There are a lot of things I'd do differently the next time I build a PC. From picking an X870 motherboard to going AMD for the GPU, my priorities during my next build will be completely different. I'll buy the CPU and GPU based on relative performance, not specs, and almost every motherboard over $200 will give me the features I want. The SSD, however, will be my sole focus because of a crucial specification — the DRAM. The SSD determines a major chunk of the day-to-day PC experience, and I've seen the consequences of using a DRAM-less SSD firsthand. Next time, I'm not making the same mistake.

Black Friday is almost here, which means plenty of great deals on some of our favorite tech. However, that doesn't mean you need to wait until Black Friday weekend to shop, because we're already seeing some great discounts. For a limited time, Amazon is dropping the price on this LG 34-inch OLED gaming monitor by over $700. That means you're getting one of the best prices we've seen in quite some time, which is just a few dollars above the lowest price ever recorded. So if you've been thinking about a new monitor, this one might have your name on it.

When I started self-hosting, it was for work. I wanted to understand the concepts and services available in order to write about them, which meant that I focused on services for articles I was writing at first.

If you’ve ever received a spammy text falsely alerting you to an unpaid toll or failed delivery, it might have come from a so-called Phishing-as-a-Service network that Google is now trying to take down. Google filed suit against several unnamed defendants it says make up an enterprise called Lighthouse. The company argues in a new complaint that Lighthouse makes a “‘phishing for dummies’ kit for cybercriminals who could not otherwise execute a large-scale phishing campaign.” The group would allegedly charge a monthly licensing fee to provide SMS or e-commerce software with hundreds of templates for websites closely resembling financial institutions or government-affiliated organizations that could trick consumers into entering sensitive details. In just 20 days, Google alleges, Lighthouse was used to spin up 200,000 fraudulent websites to attract over a million potential victims. It estimates that somewhere between 12.7 million and 115 million credit cards in the US were compromised by the scam.The page allegedly tracks users’ keystrokes so the information is compromised even if the user has second thoughts before submittingWhile many people are familiar with the kind of spammy texts Lighthouse-enabled services allegedly help blast, the lawsuit details what happens after someone actually clicks on those links. A scammer could allegedly log into a Lighthouse account, using a login page that displays a Google logo that appears like a sign-in option, and use the dashboard to send out a text falsely alerting a potential victim that USPS requires a fee to complete their delivery. In this alleged scheme, the text would link to a spoofed USPS page asking a user to enter their personal and payment details. The page tracks users’ keystrokes, according to the complaint, so the information is compromised even if the user has second thoughts before submitting. Those details populate neatly on the Lighthouse dashboard. The group allegedly runs similar scams spoofing toll collection sites like E-Z Pass, financial institutions, and retail sites, some of which include Google logos on their sign-in pages.Google is trying to disband the group by suing the defendants for allegedly violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO Act), and laws against fraud and trademark infringement, since it claims that Lighthouse threatened its brand by using its name and logo on fraudulent websites. It still doesn’t know who the unnamed defendants that make up Lighthouse are, or exactly how many are involved, though it believes they’re based in China. Google numbers 25 Doe defendants, but says the numbers “are meant to be representative.” Google still doesn’t know who the unnamed defendants that make up Lighthouse are, or exactly how many are involvedBut the goal of the lawsuit, in part, is to get the court to declare Lighthouse’s scheme illegal so that the group is also removed by other technology providers, and so law enforcement might gain further information about Lighthouse through discovery, Google’s General Counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado tells The Verge in an interview. While other services offer similar tools to Lighthouse, DeLaine Prado says the network caught Google’s attention because of the scale and spike in popularity of its products this year, which it tracked in public Telegram and since-disrupted YouTube channels for recruitment and tech support.Because of how easily Lighthouse can spin up these scam sites, Google says dismantling it “will require persistence.” In the meantime, it’s also endorsing three federal bills it believes will help address these kinds of schemes in the first place: the GUARD Act, the Foreign Robocall Elimination Act, and the SCAM Act. Collectively, Google says these bills would help fund state and local law enforcement’s ability to go after scams that target retirees, create a taskforce to prevent foreign illegal robocalls from reaching US consumers, and hold the transnational groups that traffic people into scamming schemes responsible. Even with these kinds of policies in place, DeLaine Prado says there will continue to be a role for companies like Google in the fight against online scams. “It’s also incumbent on companies to do what they can where they can,” she says. “I think it is a useful thing for us to take our resources to help fight against cyber crime that impacts our users. We can do that at scale, and so I think you’ll see us continue to do it when unfortunate cases like this arise where we think we can shine a light on the behavior.”

Microsoft has been fighting for a passwordless future for a little while now. It's easy to see why; with the removal of passwords, it makes it a lot harder for someone to remotely gain access to somebody else's account. In fact, if you create a new Microsoft account, it will be a passwordless one by default unless you want to add your own.

A lot of non-coders and people unfamiliar with the app development scene often confuse Git and GitHub, but only the latter is the online code repository for inscrutable projects. That's one half of the story, but Git is where all that code gets written, merged, and maintained. It's a free, open-source version control system designed to track changes in files that are usually code. But here's the secret I wish I'd learned years ago: at its core, Git is a version tracker for documents, and it absolutely does not care if those documents are complex code or your weekly grocery list.

Windows offers a significantly larger number of built-in customization options than any other popular desktop operating system. You can also install apps to push customization even further on Windows, but you should rely only on those coming from reliable sources. Microsoft is definitely one, and it has tools that can make Windows more powerful and customizable as well.

A new State of Play showcase took place today. Hosted by the famous Japanese voice actor Yuki Kaji, it focused on games from Asian developers. It's aptly titled State of Play Japan, and is the first PlayStation presentation to bear that specific name.

While buying a new laptop might be tempting, a simple RAM upgrade could extend your device's life for years, making it a worthy upgrade that's easy on the wallet. Naturally, we don't think you should spend that much, so when this deal popped up on our radar, it was a must-buy in our eyes. You're getting a 16GB DDR4 kit from Woot, coming in at just $24. This kit features two 8GB chips, and is made for laptops, or devices with SO-DIMM slots. So, if you've been looking to upgrade your laptop or other device on a budget, now's the time.

There are many different kinds of video games that get developed and released to the public. But sometimes, certain games end up becoming lost to time, often because of development issues or the aftermath of a poor release. And while most of those lost games are gone forever, there are a few examples of ones that were found and given a type of release for everyone to see and play. A game that was once believed to be lost for a time was Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wave Net, an online-enabled version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 that was played in a small selection of arcades. But through the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection, fans of the series were finally able to play the once-believed lost version of the game.

No casting has been confirmed, but star Sydney Chandler is expected to return. | Image: FX More than a month after the first season’s finale aired, FX has finally confirmed that Alien: Earth will get a second run of episodes, ending some sleepless nights for this reporter / Alien obsessive. No release date has been set for the second season yet, though it will film some time next year.Showrunner Noah Hawley is returning to lead the series again, and the holdup on the announcement might have been because it brings with it confirmation that he’s signed a new ongoing deal with Disney. The Hollywood Reporter suggests the deal could see him move beyond FX, where he’s worked on Fargo, Legion, and now Alien, to work across Disney’s other networks and platforms.“FX has always supported bold, character-driven storytelling. From the very beginning with Fargo, they’ve encouraged me to take creative risks and follow the story wherever it leads,” said Hawley. “I’m grateful to continue exploring the world of Alien: Earth alongside our partners, cast, and crew as we begin the next chapter.”Production for the second season will move from Thailand to London, though we’ll have to wait and see if that was a purely practical choice, or one that suggests the show will be moving on from the Neverland island where its Prodigy corporation is headquartered. It’s not the only Alien in development right now, with a sequel also in the works to 2024 movie Romulus.

When it comes to self-hosting, the initial setup – navigating complex documentation, dealing with configuration files, and troubleshooting errors – can often be the biggest barrier to entry. I have been there: a dozen tabs open, switching between tutorials, Docker docs, and forum posts to get a simple service like Activepieces or Docmost running.