This is the perfect hybrid of 7zip and WinRAR I’ve been waiting for

If you ask anyone which software they use to archive or extract files on Windows, chances are that they either use WinRAR or 7-Zip. After all, these are the two most popular tools for this purpose. 7-Zip’s popularity is due to the fact that it has been around for over two decades, offering an open-source archiving tool that’s efficient and gets the job done. It’s also totally free of cost, making it the default tool for several Windows users. On the other hand, WinRAR gains points in terms of aesthetics and reliability. It has a polished UI that’s easy to use for most people. Plus, it can also open RAR files. That said, it is a paid service, which may put a few people off. Since both tools have their own advantages, I set out to find an alternative that can do both — while still being free to use.

Emily Brown
Houston

4 Android Auto tweaks that transformed my car’s infotainment system

Most of us treat Android Auto as a utility to set up once and never touch again, trusting Google's default settings, hoping the experience is safe and functional for the widest audience possible. For me, though, functional isn't as good as a personalized user experience, and even in its current...

Jane Smith
Los Angeles

Your Kindle doesn’t need to be hacked to escape Amazon’s walled garden

When you buy a Kindle, you only focus on reading books on it, like most folks. Only after owning one do people look for tutorials and guides to remove the niggles. Several tutorials, forum threads, and video comments are packed with people seeking guidance on jailbreaking the Kindle.

Susan Bourgeois
Switzerland

I ignored BIOS updates for three years until I realized they were fixing my entire platform

BIOS is something that users touch only while building a PC, enabling DOCP/XMP, or reinstalling Windows. Once that is done and the PC starts working again, the BIOS becomes invisible. I was in the same situation; I built my PC about three years ago and went back to the BIOS...

سورنا قاسمی
Iran

SpaceX just filed for what could be the biggest IPO ever

Elon Musk's final frontier is officially open for business now that SpaceX has formally filed its S-1 prospectus with the SEC. That kicks off what could be the largest initial public offering ever when it lists on the Nasdaq stock exchange with the ticker SPCX. SpaceX generated $18.67 billion in...

Hudson Lavigne
Canada

‘Solve all diseases,’ you say?

Let’s unpack what Demis Hassabis said at the end of yesterday’s Google I/O keynote. This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. This week's issue is a special...

John Doe
New York

Your Pixel comes with these 4 fantastic apps, and they deserve a spot on your home screen

Phones these days come with a wide range of apps installed out of the box, ranging from the essentials to the bloatware we all want to remove. But somewhere in the middle are genuinely useful apps that you might not immediately realize you need until you start using them. These...

Annabelle Moore
New Zealand

My UGREEN DXP4800 Pro NAS quietly replaced half my home lab, and I didn’t expect that

I bought the UGREEN DXP4800 Pro NAS expecting it to behave like a better storage box. That was the sensible role for it, at least on paper. It had room for drives, enough performance to handle my files, and a more appliance-like personality than the random assortment of mini PCs...

Jane Smith
Los Angeles

Your cheap USB-C cables will fail with USB4

There's sometimes a negative connotation that anything cheap must be of bad quality, but that couldn't be further from the truth. More affordable mechanical keyboards can oftentimes be just as good as more expensive typing machines. The same goes for a bottle of red sauce or even a monitor, so...

Elsa Oquendo
Mexico

I replaced GitHub Copilot with a self-hosted AI and I won’t go back

I'm a fairly novice coder, even though I've dabbled in one language or another over the last few decades. I'm also terrible at formatting, so I really appreciate autocomplete and formatting help from agentic coding tools. I've been using GitHub Copilot, partly because it's the default in VS Code, but...

Gerald Reed
United Kingdom

Cron inside WSL beats Windows Task Scheduler for one reason: it actually works the way I think

You've probably already heard the standard pitch for WSL. Windows Subsystem for Linux gives users an environment to run Linux apps, commands, and graphical tools. That pitch is accurate, and the fact that you can access Linux without dual-booting or spinning up a separate VM is reason enough to install...

Teresa Ramírez
Spain

I fixed my home network lag without buying a new router or a mesh system

When people think of home network upgrades, mesh Wi-Fi or a fancy router is usually what they think about. After all, the marketing around mesh networks makes it seem that they're a silver bullet to every Wi-Fi problem. However, many mesh systems cause the exact problems that they promise to...