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If there’s a website you visit several times a day, there’s no reason to take the slow lane to get there. You can add a button to your home screen that looks just like an app icon and will launch that webpage directly in Chrome. To do this, first navigate to the site that you want quick access to (you know, like Greenbot). Then touch the overflow button (three vertical dots) and select Add to Home Screen. All you have to do is touch Add and the site will join your other apps and widgets. One recommendation: you can customize the text below the icon, Just touch the text inside of the Add to Home Screen box and change it up.  In our example, I removed the site description so that just Greenbot appears with the icon. While this type of functionality goes all the way back to the days of the original iPhone, it’s still useful for quick access to a site you visit with great regularity. This story, "How to add a web site to your Android home screen with

Yes, Windows 10 is great, but there are some tips and tricks from older versions of Windows that are still plenty useful. Windows 10 may have all the modern conveniences, like Cortana, multiple desktops, and app notifications. But that doesn't make some of the old-fashioned Windows tricks from previous versions any less useful. Here are three Windows golden oldies worth remembering. Desktop shake Sometimes you have too many windows open and it's difficult to focus on that spreadsheet in front of you, or just to stay organized. That's when it's handy to know about desktop shake, which first appeared in Windows 7. All you have to do is click and hold the top of a program window, and start shaking your mouse (and thus the window) back and forth. After a few shakes, all open windows on your desktop will disappear save the one you're shaking. More Send To options If you wish there were more Send To options when you right-click a folder, try th

To install a case fan, hold the fan in place with one hand and tighten the four screws with the other. Many of the chips inside a typical PC generate a lot of heat and require some form of active cooling to remain stable. System builders usually rely on heatsinks and fans to manage the heat within a PC. If you’re upgrading or building a new PC—or your PC is overheating—you may need to install new or additional fans.  Here’s how to identify when you need to replace a fan and how to do it yourself. Identifying Faulty Fans Often, a fan will start to emit strange grinding noises or vibrations in its last death throws. Sometimes there is no warning at all, and a fan will silently come to a stop. Open up the computer’s case, turn it on, and look around with a flashlight (but try not to touch anything while the computer is on). In all but the lowest-power, passively cooled systems, you’ll likely find at least four fans: an intake fan, an exhaust fan, a CPU cooli

Frank Miller (and no, I don’t know if he’s that Frank Miller) asked if there was “a way to stop or reduce the spam mail that I receive?” Short of cutting yourself off from the Internet, there’s no way to eliminate spam entirely. The best you can do is filter out most of it, and even that has some unfortunate consequences. Your email client (the local program or cloud-based service you use to access and send email) almost certainly filters spam, moving suspicious messages to a separate folder. But it’s not perfect. Some spam tricks the filter and ends up in your inbox. And some legitimate messages, called false positives, end up in the spam folder. While we can’t remove these errors entirely, we can reduce them. [Have a tech question? Ask PCWorld Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector. Send your query to answer@pcworld.com.] 1. Train your filter When you find spam in your inbox, don’t just delete it. Select it, and tell your mail client that this particular message is spam.

If you live in the US and have a computer, tablet or smartphone connected to the internet, then this may be the most important news you read all year. Earlier this month we saw thousands of people across the US get their hands on the the latest Online ID protection from SaferWeb, after yet another increase in identity theft and web-history monitoring. We have however been advised that because of its unexpected popularity, availability is very limited and is now on a first come first serve basis. Experts Are Now Calling SaferWeb, “A Game Changer For Internet Users” As part of the special promotion due to end July 7, 2016, a group of Engineers teamed up with innovative new software provider SaferWeb, to provide the latest ID Protection thats just gone viral. If you have a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone connected to the internet, your activities could be monitored and private information collected when you’re Internet shopping or banking. Even just browsing onlin

A Microsoft illustration shows the Quick Actions menu in the Cortana app on Android. Credit: Microsoft Microsoft's Cortana virtual assistant is getting a facelift on iOS and Android aimed at making it more useful for users, and also bringing a bit of brightness to what's currently a rather dour interface. The app's biggest change is the launch of a button that lets users quickly choose between a suite of common actions, like viewing their calendar at a glance, checking reminders, or getting a weather forecast. The app itself looks friendlier, with a purple gradient background replacing a stark black, white, and blue color scheme. On top of that, Microsoft also announced on Thursday that the iOS and Android versions of Cortana are coming to the U.K., so that Brits will be able to use the virtual assistant. Microsoft has been slow to expand Cortana's geographic reach until the assistant has been set up to work with local social norms and other expectations.

The other day a curious thing happened to me. I booted up my PC as usual, fired up my browser, and tried to login to Gmail. Instead of looking at my inbox, I saw a warning that my attempt at an HTTPS secure Internet connection had failed. It wasn’t just a single browser or website problem either. Every browser on my system was affected—even the Dropbox and OneDrive desktop utilities wouldn’t connect. Uh-oh! Was I being targeted by bad guys or government snoops? Of course not. This problem is quite common and can usually be fixed with a few simple strategies. If it ever affects you, or is affecting you right now, here’s what to do. Reboot The first thing you should always do when faced with an intractable PC problem is reboot and see if that fixes it. Because gremlins. Check your system time This is an important one with the bi-annual time switch coming up. If your system time is incorrect then the date and time on the SSL certificate from the server won’t match up with the t

A reader asks: “Is there any way to password-protect and lock a sensitive PDF file before sending it as an attachment through email? I cannot afford Adobe Acrobat Pro and free primopdf didn’t work for me. Any help will be appreciated!” The quickest way to do this is to ZIP the PDF file and protect the ZIP file, or use Microsoft Office’s built-in encryption tools to create a password. If you use Outlook, you can use Adobe Acrobat IX to password protect PDFs. You can also try programs like NitroPDF and PDF Encrypt to set the password protection to your PDF file without Acrobat. For more on PDF and document encryption: How to encrypt sensitive data? Put it in an encrypted container How to remove encryption from a PDF file How to encrypt and password-protect ZIP files the right way #By Michael Connell#

Chidi Okwara asked "Can one run several operating systems in one computer?" Not only can you do it, but it's reasonably easy. Of course, all of the operating systems must be compatible with your hardware. Assuming your PC is less than five years old, it should be able to take Windows 7 and 8, along with almost any type of Linux. Just remember that you'll need paid-for licenses for each version of Windows you install (not an issue with free Linux). I'll walk you through installing Windows 8 onto a Windows 7 PC. With minor differences, this should work with other operating systems, as well. But first, you need to protect your system by creating an image backup--either with Windows' own tools or a third-party backup program. Don't follow any of the directions below until you've created that backup. Once the backup is complete, create a new partition on your drive. According to Microsoft, you'll need at least 20GB on the new partiti

When the HP Elite x3 launched earlier this year, we lamented its likely legacy as the last great Windows 10 phone. It stood alone as the embodiment of Microsoft’s PC-as-phone vision at a time when Microsoft was ruthlessly burning its mobile hardware division to the ground and gutting what few Nokia remnants lingered. But now it appears that the HP Elite x3’s highlight feature—the ability to run PC software on a phone—may actually find its way into Windows 10 Mobile’s core at some point in the future. Frequent Windows sleuth WalkingCat dredged up hints of Windows 10's ability to emulate x86 (read: PC) software on ARM (read: mobile) processors, via a “CHPE” designation in code. Mary Jo Foley, a Windows reporter with impeccable sources, followed up on the report today. Foley says “CHPE” indeed refers to Microsoft plans to introduce x86 emulation to Windows 10 in a “Redstone 3” update in fall 2017. The “C” stands for “Cobalt,” Microsoft’s code name for x86 emulation, accor

So you want to head over to that trendy new taco stand, but you’re not sure if the line is going to be around the street corner. Well, Google Maps now has the answer. A new feature the company highlighted on its Keyword blog now estimates how busy or slow things are in real time, thanks to Google’s data powers. Google Maps can estimate when a store is likely to be at peak busyness. It’s unlikely that this will be available for every single location on the planet just yet, but if you live in a large city where Google has access to enough real-time information your mealtime decisions may get a whole lot easier. There’s also a spot for you to update the information if Maps doesn’t have it quite right. This feature also lets you check in to find out how long people will typically stay at that specific venue. Also, Google is adding extra detail for stores that might have separate hours for different departments. This way you won’t show up when a store is open only to fin

A few days back, several users experienced, what must have seemed like a scene straight out of a horror flick, their PCs automatically opening several windows, browser tabs & mouse pointer swerving across the screen trying to log in to Paypal. If you are having a professional edition of Windows 8/8.1/10 you can use Bitlocker for the purpose while other users can choose from plenty of third party apps available. Some of the top ones of my head are AxCrpyt, Veracrypt & Symantec Endpoint Encryption. Well if you also experienced something similar to this, don’t panic, no spirit possessed your PC. Chances are you might be a TeamViewer user and one of the several affected ones due to widespread hacking of TeamViewer accounts. Majority of the users reported few days ago but some users also claimed experiencing such an attack as far as six months back. But even after the numerous reports, TeamViewer was adamant on not admitting it got hacked and instead blamed user’s poo

We’ve talked before about the importance of virtual private networks (VPNs) to keep you safe and protected when using open Wi-Fi networks. The downside of VPN’s, however, is that some need manual set-up, requiring you to muck around with the built-in VPN client in Windows or a third-party client like OpenVPN. That’s all well and good if you like getting your hands dirty, but the whole point of what we do here is to find solutions that are—dare I say it—hassle-free. Many VPNs these days offer their own no muss, no fuss downloadable client. You just download the program, turn it on, and boom! You’re connected. Here are three examples of VPNs that do just that, and all three have Android and iOS clients in addition to desktop clients. Tunnel Bear Here are three examples of VPNs that do just that, and all three have Android and iOS clients in addition to desktop clients. This VPN is perhaps the simplest of the bunch. Just fire up the app, click the dial to change it from Off t

Dabbling for the first time in Linux starts with choosing a Linux distribution. A typical “Linux” system is built up of software from many different open-source projects, including the Linux kernel. Linux distributions—or “distros”—are the projects that package all this software into an easily installable, usable operating system.  Trying a Linux distribution is extremely easy. You just need to copy it to a USB drive and reboot your computer. You don’t need to install anything or tamper with your current system at all. (If you have a Windows 8 computer, you may need to disable Secure Boot before you can boot a Linux system.) Ubuntu is a great place to start Ubuntu is probably the most widely recommended Linux distribution for new users, and for good reason. This Linux distribution provides an easy, simple installer and a fairly user-friendly desktop in Unity. Unity differs a little from a traditional Windows desktop, but it shouldn’t be too hard to wrap your head around

#Report#Passwords are stupid. Yet what’s stupid about passwords is not that they are inherently insecure, but they allow users—and in fact, encourage users—to do insecure things. When faced with the creation, and subsequent memorizing, of a new password, most users decide to use the same, stupid, easy-to-remember password they’ve used elsewhere. That’s just the kind of vulnerability hackers are looking for. Don’t be that victim. You can turn all your stupid passwords into safer ones that are easier to manage, in three easy steps. 1. Acknowledge you have a password problem   Everyone has stupid passwords. Take the findings of managed security firm Trustwave, which regularly tests the security of its clients to find vulnerabilities. During its security tests in 2014, the company collected 625,000 password hashes (the scrambled form in which passwords are stored), and its researchers tried to break them. Within two minutes, more than half—54 percent—fell to common p

#Report#Passwords are stupid. Yet what’s stupid about passwords is not that they are inherently insecure, but they allow users—and in fact, encourage users—to do insecure things. When faced with the creation, and subsequent memorizing, of a new password, most users decide to use the same, stupid, easy-to-remember password they’ve used elsewhere. That’s just the kind of vulnerability hackers are looking for. Don’t be that victim. You can turn all your stupid passwords into safer ones that are easier to manage, in three easy steps. 1. Acknowledge you have a password problem   Everyone has stupid passwords. Take the findings of managed security firm Trustwave, which regularly tests the security of its clients to find vulnerabilities. During its security tests in 2014, the company collected 625,000 password hashes (the scrambled form in which passwords are stored), and its researchers tried to break them. Within two minutes, more than half—54 percent—fell to common p