While SSDs get all the glory these days, mechanical hard drives are not only still in use, they're advancing in both speed and capacity. These devices hold huge amounts of data all over the world, but that data is just not likely to be in your house.

This one is for all the people who buy a router, set it up according to the default settings, and never look at it again. Unfortunately, default settings aren't really optimized to keep us safe and secure. Instead, they're designed to make the product work out-of-the-box for as many people as possible.

As someone who is very fond of my smart home setup, I’ll be the first to admit that a lot of it is surplus to requirements. Rarely would I recommend everyone install color-changing bulbs or relinquish control of the HVAC to just a smartphone app or a Home Assistant integration.

Any time I recommend software to a friend, there is always an inevitable question: How much does it cost? The quality isn't necessarily the discerning factor—no one wants to pay for something if it isn't necessary. That makes free, open-source tools very easy to recommend to most people without a moment's hesitation.

It can be painful to change password managers on your phone, not to mention insecure — you might have to download files that expose your passwords in plain text, and recreate all your passkeys. Google now claims to have fixed this with a new "transfer experience" that helps you switch password managers on Android, including passkeys.

The early days of people having internet in their homes were pretty wild. Viruses were pretty much everywhere, and unlike now, many users had no clue what to do with them. I was a tween in the early '00s, but I remember intervening when my mom's PC had what felt like hundreds of them, with pop-ups and ads covering up the entire desktop, impossible to remove.

Android keeps a running list of every Wi-Fi network you've ever joined, and it never expires on its own. Most people are carrying dozens of entries they've long forgotten. That list is more revealing — and more useful to strangers — than it first appears.

We live in a world where almost everything is connected. Your phone is constantly communicating with nearby networks and devices, while your car keys, bank cards, and even some access cards can transmit information wirelessly without you giving it much thought. That convenience is hard to beat, but it also means there are more wireless signals around us than ever before, and not all of them are necessarily working in our favor.

Whether your homelab consists of an ISP-provided router and a mini PC or a whole rack that takes up the corner of your spare room, it could always benefit from a few considered upgrades.