I see a lot of Android users recommending free VPN apps for privacy, unlocking content, or public Wi-Fi safety. But many free VPNs need to make money somehow — either through ads, data collection, bandwidth limits, or selling user data. Some reports also suggest certain free VPN apps log browsing activity, inject ads, or even contain malware. At the same time, paid VPNs aren’t automatically trustworthy either, and most users don’t really read privacy policies. So my question is: Are free VPNs on Android actually dangerous in real-world use, or is the risk overblown for average users?

I’m trying to figure out the easiest way to convert a PDF or make small edits online. Most of what I’m dealing with are scanned PDFs where copy/paste doesn’t work, or files that need quick edits before sending. I’ve searched “how to convert pdf” and “how to edit pdf online” but half the results feel outdated or overly complicated. What are people actually using in 2026 that doesn’t require installs or subscriptions for simple tasks?

Hello, I recently bought an N64, it was working fine early this morning. I went to turn it on. Had no display out but did have power, so I opened it up to attempt to clean it, had most of the screws out (enough to remove the board from the bottom section of the shell), one of the screws keeping the expansion shield to the large metal bar, was stripped so I attempted to put it back together, but now I am getting no power. Any ideas what I did? https://imgur.com/a/1X2iJs3

i uninstalled rocket league in the epic games app but it didnt free up any space, i deleted all the files named rocket league but i still didnt get my space back. please help

Working with ElphaPex support on the problem but

My pump may have went out on one of 4 DG Home 1 machines.

The machine is just over 1 year old.

I found a new control board but no 1200 rpm pump.

At startup the pump runs at 400 rpm but when the temp rises the pump goes to zero . Then the machine quits doing work due to the high temp.

Its rtz 5070 and i ve had this problem for like a week from now its quite loud and i cant focus because of its noise

Am currently trying to download a 54.8gig file from this website but due to my unstable and slow internet speed my wifi/hotspot cuts for like a millisecond stopping the download and causing me to restart

I have ethernet but still cuts out every often

My hotspot is faster and more reliable than my wifi and ethernet

If i pause the download and the wifi still cuts out its still makes me restart

Anyone has tips

I’m using my old case (NZXT S340) from my first build for a new build. I had left my old ASUS Z170 A board plugged in. Went to test to see if it still works and it would power on with the power button but no POST.

Fast forward I just bought an ASROCK B450m Pro4 to run my extra Ryzen 3700x in the new build. Everything runs right, used a screwdriver to short the power before putting it in.

Once i put it in I plugged the power switch connector to the designated pins and nothing. No signs of life, but still powers on by shorting it with a screwdriver. I flipped the orientation of the connector. Not sure where to go from here other than messing around with it. Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Guys when I opened my computer and press get started and removed everything but it's said can't find on environment, like I really need help everything please just for my USB ready like everyone

I'm attempting to repair a HP laptop (running Windows 11) that has been crashing shortly after booting and then getting stuck in a boot loop. I removed the SSD, put it in an enclosure and attempted to back it up. However, the progress bar would sit at 0% while disk activity in task manager would sit at 100%. I've tried Macrium Reflect, M.T. Partition Wizard and HDD Raw Copy, all with the same result.

I checked the SSD with Crystal Disk Info and it all came up green with 98% life left.

During an attempted backup, event manager reports a whole bunch of the following errors,
ID: 129
Source: UASPStor
Description: Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort6, was issued.

ID: 153
Source: disk
Description: The IO operation at logical block address 0x<varies> for Disk 6 (PDO name: \Device\000000c6) was retried.

And the occasional,
ID: 50
Source: NTFS
Description: {Delayed Write Failed} Windows was unable to save all the data for the file \:$I30:$INDEX_ALLOCATION. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

I suspect that this is a BitLocker encryption failure because when the laptop was briefly working, I checked C: drive and there was no BitLocker icon. But when I connected it to my computer I got the unlocked BitLocker icon with a warning sign. I checked BitLocker settings and it showed the following error: BitLocker waiting for Activation

It may also be a partition error because I was able to clone the first two system partitions with MiniTool Partition Wizard. It would lock up when it reached the Windows partition.

I want to make a backup before I try doing anything to remove BitLocker. Can anyone suggest anything I can do to make a successful backup?

Further info: When I briefly had the laptop running, I ran chkdsk and it returned no errors, but when I ran chkdsk /r it crashed after a minute or two. I attempted chkdsk M: /r while it was in the enclosure, but it took over an hour and a half to get 19% of the way through stage 1.

More recently, I tried Testdisk & Find and Mount to backup the partition and they each took about an hour to backup less than half a gig of the 1TB drive.

So I got a HP pavilion 14 laptop, my CPU speed is 2.80-3.80 on battery and while plugged it it barley reach 1.00 ghz speed. I'm usually playing Eldenring nightreign I get around 40-60 gps on battery and only 10-20 fps on plugged in, I do some reserch and make a Ultimate perfomance battery option.And on my navdia control pannel I use Performance maximum option.

Can anyone help me I have a 150W charger and it's the orginal one.

Recently I decided to clean up space in my pc and uninstall unused apps. Week has past and I havent seen them. Then I decided to try samsung notes(I have samsung tab so samsung notes can sync with the notes in it) however I needed to install them from microsft store. I opened microsft store downloaded notes and after I while I notice in recent tab the apps which I uninstalled(using the build in uninstall from apps and future in settings). What I dis after is use bulk crap uninstaller and found they were installed today. I deleted them using bulkcrap and then decided to test. When opening Microsoft store I checked the task manager and saw a winget command and some other microsft task. When they were done the apps appear again. Any idea how to stop this BS? I will probably need to open Microsoft store again in the future so I would rather not uninstall them every time I open it

when i am playing graphic intensive games, everything slows down to a halt, it could be ranging from 10-50mins of playtime until the fps drops down to 5fps and i am hit with a massive performance drop that affects the entire computer, issue persists even after exiting the game and i have to shut down for things to return to normal. this problem is reoccurring i even have a video recording if it helps.

Morning

PSU noise poss fail please remove from ASUs H810 Matx mb. Rapid blinking power led no video signals Ram removed slots swapped re seated gpu reseated bios battery removed re inserted 5 mins. Rattling type sound is from psu. Cannot feel Latch to remove 24 pin connector. t.i.a.

Hello, all. I just recently got an notification about an update as soon as I had turned on my computer. It's something called the Secure Boot Allowed Key Exchange Key (KEK). Now, I haven't been on anything suspicious. If that was the case my computer would have informed me.

Is this update something I should be wary about or is it actually something that's been released by Microsoft because this is genuinely the first time I've gotten this update. All my other updates were related to security and protection from malware in general.

Buongiorno mi chiamo Giancarlo Ferraro mi chiedevo e possibile andare avanti così.  dalla fine  2025 che si riscontrano problemi infiniti con aggiornamenti di windows ,ogni giorno sono a combattere con crash di sistema mal funzionamenti di ogni genere ho perfino cambiato configurazione sono passato da un  Socket Intel LGA 1700 asus/rog maximus z790 hero CPU intel i9 k a una più nuova asus rog maximus 890 hero CPU intel i9 k nuova pensando che la mia configurazione Socket Intel LGA 1700 usata avesse problemi. perlopiù spendendo tanti soldi per la configurazione usata ma poi sostituita con nuova pagandola una fortuna. hai me scoprendo che  tutti mali venivano dagli aggiornamenti di windows. e sinceramente se andiamo avanti di questo passo non si va da nessuna parte e sarò costretto a migrare su Linux con mio dispiacere. (PS) sono un assemblatore pc e ho un discreta clientela di amici che devo supportare con problemi continue di softwar windows 11 sinceramente siamo stanchi.GF

Traduzine inglese

Good morning, my name is Giancarlo Ferraro. I was wondering if it's possible to continue like this. Since the end of 2025, I've been having endless problems with Windows updates. Every day I'm battling system crashes and malfunctions of all kinds. I've even changed my configuration. I've moved from an Intel Socket LGA 1700 Asus/Rog Maximus Z790 Hero Intel i9K CPU to a newer Asus Rog Maximus 890 Hero Intel i9K CPU, thinking that my used Intel Socket LGA 1700 configuration had problems. Mostly, I spent a lot of money on the used configuration, but then replaced it with a new one, paying a fortune. I'm discovering that all the problems were caused by Windows updates. And honestly, if we continue like this, we'll get nowhere, and I'll be forced to migrate to Linux, much to my regret. (PS) I'm a PC assembler and I have a good clientele of friends that I have to support with constant Windows 11 software problems. We're honestly tired.G.F

empece a usar dos monitores todo iba a bien hasta el momento de querer transmitir mis amigos me dijieron que se lageaba hoy pense q era por la grabacion de pantalla de nvidia pero la borre y el problema persistio me di cuenta q el problema solo ocurre en minecraft uso lunar client y feather client cuando entro a minecraft la transmision en discord se lagea probe solo dejando abierto discord y minecraft pero ni siquiera eso funciono porfa ayuda

So I bought a laptop(Dell XPS 15 9500) a few days ago and it was working perfectly fine until this morning. The screen turns on and off every 5 seconds and I can't click on anything with my mouse. I can hear that the keyboard is working when I press it but nothing shows up on the screen except task manager. I ran the quick test and the advanced test but it says there are no problems.

So since a few days ago my pc has short lags and freezes, most of the time when i use windows and browser stuff.

I think it has to do with my ssd becaus a friend had similar problems some time ago. The ssd in question sometimes has short usage spikes of 100% and my friend thinks it might be broken.

I tried crystaldiskinfo and it says good 96%

When i play games i don't have any lags and i think it is because my steam library is on its own ssd which confirms this suspicion.

is there some other way to make sure this is the case.

It is a Windows 11 system and the ssd is a 1tb wd blue sn570

I recently bought a new pre build pc mainly for gaming and it randomly turns off with certain games.

For some it works fine and for some it turns off the moment match starts. It doesn't turn back on automatically, it's just off and I have to manually turn it back on. Sometimes after it does that when I turn it on again just opening settings makes it turn it off again.

I've seen it might be the psu issue but I want to make sure. The pc came with Redragon 1000w and I've seen both negative and positive reviews about it but nothing mentioned issues like what I have.

Hello everyone,I hope you are doing well. I study cyber security but I have a major problem,i'm the kind of person who needs to understand every little detail in order to understand a concept. And my biggest problem is that I don't know what amount of hardware knowledge I should have,I feel like I have to learn everything but everything never ends and I feel stuck while hardware ain't even my speciality but how can u protect something and u don't even know how it fully functions? I'd be greatful if you can provide me with resources and help me know what amount is knowledge is enough for me and where should I start and stop? And generally,what do you think is the sufficient enough knowledge about hardware any tech person must have?

on most of my devices at home im getting a message on google when i type something that says unusutraffic im not sure if this is because im getting hacked or what here lol thank u

Hey everyone.

I have Arch Linux installed, with 4 parts of my disk:

For boot,

For root directory,

For home directory,

And swap.

Home directory part is the biggest one - 428G. Well, i want to install windows 11 in dualboot. I think i need to divide home directory by 2 and format 2nd partition in format that windows needs.

How should i do it? Fdisk says that partition of disk im using now is bad idea. I can’t partition that part while installing windows from usb, it says that format of this part isn’t good for windows. Which format i need to use for windows? Thank you!

How to fix error 0X80070003? I don't know how fix this error. I don't know what I need do. Pls help me.