David Attenborough is helping an appeal to raise millions for the Rothbury Estate in the heart of Northumberland, covering 9,486 acres (around 3,839 hectares) and features woodlands, rivers, historic ruins and the Simonside Hills Read...

Informatica updates its Intelligent Data Management Cloud with new agentic AI features, enhancing data trust, security and automation for enterprises. Read...

A new rumor suggests that Microsoft will offer a new Windows 11 26H1 feature release early next year — but chances are you won’t be able to get it. According a to a rumor by noted tipster PhantomofEarth, Microsoft will treat the Windows 11 2026 releases in much the same way that it handled 2025: features will be rolled out in a Windows 11 26H1 release to PCs, but only “enabled” in the second half of the year as part of a Windows 11 26H2 release enablement package. However, only a small subset of PCs will be able to test these new features, the tipster reports: People who own PCs with Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite or Elite Extreme chips inside. The way Microsoft launches new features can be confusing. New features debut in one of four Windows 11 Insider channels, with the Developer and Canary channels dedicated to the more experimental features, and the Beta and Release Preview channels aligned towards testing features that will debut in the stable channel, aka the PC market at large. Right now, all of the various features Microsoft tested in the first half of 2025 are being officially pushed out as part of Windows 11 25H2. But chances are that those features were quietly preloaded on your PC earlier in the year. So when we write about “turning on” the new Start menu in Windows 11 25H2, that means simply downloading a tiny “enablement” update that signals Windows that it’s time to turn on those 25H2 features. If Phantomofearth is correct, that’s the same way that Microsoft is going to handle Windows 11’s 2026 releases, too. Moreover, what we thought was Microsoft scrambling to accommodate all of the delays associated with its Copilot+ features (such as Microsoft Recall) now appears more deliberate. With the launch of the Copilot+ PC program — which struggled with low sales — Microsoft essentially turned Windows on Snapdragon into its own beta channel, using the built-in NPU as a way to test new features. But Microsoft’s latest Copilot features also target all PCs, not just those with an NPU. That’s the end goal. (The release of Windows ML is designed to route AI features to whatever hardware your PC has available, which helps.) But if PhantomofEarth is correct, it sounds like new Windows features will continue being tested on Windows on Arm first, then moved to other PCs over time. Neowin noted that Phantomofearth’s latest claim appears as a comment in his YouTube overview of the new Windows 11 25H2 features, which places this squarely into the “rumor” category for right now. But it’s one of those rumors that sounds plausible. It does make you wonder, however, what this means for rival processors like Intel’s Lunar Lake and upcoming Panther Lake chips, plus AMD’s Ryzen AI (Strix Point and the upcoming Gorgon Point) which also have competing NPUs inside them. In any event, Microsoft will hopefully continue to clarify which new Windows features are arriving when, and for which processor platform. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Epic battery life, unmatched in the industry Solid cleaning performance Dazzling red paint job looks more like a Corvette than a pool janitor Operational mode options to handle most environments Cons Very expensive App and onboard controls need a makeover Must be retrieved via pole and hook Our Verdict iGarden’s latest pool robot has the best longevity of any robot we’ve reviewed, but its price tag  complicates a buying decision. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: iGarden Pool Cleaner K Pro 150 Retailer Price Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices “Set it and forget it” is something of a moving target in the world of robotic pool cleaners. While a few models have exceptional battery life—a bit more than six hours being about the best I’ve seen—many die after just a couple of hours in the water, requiring immediate retrieval and recharging. Even a six-hour runtime won’t get you very far. That’s just three two-hour scrubbings—not even a week of running time if you clean every other day. The iGarden K Pro 150 changes all that, and the underwater battery race is formally on: With a running time that easily stretches beyond 10 hours, you will not find another robot with this kind of lifespan on the market. And very few with a price tag this high. (I’m looking at you, Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra). The iGarden K Pro 150 ran for a full 10 hours—significantly longer than the 8.5 hours the manufacturer claims. Specifications The battery is the centerpiece here: The K Pro 150 contains a massive 14,100mAh (14.1Ah) cell that dwarfs anything else you’ll find on the market. Even iGarden’s long-lived K60, which we recently reviewed, tops out at 7,500mAh (which is good for 6.5 hours of operation). The iGarden K Pro 150’s onboard control panel is arcane and far from intuitive.Christopher Null/Foundry While the K Pro 150’s physical design is the same as the K60—with large wheels, thin treads, and a race car-inspired industrial design—it’s the new paint job that will really turn heads. It immediately drew attention from visitors who spotted it either in or out of the pool during my testing. The bright red color scheme is unlike anything else in the business, which is dominated by blue or black color schemes If nothing else, it will be interesting to see if other manufacturers start experimenting with more exciting colors going forward. At 24 pounds, the K Pro 150 isn’t overly enormous or heavy, and it features the same touchscreen control panel as the K60. It also works in the same fashion with the iGarden Robotics app while it’s within Bluetooth range (i.e. only when it’s not in the pool). Charging is courtesy of a small power brick that attaches to a front-mounted charging port (more on this later), and retrieval must be done with a hook (included) and pole. The K Pro 150’s debris basket is large but, as with the K60, awkwardly shaped. This makes cleanup more tedious than with other robots, though only slightly more so. Installation and setup The iGarden app is not much more useful than the onboard control panel; fortunately, you probably won’t need to use it much.Christopher Null/Foundry Aside from unboxing, initial charging (which can take up to 9 hours), and a simple onboarding with the iGarden app, there’s nothing much to set up. You’ll need to read the manual thoroughly, however: As with the K60, the K Pro 150’s control panel is arcane and far from intuitive, and you’ll want to have those instructions handy for your initial runs (and then probably for some time after). Note that as obtuse as the control panel is, the app interface isn’t really any better, and since the app doesn’t offer any real extras (even the battery meter is very basic, offering just three broad levels of remaining charge: low, medium, and high) there’s not much to be gained from using it. Using the iGarden Pool Cleaner K Pro 150 The iGarden Pool Cleaner K Pro 150’s debris basket fits inside this bay.Christopher Null/Foundry The K Pro 150 has such a big battery that I really needed to plan well to test it properly, so that I was awake for both the start and finish of each run. For my first test, I charged the robot overnight and dropped it into the pool in the morning, putting it on its highest-coverage mode that cleans floor, walls, and waterline (my standard operating mode). The bot ran for a full 10 hours—even longer than the 8.5 hours iGarden claims for this mode. iGarden specifies a 15-hour “maximum” running time, but this is only for floor-only runs, which use less power. When I tested the robot in floor-only mode, I almost got there, achieving an uninterrupted running time just shy of 14 hours. The robot is, of course, not really designed to be used in such a way, because it’s effective at cleaning the pool much more quickly than running for half the day. (It’s also a much better overall cleaner than the K60 was in my tests.) I next set out to find how long it took for the K Pro 150 to effectively clean the pool. With a synthetic leaf test, the robot picked up 90 percent of the testing debris within 90 minutes, 98 percent within 3 hours, and it fully cleaned the pool after about 6 hours (including some tough debris stuck in the corner that I didn’t think it would ever get). The hours beyond that were just gravy. The filter basket itself has multiple chambers, which renders it a bit difficult to clean.Christopher Null/Foundry Instead of running the robot until the battery dies each time, the smarter move is to use the “AI Timer” feature, though this is perhaps the most frivolous usage of the term “AI” I’ve encountered. A better name for this feature would simply be “Timer,” as it simply lets you specify automatic, repeating runs every 24-, 48-, or 72 hours after your initial running cycle. With this feature activated, you should be able to get five 2-hour cleaning runs out of the robot. With 48-hour repeat runs, that’s a solid 10 days of operation before you need to recharge it (assuming the filter basket doesn’t get full before then). While the control panel is busy, the only other function of note on it is the Turbo Mode feature, which basically just sets the robot to move faster in the water, which will potentially speed up the cleaning cycle. The difference in speed isn’t massive, but using Turbo Mode will take a big bite out of battery life, anywhere from 10- to 40 percent, depending on the cleaning mode used. Most users should probably stick with Standard. The rubbet plug that’s supposed to keep water out of the robot’s charging port is largely ineffective.Christopher Null/Foundry My only other real complaint with the K Pro 150 is related to its misguided power port. Just like with the K60, the fat rubber plug over the port didn’t keep water from getting into it, and after every run I would find a significant amount of fluid trapped inside. As with the K60, I eventually stopped trying to dry out the port after each run and just charged it with the water remaining inside, with no ill effects noted. And finally, it’s worth noting that the K Pro 150 has no waterline retrieval mechanism: It must always be fetched with the included hook. Should you buy the iGarden Pool Cleaner K Pro 150? You knew there would be a catch with this review, and it’s a big one. The iGarden K Pro 150 carries a list price of a cool $3,000. Even after the 25-percent off coupon presently available on iGarden’s website, this is still a $2250 pool robot, which is outlandishly expensive and even pricier than my more full-featured favorites like the Polaris Freedom Plus and Beatbot Aquasense Pro. That makes for an extremely difficult calculus that revolves mainly around convenience. Being able to drop the robot into the pool on Monday morning and not think about cleaning it again until two Fridays later is a game-changer, and there are times when my pool is indeed that dirty due to wind and rain. Most of the time, however, I’m happy to drop in a robot on demand and retrieve it when the job is complete—especially if it’s waiting for me at the waterline at the end. For me, the massive battery in the K Pro 150 is overkill, but your mileage may well vary. This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best robotic pool cleaners. Read...

Microsoft has started rolling out the new Start menu for Windows 11, which we previously did a deep dive preview on. Both versions 24H2 and the newer 25H2 of Windows 11 can use the new Start menu. Microsoft is also revising File Explorer to simplify navigation. The new features and other improvements are available via optional update KB5067036, which was released on October 28th. What the new Start menu looks like The new Start menu is the central innovation in this update, designed to enable quick and smooth access to all your apps. It now contains a scrollable section that you can use to access all installed applications. Microsoft is also introducing different views: the category view, which sorts apps by category and highlights selected content, and the grid view, in which apps are listed alphabetically. Your last selected view will be applied when you next reopen the Start menu. Foundry / PC Welt Lists should also provide a better overview. The Start menu also automatically adapts to your screen size, with sections such as Pinned and Recommended expanded or collapsed based on the content. You can also adjust in the settings under Personalization > Start whether you want to see recommendations at all. On the right-hand side, there’s also a section for the new Phone Link integration, allowing you to move files between your PC and smartphone or seamlessly resuming Android apps from your Windows PC. The new view also shows important elements such as incoming calls, messages, or photos that you can transfer. Other new features in the update In addition to the new Start menu, Microsoft has also improved File Explorer, which can now share recommended files in the File Explorer Home section. These are mostly “frequently used” or “recently added” files that you can access more quickly. The new section is optional and can be deactivated in the settings. The battery level display (on laptops) is also revamped in this update. Microsoft is introducing improved battery level icons that are color-coded, showing green for sufficient battery or charging in progress, yellow for energy-saving mode or battery below 20 percent, and red for a very low battery that’s on the verge of dying. How to get these new features You can obtain the optional KB5067036 update via Windows Update, which needs to be installed manually. Alternatively, you can download and install the update via the Microsoft Update Catalog. Note that if you’re going to install update KB5067036, you must first install update KB5043080 (the mandatory September update). As the new Start menu and other features are on a gradual rollout, you may not have access to all of them immediately after installing the update. If you’re impatient and have some technical know-how, you could try using ViVeTool to force unlock those features. To do so, install ViVeTool and then open the Windows Command Prompt with admin rights. Then enter the command cd c:\folder\path\ViveTool-v0.x.x followed by vivetool /enable /id:47205210. Confirm with Enter and restart your PC to apply the changes. Further reading: Quick Windows 11 tweaks that speed up your PC Read...

It’s never been easier to keep an eye on your kids and/or pets at home while you’re away, all thanks to affordable home security cameras. And they’re even more affordable when you can catch a good sale, like today’s massive 55% price drop on the Blink Mini 2. Amazon is selling it for just $17.99 (was $39.99), a new all-time lowest price! The Blink Mini 2 captures sharp 1080p video, works in daylight and darkness with its built-in LED spotlight, in full color even during the night. You can view the live feed via your phone, and you can even chat with whoever’s on the other end with two-way audio. This compact security camera is perfect for any room, as long as you’re able to place it near an outlet. (It comes with a power adapter and 6-foot USB-C cable.) The best part, if you ask me, is that you can even use it outdoors. The Blink Mini 2 is waterproof and weather-resistant, so you can mount it to a wall and get an exterior view. Note, however, that you’ll need a Blink Weather Resistant Power Adapter if you’re going to use it outside (sold separately). Other handy features include motion detection with real-time alerts and integration with Alexa and Echo devices. The Blink Mini 2 is already a pretty good value at full price, but now it’s an insane value with this 55% discount. Get it for just $17.99 on Amazon while you still can! Or maybe even grab a few and set them up around your home for maximum peace of mind. An indoor/outdoor 1080p Blink security cam for only $18? That`s a deal!Buy now on Amazon Read...

You’ve probably heard of Grammarly, the AI spelling and grammar checker. But with a rebrand, a consolidation, and a new AI agent, Grammarly now fact-checks your business communications using what it knows about current context. It’s difficult to describe this iteration of Grammarly, now renamed Superhuman, and its suite. (Fortunately, the company put together a short GIF describing how it works, which is embedded below.) Essentially, the Superhuman suite and its Superhuman Go app run various agents against your own (or AI-generated) copy, correcting any mistakes you inadvertently made about a variety of topics. Consider this example: you’re emailing a coworker, Erica, about a sales call to be held tomorrow at noon. If you misspelled “Erica,” you’d expect that it would be underlined, indicating an error. In this case, if the meeting was moved–and if Superhuman was connected to your Google Calendar–it would underline the meeting time and suggest you rewrite it with the new time instead. If the subject of the call changed, this too would be highlighted, as long as the CRM service was looped in. The Superhuman suite is fact-checking your email, but it functions more like a spellchecker. Superhuman The Superhuman suite includes Grammarly, the Superhuman Mail program, the Coda all-in-one workspace, and the Superhuman Go AI program, which connects all of them together. It certainly isn’t cheap; Superhuman is charging $25 per user per month for a Starter subscription, with a more advanced Business sub that pulls in some additional features. However, the Go features will be free at no additional cost through Feb. 1, 2026, and the technology will be available to Grammarly and Superhuman suite users on Chrome and Microsoft Edge. Windows and Mac users will add the new Go capabilities “soon,” Grammarly said. The Superhuman suite allows users to move between the apps themselves, such as the Superhuman Mail interface, the Grammarly AI writing tool, and the Coda workspace. But the secret sauce will be the agents themselves. Superhuman is launching an agent store where users can download specific agents. These include Google Workspace tools, Microsoft Outlook, Atlassian Jira, and Atlassian Confluence, available today. Some partner agents are designed for specific tasks, like Fireflies, Common Room, Latimer, Parallel, Radical Candor, and Quizlet, which are also available today. The premise is familiar: connect more agents to the applications, give them access to more of your data and, supposedly, your productivity will improve. Superhuman and some of the available agents.Superhuman Grammarly/Superhuman said that “nothing changes” in terms of the products and their privacy protections. “The company does not sell or monetize user content, ensures users are in control of their data and own what they write, and does not allow its third-party service providers to train their models on user content,” the company said. Read...

AutoHotkey (AHK) is a free and simple yet powerful Windows scripting language. It doesn’t get a lot of press these days, but Windows geeks used to love writing and swapping AHK scripts. You can learn AHK and write the scripts yourself if you want to—the AutoHotkey documentation is pretty good—or you could use an AI tool like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, etc. to do the work for you. Well, that’s what I did. Months ago, I vibe-coded a script that changes how scrolling works on Windows. (Vibe coding is when you use prompt instructions to generate code via AI.) I still use it every day because it’s a huge help on my desktop PC’s big monitor. With AI, creating the script took less than an hour. All I needed was the right idea. What can you vibe-code with AutoHotkey? AutoHotkey scripts can create custom hotkeys, remap existing shortcuts, create custom text expansion rules, transform how your mouse works, and even take actions based on game controller inputs. AutoHotkey is also powerful enough to create full graphical user interfaces, so you can use AHK to create your own little utilities. Imagine creating a custom quick access launcher with shortcut icons to commonly used apps when you press a specific shortcut. Or your own unique canned response utility where you press a key to bring up a menu of responses that can be inserted into emails, productivity apps, etc. These are just a few examples that are simple and quick to create. AutoHotkey Vibe coding with AI is simple, too, and it feels like magic when it works… but it doesn’t always work on the first try. The simpler the software you want to create, the easier it is for an LLM to generate it—and not only that, but easier for you to troubleshoot any bugs that might arise. Because AutoHotkey scripts are short and simple, and because you can quickly test an AHK script to see if it’s working as intended, this is an excellent use case for AI-driven vibe coding. How to vibe-code an AutoHotkey script First, you need an idea. Then, before the actual coding part, you need to figure out if AutoHotkey can actually do what you want it to do. AutoHotkey is powerful, but it has limitations. Simply ask your AI model of choice: “Could you write an AutoHotkey script that [does whatever it is you want to do]?” If it responds in the negative, ask what similar things it can do instead. (Or simply ask for your desired AHK script anyway and see what happens!) Be very specific about what you want it to do. If it’s a simple request (for example, remapping your PC’s Copilot key to some other action), then it’ll probably succeed on the first try. But once you start getting into complicated territory (like adding a Recycle Bin to the system tray), you may have to go back and forth a while. Also, be sure to specify that you want an AutoHotkey v2 script. Both v1 and v2 versions are still available, but the older AHK v1 is deprecated. You might as well start with the current supported version! Chris Hoffman / Foundry Don’t know where to begin? Try these basic prompts: “Write an AHK v2 script that makes the Caps Lock key function as a Mute key unless I hold the Ctrl key. While I hold the Ctrl key, it functions as a normal Caps Lock key.” “Write an AHK v2 script that pops up a custom app launcher window with buttons to open Chrome, OneNote, Spotify, Steam, and my Documents folder. Make it open when I press Ctrl + Alt + L.” “Write an AHK v2 script that asks me to type a time like ’30s’ or ‘5m’ and then waits that long before showing a pop-up message saying ‘Time is up.’ Make it ask for a time when I press Ctrl + Alt + T.” Chris Hoffman / Foundry The vibe-coding process is normally a back-and-forth. You may want to make refinements. You will need to test the resulting script yourself and see if it works. If it doesn’t work the way you want it to—or if you encounter an error message—you’ll need to continue the conversation and explain that something isn’t working the way you want it to. The more complex your idea, the more likely you’ll have to go back and forth. Be specific! The more information you can share, the better the LLM can understand what you’re looking for. If you see an error message, copy-paste it and show the LLM. (Providing lots of context is the overall secret to using AI chatbots effectively.) How to run an AutoHotkey script AutoHotkey scripts are trivial to run. To get started, download and install AutoHotkey. Don’t worry, it’s free! I highly recommend AutoHotkey v2 because AutoHotkey v1.1 is obsolete. AutoHotkey scripts are just text files with an .ahk file extension. To create one, open Notepad (or any other text editor) and paste in the script text that’s generated by the LLM. Then, save it with the .ahk file extension (for example, script.ahk). Chris Hoffman / Foundry Double-click any AHK file in File Explorer and it’ll open in AutoHotkey. Now, you can test it. Does it work like you’d expect? Do you want it to do something different? Do you see any errors? In any of those cases, tell your LLM and continue the conversation. To update the script, just change the contents of the .ahk file in the same text editor, then save the file again. You’ll need to reload the script in AutoHotkey, too. (To reload AHK scripts, look for a green “H” icon in your system tray, right-click it, and select “Reload Script.”) Chris Hoffman / Foundry If you’d like the AHK script to run at startup, just add a shortcut to it to your user account’s startup folder. How would you change Windows? If you’ve always wanted Windows to work differently—like I did with the middle mouse button scrolling script—now’s your chance. You can add new features, change existing behaviors, and eradicate annoying system headaches, all without being a programmer. Thanks to the power of LLMs and vibe coding, you just need imagination. Subscribe to Chris Hoffman’s newsletter, The Windows ReadMe, for more Windows experiments. The AI may write the AutoHotkey scripts, but a real human writes this newsletter. Read...

Everyone knows what a password is. But we can’t say the same for two-factor authentication or passkeys, which is a shame because these two security features dramatically boost the safety of your online accounts. Using both is actually your best bet, but when to use one over the other can be confusing. If you don’t know much about 2FA or passkeys or you’re unsure which is better, this guide should clear that right up. What is 2FA? Two-factor authentication is a second layer of security you add to an account—think of it like another deadbolt on a door. In order to successfully log in, you must verify yourself a second time. Traditionally, a password (your first “factor”) is something you know. Your second “factor” is something you have (like a phone or a security key) or something you are (like a fingerprint). Two-factor authentication methods include one-time-use codes sent via text message or generated by an app, push notifications via phone app, and a hardware security key (e.g., a YubiKey). Hardware security keys like this YubiKey make 2FA very simple.Alaina Yee / Foundry Not all forms of 2FA are equally secure. Text message codes are the weakest due to the security weaknesses of SMS and mobile phone line porting. (For example, text messages can be intercepted via SS7 attacks, while a SIM jack can steal your phone number from under your nose.) Hardware security keys are the strongest. An attacker would need physical access to the dongle to use it. What is a passkey? A passkey is actually a set of encryption keys used for account authentication. It’s a form of asymmetric encryption (aka public-key cryptography) based on the WebAuthn standard. Creating a passkey generates a unique public-private key pair, bound to the device and website it was made for. The website stores the public key. You keep the private key, which always remains secret—though part of the authentication process, it’s never directly shared. It can’t be derived from the public key, either. You can store a passkey in several ways. For more convenience, save them to a cloud-based password manager. Such a service can be the one built-in to your Google or Microsoft account, or an independent company like Bitwarden or Dashlane. For greater security, save them to a specific device like your Windows PC (not your Microsoft account) or a hardware security key. You can secure a passkey in several ways. You can also create more than one passkey for an account, in case you need backup methods of logging in.PCWorld You can create more than one passkey per account. Though each is unique, they still serve as backups for one another—in the sense that if you lose one, you can still log in with a different one. Making more than one passkey to store on different devices is smart, because you can lose a phone or security key, or have your laptop stolen. And recently, the group behind passkeys (the FIDO Alliance) enabled support for passkey transfers—so if supported by your password managers, you can move between ecosystems or services with little hassle.(Currently, only a handful of password managers support passkey portability, with Apple as the biggest participant. But the list continues to expand.) To use a passkey, you must first initiate an authentication request on the site you’re logging into. (Basically, choose the option for signing in with a passkey.) Then you’ll use biometrics like your fingerprint or a PIN to authorize use of your passkey. Security experts consider biometrics more secure, but privacy experts advise a PIN in certain circumstances. (For example, in the United States, the government cannot compel you to share a PIN, but biometric data is not protected in the same way.) So, which is better? Fun fact about passkeys and 2FA—they’re not mutually exclusive! A website or app can choose to allow you to enable 2FA in addition to a passkey for login. However, you won’t find this combination much at all, at least for now. (Amazon is the only major website I’ve seen that still asks for 2FA codes after using a passkey.) If 2FA is enabled, Amazon will still text a one-time use code to your phone after successfully logging in with a passkey.Mark Hachman / IDG Why? A passkey is inherently more secure than a password, since it can’t be stolen or easily shared like passwords. It also blends both information you have (a private cryptography key) and something you are or know (either biometrics or a PIN). Two-factor authentication becomes less necessary to protect against phishing, credential stuffing, and other common attacks that rely on weak or compromised passwords. So our showdown here is more about when best to use one or the either—if you even get the choice. 2FA vs Passkeys: Convenience You can make 2FA pretty seamless — my favorite trick for this is to use a hardware security key and leave it plugged into your PC. Any time you need to authenticate for 2FA, you just touch the key. Meanwhile, a passkey works across all devices without extra setup or purchases, assuming you’re signed up for a free cloud storage service. A Microsoft account will be the most seamless way to get started for PC users, but a Google, Apple, or even Bitwarden account works great too. Ultimately, what’s best for you will be based on personal preference. But for most people, the win goes to passkeys for how cheap (free!) and easy they are to set up and use. Winner: Passkeys 2FA vs Passkey: Security First, so we don’t lose sight of the big picture—any form of two-factor authentication is better than no 2FA. That said, 2FA is only as secure as the method you choose. As mentioned above, text messages (SMS) have exploitable weaknesses. Push notifications are a little better, but they too can be compromised by hackers. If a bad actor knows your password, they can try an MFA fatigue attacks to get into your account—that is, spamming you with successful password use, hoping you accidentally approve a 2FA push notification request during the deluge. I recommend starting with app-generated one-time codes, since they cannot be easily compromised or attacked. But they’re still vulnerable to phishing attacks, where an attacker can steal your 2FA code after you input it into a fake website they control. (This very kind of attack managed to trip up a security guru earlier this year.) The strongest method of 2FA is a hardware security token, which requires human touch to work—and are encrypted in a way not easily compromised. An attacker would need physical access to use such a security key. Meanwhile, for passkeys, its pair of encryption keys are theoretically not crackable by today’s computers. However, storing them in a cloud-based password manager does run a theoretical risk. If that account becomes compromised, your passkeys could be used across the web by the attacker—or ported to another service you don’t control. So in my opinion, this head-to-head works out to a draw. Both of these methods greatly improve security in their own ways, but cannot be compared directly. Also, not all websites support both two-factor authentication and passkeys, so you may not have a choice. I think of these more as complementary security options, rather than head-to-head competitors. That said, if you don’t use strong passwords and will also realistically never turn on 2FA, then passkeys win every time. Winner: Draw 2FA vs Passkey: Price Passkeys are free. The ways you store them may not be. (Maybe you like hardware security keys best.) Many forms of 2FA are free, too. But again, how you approach them could require extra devices. For example, I know individuals who maintain a second cheap cell phone line, used exclusively for 2FA text codes. (Some banks don’t offer other methods of 2FA.) They never share the number, so it can’t be associated with them publicly, and thus minimizes the risk of a successful SIM jacking attack. But paying to use either is optional, even if you don’t own a smartphone. My take? For each person, the winner of this comes down to what forms of 2FA are available to you, your take on security versus convenience, and the supported security features of the websites and apps you use. Plus, how paranoid you are about losing your primary and secondary forms of 2FA or the device(s) with passkeys stored on them. But broadly speaking, I think it’s a draw—convenience and security will play bigger roles in which one you choose. Winner: Draw Read...

TL;DR: For just $14.97, get a lifetime license to Microsoft Windows 11 Pro (MSRP $199). Still cruising on Windows 10 and pretending nothing’s broken? Relatable—“Remind me later” is muscle memory. But support for Windows 10 just officially ended. With this deal, you can finally make the jump to Windows 11 Pro for just $14.97. That’s a full-fledged, professional-grade operating system for the price of two fancy lattes. First of all, Windows 11 Pro is smooth. Like, way smoother than its predecessors. The redesigned interface is clean, centered, and customizable, which is great for focus and flow. Plus, it comes with features that make multitasking feel like second nature: snap layouts, virtual desktops, and lightning-fast search tools. You get enterprise-grade features like BitLocker encryption, Windows Hello biometric login, and TPM 2.0 compatibility — all designed to protect your work, files, and peace of mind. And Windows Copilot is now baked in, meaning you can ask for help, automate tasks, summarize web pages, or even brainstorm new ideas, all from your desktop. If you’re a developer, creative, remote worker, or small business owner, Windows 11 Pro is an upgrade that can give you a serious productivity boost. Don’t miss upgrading to Windows 11 Pro while it’s on sale for just $14.97 (MSRP $199) for a limited time. Microsoft Windows 11 ProSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...