We all wish we could have the latest and most powerful laptops and PCs, but the reality is that they are costly, and we all have budgets to stick to. Luckily, I can often find great deals in the used market. Some power users and serious gamers upgrade to the latest models annually, often selling their capable older PCs at fantastic prices to offset costs.

I was looking for an alternative to Microsoft’s Outlook app, which is built into Windows. I started using Proton products about a year ago with the free versions of its apps. By signing up, you get limited access to Mail and Calendar, its strongest products. You can also access Proton Drive, Docs, Pass, and VPN. After using the apps and services, I started moving over from other products like LastPass, Google Drive, OneDrive, and the Outlook app.

Did you know that people transmit Morse code to one another to this day? Not even in a military setting, either; amateur radio fans have taken to the airwaves to send Morse code messages to one another, complete with identification signs and shorthand. It's really cool to see people breathe new life into the technology and prove that some of the best ideas will always stand the test of time in some form or another.

Synology’s NAS lineup has long been the preferred choice amongst consumers looking to buy a new NAS drive. However, Synology's 2025-Plus Series NAS models now come with a catch — your drives need to be “compatible,” or DSM starts locking you out of core features like the ability to use your brand-new NAS. And as of today, the only drives on that list are Synology-branded drives. It’s frustrating, unnecessary, and very un-Synology. But here’s the good news. There are ways you can bypass it. In fact, there are two ways. Here's how.

Like many people, I chose Portainer when I started self-hosting apps on my NAS. It was among the most widely recommended tools, and indeed, it proved to be a no-nonsense way to manage Docker containers. It has become one of the first tools I now install whenever I switch to a new NAS model for testing and reviews. However, over time, that convenience became a burden. I just wanted something that worked well while staying out of the way — the bells and whistles didn’t matter much.

Roku is investigating user reports of washed-out colors when streaming HDR content from Disney Plus, according to a thread on the Roku issue tracking board. However, the issue seems to go beyond that, affecting almost any app for Roku TVs, suggest user comments on the thread over the last week. The problem appears to be tied to a recent Roku software update.A community moderator called RokuEmmanuel-D writes in an update from Thursday that the company is “investigating the Disney Plus HDR content that was washed out after the recent update,” and asks for community members to share examples and details about what content is being affected, which model of TV they have, and what software version they’re on. The first several comments only report the problem in Disney Plus, and only on TCL TVs, with users saying that app menus and that colors are okay in non-HDR content. But as one user shows in the above images of Disney Plus show Andor taken from two different TVs, normally-vibrant colors have instead taken on a gray-ish pall. Later comments report the same problems with YouTube TV, Netflix, Apple TV Plus, Amazon Prime Video, and others. One said they saw the issue with their Hisense-branded Roku TV, rather than a TCL model. The same person reported HDR working fine over HDMI from their PS5, while another said the signal from their 4K Blu-Ray player looked good, implying the issue is limited to Roku streaming, rather than any deeper TV firmware issues. People in the thread said their TVs — Hisense and TCL — were on Roku software version 14.5. Washed-out or flat colors can already be an issue when watching HDR content on a TV that’s not bright enough to produce a good HDR image — that was the reason I turned the feature off the old, cheap TCL Roku TV I once owned. But these reports describe something beyond that, with Roku producing desaturated, almost black-and-white images when HDR is on. It’s unclear how widespread the problem is, but there are recent Reddit threads that seem to fit the bill, mentioning grayish or black-and-white picture that doesn’t affect streaming app menus. Roku didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

With its release less than a month away, players will soon finally have their hands on Elden Ring Nightreign. Many of us played the network test and though we thought of a few ways to make the game better, it's the same Elden Ring goodness you're expecting. If you didn't take part in the test and were wondering if your PC can run it, chances are you can. The official Elden Ring X account recently released the minimum and recommended specs for PC users, and it's remarkably similar to the original Elden Ring's.

I've been playing around with networking in recent months, including setting up my own OPNsense box and deploying Proxmox on a few machines. I've been loving it, and from a security enthusiast's point of view, some of the data that I could see in OPNsense was very interesting. Through tools like CrowdSec, I could see automated port scanners getting blocked, and it made me take a closer look at home networking and security in general. That's why I set up an SSH honeypot, to try and catch a glimpse of what these people do when they gain access to a system, and the results were pretty scary.

As a long-time PC user (25 years and counting), I've built multiple PCs. From using my bed as my workspace to realizing the benefits of using dedicated tools for every job, I've grown as a PC enthusiast. While you can manage without these essential PC tools, having them in your toolkit doesn't cost a lot, and the utility they offer is disproportionately high. You might have the best software tools on your PC to boost performance and diagnose common problems, but without these hardware tools, you're missing out on the full PC experience.

Happy May the Fourth! If you're not sure why today is such a big day, May 4th is unofficially "Star Wars Day," because the date sounds like the famous quote from the movies, "May the Force be with you." And while you can't get the day off of work for May the Fourth, it's usually a good time to pick up some Star Wars swag as companies put merchandise on sale for the occasion.

The Star Wars versus Star Trek debates have gone on for decades now, and while the former may have attracted more fans due to its recent entries, the latter still has its die-hard fans that will never swap sides. I play D&D with a guy who can rattle off the Starship Enterprise identification code at the drop of a hat, and I'm seriously impressed.

Using the same password on multiple apps and websites is always a bad idea. If one of your accounts gets compromised in a data leak, you may lose access to all the other accounts on which you have used the same password. Since it's 2025 and all of us have accounts on countless apps and services, it's humanly impossible to remember those many unique passwords. So, using a password manager is the best solution. While there are tons of password managers across various platforms, most people may end up using the default password manager integrated with browsers.