command.

The cheapest Steam Deck already costs $789 due to the DRAM crisis, and at $599, the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition is now 50 percent more expensive than it was six years ago – gaming is increasingly becoming a luxury. Yet Nintendo has the opportunity to position the Switch 2 as a beacon in these dark times.

The Vivo X500 Pro Max is now officially available in Europe and other parts of the world. The global version of this new Zeiss camera flagship has been accompanying me on my travels through Brazil for almost a month now. After around 5,000 photos and a few videos, it is time to look back and share the highlights of this trip with you. Much more content on what may be the best camera flagship on the market is planned for the coming weeks, including a trip to Antarctica and a camera comparison with the Vivo X300 Pro.

Ask your Ray-Ban Meta glasses about what you're looking at, and Meta stores that image and may use it to train its AI. A new setting in the Meta AI app turns this off, and a second one covers voice recordings outside the US. Here is what each setting covers, where US owners have less choice and what no setting can fix.

Videos with titles like “Clone Everything” and “How to Copy Any App” are currently drawing viewers in on YouTube. The open-source tool REA (Reverse Engineer Anything) is designed to analyze the code of any paid app, allowing AI to recreate the software from scratch. Could this disrupt the market? Here's a closer look.

PHP2Shell is not just a web hosting problem. PHP also runs NAS interfaces, firewalls, Nextcloud containers and older Pi-hole installs. QNAP is still working on a fix, OPNsense and pfSense are already patched, and Docker images are being rebuilt. Here is how to find PHP on your network and close the holes.

Anthropic ran an AI model on 15 cheap Android TV boxes and warns that small models could spread like a worm across poorly secured devices by the end of 2026. What the test shows and what it does not, why off-brand boxes would be the first target, and how to check your own box with Play Protect and the developer options.

Looking for a new camera doesn't always mean choosing a traditional standalone model. The range of optical choices and imaging systems has expanded dramatically in recent years. Here is a practical look at what you actually need while on the go—and why flexibility takes many different forms.

Deck13 Spotlight and Just2D have unveiled the sequel to Drova: Forsaken Kin. We got an early hands-on opportunity to play it, experiencing small-scale dramas, laid-back gameplay, and appealing visuals.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has launched in Advanced Access, and the first players have already completed the campaign. The new characters in particular are generating excitement, even stealing the spotlight from series icons like Ghost and Captain Price. I believe the surprisingly strong story is a major reason for this.

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and Perplexity pass chat links, titles and sometimes entire prompts to trackers from Google, Meta or TikTok, according to a study of nine AI assistants by researchers in Madrid. Rejecting cookies only helps so much. Which service shares what, and how to clean up shared chats, cookies and your Android advertising ID.

Even paying users quickly hit their subscription's usage limits with Google's latest AI model. Those who do not want to upgrade to a more expensive plan can get more out of their subscription by accessing it through Google Search.

An all-OLED, metal build laptop for €700? The new 14-inch HP OmniBook 5 comes in four colors and aims squarely at the sought after MacBook Neo type budget segment. We were able to have some hands-on time with the new HP OmniBook 5 14.

MING founder Ming Thein answered six questions for Notebookcheck about materials, margins and why he stops at 125 pieces.

Buy a connected car secondhand and you may inherit the previous owner's app connection along with it. Depending on the brand, they can then see where the car is and even unlock it. Here's how to cut that link when you buy.

It is almost here: Nvidia's RTX Spark platform, their first venture into the market for PC SoCs, is launching soon. Ahead of the launch, we had the opportunity to take a look at the new OmniBook Ultra 16, HP's new 16-inch creator flagship.

Halloween is just around the corner, marking the start of one of the best times of the year for many gamers. Whether it's hardcore survival horror, dark fantasy or a cozy spooky adventure, anyone still looking for the perfect game for the coming fall evenings will find plenty of inspiration here.

A used smartphone can stay linked to the previous owner's accounts even after a factory reset. Activation Lock, Factory Reset Protection or company device management then make it unusable. Here's how to check an iPhone, Android or Samsung phone before you pay.

The Huawei Pura X Max offers exciting foldable hardware and surprisingly usable software. Despite support for English and other system languages, eSIM, and numerous Western apps, importing the device still comes with several challenges.

Windows 11 24H2 gets its last update on October 13, 2026, after which Home and Pro receive no more security patches. Here is how to check your version, move to 25H2 or 26H2 and tell whether a safeguard hold is blocking the upgrade. Schools running Windows 11 SE laptops get no newer version at all.

Week 41 was all about local AI, new hardware, and the next generation of smart devices. Microsoft and Asus are pushing AI PCs forward with powerful hardware, while new flagship smartphones and tablets are beginning to emerge. At the same time, Meta and Google are working to integrate AI assistants more deeply into everyday digital life. Here’s our editorial roundup of the week’s most important developments.

ChatGPT, Gemini, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn use your data for AI training unless you object. Where the setting or form is, what an objection covers and why it only applies from now on. Plus the state of the GDPR reform in which EU member states want to rewrite the right to object to AI training.

One UI 9 is rolling out to Galaxy phones, but not every protection is active after the update. Theft protection has to be switched on by hand, and older models may still have Auto Blocker turned off. Scam Detection for calls is limited to a few countries. Here is what to check after updating.

Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days run on October 6 and 7 in 22 countries, and scammers are registering lookalike domains by the hundreds. In Germany, a court ruling has Amazon sending real emails about Prime fees at the same time. Here is how to check whether a message comes from Amazon and how to lock down your account before the sale.

Control Resonant and Marvel's Wolverine arrived just days apart, yet they represent radically different visions of modern AAA game design. One trusts players, embraces experimentation and risks being misunderstood; the other appears built around the safer, more commercially proven formula that continues to dominate big-budget gaming.

ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Copilot all work without a subscription. Each one still takes something in return, whether that is ads, your chats as training data or a smaller model. Here is what each free plan offers, what is switched on by default and which settings to check before your next chat.

Plenty of guides still name October 13, 2026 as the end of the Windows 10 grace period. Microsoft has quietly extended Extended Security Updates for home users to October 2027. In the European Economic Area, though, the free option still ends for anyone who stops signing in with a Microsoft account.

MIT professor and sociologist/psychologist warns in her new book that chatbots are causing our ability to form bonds and maintain relationships with other people to atrophy, just as our ability to perform work or acquire knowledge independently is declining. Instead, she argues, we should learn to accept “friction” in life as something positive.

With iOS 27, Apple rebuilt Screen Time for families, adding Ask to Browse, Time Allowances and a pause for school hours. Installing the update does not turn any of it on, and several protections stay off by default once a child turns 13. Here is what parents on iPhone and Android need to set up themselves.

Gamrombo offers two PS5 controllers: the RH-5188 with programmable back buttons, and the simpler, cleaner RH-5189. The latter can cost as low as $40 when purchased through certain channels, and here's how it performs.

In the “AI asked” series, I ask various AI chatbots questions about relevant issues of our time and ask them for their own assessment. Today, we’re looking at a widely discussed statement by an Anthropic employee who said AI could wipe out humanity within this decade. Here’s what the AI has to say.

For 30 years, one rule has kept one website in your browser from reading another. In agent mode that guarantee turns into a question about model quality. Two research groups showed it independently, a security firm demonstrated it, and the browser with the clearest finding is gone.

Since early September the glasses stop recording as soon as someone covers the light. Eight days later the Hamburg data protection authority published its final report, and it shows where the light still falls short. For one feature it does not light up at all.

Five watches on a $300 budget, and almost all of them from Casio and Timex. Here's why these two brands give the best bang for your buck, with alternative picks in every slot, from the AE-1200WH and Duro to the AQ-230A, MTP-1302D and Timex Expedition Scout 40.

Twenty years, sharper numbers. Asus ROG’s 20th anniversary at Computex 2026 marked two decades of gaming innovation across motherboards, laptops, graphics cards, handhelds, and high-refresh-rate displays. The company also detailed its rapid expansion in India, where broader retail reach, community engagement, local production, and simultaneous global launches have helped lift its share among the country's gaming audience.

Google Photos has been answering questions like "Where did I camp last summer" in Germany since March. Two settings have to be on before the feature runs at all, and Google attaches a remarkable note to one of them elsewhere. The reassuring sentence about AI training turns on a single word.

Sharing a file by link does not hand the link back when you are done. It keeps working, it shows your email address to anyone who opens it, and Google lists those readers as anonymous animals. The expiration date everyone recommends is a paid feature at Google, Microsoft and Dropbox alike.

Diablo V has a rare opportunity to learn from everything that came before it, both within the series and outside it. Here is what I want Blizzard to keep, rethink and completely overhaul for the next chapter.

Google tells administrators to hand a departing employee’s email address to a current colleague as an alias. Microsoft suggests forwarding or a shared mailbox. The data protection commissioner for Saxony-Anhalt calls that impermissible. Whoever reads the address can reset private accounts.

One tap on "Sign in with Google" hands a token to a third party. It lives on their servers, survives the app being deleted, and only expires after six months without use. A new password revokes Google tokens that carry mail scopes and nothing else. Everything else stays until you remove it yourself.

The iPhone Duo is undoubtedly Apple's most important product launch in recent memory. While non-enthusiasts may think Apple may be done for the year, the company is actually expected to bring major updates to its MacBook and iPad lineups later this year.

It took Apple's late entry into the foldable market to get long-time foldable users to think twice about their devices' software. This is one criticism currently being voiced repeatedly in light of various experiments with the iPhone Duo's animations and features. The other is directed at Samsung, which, as a pioneer in the field may have placed too little emphasis on the software aspect of foldables.

GMX and WEB.DE are allowed to empty an unused free mailbox after 6 months and hand the address to another user after 12. Section 5.3 of their terms says so at both providers. Anyone still using that address at a shop, an insurer or an old account is sending their password resets to a stranger.

Turning on two-factor authentication gives you 10 backup codes and the instruction to keep them safe. Almost nobody says where. Microsoft says not to store them on the device you sign in with, Instagram suggests a screenshot, and Google's own help page names the file the codes are saved as. Infostealer malware searches for exactly that.

CheckMag Nvidia's DLSS 5 has faced criticism for its uncanny visuals and performance hit, but when used correctly, it can transform how games look. Here are some of the best examples of the neural rendering technology enhancing visuals while preserving the original art direction.

A new password does not sign out every session, and most providers never say what it actually does. Google keeps showing devices you factory reset, Amazon leaves Kindles signed in, Netflix hides anything idle for 90 days. Where the device lists of Google, Microsoft, Apple, WhatsApp, Netflix, Instagram and Amazon are, and how to clear them in 10 minutes.

GTA VI's Netflix-paywalled trailer, EA's $55B go-private buyout, Marvel's Wolverine backlash, Elden Ring hitting Switch 2, free Witcher 3 expansions, a leaked DLSS 5, Valve's Steam Frame, and a wild month for fighting games. August 2026 had it all, and we're breaking it down in one massive recap.