Buffebloat is a lesser-known but still critical networking issue that can cause numerous problems. It's caused by excessive buffering in network devices like routers and modems, creating latency and making your internet feel sluggish even if you should have high speeds. If you've ever experienced lag while gaming, on a video call, or in other scenarios, and you're not sure why that might be the case, then bufferbloat might be the reason why.

We tend to take Wi-Fi coverage for granted these days, but it wasn't always like that, with many consumer routers leaving a lot to be desired. Things like quality of service and mesh capability were features only found on enterprise gear, even if the Wi-Fi routers you owned could technically support these. To improve the feature set of these routers, you could install custom firmware like DD-WRT or OpenWrt, which would give you tons of advanced features that home routers just didn't have at the time.

Do we really need all this? | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The grid is a comfortable place to live.The app grid, I mean: the rows and rows of app icons on your iPhone’s homescreen. It’s familiar. Safe. It’s how I’ve lived with my various phones over the past decade. But at some point, it started to feel oppressive. All those icons staring at me in the face, vying for my attention. The clutter! The distracting little notification badges! The grid was a reasonable way to organize apps when I had like, ten of them. There are sixty on the iPhone I’m using now, and I set it up from scratch a few months ago. Naturally, living off-grid or in a non-traditional homescreen arrangement has been possible for much longer on Android. Google’s OS lets you keep your screen clear and just find your apps in the app drawer, which is always a swipe away. You can even replace the launcher entirely. But iOS — where every new app you download winds up on your homescreen by default — hasn’t exactly made it easy to abandon the grid. That started to change when iOS 14 added widgets, an app library, and the ability to hide apps from your homescreen — though I haven’t developed the muscle memory to use it much. Now, iOS 18 adds even more flexibility. You... Read the full story at The Verge.

Illustration: The Verge In the latest version of the Files by Google app, summoning Gemini while looking at a PDF gives you the option to ask about the file, writes Android Police. You’ll need to be a Gemini Advanced subscriber to use the feature though, according to Mishaal Rahman, who reported on Friday that it had started rolling out.If you have the feature, when you summon Gemini while looking at a PDF in the Files app, you’ll see an “Ask about this PDF” button appear. Tapping that lets you ask questions about the file, the same way you might ask ChatGPT about a PDF. Google first announced this screen-aware feature during its I/O developer conference in May.Rahman posted a screenshot of what it looks like in action:Other context-aware Gemini features include the ability to ask about web pages and YouTube videos. For apps or file types without Gemini’s context-aware support, the assistant instead offers to answer questions about your screen, using a screenshot it takes when you tap “Ask about this screen.”

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Our staff writes about the best books they read over the course of the year. Read the full story at The Verge.

The last week was a wild one for Qualcomm and Arm. 2024 has been rife with news of the two companies complaining about the other, and it came to a head in a big court case. Qualcomm managed to come out on top of most of the raised points, but one was still undecided and open for a retrial. Now, Arm has accepted that offer and gone ahead with a second round, despite the judge claiming it wouldn't achieve a whole lot.

If you have a home lab and you want to remotely connect to it, there are countless ways to do that. While OpenVPN and Tailscale are ways to do it, one of the simplest ways to do it is WireGuard. It's efficient, it's free, it's open-source, and it's miles better than most of the competition. If you're weighing up WireGuard versus OpenVPN specifically, here's why you should use WireGuard instead.

Wireless connectivity is a big part of our modern lives, making it convenient to work from multiple locations and use portable devices that are connected to the internet at all times. But while it's convenient, even the fastest Wi-Fi standards used on Wi-Fi 7 routers suck. Don't get me wrong, I love wireless connectivity and the freedom it allows.

Video games have extended outside the home, whether on a gaming laptop or a tablet, and gaming handhelds have cornered that market as a result. But should you pick up a brand-new device like the MSI Claw 8 AI+, or should you stick with a familiar option like the Nintendo Switch OLED?

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 65, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, get ready to take up all your phone’s storage space, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This is the last Installer of the year! I’m taking a couple of weeks off for the holidays, and I hope you’re getting some relaxation in too. Thank you so much to everyone who has subscribed to this newsletter, emailed me your recommendations, told me I’m a lunatic about to-do lists, and generally been part of the Installerverse this year. Making this newsletter is so much fun, and I’m so thrilled to get to do it with you. Bigger and better next year!This week, I’ve been reading about Spotify’s ghost artists and Formula 1 and Mufasa and the deeply silly New York Jets, watching Hot Frosty (you can judge me, it’s fine) and re-watching 30 Rock, beating Balatro for the very first time, and trying to convince my toddler that it’s actually not fun and cool and great to wake up at 4am every day.I also have for you a nifty new smart home controller, a new app for the future of social networks, the next Sonic movie, and much more. Plus,... Read the full story at The Verge.

If AI is good at anything in particular, it's breaking down huge amounts of information into smaller, more digestible tidbits. Several AI companies have allowed users to upload PDF files to their service, which is scanned by an LLM and give the user a quick "TL;DR" of what the document says. Now, Google is making it even easier to get through those laboriously long documents in record time.

PC gaming has a huge following, and whether you built your own rig or bought a good prebuilt PC, it's a good time to be in the hobby. Both huge studios and indie developers are releasing fantastic games every year; PC gaming technology is truly impressive, and the community can be awesome to interact with. But as good as PC gaming is right now, the future is going to be even better.