Table of contents for July 2022 in PCWorld

The day has finally arrived: Microsoft has killed off Internet Explorer. Or has it? The answer to that is: well, sort of. Microsoft has said for years that it plans to replace the venerable Internet Explorer browser in favor of a more secure option: Microsoft Edge. Today, Internet Explorer 11 ends support for most users, which means the browser won’t receive any additional support or patches going forward. If Internet Explorer is discovered to be vulnerable to malware, for example, you’re on your own. But who will be affected by Microsoft’s decision, and what can you do about it? We have the answers below. Here’s the big picture: For years, Microsoft has maintained Internet Explorer alongside Microsoft Edge. But just as in the tale of the three pigs, some of the…

The future of Outlook is here, albeit with some caveats. Microsoft has officially released the new Outlook for Windows, with features that integrate Microsoft’s futuristic Loop interface as well as more practical innovations such as quick document attachments, a My Day summary, and reminders to respond to important email. For now, though, the new features are only available to members of the Office Insiders program, specifically the Beta Channel. We’ve seen the “future of Outlook” many times over the years, from 2015’s simple, effective Outlook apps for iOS and Android, to 2017’s more cohesive approach toward unifying Outlook across various platforms. We’re also seeing the first fruits of Project Cortex in how Microsoft (and its rival Google) are blurring the lines between various applications. But Microsoft has also been working to…

The Microsoft Store is the butt of many a joke in the Windows community, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing worth downloading on it. Today Microsoft is honoring the best of the best applications you can get in the Store, and honestly, they’re pretty dang good! The App Awards are worth a quick look if you’re hunting for some high-quality tools to add to your PC. Some of the choices are a bit rote—does anyone really need a dedicated app to watch Disney+?—but there are some you might want to check into. It certainly helps that Microsoft chose high-quality applications that also happen to be free. ShareX: This robust alternative to Windows’ built-in screenshot tool lets you automatically record screenshots or videos of your entire display, specific regions, or windows,…

The SK Hynix Platinum P41 was a pleasant surprise. With many upper crust PCIe 4.0–based 2TB NVMe drives still going for $300 plus, the $260 price tag for the P41 had me thinking it would be an overpriced mid-tier SSD. Instead it turned out to be a nicely priced, top-shelf drive with exceptional performance. My bad. Good on ya, SK Hynix! DESIGN, PRICE, SPECS As stated, the 2TB Platinum P41 I tested retails for $260, while the 1TB costs $150, and the 500GB, $105. Those are relatively low prices, representing a clear savings over the Seagate FireCuda 530, one of the ultra-fast PCIe 4.0 drives I tested it against. The other rival, Kingston’s KC3000, is another bargain of a top-tier drive and one of our favorites because of it. As…

Ergonomic equipment can be expensive. I’ve cycled through many mice over the years—trackpads, trackballs, roller mice, vertical mice—with the price per mouse hitting over $100 for the more specialized gear. If you don’t work for a company that pays for it, taking care of your body costs a pretty penny. The thing about ergonomic peripherals, though, is that everyone can benefit from it. Putting your body in a neutral position can save you from the kind of pain that forces you to seek out the expensive gear. It’s not just for people like me who must use funny-looking mice and keyboards (and regularly rotate through different styles, to boot) to keep from hurting. So when Logitech announced the Lift, a $70 vertical mouse made for small-to-medium hands (with a left-hand…

Modern laptops come with a dizzying array of ports—or maybe only one. But how can you know what they all do or what you might want in a new system? Below we explain every single laptop port, past and present, along with providing photos to help you identify their symbols. Usually located along the sides or back of a laptop, these ports help expand functionality and provide connection points for input devices, external drives, networking, and more. Understanding these ports and knowing which of your peripherals will connect easily—and which will require adapters—will help you make better-informed decisions when looking for the perfect laptop to suit your needs. In our coverage of the best laptops you can buy today, we’re careful to note which ports are available. AUDIO JACK The…

Every so often, a tool comes along that changes how you work and makes you wish you’d started using it sooner. For me, that tool is FancyZones, which is technically a feature of Microsoft’s broader PowerToys app for Windows enthusiasts. FancyZones lets you drag and drop windows into customizable split-screen views so you can multitask more effectively. Just hold down Shift while dragging a window, and you can instantly snap the window to a predefined portion of the screen. While FancyZones has been around since 2019, when Microsoft first revived the PowerToys concept, I initially dismissed it as too burdensome to set up. Only in recent weeks have I realized how powerful FancyZones can be once you get to know it. Here’s a screenshot of my go-to FancyZones layout, which…

On Tuesday, Mozilla and its Firefox browser announced Total Cookie Protection, a powerful way for Firefox to preserve your privacy while allowing websites to recognize you and provide customized experiences. Total Cookie Protection is rolling out to all Firefox users worldwide, the company announced on Tuesday. It will be on by default. Here’s how Total Cookie Protection works: Websites place cookies in your browser, small identifying bits of code that allow the website to “know” that your browser represents you, a unique individual. But those websites can also track you across the web, either by reading the contents of other cookies stored within your browser or by using other sites to host the site’s code—such as in the code used by a website’s comments system, for example. Either way, those…

Simply testing Thunderbolt docks can be a challenge. But when even the best Thunderbolt docks suddenly vanish from store shelves, it can be like pulling teeth for vendors, retailers, journalists and consumers alike. Unfortunately, it’s not getting better. Plugable fights on the front lines of the skirmish between rival device makers, trying to find new supplies of key components—and in times of need, the company redesigns its products to take advantage of what’s available. At press time, the Plugable TBT3-UDZ is our pick for the best Thunderbolt dock, and it’s in stock, too. That’s not always the case. According to Bernie Thompson, the founder and chief technology officer of Plugable, three out of its five highest-selling Thunderbolt docks offering power delivery are sold out. (At PCWorld, we recommend docks not…

Lingering Micro-USB ports are the bane of consumer electronics. Every time I see an allegedly “new” gadget with one of those fragile, asymmetrical charging tips, I cringe. Following in the footsteps of its Kindle e-readers, Amazon is updating its phenomenally popular base model Fire Android tablet with new hardware, and a USB-C charging port is first on the list. But it’s far from the only change. The 7-inch standard Fire hasn’t been updated since 2019, so the new model gets some dramatic refreshes. The new quad-core system-on-a-chip is allegedly 30 percent faster than the previous model, and perhaps more important, has 2GB of RAM instead of just one. That’s still pretty sparse for any modern Android-powered device, but it should alleviate some of the multitasking and performance issues that are…

EaseUS ToDo Backup has long been one of our favorite backup programs for Windows. It’s versatile, backs up reliably, and is very easy to use. The new version offers more of the same goodness, but with a new look and, most saliently, cloud storage. Let’s dive in to the specifics. FEATURES One of the great things about ToDo Backup is that it offers both file and folder backup and drive and partition imaging. The former is simply copying files and storing them in a container file (*.pbd), while the latter copies all the information on a disk or partition, for wholesale restores and recovery of your system. Full (all data), incremental (all data since last backup), and differential (all changes since the initial full backup) backup options are all supported.…

Earlier this month, Intel announced Alder Lake HX, a new series of 12th-generation mobile processors. Well—not strictly mobile. These new work-focused laptop CPUs are based on the company’s desktop Alder Lake chips, but in a BGA package. (That is, it’s soldered onto the motherboard, rather than being in a standard socketed LGA package that you can swap out as in a desktop PC.) As you might guess, these new 12th-gen Core HX chips are much beefier than their standard H-class siblings, found in typical gaming laptops. Alder Lake HX are 55W chips with a max turbo power rating of 157W, while Alder Lake H are 45W with 115W max turbo power. But what does that actually mean when you’re using a laptop with an HX CPU instead of an…

Even if you’ve been using Windows for decades, it’s big and complex enough that there might be features that can still surprise you. We’ve tracked down ten little-known Windows tools and tips that might just improve your efficiency, your comfort, or possibly even your fun while using your PC. Here they are, in no particular order. All of them should work on both Windows 10 and 11. If you’re looking to go even further down this rabbit hole, check out our roundup of 10 truly helpful Windows tools you might not know about and how to tune Windows for laser-focused productivity. 1. CURSOR HOVER WINDOW ACTIVATION Whenever I use a new PC, this is the very first feature I enable. Technically it’s part of the accessibility tools, but many users might…

Online security used to be simple. All you needed was a good password, and in the early days, you didn’t need a ton of characters to achieve that goal. Privacy also wasn’t quite as fragile as it is today. Your email wasn’t constantly being lost to yet another data breach. But as online hackers and criminals get more sophisticated, so have recommendations for best security practices. Currently experts recommend the use of unique, random passwords—and the more characters, the better—plus two-factor authentication as a strong baseline. But you can go further—and companies on the front lines of online security are trying to make that easier. One such step is masked email. (You may also hear it referred to as email masks or email masking.) The practice formalizes a long-available feature…

Photoshop is the indisputable industry standard for photo editing and image generation. It’s also indisputably expensive. After coming in the Creative Suite for $700+ for years, Adobe now sells it only in Creative Cloud subscription form starting at $120 a year. That’s not the most effective way to get new users—in fact, it’s a great way to make people search for some free alternatives. But it looks like Adobe is getting a little more consumer-savvy with its recent web-based version of the tool, and plans to make it free for everyone. If you’re not familiar with the web version of Photoshop, it’s effective if somewhat stripped-down in terms of features. As a Photoshop user of nearly 20 years, I’d say the online version is somewhere between Photoshop Elements and the…

AMD’s Financial Analyst Day is when it reveals a peek at its upcoming lineup for all the people who really matter in the world of consumer electronics: insanely rich investors. But fortunately we lowly consumers get to see the same info, which included details on upcoming plans for the Zen CPU line and RDNA3 graphics processors. On the desktop side of things, we got more details on Zen 4 AKA Ryzen 7000, which is already known to be coming later this year and will provide a single-thread performance boost of 15 percent over Zen 3. The new series of 5nm and 4nm chips will also feature higher clock speeds (which we’ve already seen hinted at in an earlier demo of a Ryzen 7000 chip hitting 5.5 GHz), plus boost instructions…

AMD’s AM4 socket has been around five years now, and what a run it’s had. Since its launch alongside first-generation Ryzen CPUs, this socket has been a mainstay, with unprecedented support from Team Red that enables use of first-gen motherboards with current processors. AM4 will soon cede center stage to AM5 later this year, but not everyone will need PCIe 5.0 or want to shell out for expensive DDR5 memory. That means Ryzen 5000 chips—the final batch of AM4 processors—could prove to be a much more cost-effective upgrade for people who want better performance. That makes the recent launch of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, AMD’s first CPU to boast its impressive new 3D V-Cache technology, a particularly tantalizing prospect. So when our sample crossed our desks, we decided to answer the question…

1080p resolution isn’t cutting-edge, but it remains the most popular resolution among modern PC displays. This is often because of budget: There are dozens of cheap 1080p monitors. But what happens when a 1080p monitor makes image quality a priority? SPECS The Acer Nitro XV272 (LVbmiiprx) is a 27-inch, 1080p monitor with an IPS panel and a 165Hz refresh rate. This puts it smack-dab in the most crowded segment of the monitor market. Here are the XV272’s most noteworthy specs. Display size: 27-inch Native resolution: 1920×1080 Panel type: IPS Refresh rate: Up to 165Hz Adaptive sync: AMD FreeSync Premium and G-Sync Compatible Ports: 2x HDMI 2.0, 1x DisplayPort, 4x USB 3 Stand adjustment: Height, tilt, swivel, pivot VESA mount: Yes, 100x100mm Speakers: Yes Price: $349 MSRP, around $279 typical A…

Google is far and away the most popular search engine—but sometimes it can feel more like Big Brother and less like a friendly assistant. Indeed, for those concerned about privacy, Google can overstep some boundaries by collecting your personal data and serving you ads based on what it collects. Google does allow you to disable some personalization and tracking settings, but it’s ultimately up to the user to change them. Enter DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused search engine with its own desktop extension and mobile browser app. DuckDuckGo touts itself as the anti-Google, promising not to track or collect your data from the start. It offers a clean interface and familiar layout, and provides many of the features you’ve come to expect from a search engine—but without those invasive data trackers. (If…

Oddly enough, one of the best ways to back up your data to an external hard drive comes from a cloud storage company. I’m referring to iDrive, which offers a free local backup utility inside its Windows and Mac apps. While iDrive is better-known for offering cheap cloud storage, its local backup tool doesn’t require a subscription and is only limited by the amount of space on your storage drives. Although I personally still prefer Microsoft OneDrive as my cloud storage service—mainly because of its tighter Windows integration and bundling with Microsoft 365—iDrive’s local backup tool is a straightforward and effective way to make copies of your important data onto storage drives that you have control of. Here’s how to use it. SETTING UP iDRIVE iDrive requires an account to…