Have you ditched your landline for mobile yet? Most of have...

In America, landlines aren’t the norm anymore.

A recently released survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (PDF) estimates that during the second half of 2016 50.8 percent of U.S. households were wireless only. That’s up from 48.3 percent during the same time period in 2015—a rise of 2.5 percentage points.

The story behind the story: It might seem odd to hear that the CDC is tracking phone usage, but there’s actually a good reason for it. Every year, the CDC conducts a face-to-face survey with 40,000 households called the National Health Interview Survey. Since 2003, the NHIS has monitored what kind of phone connectivity respondents had: landline or mobile. This data gives the CDC useful information that correlates to the health status of people without landlines.

Cutting the cord

But beyond the health implications, the CDC’s phone data tracking is useful to monitor the trend of households going mobile only. The CDC’s findings line up with financial reports from telecom providers that are a seeing a decline in landline phone revenue, as Fortune reported.

CDC

With mobile devices—and smartphones in particular—becoming so common, many families inevitably have the discussion about whether their landline is worth keeping. For some it is, but for more and more families it isn’t. Why have a landline, after all, when your mobile phone is always attached at the hip?

Cost is also a factor. More than 70 percent of all adults between the ages of 25-34 and other adults who rent homes had wireless-only households, the CDC said. The government agency also found that 66.3 percent of adults living in poverty and 59 percent of those in near poverty were more likely to be mobile-only households than higher income homes, where the percentage was 48.5 percent.

No cords, no constraints

Another interesting tidbit: Mobile-only folks tend to be smokers and binge drinkers, as NPR reported.

In the May 2017 study, the CDC said that “adults who had at least one heavy drinking day in the past year was substantially higher among wireless-only adults”—about 30 percent. They were also more likely to be smokers. At the same time, however, the CDC said that wireless-only adults were also more likely to describe their health status as excellent or very good, more likely to meet the 2008 federal physical activity guidelines for aerobic activity, and less likely to have been diagnosed with diabetes.

Use a VPN So Your ISP Can’t Track You

Keeping personal information safe from online hackers has always been a concern. Now that ISPs in the United States have the legal right to sell your internet history without permission, privacy on the web has become a serious issue. Installing an ad blocker or using a browser’s incognito mode doesn’t prevent personal details from leaving your home. If you want to prevent ISP tracking and keep your information secure, the best way to do it is by using a virtual private network. 

What Does a VPN Do?

Virtual private networks (VPNs) act as a barrier between your computer and your service provider. Every time you connect to the internet you’re assigned an IP address. This string of numbers is associated with everything you do online, from browsing websites to shopping, watching videos, or checking e-mail, and it can be used to find your location as well as track down your identity. IP activity is logged by service providers and can be accessed by agencies and private parties willing to purchase the information. With a VPN in place, however, that information suddenly becomes useless.

Protect your privacy with a VPN

Simply put, a VPN disguises your internet traffic by scrambling it and passing it through servers around the world. The IP address you’re assigned has no association with yourself or your location, and all traffic is heavily encrypted as it leaves the computer. Instead of seeing personal details and a browsing history, ISPs only receive strings of randomized numbers and letters. Your activity and your information stays private, this is one reason why VPNs are popular for torrenting where users want to hide their activity from their ISP.

How to Choose a VPN

Researching VPNs can get extremely technical. Fortunately you don’t need to know the finer points of IPSec/L2TP and SOCKS5 protocol to make an informed decision. VPNs take care of most of the details, allowing you to focus on picking the provider that best suits your needs.

Which VPN service you go with is ultimately up to you, but there are three basic factors you should research before signing up:

Logging Practices – Logging is a major concern for anyone who’s serious about protecting their privacy online. A VPN provider can know as much about you as an ISP, as they receive all information that passes through your computer. What’s to prevent them from using or selling the data themselves?

Having a strict zero-log or no-log policy is absolutely essential in the VPN you choose. It ensures the company that handles your encrypted data doesn’t store information on their servers. If nothing is stored, nothing can be shared or sold, it’s that simple.

Jurisdiction – Location is extremely important when it comes to a VPN. The physical servers can be positioned almost anywhere, but where the company is registered carries a lot of weight, as the VPN must adhere to local laws. If a country has a strict data retention policy, for example, the VPN will need to comply with any logging and distribution policies, nullifying the effectiveness of the service.

Most high quality VPNs pay close attention to the consumer protection laws they operate under and explicitly state this in their policies. There’s no quick answer to which countries are more privacy friendly with their consumer laws, but VPN users tend to favor providers registered in Iceland, Estonia, Canada, Germany, the US, and Australia.

Cost – If there’s only one rule to remember about choosing a VPN, it’s this: free is almost always a bad idea. Providers that don’t charge customers have almost no incentive to protect your privacy. While it may be tempting to use plug-ins or services that rely on free VPNs, if you’re serious about stopping ISPs from tracking your activity, you’ll need to invest in a paid service. Fortunately most VPNs are available for affordable, flat monthly rates.

VPN Service Recommendations

It’s easy to get lured in by a shady VPN provider. Promises of free service and deep discounts are attractive, especially for first time users. To prevent tracking and keep your information safe, it’s best to stick with a known company that’s been in business for a few years. The examples below are established VPN providers with competitive pricing and are a solid choice for anyone looking to use a VPN.

NordVPN – A long-trusted VPN provider that has 741 servers in 58 countries. The company allows P2P traffic, doesn’t throttle bandwidth, and doesn’t keep logs of any type.

Private Internet Access – Another provider with a good history of reliable service. PIA has a strict zero-log policy, doesn’t monitor or restrict torrent traffic, and has servers available in the US, Iceland, and more.

ExpressVPN – An extremely privacy-oriented VPN provider with offshore jurisdiction based in an independent nation in the Caribbean. A strict zero-log policy and unmonitored traffic makes them a solid choice. For those looking to use a VPN to access geo-restricted content, such as unblocking US Netflix outside of America, ExpressVPN is one of the few that still works.

SlickVPN – A security focused service provider with masked, unmonitored traffic, multiple servers available around the world, and a sturdy zero-log policy.

IPVanish – A popular VPN provider with a focus on speed and anonymity. IPVanish boasts a zero-log policy, no bandwidth monitoring, and over 750 servers spread across 60 countries.

How to Set Up a VPN

Competition has made the process of setting up a VPN extraordinarily simple. The software you download from your chosen network provider will take care of most of the configuration. All you have to do is log in and start using the internet like you always do, only now your personal information is encrypted and safe.

1. Sign up with your chosen VPN provider.
2. Download the VPN software for each device you use on the internet.
3. Install and open the software or app.
4. Log in using your VPN credentials.
5. Browse the internet and watch videos as normal.

For certain tasks like gaming or heavy video streaming you might want to temporarily disable your VPN to ensure a consistent speed. Always remember to re-enable it afterwards.

Does a VPN Protect Cell Phones and Other Devices?

A VPN can encrypt data traveling from any internet connected device, but only if you use the service’s software. Signing up with a VPN and installing software on your computer doesn’t automatically protect everything connected to your home network. Unless your VPN provider offers software to add to your router, devices that connect via Wi-Fi will still send unencrypted traffic to your ISP.

To keep your data safe, make sure you download and install apps for every internet device you use, including cell phones, laptops, tablets, and e-readers. Most VPN providers offer easy to use software for iOS and Android devices available from their official website. As an extra bonus, your portable devices will encrypt traffic even when you’re using a public network, adding an extra layer of privacy when you travel.

A VPN You Control

If the thought of sending data to a third party still doesn’t sit right, you can always create and host your own VPN. Sidestepping external providers has a number of advantages, most notably the complete security of encrypting all internet traffic before it leaves your home. You won’t have to worry about VPN privacy policies or zero-log promises being broken. You will, however, need some technical know how and a bit of elbow grease to get it done.

Some of the most popular methods for setting up personal VPNs include OpenVPN and AutoVPN along with a Linux server rented from Amazon or DigitalOcean. The cost is comparable to a third party VPN provider, but with added security and customizability.

You can now sign into your Microsoft Account without a password

This doesn’t mean you can use Authenticator to sign-in to your Microsoft Account anywhere—it doesn’t work for logging in to Windows 10 PCs, for example. But for website sign-ins that require your Microsoft Account, such as Outlook.com, Skype.com, and OneDrive.com, it works just fine.

Microsoft

To try the feature out, download and install the Microsoft Authenticator app from the App Store or Google Play. Next, add your Microsoft account to the app, which will require you to sign-in. For Microsoft accounts, this authenticator does not scan QR codes.

Once you’re ready to go, try logging in to a website on your PC that requires your Microsoft Account. As usual with Microsoft Accounts, you enter your email address on the first page, and then when you get to the second page click “Use the Microsoft Authenticator app instead” at the bottom of the page.

Ian Paul/IDG

Next, you’ll be shown a two-digit number on the webpage, and a notification on your phone. Tap the notification, and Microsoft Authenticator will show you three two-digit numbers, as well as the location of where you’re signing in.

Choose the corresponding number from the webpage, and then tap Approve. You may then need to authenticate yourself on the phone by tapping in your access PIN or scanning your fingerprint.

Once that’s done, you’ll be signed in to the website, and the next time you sign-in Microsoft says it will remember your preference for using the Authenticator app, thereby reducing the number of steps you have to take to sign-in the second time around. If you ever get tired of using Authenticator you can switch back to using a password at any time.

The impact on you at home: Overall, this process doesn’t necessarily reduce the number of steps you need to take to sign-in with your Microsoft Account. In fact, it probably takes more or at least as many as using two-step authentication. Nevertheless, I’d argue it’s still easier since you don’t have to remember a long, random password that’s especially cumbersome to type in on a phone.

How To Quickly Get A Blank Desktop on a Mac

There are two kinds of people in this world; those who have clean, organized desktops, and those that have cluttered desktops. Some people make it a priority to always have a well organized desktop and to ensure only the most important files and folders have a place on their desktop. Others put cleaning their desktop on a back burner. If you’re the kind that often has a messy desktop or you’re just looking to hide what’s on it then Screen Commander is the app for the job. It’s a free macOS utility that gives you a blank desktop by adding a black shade to it. Your icons are all hidden but your app windows are not. It works with multiple displays and runs entirely from the menu bar.

Download and run Screen Commander. The first time you run the app, it will ask if you want to launch it automatically at start up. It will also add a display icon to the menu bar.

To get a blank desktop, click the display icon in the menu bar and select ‘Blank this Screen’.

A black backdrop will appear on your desktop hiding all icons. To remove it, left-click any where and select ‘Unblank this Screen’.

As mentioned earlier, Screen Commander supports multiple displays. You can use it to blank a specific display, or all displays except for the current one. It can blank and unblank all displays from the context menu.

If you prefer to open the Screen Commander menu via the right-click mouse button instead of the default left-click, you can configure it to do so from the app’s preferences.

One very obvious use of Screen Commander is taking clean screenshots. The black backdrop the app adds isn’t great to look at but it’s better than desktop clutter.

Other usage scenarios include using the app to hide your desktop when you’re sharing your screen over, e.g. Skype. It’s also a good way to get theater mode when watching a movie. Screen Commander is a utility built for multiple monitors but it works with a single monitor as well.

As far as improvements go, the app could do with a few customization options. Users should be able to choose if they want a black backdrop or a different colored backdrop. Ideally, the app should let users set an image to use as the backdrop for a blank desktop. This will give users a clean, blank desktop that is aesthetically nice to look at. It will also make for better screenshots.

Download Screen Commander From The Mac App Store

Google combats fake news with 'Fact Check' results in search and news

Google is ready to roll out its fact check label to Google News editions worldwide after introducing the feature in October for the United States and the U.K. The label will also appear in searches in all languages that Google supports. 

When you’re searching for a topic that’s been answered by a source using the fact check label, Google’s results page will include a snippet with three components: information about the claim being made, who made the claim, and whether that claim is true, false, or somewhere in between. It may also appear in a Google News cluster with the term “Fact check” before the headline.

Ian Paul/PCWorld

A fact check snippet in Google search.

Google warns that the fact check label won’t appear for every possible conspiracy or crazy news story you can think of. A search for “the Earth is flat,” for example, did not have surface any fact check labels at this writing. Arguably it shouldn’t as the claim is preposterous and doesn’t merit serious consideration, anyway.

For a site to earn the fact check label, it must include Schema.org’s ClaimReview markup in their HTML.

The story behind the story: The problem, however, is that flat earthers and other conspiracy theorists may be able to game Google’s new fact check label, at least in the short term. If all that’s required is proper HTML markup, a site could try to get a fact check label for a false story. However, Google is willing to use its power as the world’s most popular search engine to counteract any shenanigans. The company’s support pages say that if a site does not meet Google’s standards for fact checking the search engine may ignore the publisher’s markup or remove the site from Google News.

Another situation that users may confront is when two fact-check labels offer different conclusions. Google says this is possible under its new scheme. “There may be search result pages where different publishers checked the same claim and reached different conclusions,” Google said in a blog post. “We think it’s still helpful for people to understand the degree of consensus around a particular claim and have clear information on which sources agree.”

There is a way to have all your open windows and program re-open after a reboot, and here's how to do it.

As a PC and Mac user I've  experienced this phenomenon, and it's odd why Microsoft doesn't provide this as an option. When you restart a Mac it asks you if you want all your open windows and programs to launch after reboot, making it quite easy to resume working after an update is installed. This normally isn't that big of a deal on the Windows platform, but with Windows 10 a lot of users are experiencing unplanned reboots due to how Microsoft's mandatory updates.

Though there's not a way outside of installing third-party software to automatically resume a session after a reboot, I can show you  a few tricks to make your favorite programs open after a reboot along with any open Explorer Windows.

1. First, there's an option within Windows that will automatically open any Explorer windows you had open previously. To check this setting just open Control Panel and click File Explorer Options. In the View tab make sure the box labeled Restore previous folder windows at logon is checked. This will re-open any Explorer windows you have open in the event of a reboot. 

This option within Windows allows you to resume working with files and folders after a reboot. 

2. With your Windows Explorer windows handled, it's time to turn to open programs. Unfortunately, the only way I know how to do this without turning to a piece of software is to simply add any programs you want to start automatically to the Windows Startup folder. It's not the most elegant solution, but it works great with a web browser along with the "continue where I left off" setting for opening a new browser window. Firefox and IE offer this option as well. 

With that in place, open any Explorer window or open the Run command and type Shell:startup without any spaces to open the Startup folder. You can also manually navigate to C: > Users > Profilename > AppData > Roaming > Microsoft > Start Menu > Programs > Startup.

Don't bother navigating Microsoft's archaic file structure; just open an Explorer window and type "shell:startup"

When that window appears, or is opened, whatever links to programs you drag into that folder will automatically start with Windows. I only have Google Chrome in mine, and combined with the above settings it allows me to reboot my PC at any time and have my browser appear just as I left it. 

I know this solution isn't perfect, as it won't automatically open any programs you were using, but it's as good as I can figure out.