Browsing: Tech Reviews

An unsubtle shot at Chrome. DuckDuckGo DuckDuckGo announced that it can now block most video ads, particularly those on YouTube, when a video is playing in its browser.  In a blog post about the new feature, the company explained that its YouTube ad detection and blocking is based on the open-source community filter lists from uBlockOrigin. DuckDuckGo noted that it may also apply its own rules for better compatibility, but viewers may see longer buffering times when using the blocker and there may still be some unexpected hiccups. The blocking feature will be on by default…

The FBI, in partnership with Google and other tech companies, struck a massive blow against NetNut, a public-facing residential network proxy service that secretly hosted a botnet controlling approximately 2 million Android TVs and similar smart home devices. The network was being used for password-spraying, credential attacks and other malicious activity. Residential proxy botnets make malicious traffic appear like normal internet use, allowing everyday devices to be secretly hijacked by cybercriminals to conduct illegal activities using your home internet. Infected home devices were often preloaded with malicious software used by the botnet, which made traditional home security practices less effective at…

Disney is paying a share of $50 million to YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream subscribersThis is part of a settlement it has reached with a class action lawsuit claiming it leveraged its control over channels like ESPN to force higher prices on usersFuboTV users are also part of this class action, but they are not part of this settlement, meaning their portion of the case is ongoingIf you were subscribed to YouTube TV or DirecTV Stream at any point between April 1, 2019, and March 31, 2026, you could be owed a share of $50 million as part of a…

Primakov/Shutterstock Discord’s support team took to X yesterday to explain how a bug in its moderation tools caused accounts to be incorrectly banned. While about 200 accounts were caught by the issue over this weekend, the problem may have impacted around 8,200 accounts since May 2026.  Posts of square grid images seemed to be the issue and were mistakenly flagged by Discord as child sexual abuse material. That unfortunately meant anything from a spreadsheet to a chessboard to the Minecraft inventory menu might have resulted in an erroneous ban. We know that’s not a satisfying explanation…

No matter what type of show you’re looking for, Netflix has it. When it comes to sci-fi, the streamer doesn’t skimp on the goods. In fact, there are so many good shows to choose from that it can be tough to figure out what to watch first. Black Mirror and Stranger Things are always good options. But if you want to delve deeper into Netflix’s genre catalog, I’ve got you covered. Whether you want something bleak and dystopian or light-hearted and fun, the streamer has the sci-fi you’re looking for.I’ve curated a helpful guide to send you on your way to catching some awesome science…

Amazon Prime Day is now live in Australia, and I’m spending the majority of my time seeking out the very best Prime Day coffee machine deals. Fortunately, I’ve not been disappointed, with huge savings on many of our favourite machines here at TechRadar.The highlight, however, has to be a mega saving on the superb Ninja Luxe Café Premier espresso machine, which drops to a new all-time low in Australia of AU$497.99 for the stainless steel model.That smashes a previous low price of AU$629 that I spotted during Black Friday last year, and means that if you’ve been holding out on…

Fortunately, it shouldn’t take too much extra space. ZikG/Shutterstock This week will see a shift in the calculations Google uses for account storage. Beginning July 7, all data in your Android backups will count toward the storage limit on your Google account. Under the company’s previous approach to backups, only media uploaded to Google Photos and photos or videos within MMS data were counted against that storage cap. This rule will apply right away to new Android users, while current users will see the change roll out in the coming months. “Android backup lets you save…

The Chinese tech company ByteDance revealed Seedance 2.5, the latest version of its artificial intelligence video generator model, during a conference in Beijing on last month according to a report from The Information and could be ready to launch as soon as this week, according to another report published over the weekend.  AI video generation has come a long way since its debut, with each new version becoming increasingly better at producing realistic imagery. We’re far from the first time we saw Will Smith eating spaghetti, which was horrifyingly bad. Now, we need watermarking for these AI-generated videos to help identify deepfakes and…

ITV is selling its media and entertainment divisions to SkyThe £1.6 billion deal is a massive shake-up for UK televisionAnalysts say viewers could expect Sky and ITV’s offerings to merge in futureThe UK’s TV landscape just changed in a big way, with ITV announcing that it’s agreed to sell its media and entertainment business to Sky in a massive £1.6 billion deal.The agreement makes it one of the biggest deals in UK media history. It’ll see Sky take ownership of the ITVX platform and ITV’s free-to-air channels, but doesn’t include the ITV Studios production arm (which makes the likes of…

This post includes the best NVMe SSDs among those I’ve reviewed that you can safely bring home today. That is, if you can stomach their recently increased prices due to the component shortage caused by AI. These are fast internal solid-state drives designed for computers and game consoles that use PCIe Gen 4 or Gen 5 bus speeds — they are the fastest consumer-grade internal storage options. If you’re looking for hard drive replacements, consider this post on the top five SATA drives instead. Dong’s note: I first published this frequently-revised roundup on April 15, 2025, and last updated it…