MONIMEGA
  • Blog
    • Politics
    • Software
    • Technology
    • Business
    • Design
    • Hardware
    • Health
    • Italy
    • Music
    • Sports
    • Strategy
    • World
  • Contatto
  • Galleria
  • Informazioni
  • Servizi
  • Huawei shows off AI computing system to rival Nvidia's top product – Reuters

    July 26, 2025
    World

    Huawei shows off AI computing system to rival Nvidia’s top product

      Reuters


    Source: “site:reuters.com” – Google News.

  • Best Noise-Canceling Headphones: Sony, Bose, Apple, and More

    Best Noise-Canceling Headphones: Sony, Bose, Apple, and More

    July 26, 2025
    Technology

    All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.

    Best Noise-Canceling Headphones

    Sony WH-1000XM6

    Read more

    $450

    Amazon

    A Close Second

    Bose QuietComfort Ultra

    Read more

    $449

    Amazon

    Best Noise-Canceling Earbuds

    Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds

    Read more

    $299

    Amazon

    Best Cheap Noise-Canceling Headphones

    Sony WH-CH720N

    Read more

    $148 $115 (22% off)

    Amazon

    Show more

    4 / 14

    world and sinking into a new album can feel like a train ride through the countryside … unless you’re sharing that seat with two toddlers. Or if your neighbor’s dog is barking. Come to think of it, there are a lot of sounds that can ruin a good song. That’s why we have headphones that isolate and cancel-out noise. Below are the best noise-canceling headphones and earbuds you can buy, handpicked and tested by the Gear team here at WIRED.

    Our top pick right now is the Sony WH-1000XM6, which offer some of the most staggering isolation we’ve ever experienced in a pair of headphones. The Bose QuietComfort Ultra are a close second, with similarly impressive quietude, and there are plenty more options at all price points to help you find the right fit. For more, check out our guides on the Best Wireless Earbuds, Best Workout Headphones, Best Cheap Headphones, and Best Wireless Headphones.

    Updated July 2025: We’ve added the Sony WH-1000XM6 and Nothing Headphone (1) and updated pricing and copy throughout with the latest information.

    • Image may contain Electronics Headphones Dining Table Furniture and Table
      Photograph: Ryan Waniata

      Sony

      WH-1000XM6

      $450

      Amazon

      $450

      Sony

      The latest in the 1000X series of Sony headphones had a big job taking on Bose’s QC Ultra headphones for the title of the best noise-canceling headphones you can buy. It was close, but in the end, the Sony WH-1000XM6 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) took down Bose with noise canceling that meets or pushes just past them in the majority of our tests, lightning-fast response by way of improved processing, and sound quality that’s among the best you can buy.

      These premium headphones keep all the best from their XM5 predecessors, including tons of features, a multiband EQ, and the best touch controls in the business, along with a new foldable design for easier travel. They’ve got the goods, and they’re priced accordingly. Your move, Bose. —Ryan Waniata

      Battery Life Noise Canceling (1-10)
      30 hours (ANC on), 40 hours (ANC off). 10
    • A Close Second

      White Bose Noise Cancelling Wireless Headphones sitting atop carrying case
      Photograph: Ryan Waniata

      Bose

      QuietComfort Ultra

      $449

      Amazon

      $449

      Walmart

      $449

      Bose

      What Bose doesn’t know about active noise-canceling headphones isn’t worth knowing, frankly. With the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (9/10, WIRED Recommends), the company has managed to improve on its own giddily high standards. These headphones do a simply remarkable job on external annoyances, leaving you in splendid isolation to enjoy the balanced, poised, and articulate sound they serve up. They’re on the pricey side when compared to their most obvious competitors, but with these Bose you get exactly what you’re paying for. Frequent fliers and the like should form an orderly queue. —Simon Lucas

      Battery Life Noise Canceling (1-10)
      18 hours (ANC on), 24 hours (ANC off). 9.5
    • Best Noise-Canceling Earbuds

      White Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds next to charging case
      Photograph: Ryan Waniata

      Bose

      QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds

      $299

      Amazon

      $299

      Bose

      It bears repeating: Bose is the absolute master of active noise-canceling technology. The QuietComfort Ultra earbuds are just the latest demonstration of the company’s expertise. Get these earbuds positioned just so, set them up to your satisfaction using the excellent control app, and the outside world need never bother you again. It almost goes without saying that the sound you’ll enjoy is big, bold, and vivid—which is something else Bose knows all about. —Simon Lucas

      Battery Life Noise Canceling (1-10)
      6 hours (ANC on), 18 hours in case. 8
    • Best Cheap Noise-Canceling Headphones

      Sony WHCH720N headphones
      Photograph: Amazon

      Sony

      WH-CH720N

      $148 $115 (22% off)

      Amazon

      $150 $116 (23% off)

      Best Buy

      Sony may rule the “premium wireless noise cancelers” roost, but that doesn’t mean it’s ignored the less well-off among us. The WH-CH720 are sensational value for the money: properly built and finished, with accomplished active noise-canceling skills and big, burly sound quality. Yes, it would be nice if they folded up and/or came with a protective case, but you can’t expect everything when you’re paying such a competitive price. If you want more than a taste of the high end of the market without actually having to pay for it, you really can’t go wrong here. —Simon Lucas

      Battery Life Noise Canceling (1-10)
      35 hours (ANC on), 50 hours (ANC off). 7
    • Best Headphones for Calls

      Image may contain Electronics Mobile Phone Phone and Headphones
      Photograph: Ryan Waniata

      JBL

      Tour One M3 Smart Tx

      $450

      Amazon

      $450

      Walmart

      $450

      JBL

      JBL’s third pair of Tour One headphones (8/10, WIRED Recommends) have a lot going for them, from a crazy comfy fit to a powerful mic system for top-notch call quality. JBL’s noise canceling has always been solid, but its latest ANC headphones are special, matching some of the best pairs I’ve tested, with only our top two picks as notable upgrades. They pair that with clear and stylized sound, LDAC streaming, and plenty of EQ presets. JBL piles on the features, with options like spatial audio, Smart Talk voice pausing, and volume limiter settings to promote hearing health.

      The most intriguing get is the new Smart Tx transmitter, which transmits audio over virtually any plugged-in source. You can stream to the M3, of course, but Auracast lets any compatible speaker or pair of headphones join in, which could be handy for a long flight with your SO. Auracast is still rare, and the M3 demand a high price compared to the M2, but their loaded layout and future-proofing features make them a unique option at the front of the noise-canceling pack. —Ryan Waniata

      (Note: These headphones have recently risen from their $400 launch price to $450. We’ve reached out to JBL for more information.)

      Battery Life Noise Canceling (1-10)
      30 hours (ANC on), 50 hours (ANC off). 8
    • Best Headphones for Working Out

      Left Selfie of a person with short hair wearing Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 earbuds in orange. Right curved aroundtheear...
      Photograph: Ryan Waniata

      Beats

      Powerbeats Pro 2

      $249

      Amazon

      $249

      Walmart

      $250

      Best Buy

      $250

      Apple

      The Powerbeats Pro 2 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) are a full-scale update, which includes modern touches like a heart rate monitor based on the Apple Watch and standards the original lacked, like transparency mode and—of course—noise canceling. Their solid cancellation skills can’t match the best like Bose’s QC Ultra buds, but they hold their own against plenty of rivals at this price and above, including Sony’s WF-1000XM5.

      Thanks to the H2 chip, they work brilliantly with Apple gear with features like iCloud device switching, Find My functionality, and hands-free Siri, while extras for Android devices include a dedicated Bluetooth app and one-touch pairing. You’ll also get convenient (if touchy) controls, excellent battery life, and brash sound with a side of hi-fi. Maybe most importantly, their ironclad fit is graciously comfy, making them excellent for working out, checking out, and everything in between. —Ryan Waniata

      Battery Life Noise Canceling (1-10)
      10 hours (ANC on), 35 hours in case. 7
    • Best Noise-Canceling Headphones for iOS

      Light grey AirPods Max headphones with black strap placed partially on a puzzle
      Photograph: Brenda Stolyar

      Apple

      AirPods Max (USB-C)

      $549 $450 (18% off)

      Amazon

      $549

      Apple

      If you use an iPhone and you are willing to pay a premium, the Apple AirPods Max (8/10, WIRED Recommends) are a fantastic choice. They are probably among the best wireless headphones you’ll have ever heard, but astonishing fidelity isn’t the only reason to buy the company’s flagship cans. Excellent pairing and connection with Apple devices, top-notch noise reduction, and some of the finest build quality you’ll find this side of $1,000 make these a great pair for most people.

      The USB-C version recently added lossless audio transmission over a wired connection, though after testing it, we think most folks will get more from plugging in, including with Spotify streams, than from the hi-res tracks themselves. Either way, you’re getting a great package. The only thing not to like? The included soft case does very little to protect the headphones when they’re not on your head.

      Battery Life Noise Canceling (1-10)
      20 hours. 8.5
    • Best Earbuds for iOS

      Apple AirPods Pro 2 two white earbuds in an open oval shaped case sitting on a wooden surface
      Photograph: Christopher Null

      Apple

      AirPods Pro 2 (With USB-C)

      $249 $199 (20% off)

      Amazon

      $240 $199 (17% off)

      Walmart

      $249

      Apple

      AirPods are middling, but the AirPods Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends) are a different story. This is the second generation of the buds, and they have the same great fit and noise-canceling tech as the first generation, with better audio quality. One of their best traits is constant improvement, including OTA additions like Adaptive Audio, which transitions between noise canceling and transparency mode based on background noises, and a new hearing aid feature. This version also has an improved codec, in case you end up using it with your new Vision Pro headset, as well as USB-C charging.

      Battery Life Noise Canceling (1-10)
      5.5 hours, 24 hours in case. 7
    • The Best Looking Noise-Canceling Headphones

      • Photograph: Parker Hall
      • Image may contain Electronics and Headphones
        Photograph: Parker Hall
      • Image may contain Adult Person Accessories Glasses Head Face Electronics and Beard
        Photograph: Parker Hall

      Nothing

      Headphone (1)

      $299

      Amazon

      $299

      Nothing

      These retro-futuristic headphones from Nothing are some of the best-looking headphones I have ever tried. Whether you’re going with the flashy Storm Trooper white or the subtle see-through black, they are extremely stylish, and come with a set of the finest buttons I have ever used on a pair of headphones. A scroll wheel on the right earcup helps you adjust volume and play or pause tracks, with a switch below it that lets you flip between songs, or even scroll through commercials in a podcast. Noise canceling is solid, with these headphones offering some of the best passive noise isolation that I’ve seen, coupled with high-tier active sound reduction. Sound is by the British audio brand KEF, which allows these headphones to punch above their weight on audio, especially in the low end.

      Battery Life Noise Canceling (1-10)
      35 hours (ANC on), 80 hours (ANC off). 8
    • Best Headphones for Home Theater

      Black overtheear headphones with cushioned band
      Photograph: Sonos

      Sonos

      Ace

      $395

      Amazon

      $449 $299 (33% off)

      Sonos

      $449 $299 (33% off)

      Best Buy

      The Sonos Ace (8/10, WIRED Recommends) launched with lofty expectations, yet their mix of luxe comfort, smooth sound, and top-tier noise canceling still caught us off guard. Their significant skills put them in regal company with the likes of Bose and Sony. Those points aside, their most intriguing feature, the ability to instantly swap TV audio from a Sonos soundbar, was buggy at launch (along with the rest of the Sonos app).

      Since then, Sonos has put in the work, and I’ve been able to seamlessly “swap” sound between the Ace and the Sonos Arc and Arc Ultra soundbars with minimal latency. The natural transparency mode and head tracking effectively mimic a home theater experience, and Sonos has added support for the Beam and Ray soundbars. It’s still not the Wi-Fi experience we were hoping for, but even on their own, the Ace’s serious skills make them well worth considering. —Ryan Waniata

      Battery Life Noise Canceling (1-10)
      30 hours (ANC on). 8.5
    • Best Headphones for Audiophiles

      Image may contain Electronics and Headphones
      Photograph: Parker Hall

      Focal

      Bathys MG

      $1,499

      Sweetwater

      $1,499

      B&H

      If money is no object, this pair from French hi-fi brand Focal (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is the best. The magnesium and aluminum headphones—with custom French-made drivers and super soft earpads and headband—offer listeners some of the best wireless audio I have ever heard. From deep lows to crisp highs, these resemble their more expensive, corded brethren but allow you to listen in planes, trains, and automobiles without toting along an external digital-to-analog converter or special audio player.

      Noise canceling is great, as is comfort while traveling, with the soft leather ear cups keeping me cozy for everything from short trips out of town to long international flights. The included DAC mode is a great option for higher-end listeners who don’t want to bring accessories for a fantastic listening experience on the go. I even like the adjustable lights on the outside of each ear cup.

      Battery Life Noise Canceling (1-10)
      35 hours (ANC on), 42 hours (ANC off). 8
    • Best Earbuds for Sound Quality

      Image may contain Art Porcelain and Pottery
      Photograph: Ryan Waniata

      Technics

      EAH-AZ100

      $291

      Amazon

      $300

      Technics

      $300

      Crutchfield

      Technics’ AZ100 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) offer middle-rung noise canceling for their price point, but that’s still more than enough for most situations. They effectively quell annoyances like construction clamor, lawn mowers, and HVAC hum. They have a bit more trouble with higher-register noises, but their fabulous sound quality makes up for it, thanks to new ferro-fluid magnetic drivers that dig deep into instrumental textures and plenty of bass. Features like three-device multipoint pairing and up to 10 hours of playback with noise canceling make these stylish buds a sweet ride. —Ryan Waniata

      Battery Life Noise Canceling (1-10)
      10 hours (ANC on), 12 hours (ANC off), 18 hours in case. 7
    • Best Cheap Noise-Cancelling Earbuds

      Soundpeats Capsule 3 Pro Plus black and gold earbuds with white cushions hovering over a closed black ovalshaped case
      Photograph: Amazon

      Soundpeats

      Capsule3 Pro+

      $100 $80 (20% off)

      Amazon

      $130 $90 (31% off)

      Soundpeats

      These unassuming buds from Soundpeats offer surprisingly good noise canceling and features for the money. That’s a great start, but their real superpower is stellar sound quality, which helped earn them a perfect 10/10 review score. Using a combination dynamic driver for bass and a next-gen xMEMS driver for the midrange and treble, you’ll find gloriously rich, clear, and balanced fidelity across your catalog. They fill things out with solid battery life and a helpful app for a great experience at a surprisingly low price. —Ryan Waniata

      Battery Life Noise Canceling (1-10)
      6.5 hours (ANC on), 36.5 hours in case. 6.5
    • Best Noise-Canceling Headphones on Sale

      Sony WH1000MX5 headphones
      Photograph: Sony

      Sony

      WH-1000XM5

      $400 $300 (25% off)

      Amazon

      $398

      Walmart

      $398

      B&H Photo

      The fifth-generation Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones (9/10, WIRED Recommends) are still among the best wireless headphones around, now often found at a killer discount. These headphones offer excellent noise cancellation, super customizable sound, and fantastic battery life. The sound is more absorbing than most options in their class, with a more energetic feel than the less dynamic models that came before. They’re simple yet stylish and comfy for all-day wear.

      Battery Life Noise Canceling (1-10)
      30 hours (ANC on). 8.5

    Honorable Mentions

    Now that the majority of new headphones and earbuds offer at least a modicum of noise canceling, it’d be impossible (and unproductive) to list everything we like above. If you haven’t yet found your fit, here are more favorites worth considering.

    Beyerdynamic Amiron 300 for $280: These simple-looking earbuds (8/10, WIRED Recommends) are a great way to experience quiet luxury. They have 10 hours of battery life with noise canceling engaged, and they have some of the best-sounding drivers for vocals I’ve heard in any earbuds.

    Sony WF-1000XM5 earbuds for $298: Sony’s fifth-generation flagship earbuds (7/10, WIRED Recommends) slim down while stepping up. These buds are smaller and slicker (maybe too slick when it comes to grabbing them) than the previous XM4 buds. As before, they provide great sound and noise canceling that outduels plenty of options, with a cost to match. In true Sony style, they serve up a truckload of adaptive features and EQ controls while retaining a solid eight hours of playback time per charge with ANC and 12 hours without it. —Ryan Waniata

    Soundcore Life Q30 for $60-85: Anker’s Soundcore line is nothing if not value-conscious, and the Life Q30 provide an embarrassing list of extras for their bargain-basement pricing. You’ll get clear and warm sound, great features, tons of battery life, and noise canceling that gets the job done even on a long flight, though it can’t keep up with flagship pairs. It’s hard to complain when they cost hundreds less, especially with sale pricing that sometimes drops to around $50.

    Sony WH-1000XM4 for $250-350: Sony’s WH-1000X lineup has produced some of the best noise-canceling headphones for nearly a decade, and the aging WH-1000XM4 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) are no exception. They periodically go on sale for under $300, but it’s getting harder to find them below full price, which is tough for a five-year-old model.

    Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 Earbuds for $400: Bowers & Wilkins’ Pi8 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) offer a sleek, comfortable design, solid (albeit not Bose-beating) noise canceling, and great sound. Call quality is also excellent, which makes these perhaps the perfect business-class earbuds, though their hefty price won’t appeal to everyone.

    Bowers and Wilkins PX7 S2e for $400: The Px7 S2e feature upgraded audio quality for fantastic sound in stylish and sophisticated design. They’re also among the most comfortable headphones we’ve tested, but their noise canceling doesn’t rise to the level of the top players for the money.

    Beyerdynamic Aventho 300 for $400: These over-ears from Beyerdynamic (7/10, WIRED Recommends) have the brand’s classic studio sound, with a tight crisp high range and punchy lows. The downside is that they don’t cancel noise quite as well as models from Sony, Bose, and others above. Still, they sound great and are worth considering, especially if you can snag them on sale.

    Soundcore Space A40 for $60: Another top value buy from Anker’s Soundcore brand, the Space A40 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) are some of our favorite cheap earbuds, especially as their price continues to fall. You’ll find a classy design, lots of features, quality sound, and great noise canceling for their class.

    Apple Beats Fit Pro for $199: The Beats Fit Pro are an aging but still knockout pair of wireless buds, with great sound, easy-access physical buttons, and solid noise canceling to boot. Add to that six hours of battery life, spatial audio compatibility with Apple Music and other services, and you’ve got one of the best pairs of earbuds ever “designed in California.”

    Epos/Sennheiser Adapt 660 for $210: Want excellent sound, a comfortable fit, and high-quality noise-canceling tech for less than what you’d pay for Sony or Bose headphones? Check out this collaboration between Epos and Sennheiser. The Epos/Sennheiser Adapt 660 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) sound fantastic and are some of the lightest noise-canceling headphones I’ve ever worn. They also feature excellent microphones for great silence on calls and Zooms.


    Power up with unlimited access to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting and exclusive subscriber content that’s too important to ignore. Subscribe Today.


    Source: Wired.

  • Matroda – House x Pressure (Extended Mix)

    Matroda – House x Pressure (Extended Mix)

    July 26, 2025
    Music

    Applying serious pressure with the latest from Matroda: ‘House x Pressure’. 🔥 Subscribe and enable alerts (🔔) for a new track upload daily! Spotify playlist ▶︎ https://spoti.fi/2XkCG4O 🫵 DJ & producer recommendations: »» 20% discount on all sample packs (use code NYX20) ➡ https://techhousemarket.com »» 20% discount on all vocal packs (use code NYX20) ➡ https://vocalfy.com »» Support the artist and buy records ➡ https://beatport.com/?a_aid=67bedae00dabb »» Fresh new tech house samples & loops ➡ https://loopcloud.com/?a_aid=67bedae00dabb Connect with NYX: »» https://instagram.com/themythofnyx »» https://soundcloud.com/themythofnyx »» https://twitter.com/themythofnyx »» https://facebook.com/themythofnyx Connect with Matroda: »» https://facebook.com/matrodamusic »» https://soundcloud.com/matrodamusic »» https://twitter.com/matrodamusic »» https://instagram.com/matrodamusic Tags: #matroda #housexpressure #techhouse #extendedmix #themythofnyx


    Source: YouTube.

  • Here are the laptops I’d tell any parent to consider for their back-to-school student

    Here are the laptops I’d tell any parent to consider for their back-to-school student

    July 26, 2025
    Hardware
    An illustration of various laptops against and blue and pink background.

    We’re in the heart of summer fun, but it’s already time for back-to-school planning, especially if that involves buying a new laptop.

    The dizzying number of different laptops and configurations can feel overwhelming, especially if you want something that doesn’t cost too much but will still last a long time. My general guidelines are to first pick the operating system you need (based on personal preference or class requirements), and then get the best specs you can afford. If your school has specific requirements or recommendations, they are likely found on the school website. A quality laptop should also have a good screen, keyboard, and trackpad — and preferably enough ports and some decent speakers.

    Unless you’re buying a Chromebook, aim for an M4 processor (for Macs) or an Intel Core Ultra 5 or 7, an AMD Ryzen AI 300 series, or a Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor on a Windows machine, especially if you want your laptop to last at least four years. Aim for at least 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. If your budget allows for more RAM or storage then go for it, especially if neither is user-replaceable — it’ll help with performance and longevity. If you have to choose based on budget, prioritize RAM, since external storage is easily available.

    Taking much of that into account, here are our top picks among current laptops.

    Apple MacBook Air 13 (2025, M4)

    Score: 9

    Pros Cons
    • Easily lasts a full day on battery
    • Excellent choice for most people’s everyday needs
    • Nails the basics in a thin-and-light while feeling like a nice place to be
    • Still starts with just 256GB of storage
    • Still has limited ports
    • Still prone to throttling under heavy creative tasks

    Where to Buy:

    • $999 $849 at Amazon
    • $999 $849 at Best Buy
    • $999 $949 at B&H Photo

    Unless you’re going into a field involving lots of graphics rendering or video editing, a MacBook Air should be more than enough computer to last through the student years. The Air is our top laptop recommendation for most people, and that includes students — particularly students in high school or starting college. Nothing else offers quite the same balance of performance, build quality, and battery life as Apple’s entry-level laptop. It’s a speedy little machine that can even handle some heftier content creation work. Its battery can easily get you through a packed day of classes. And it has the best trackpad around. The only major downside with an Air (as with all modern MacBooks) is that you can’t upgrade the storage or memory after you buy it.

    Now that MacBooks start with 16GB of RAM, even the base $999 13-inch model is excellent, if a little short on storage space at 256GB. So you may want to consider the $1,199 model with 512GB of storage. For the same price you can get the larger 15-inch model with roomier screen real estate and even better speakers, but then you’re once again starting with 256GB.

    Apple MacBook Air 15 (2025, M4)

    Score: 9

    Pros Cons
    • Easily lasts a full day on battery
    • Excellent choice for most people’s everyday needs
    • Nails the basics in a thin-and-light while feeling like a nice place to be
    • Louder speakers over its smaller counterpart
    • Still starts with just 256GB of storage
    • Still has limited ports
    • Still prone to throttling under heavy creative tasks

    Where to Buy:

    • $1199 $1049 at Amazon
    • $1199 $1049 at Best Buy
    • $1199 $1069 at B&H Photo
    Read our review of the M4 MacBook Air.

    A note on older M-series Airs:

    The original M1 MacBook Air can still be bought new from Walmart for $649 or less. Even at five years old, it remains a very good machine for those on tighter budgets, but it’s worth hunting for a deal on an M2 MacBook Air or newer if you can. That lingering M1 only has 8GB of RAM, and newer M2 and M3 versions have MagSafe chargers, better keyboards, and markedly better screens. You can often find one with 16GB of RAM for just a bit more than the M1, and it’ll be better for the long haul.

    The best student laptop for serious content creation

    Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2024, M4)

    Score: 9

    Pros Cons
    • Everything good about last year’s model but better 
    • All the I/O of the pricier MacBook Pros
    • More RAM
    • New webcam is sharp and clear
    • Nano-texture display is a nice add-on
    • Desk View webcam feature is low-res and overly distorted
    • Space black finish can still be a little smudgy
    • Apple’s price structure may still have you longing for M4 Pro / Max

    Where to Buy:

    • $1599 $1432.75 at Amazon (16GB RAM, 512GB SSD)
    • $1599 $1549 at B&H Photo (16GB RAM, 512GB SSD)
    • $1799 $1609.66 at Amazon (16GB RAM, 1TB SSD)

    MacBook Pros have long been a staple on college campuses for students in creative fields, and the latest base version is one of the best laptops Apple has cooked up in years. Apple’s base model 14-inch MacBook Pro is a step up from the MacBook Air, with the same M4 chip. Its starting price of $1,599 is a significant jump from a $999 Air, but you get better performance and a bunch of worthwhile upgrades. The Pro has more ports than the Air, including an SD card reader and HDMI 2.1. Its screen is a nicer Mini LED panel with higher resolution and faster refresh rate. It’s got more ports, including an SD card reader and HDMI 2.1. It starts with 512GB of storage. And its battery lasts even longer. 

    These upgrades go a long way in making the MacBook Pro better and more futureproof for heavier creative tasks. Especially since it has a fan to cool its chip, allowing you to use content creation apps like the Adobe Creative Cloud suite for longer — the passively cooled Air starts off fast in these apps, but slows down considerably once its chip starts getting too hot.

    Apple has two higher-end MacBook Pros: the 14- and 16-inch models running M4 Pro and M4 Max chips. They’re fantastic laptops with even more processing power than the base M4, plus upgrades like Thunderbolt 5 ports, but they start at $1,999 and $3,199, respectively. An M4 Pro model is a more futureproof option, but these are better fit for a working professional than a student.

    Read our review of the 14-inch MacBook Pro M4.

    The best modular laptops you can upgrade yourself

    Framework Laptop 13 (2025, AMD Ryzen AI 7 350)

    Score: 9

    Pros Cons
    • Still the repairability champ with excellent, modular port selection
    • Faster CPU performance over both Intel and previous AMD models
    • High-res 3:2 aspect ratio screen is great for productivity
    • Thin, light, and an overall great package
    • Radeon 860M iGPU performance is a little lacking
    • Trackpad still feels a little cheap
    • Screen is a little lacking in contrast and color quality
    • Less repairable laptops offer more for similar prices or less

    Where to Buy:

    • $899 at Framework

    The Framework Laptop 13 and 2-in-1 Laptop 12 are notebooks that can grow and change with you. They’re easily repairable, and even years down the road you should be able to upgrade the RAM, storage, ports, and the entire mainboard and processor. They even have optional DIY editions, requiring some easy assembly — which I assure you is a joyously nerdy way to familiarize yourself with the inner workings of your laptop. There’s nothing else like them, and if you or your kid are the tinkering types it’s a fun experience for running either Windows or Linux.

    But you don’t have to be going for a computer engineering degree. Even a newcomer can appreciate how Framework allows you to choose modular ports and swap them out at will. You can go all USB-C like a MacBook Air, or you can get funky by mixing and matching USB-A, DisplayPort, HDMI, SD / microSD card readers, and even an ethernet port. 

    You just have to be willing to pay extra for the Frameworks’ modularity, upgradeability, and easy repairability, as they cost more than equivalent or better-specced laptops from other manufacturers. The newer Laptop 12 isn’t as good a choice for most people because of its price and older Intel chips, but its shock-resistant chassis and convertible tablet form factor make it even more uniquely appealing for younger kids.

    Framework Laptop 12

    Score: 7

    Pros Cons
    • Easy repairs and potential upgrades
    • Fun design
    • Rubberized TPU edges make it more resilient for kids
    • Modular ports with internal “child locks”
    • Not exactly cheap, especially with more RAM and storage
    • Aging processor, starts with 8GB of RAM
    • Chunky bezels
    • No Windows Hello unlocking

    Where to Buy:

    • $799 at Framework
    Read our reviews of the Framework Laptop 13 and Laptop 12.

    A Windows laptop or tablet with amazing battery

    Microsoft Surface Laptop, 13-inch

    Score: 8

    Pros Cons
    • Exquisite hardware that feels great to touch and use
    • Very good keyboard and one of the best mechanical trackpads
    • Battery can stretch to 1.5 days (with native Arm apps)
    • 3:2 aspect ratio screen is ideal for productivity
    • Webcam doesn’t support Windows Hello
    • Loss of magnetic charging port
    • Snapdragon X still has app and game compatibility issues that competing chips do not
    • Why have Home, Page Up, and Page Down keys instead of media controls?

    Where to Buy:

    • $899.99 at Microsoft
    • $899.99 at Best Buy

    The latest, lower-cost Surfaces from Microsoft are great machines with excellent battery life, great standby times when left asleep, and solid performance. They’re Arm-based, which is what gives them that excellent battery life, but can lead to some app compatibility issues. Most common programs run fine, either natively or native-like via emulation. Just do your homework; if certain classes require specific apps, check to make sure they’ll run.

    The 12-inch Surface Pro (starting at $799.99) and 13-inch Laptop (starting at $899.99) are well constructed, ultra-portable machines that feel very nice to use. Despite being the cheaper Windows laptops in this list, neither feels like a diminished experience (save for some odd design choices, like a lack of face unlock in the Laptop). 

    You can look at it as simply picking your preferred form factor: a traditional clamshell laptop or a convertible tablet with keyboard cover. The Laptop is the better buy, because the Surface Pro’s must-buy keyboard cover is an extra $150 (or $250 bundled with the stylus) — meaning its true starting price is around $850. 

    Microsoft Surface Pro 12-inch

    Microsoft’s latest Surface Pro is smaller, with a new design and updated keyboard. It’s powered by Qualcomm’s Arm64 Snapdragon X Plus chip. Read our review.

    Score: 8

    Pros Cons
    • Beautiful fanless design
    • Great battery life
    • The keyboard is a lot sturdier
    • Windows still needs a better UX in tablet mode
    • The thick display bezels
    • No haptic touchpad

    Where to Buy:

    • $799.99 $729.99 at Walmart
    • $799.99 at Best Buy
    Read our reviews of the Surface Laptop 13-inch and Surface Pro 12-inch.

    The hands-down best Chromebook

    Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14

    Score: 9

    Pros Cons
    • Beautiful OLED screen, even at $649
    • Marathon battery life
    • Speedy performance with fanless design
    • Good-sounding speakers
    • USB ports are only 5Gbps
    • Trackpad, while solid, has a slightly loud click
    • Webcam sometimes exhibits a green color cast
    • ChromeOS app compatibility / performance can still be frustrating (e.g., Zoom and Slack)

    Where to Buy:

    • $749 at Best Buy
    • $749 at Lenovo

    If you need or prefer a Chromebook for school and favor a traditional clamshell laptop, the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 is the best one. It’s a great Chromebook for older students, and a solid machine for just about anyone who wants a no-nonsense everyday computer. For $750 you get a fantastic touchscreen OLED display with deep contrast and vivid colors, a great keyboard, and marathon battery life. It’s a package that’s well built and totally silent thanks to a fanless design.

    The Arm-based MediaTek processor is what gives the Lenovo its zippy performance and battery stretching into a second day of use. It can also lead to some small compatibility issues if you venture into using Linux apps (they need to be Arm compatible), but that’s unlikely to affect most users.

    The Chromebook Plus 14 has some other small flaws, like lackluster 5Gbps data speeds on its USB ports and an only-okay trackpad, but it nails most everything else. And, again, paying only $750 for a 14-inch OLED panel this nice is a rare treat. 

    Read our review of the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14.

    The best 2-in-1 convertible Chromebook

    Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714 (2024)

    Acer’s Spin Chromebook is configured with Intel’s first generation of processor with an NPU. It also has Google Gemini baked right into the OS, and if you sign up for a new Google One AI premium plan, your first year of service is free.
    Pros Cons
    • The best convertible Chromebook experience
    • Speedy Thunderbolt 4 ports
    • Faster RAM than previous gen
    • No fingerprint sensor
    • A little pricey when not discounted
    • 8GB of RAM

    Where to Buy:

    • $799 $629 at Best Buy

    If you want a 2-in-1 convertible Chromebook, the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714 is your bag. The 2024 Acer may now be getting outclassed by the freshly launched Lenovo, but it’s still one of our top picks since it’s so versatile.

    The Chromebook Spin 714 and its Intel processor offers a great balance of performance, battery life, and specs for the money. It has speedy Thunderbolt 4 ports, and its x86 architecture allows for free rein to install and tinker with Linux apps.

    Now that this latest version of the Spin is a year old (though still current), it can occasionally be had for $200 off. So if you want a top-flight Chromebook you can find for a decent discount, the Spin is a great choice.

    The best Chromebook under $400

    Chromebook Plus CX34

    Score: 8

    Pros Cons
    • Excellent look and build
    • Sharp 1080p display
    • 1080p webcam with AI features and physical shutter
    • No touchscreen option
    • Stiff touchpad
    • Battery life could be a bit better

    Where to Buy:

    • $379 at Walmart (Intel Core i3)
    • $599 at Best Buy (Intel Core i5)
    • $599.99 at Asus (Intel Core i5)

    If you’re shopping for a younger student and don’t want to spend a ton, but also don’t want to risk buying something crappy, the 14-inch Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 is a safe bet. It’s one of the cheapest Chromebooks with the Plus designation, which means it meets a certain level of performance, battery life, and quality. Chromebook Plus laptops have better-than-average screens, and they should be able to last through a school day without needing a charge. 

    The CX34 normally costs $600 these days, but it sometimes sells for under $400. That’s the sweet spot, getting you excellent build quality, a nice screen, and a sleek design for an affordable price.

    The CX34’s 1920 x 1080 / 250-nit display may feel a little cramped and dim compared to the 16:10 screens on the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714 and Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, but it offers a sharp picture with minimal glare. It’s got a great keyboard that Asus claims to have tested as spill-resistant, giving a bit more peace of mind when entrusting it to a child. The Asus remains a go-to choice for something you can have younger students use that lasts some years.

    Read our review of the Asus Chromebook Plus CX34.

    A great higher-end Windows laptop with a big screen

    Asus Zenbook S 16

    Score: 8

    Pros Cons
    • It’s gorgeous
    • Incredibly thin and light for a 16-inch laptop
    • Great performance, especially the integrated graphics
    • Shorter battery life than major competitors
    • StoryCube doesn’t work
    • Couldn’t get a sense of how fast the NPU really is

    Where to Buy:

    • $1799.99 $1399 at Asus
    • $1799.99 at Best Buy

    Sometimes bigger is better, and the Asus Zenbook S 16 is a total treat of a Windows thin-and-light laptop. It’s got AMD Strix Point processors that are powerful enough for even some light gaming, and the star of the show is its 2880 x 1800 16-inch OLED touchscreen capable of a smooth 120Hz refresh rate.

    The Zenbook S 16 is one of the pricier options we have here, with a standard price of $1,799.99, but it sometimes goes on sale for as much as $500 off. This is a very capable option for high school or college students who need to run Windows and prefer a big screen for easier multitasking. And its thinness makes it very portable for a 16-inch machine, making it less of a hassle to tote a large laptop around campus. Asus also makes a 14-inch version — we expect it to be similar, but we haven’t tested the smaller model.

    The downside of the Zenbook’s powerful chip and thin chassis is that it’s not the battery champ some of the other options here are. It’s still enough to get through an average day of classes, but it’s going to need a charge in the late afternoon if you have a lengthy sprint of back-to-back lectures or you’re cramming late into the night.

    Read our review of the Asus Zenbook S 16.

    The best gaming laptop for (very responsible) students

    Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2025)

    Pros Cons
    • Balanced performance, battery life, and portability
    • OLED display
    • Programmable LED strip on the lid
    • Great keyboard and smooth trackpad
    • Gets a bit hot and loud under load
    • Soldered RAM
    • Thermally throttles its GPUs

    Where to Buy:

    • $1799.99 $1349.99 at Best Buy (5060)
    • $1799.99 at Asus
    • $2399.99 $2049.99 at Best Buy (5070 Ti)

    Treating your kid to a gaming laptop may seem like you’re inviting them to slack off, but if you want to splurge on one device for both schoolwork and play you can’t go wrong with Asus’ ROG Zephyrus G14. The G14 is as “normal” as gaming laptops get, with a design that doesn’t scream cringe-gamer too much (aside from some small ROG branding). Unlike many other gaming laptops, the Zephyrus has solid battery life that can get you through your day’s classes — assuming you save the gaming for when you plug in at the end of the day.

    The $1,799.99 base model uses a capable AMD Ryzen 9 270 processor and discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060, which is enough power to play just about any game, even the latest big-budget ones, albeit not at the highest settings.

    An important part of what makes the G14 special is how good the rest of the laptop is. It’s got a crisp and lovely 14-inch OLED with 2880 x 1800 resolution and 120Hz refresh, a great keyboard, and a very good trackpad. It offers a bunch of ports, and it doesn’t run overly loud or hot when tackling the basic productivity stuff.

    You’d be spoiling your kid a bit (maybe a lot of bit) with a laptop like this, but you can meet their school needs while also treating them to the world of PC gaming.

    Read our buying guide featuring the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14.

    Source: The Verge.

  • CookUnity Prepared Meal Delivery Review (2025): Chef-Centric Meals

    CookUnity Prepared Meal Delivery Review (2025): Chef-Centric Meals

    July 26, 2025
    Technology

    surprising if a plate of chicken lababdar tastes delicious. The dish is among my favorite North Indian gravies, a slightly edgier cousin of butter chicken that’s a bit spicier and tangier but just as creamy.

    What was surprising was that this particular chicken had arrived in the mail. Specifically, it came in a microwaveable tray from CookUnity meal delivery service that looked a little like a white-label TV dinner—packed up earlier that morning in Seattle, then driven down to me in Portland, Oregon.

    The world of prepared meal delivery is erupting in popularity as of late, and pretty much every major meal kit service is getting in on the game. I have nonetheless learned to temper my expectations when testing ready-to-eat meals. It’s not easy to make pre-assembled meals taste good, even if they were good when they started. The problem is moisture. And the problem is the microwave. In many cases, the results have been OK to subpar.

    Image may contain QR Code and Text
    Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

    But so far, CookUnity looks to be a big exception. CookUnity is a somewhat new model of prepared meal delivery service, something like a cross between a meal service and Doordash. Rather than make recipes in a top-down corporate kitchen, CookUnity is regional. The service enlists local and national chefs, and promises to bring restaurant-quality meals to the home—prepared according to recipes from occasionally quite big names. (Hello, Jose Garces.)

    My chicken lababdar in particular was a lovely success. The saffron-tinged basmati rice maintained its moisture. My bits of thigh were plump and still juicy. The sauce was lightly tangy, a little fiery, with most of its sweetness coming from the natural sugars of tomato and puree. Quite frankly, it tasted a lot better than the chicken dishes I could get from the (admittedly not great) Punjabi restaurant down the street from my house. And yet prep was just a matter of popping my tray in the toaster oven for 12 minutes, or in the microwave for three.

    Not every dish from CookUnity was as good as the lababdar from Seattle chef Gaurav Raj. More on that later. But in its ambition, its pool of culinary talent, and its diversity of dishes—Haitian! Indonesian! Filipino!—CookUnity is the best ready-to-eat meal delivery service I’ve yet tested or tasted.

    Here’s the rundown, and the important caveats.

    Image may contain Food Meal Lunch Dish Bowl and Noodle
    Courtesy of CookUnity

    So first, the bad news: CookUnity isn’t available everywhere. The meal service is run out of eight regional commissary hubs around the United States and Canada: Seattle, LA, Austin, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Miami, and Toronto. This leaves out West Virginia, and a good swath of the Plains states.

    But otherwise, if your zip code is covered, it goes like this: You sign up for a certain number of single-serve meals per week, which arrive in heatable trays in a big, cold-packed box. A representative menu for each region is available here, but you won’t see any given week’s menu where you live till you’ve entered your zip code and handed out your email address. (I know, I don’t love this either.)

    Like any prepared meal service, CookUnity saves you a lot of effort. And while it costs less than a restaurant delivery, each meal generally costs more than it would take to buy the ingredients for batched meals at a store. (Though with far-flung dishes, this math can get complicated in a hurry: Largely because of spices and sauces, meal-kit meals can often be hard to replicate in a home kitchen without spending a lot of money.)

    Image may contain Text QR Code Adult Person and Document
    Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

    Discounts on your first week of orders from CookUnity are substantial, often as much as 60 percent off. But after you settle in, expect these single-serving meals to cost from $11 to $14 apiece depending on how many you order, plus maybe $15 per weekly box in service and delivery fees. Those who want to lock in a monthly subscription can avoid shipping costs and get discounts on some meals by paying $24 a month. Over the course of a month, this would lower your costs significantly—but also your flexibility when pausing or canceling delivery, which is otherwise pretty seamless.

    What won me over with CookUnity is the quality of the meals—and the delivery service’s unique structure that puts individual chefs to the forefront.

    Each meal has two heating options: a “fast,” usually microwaved option, or a “chef-recommended” option whose preparation still isn’t ever very complicated. Usually this means a toaster oven, or a pot for soup.

    Unlike many prepared meal kits or ready-to-eat dinners, the meals tend to be substantial: 650 to 1,000 calories, meaning a single serving is usually a full and filling meal. And while the dishes are hardly health food, they’re also not the fat and salt bombs that often plague the format.

    A Regional Meal Delivery Model

    Image may contain Text Person QR Code Face and Head
    Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

    CookUnity calls itself a “chef collective.” In practice, this means it enlists restaurant chefs, including an interesting preponderance of Iron Chef alumni, to design recipes and run teams of cooks in any of the eight regional commissary kitchens.

    Ingredients are sourced for the chefs by CookUnity in a shared kitchen. CookUnity handles the delivery. It also handles the packaging technology, which, through the magic of modified atmosphere packaging, can be stored at fridge temps for four to seven days.

    But this said, each chef runs their own team of cooks within the commissary kitchen, just as if it were a restaurant. The net effect is that you find yourself ordering from individual chef operators, not quite from CookUnity itself—and the selection of chefs and dishes will be quite different from city to city and region to region. Some chefs might have operations in multiple cities. Some chefs will be quite local. It’s a smart system, when it works.

    And so that chicken lababdar from Seattle was indeed packed and sent out the same day to Portland. It arrived the same day and was about as good as a delivery meal from DoorDash, but at a lower cost. Among other standout dishes, the Seattle kitchen run by Austin Haitian-Creole chef Nahika Hillery served up a sweet-sauced barbecue chicken herbed up with Haitian epis, alongside a fun, lightly spicy, beet-accented potato salad dotted with peas—a side that somehow felt Russian, African, and French all at once.

    Image may contain Food Food Presentation Dining Table Furniture Table Cutlery Fork Lunch Meal and Arugula
    Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

    Other high points included a shrimp-topped udon soup from celebuchef Esther Choi, a shrimp and nopales plate from Seattle chef Santos Jiménez, and a well-designed walnut-feta-mint-farro-chicken salad from Los Angeles’ Dustin Taylor.

    There were a couple misses, of course, including a lackluster lemon caper chicken fettuccine bearing the name of a Michelin-recognized chef, Kevin Meehan, out of Los Angeles. The sauce had clearly separated, leading to oily results. I also didn’t get along with a somewhat dull green curry tray from Los Angeles Filipina chef Stacy Bareng—mostly a twiggy profusion of bamboo shoot and bell pepper—but I enjoyed the fun Filipino-Mexican fusion of her pork adobo tacos.

    But the thing is, just like DoorDash, you get to choose which chefs you order from and which ones you don’t choose again. And so if I stuck with the Seattle hub, I’d be hanging a lot with the good gravies from Chef Raj. But note that Seattle is one of the smallest hubs with just 13 chefs. People in the Northeast get to choose among more like 50 chefs.

    Price and Caveats

    Image may contain Food Food Presentation Animal Invertebrate Sea Life Seafood and Shrimp
    Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

    But CookUnity’s regional strengths can also be regional weaknesses.

    I had a terrific experience getting my meals from Seattle, about a three-hour drive away from my home. The ice pack stayed cold and the meals stayed in the safe temperature range. But I’ve seen other reports online from people in warmer regions, or who might live farther from their commissary kitchen.

    But also, my experience with a given recipe in Seattle may not be yours at a different hub—even with the same chef’s name and face on your meal box. Some chefs operate four or five kitchens at different hubs. Different kitchens may have different results, even with the same recipes. I can only speak to my own good experience, and the good experience of my colleague Louryn Strampe, who ordered out of the Chicago hub. The quality of the meals she got straight up blew her mind, Strampe wrote—and she’s not always as kind to prepared meals.

    Other quibbles? Maybe there are too few veggies in some dishes, perhaps because diners are more likely to complain when you skimp on the meat. Most meals are filled out in their calorie counts with starches like rice or noodles, an old saw well known to any and all restaurant chefs. That said, I’d rather they do this than leave me hungry. The meals remain substantial.

    Mostly, I like the business model. Each chef making prepared meals is, essentially, a competing food business within the same big commissary kitchen. Their name is on each box, and a good number of the chefs have restaurants and reputations to protect. There are many incentives to make each meal interesting, and delicious. The results bear this out.


    Source: Wired.

  • Online MAGA cope is now Congressional strategy

    Online MAGA cope is now Congressional strategy

    July 26, 2025
    Hardware
    House Speaker Mike Johnson shakes hands with President Donald Trump.

    When it comes to defending Donald Trump from the worst accusations, the MAGA influencer-industrial complex, whether out of loyalty or self-preservation, often defaults to whataboutism, arguing that the Democrats are just as guilty as Trump, or (ideally) worse. This principle has held true with the current Jeffrey Epstein saga, and as their audience’s anger against the Trump administration skyrockets, the MAGA influencer world is trying a new tack: blame the Democrats, not Trump, for keeping the “Epstein Files” under lock and key.

    Trump, the person who could feasibly order the release of said documents, has spent the past few weeks trying to …

    Read the full story at The Verge.


    Source: The Verge.

  • This Test Can See a Heart Attack in Your Future

    July 26, 2025
    Health

    Coronary artery calcium testing can reveal plaque in arteries, offering a more precise estimate of a patient’s risk. Yet the test remains underused.


    Source: NYT > Well.

  • Proton VPN review 2025: A nonprofit service with premium performance

    July 26, 2025
    Hardware

    Proton VPN stands out for two main reasons: it’s one of the only virtual private networks (VPNs) to include a free plan with no data limits, and it’s one of the few services majority-owned by a nonprofit. It’s the best VPN in both of those categories, and it makes a strong case for being the best overall.

    Even if you don’t care about the work of the Proton Foundation, Proton VPN is a service worth using. It’s easy to install and manage, runs like the wind and meets high standards for security and privacy. It has more IP locations in Africa than any of its competitors. It’s even looking toward the future by working toward full IPv6 support.

    In short, Proton VPN gets our enthusiastic recommendation, especially for torrenting (which it supports on almost every server). It’s not perfect — the apps for Apple systems lag behind their Windows and Android counterparts, and the free servers can be noticeably sluggish — but the cons pale in comparison to the pros. We’ll get into it all below.

    Editor’s note (7/25/25): We’re in the process of revamping our VPN coverage to provide more in-depth, actionable information and buying guides. Our recommendations, and all the info on this page, are subject to change as the update continues. Check out our revamped ExpressVPN review and NordVPN review to see the new direction, or learn more about how we test VPNs.

    • Findings at a glance

    • Installing, configuring and using Proton VPN

    • Proton VPN speed test: Impacts of VPN Accelerator

    • Proton VPN security test: Watertight protocols

    • How much does Proton VPN cost?

    • Proton VPN side apps and bundles

    • Close-reading Proton VPN’s privacy policy

    • Can Proton VPN change your virtual location?

    • Investigating Proton VPN’s server network

    • Features of Proton VPN

    • Proton VPN customer support options

    • Proton VPN background check: The CERN origins of Proton AG

    • Final verdict

    Findings at a glance

    The table summarizes what we found while reviewing Proton VPN, both good and bad. Keep it open in a tab while you comparison shop for a VPN.

    Category

    Notes

    Installation and UI

    Windows has the best interface, but all apps are smooth

    Android users get unique preset protocols

    Browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox can be used for split tunneling on Mac and iOS

    Speed

    Retains 88 percent of download speeds and 98 percent of upload speeds

    Global latency average stays under 300 ms, with 52 ms on the fastest server

    Security

    No DNS leaks or WebRTC leaks on any servers

    Full IPv6 support is available on Android, Linux and browser extensions; Mac, Windows and iOS still block IPv6 to prevent leaks

    WireShark test showed active packet encryption

    Pricing

    Best plan costs $81.36 for two years ($3.39 per month)

    Free plan includes unlimited data and critical security features, but you can’t choose your server

    Bundles

    Proton Unlimited saves money if you want two or more Proton products

    Privacy policy

    General Proton policy prevents collection of IP addresses unless a user has violated the terms of service (such as by using a Proton VPN server to abuse another site)

    No third parties are allowed to handle personally identifiable information

    Confirmed by Securitum audit in 2024

    Virtual location change

    Unblocked Netflix repeatedly in all five testing locations, with new content proving a successful location change

    A free server in Romania got into Netflix but had trouble loading the library

    Server network

    154 locations in 117 countries

    More servers in Africa than any other VPN, plus many others across the globe

    About two-thirds of server locations are virtual

    Features

    NetShield can block just malware, or all malware, ads and trackers

    Kill switch on all platformsSplit tunneling on Windows, Android and browser extensions only

    Secure Core servers route VPN through two locations, one of which is physically secured in Iceland, Sweden or Switzerland

    Almost all paid servers are P2P-enabled

    Tor over VPN servers in six countries let you access dark web sites from any browser

    Profiles saves time when you repeatedly need specific connection settings

    Customer support

    Most articles in the online help center, while well-written, are invisible unless you use the search function

    Live chat is only for paying customers, and is unavailable from midnight to 9 AM CET

    Background check

    Launched in 2017 by the same company that developed ProtonMail

    Majority owned by the Proton Foundation, whose board includes the company founders and can resist takeover attempts

    While ProtonMail has worked with Swiss authorities in the past, Proton VPN is not governed by the same laws that compelled this

    Claims of a vulnerability in WireGuard’s memory don’t hold water

    Installing, configuring and using Proton VPN

    This section explains how it feels to run Proton VPN on the various platforms it supports. As a rule, it’s not difficult. Proton VPN has more features than ExpressVPN, and a couple of them might trip up new users, but you’d have to really scrounge to find an actual inconvenience to complain about.

    Windows

    Proton VPN installs easily on Windows — you’ll need to grant it permission to make changes, but that’s it. Once you’ve signed in on the app, you’ll reach one of the best interfaces we’ve tried on a VPN. The server network is immediately visible as both a list and map, and the location search bar, connect button and major features are all laid out around the same window.

    Proton VPN's app for Windows.
    Proton VPN’s app for Windows.
    Sam Chapman for Engadget

    It’s honestly amazing how much you can reach from the launch window without anything feeling cluttered. They even squeezed in keyboard shortcuts for the search field. We also love that settings open in the same window, since dealing with both the main VPN app and a separate preferences panel can get annoying. Our only real gripe is that there should be an easier way to adjust the size of the map.

    Mac

    The desktop app for Mac isn’t quite as deftly laid out as the Windows app. You can reach most of the important features from the main window, including Profiles, NetShield, Secure Core servers and the kill switch. However, there’s no longer a way to filter out a list of the P2P or Tor servers, except by digging through the Profile controls. On the plus side, you can adjust the size of the map, so it’s now a viable alternative to the server list.

    Proton VPN's dark mode interface on macOS.
    Proton VPN’s dark mode interface on macOS.
    Sam Chapman for Engadget

    The other preferences are hidden in the menu bar — go to Proton VPN > Settings to reach them. They’re laid out in four tabs, and shouldn’t take more than a minute to go through at setup.

    Android

    The Android app takes the same design cues as the Windows app, and works as well. Four tabs along the bottom switch between the home screen, the country list, Profiles and all other settings. You can search the list of countries by tapping the magnifying glass at the top-right. In another nice touch, tapping the dots by any virtual location will tell you where the server is physically located.

    Proton VPN's Android client
    Proton VPN’s Android client.
    Sam Chapman for Engadget

    Android users get some nifty exclusive Profiles, including “anti-censorship,” which automatically connects to the fastest country except for the one you’re in. The Settings tab is a single menu with subheadings and no unnecessary complication.

    iOS

    Proton VPN for iPhone and iPad looks almost the same as it does on Windows and Android, but with some of the same drawbacks found on Mac. The server list is more cluttered, and once again there’s no easy way to sift out the P2P and Tor locations.

    Proton VPN's app for iPhone and iPad
    Proton VPN’s app for iPhone and iPad.
    Sam Chapman for Engadget

    The Settings tab puts all the feature descriptions in the open, which makes it look denser than it is. But these are minor quibbles — this is still a VPN that’s very easy to activate and forget about.

    Browser extensions

    Proton VPN has browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox. These serve as de facto split tunneling, as connecting through the extension protects only browser traffic; everything else goes unprotected. You can split the tunnel further by setting the VPN to not work on certain URLs (unlike the other apps, you don’t need to know the IPs of those sites).

    Proton VPN speed test: Impacts of VPN Accelerator

    We used Ookla’s Speedtest app to determine how much Proton VPN drags on a user’s latency, measured in milliseconds (ms), and download and upload speeds, measured in megabits per second (Mbps). Together, these three stats show whether a VPN will noticeably slow down your internet, especially during demanding tasks.

    We had high hopes for Proton here because of its VPN Accelerator technology, which runs VPN communications across several parallel tracks to process everything faster. It didn’t disappoint — for the most part. Although download speeds didn’t reach the heights we saw from ExpressVPN, Proton VPN’s browsing performance still looks excellent nearly across the board.

    Proton VPN barely makes a dent in your download speeds.
    Proton VPN barely makes a dent in your download speeds.
    Sam Chapman for Engadget

    To choose our locations for the test, we checked Proton VPN’s list of smart routing servers, which use servers in one country to simulate IP addresses in another. Almost all the smart routing servers are based in five cities: Miami, London, Marseille, Bucharest and Singapore. We ran these tests on a Mac using the automatic protocol setting.

    Server Location Latency (ms) Increase factor Download speed (Mbps) Percentage drop Upload speed (Mbps) Percentage drop
    Portland, OR, USA (unprotected) 16 — 58.93 — 5.82 —
    San Jose, CA, USA (best server) 52 3.3x 55.82 5 5.58 4
    Miami, FL, USA 160 10x 54.33 8 5.49 6
    London, UK 332 20.8x 52.55 11 5.72 2
    Marseille, France 309 19.3x 45.42 23 5.59 4
    Bucharest, Romania 408 25.5x 52.51 11 5.57 4
    Singapore, Singapore 394 24.6x 52.26 11 5.50 5
    Average 276 17.3x 52.15 12 5.58 4

    Proton VPN looks very good in that table. Its average download speed was 88 percent of our unprotected speeds. To put that in perspective, if you started with 30 Mbps down (about half what we get) and connected to any Proton VPN server, you’d almost certainly still have a fast enough connection to stream in 4K.

    Note the “almost” — Proton VPN did drop noticeably on its French server in Marseille. It’s not uncommon for one of a VPN’s data centers to have trouble while the others work fine, and you can usually fix the problem by just disconnecting and reconnecting. Just note that while drops to about 75 percent of your download speed are rare, they’re not inconceivable.

    Proton VPN security test: Watertight protocols

    When we talk about VPN security, we’re really talking about reliability. Can this VPN establish an encrypted tunnel and transmit all your information through it, every time, without leaks or failures? With Proton VPN, we’re happy to say the answer is yes; we probed its security and found no cracks to speak of. Read the section below for specifics.

    Proton VPN protocols: WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2 and Stealth

    Proton VPN uses four VPN protocols to communicate between your devices, its servers and the internet. Three of them (WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2) are common choices with no serious flaws as long as they’re implemented thoughtfully. The fourth, Stealth, is an obfuscation protocol you should only use if the other three are blocked.

    The protocol selection screen on Proton VPN's Android app.
    The protocol selection screen on Proton VPN’s Android app.
    Sam Chapman for Engadget
    • OpenVPN is the most secure option. Without getting too technical, OpenVPN encrypts its backend functions as well as the data itself, which leaves it with no obvious vulnerabilities. It can also communicate using the same ports as common HTTPS traffic, so it’s hard to block.

    • WireGuard is more efficient than OpenVPN, both in its source code and the cryptography it uses. It normally requires an exchange of fixed IP addresses, but the Proton VPN implementation overwrites those IPs with randomized addresses, cutting the security risk.

    • IKEv2 is a safe choice that’s occasionally faster than either OpenVPN or WireGuard. You probably won’t use it unless it happens to come up while you’ve set the protocol to Smart. As such, it’s on the way to being phased out of Proton VPN.

    • Stealth is unique to Proton VPN, though its function is not. It’s got the same architecture as WireGuard, but adds another TLS tunnel to evade network blocks that catch VPN traffic. That extra encryption slows it down, so we don’t recommend using it unless the other three protocols don’t work.

    The first option on the app, called “Smart,” is not a protocol — it means your VPN client selects the protocol that will give you the best speeds on your current server. Since all four protocols are safe, there’s no downside to using the Smart setting most of the time.

    Leak test

    We used AirVPN’s IP leak tool to check all four of Proton VPN’s protocols for DNS and WebRTC leaks. Proton VPN uses its own DNS servers to reduce the risk of sending unencrypted requests, but since leaks are still possible, we tested using a simple method: checking our visible IP address before and after connecting to the VPN.

    Despite testing several locations over three days, we never saw our real IP address show up on the tool. This held true even outside the Secure Core server list, where data centers might have been managed by third parties. It’s not perfect proof, but it’s a very good sign that Proton VPN enforces a consistent security regime on all its servers.

    Proton VPN successfully masked our real IP address, even on a virtual location in Angola.
    Proton VPN successfully masked our real IP address, even on a virtual location in Angola.
    Sam Chapman for Engadget

    We also used BrowserLeaks to check for WebRTC leaks. These are mainly an issue on the browser side, but a VPN is doubly important if your browser happens to be leaking. We enabled WebRTC on our browser and tested the same set of Proton VPN servers without springing any WebRTC leaks.

    Proton VPN and IPv6

    Proton is working on making its entire VPN compatible with IPv6 addresses. If a VPN that’s only configured for IPv4 has to resolve an IPv6 address, it can cause a leak — that’s why most VPNs, even the best ones, block IPv6 altogether. That said, the whole internet will run on IPv6 one day, so it’s nice to see Proton VPN leading the pack.

    So far, IPv6 is automatically enabled on Proton VPN’s Linux apps and browser extensions, and can be optionally activated on its Android app. The Proton VPN apps for all other platforms still block IPv6 traffic, but this should hopefully change soon.

    Encryption test

    Even if a VPN’s protocol choices are solid, it’s possible for individual implementations of those protocols to fail. We used WireShark, a packet inspector app, to test whether Proton VPN’s encryption worked no matter what settings were in place. We’re happy to say we never saw plaintext once.

    How much does Proton VPN cost?

    To get full access to Proton VPN, you’ll need a Plus subscription, which costs $9.99 per month. You can knock off half that price by subscribing for a full year and paying a lump sum of $59.88, working out to $4.99 per month. A Plus account with Proton VPN also gives you free access to every other Proton app.

    You can also pay $107.76 in advance to subscribe for two years, an average of $4.49 per month — perhaps more convenient, but it doesn’t save you much. The one-year plan is the best value, though it’s also nice that you don’t have to pay through the nose for only one month. There’s a 30-day, money-back guarantee on all plans.

    Proton VPN is currently offering Engadget readers an exclusive deal that offers a 12-month plan for $47.88 ($3.99 per month) and a 24-month plan for $81.36 ($3.39 per month). Learn more about it here. One final option is the Proton Unlimited subscription, discussed in the “side apps and bundles” section below.”

    The Proton VPN free plan

    Proton VPN is one of the best free VPNs on the market right now. No other VPN backed by as much experience and good judgment has a free plan with no data limits. Instead of capping how much data you can use per month, Proton VPN restricts which servers free users can access, limiting them to five countries: the United States, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.

    The frustrating part is that you can’t choose which of these servers you use; Proton VPN just auto-connects to whichever one is the least burdened. A Proton representative told us that this change goes along with improvements to the selection algorithm, better load balancing and the addition of the Poland and Romania locations. It is also possible to try for a better connection by clicking “change server.”

    The fact remains, though, that a free Proton VPN plan is useless for unblocking content in specific locations — but this may be by design. The free plan seems more aimed toward privacy and anonymity than streaming, and the placement of the free locations near Russia and China reflects that. Free Proton VPN plans don’t sacrifice any essential security features.

    Proton VPN side apps and bundles

    Proton VPN’s main bundle is Proton Unlimited, which gets you all six Proton products in one package: VPN, Mail, Drive, Calendar, Wallet and Pass. This costs $12.99 for a month, $119.88 for a year ($9.99 per month) and $191.76 for two years ($7.99 per month). We won’t be going in-depth on any of them in this review, but here’s a quick rundown of each.

    • Proton Mail: An end-to-end encrypted email service. Proton can still see a Mail user’s real IP address, but can’t read any of their messages.

    • Proton Drive: Encrypted cloud storage. As with Mail, Proton can identify users, but can’t read any of the content they store.

    • Proton Calendar: An encrypted scheduling app with events and reminders.

    • Proton Wallet: A self-custody wallet for storing Bitcoin unconnected to any exchange.

    • Proton Pass: A password manager that generates, stores and autofills passwords for online accounts.

    Even if you only need two of the six, Proton Unlimited saves you money. Separate monthly subscriptions to Proton VPN and Proton Mail would cost a total of $14.98, so you’ve already knocked off $2 per month. That increases if you’re able to commit to a year in advance.

    Close-reading Proton VPN’s privacy policy

    Proton’s privacy policy comes in two parts: the general Proton policy and the shorter policy specific to Proton VPN. We’ll cover them in that order.

    General Proton privacy policy

    Proton tracks user activity on its product websites using its own marketing tools; the data set collected does not include IP addresses. It retains an email address connected to each user’s account, but it’s not allowed to connect IP addresses (and thus identities and locations) to those emails unless the user breaches the terms of service.

    You may rightly ask how Proton would know a user is abusing one of their services if they don’t keep activity logs. The answer is that logs aren’t needed; most forms of abuse can be detected in other ways and observed in real time. For example, if someone used a Proton VPN server to launch a DDoS attack, the team could inspect that server and find the hacker while the attack was still ongoing.

    The policy goes on to list the five third-party data processors Proton uses (Zendesk, PayPal, Chargebee, Atlassian and Stripe), none of whom are allowed to store customer activity data. Proton cautions that it will share what data it does have in response to unblockable requests from the Swiss government, but not “until all legal or other remedies have been exhausted.” This is standard for a VPN that wants to remain in business, and the transparency report shows the company does indeed fight court orders when it can.

    Proton VPN privacy policy

    Proton’s VPN-specific privacy policy is quite short. It states that Proton cannot log user activities or identifiable characteristics of devices connected to the VPN, cannot throttle internet connections and must extend full privacy and security to free users.

    In one sense, a privacy policy requires you to take the VPN provider at their word, but it’s dangerous for a company to make promises they don’t intend to keep. The policy is legally binding, and breaking it is grounds for a lawsuit. Proton VPN’s succinct no-logs policy is therefore a great sign. It’s also been confirmed several times by a third-party audit, most recently in July 2024.

    Can Proton VPN change your virtual location?

    Testing a VPN’s ability to mask a user’s location isn’t complex — all you need is a streaming subscription. We connected to five test locations and tried to unblock Netflix with each one. If we managed to access the site, and saw different shows than those on the American library, we concluded that the location had masked us successfully.

    Server location Unblocked Netflix? Library changed?
    Canada Y Y
    Romania Y Y
    Ghana Y Y
    Japan Y Y
    New Zealand Y Y

    Proton VPN passed the test every time in all five locations. The only hiccup came in Romania, which we chose because it’s one of the free locations. The app connected us to a free server, which was too slow to load Netflix; when we chose a paid server, the problem disappeared.

    Proton VPN changed our virtual location so we saw the Japanese Netflix library.
    Proton VPN changed our virtual location so we saw the Japanese Netflix library.
    Sam Chapman for Engadget

    Investigating Proton VPN’s server network

    Proton VPN’s free plan includes servers in five locations: the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, the United States and Japan. When you connect as a free user, you’ll be automatically connected to whichever location is fastest.

    A paid plan opens up the full network of 154 servers in 117 countries and territories. The menu includes a huge selection of African locations, more than any VPN we’ve tested in some time. The Middle East, along with central and southern Asia, are also well represented, and U.S. users will find 20 different locations to choose from.

    Proton VPN lets you know which of its locations are virtual.
    Proton VPN lets you know which of its locations are virtual.
    Sam Chapman for Engadget

    Keep in mind that about two-thirds of these server locations are virtual, meaning they’re not physically located where they claim to be. This includes all the African servers except South Africa and Nigeria; all the South American servers except Brazil, Colombia and Argentina; and all the Middle Eastern servers except Turkey, Israel and the UAE. A majority of the locations in Asia are also virtual, including South Korea, India, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.

    To be clear, virtual locations can hide your IP address just as well as physical ones. It’s only a problem if you’re expecting the kind of performance, particularly in terms of latency, that you get from a nearby server. Luckily, Proton VPN gives you fast enough download and upload speeds that distance shouldn’t be a problem.

    None

    Countries Virtual Locations Cities
    North America 6 3 25
    South America 7 4 7
    Europe 42 6 51
    Africa 25 23 26
    Middle East 13 10 14
    Asia 22 16 25
    Oceania 2 0 6
    TOTAL 117 62 154

    Features of Proton VPN

    Proton VPN has a number of extra features that go beyond standard VPN functionality. We’ve already mentioned the Stealth protocol and IPv6 support. In this section, we’ll cover an additional five features that might be of interest.

    NetShield ad blocker

    Proton VPN’s built-in ad blocker is known as NetShield. It’s available on the main UI page, and has two settings: one that blocks only malware sites, and one that blocks sites connected with malware, ads and trackers. The stronger feature is on by default.

    The Netshield page on Proton VPN's iOS app.
    The Netshield page on Proton VPN’s iOS app.
    Sam Chapman for Engadget

    NetShield works by checking any DNS requests against a database of web servers known to host malware, inject ads or attach cross-site trackers to your browsing session. The DNS-blocking approach means it’s not capable of blocking ads served from the same domain that hosts them — so no blocking YouTube video ads. On the positive side, it means NetShield works across your entire device, not just on your browser.

    NetShield also displays a running total of how many of each form of interference it’s blocked. It catches most banner ads, but since you can’t customize the blocklist in any way, it’s best when combined with another browser-level ad blocker.

    Secure Core servers

    Here’s an interesting one. Secure Core is a form of a common feature known as double VPN or multi-hop VPN, in which a connection runs through two VPN servers before being decrypted. If one server fails or gets compromised, the other server keeps your connection private.

    Secure Core servers add a second node to your VPN connection.
    Secure Core servers add a second node to your VPN connection.
    Sam Chapman for Engadget

    Proton VPN takes this a step further. When you activate Secure Core, your connection will still end at your chosen server location — but before that, it will travel through a designated server in Iceland, Sweden or Switzerland. A few touches make Secure Core servers more reliable than the average VPN node:

    • All three countries are safe jurisdictions, with consumer-friendly privacy laws and courts sympathetic to privacy claims.

    • Secure Core data centers are locked down physically; for example, the Iceland location is a refitted military base, and the Sweden location is literally underground.

    • Proton owns and operates all Secure Core locations itself, with no rentals or third-party managers.

    Almost no other VPNs pay as much attention to physical security as Proton VPN does with this feature. The second hop makes Secure Core connections slower on average, but it’s worth it if you have something especially sensitive to do online.

    Kill switch

    Proton VPN includes a kill switch, a standard feature. When active, a kill switch cuts off your internet whenever your connection to the VPN drops. This means you’re never in danger of leaking your real identity or location, even for a second. It also protects you against the TunnelVision exploit, which requires the hacker to make a fake VPN server.

    Split tunneling

    Split tunneling is included on the Windows and Android apps, but users on other devices can access it through the browser extension. With split tunneling, some apps or websites get online through the VPN, while others stay unprotected.

    Split tunneling with Proton VPN on Android.
    Split tunneling with Proton VPN on Android.
    Sam Chapman for Engadget

    Proton VPN allows split tunneling by both app and IP address. This grants you a precise level of control over your split, as long as you know the IP of each website you’re placing on the list (you can find that out using DNS checker).

    Torrenting servers and port forwarding

    Proton VPN is one of the best VPNs for torrenting. It restricts torrenting to P2P servers, but nearly every server on the list is a P2P server — only Secure Core servers and some free servers don’t permit torrenting. Combine that with the fact that it maintains 96 percent of your upload speeds on average, and you should have few problems using a torrenting client.

    Proton VPN's list of P2P servers.
    Proton VPN’s list of P2P servers.
    Sam Chapman for Engadget

    It also has some support for port forwarding, which can improve torrenting speed. Windows and Linux users can enable it with a simple toggle, which provides an active port number for configuring private servers. Mac users can set up port forwarding through manual OpenVPN or WireGuard configurations.

    Tor over VPN

    A handful of Proton VPN servers route you directly to the Tor network after encrypting your connection. While connected to one of these Tor over VPN servers, which are marked with TOR in their names and an onion symbol, you’ll be able to open .onion links on a normal browser.

    This is more than just convenient — Tor over VPN is the safest way to access the dark web. With the VPN as an intermediary, you’re never connecting to Tor with your own IP address, so malicious node operators can’t see your real identity. For maximum privacy, use Tor Browser to create your Proton VPN account, so you’re never exposed at any point in the process.

    Proton VPN has Tor servers in six countries (the U.S., France, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany and Hong Kong). Each just has one Tor server, except the United States, which gets two. Tor over VPN is supported on all platforms, but it won’t work on Mac or iOS unless you have the kill switch enabled.

    Profiles

    A “profile” on Proton VPN is a group of pre-established settings you can use to quickly configure the VPN for a particular task. Two profiles are available from the start: Fastest, which connects to the fastest server, and Random, which always connects to a different server. You can create more profiles by toggling four settings:

    • Feature: The type of server used. Choose from Standard, Secure Core, P2P or Tor over VPN.

    • Country: The country to which the profile connects.

    • Server: A server within that country. You can also select “fastest” or “random.”

    • Protocol: Which VPN protocol the profile will use. “Smart” can be selected.

    As an example, say you want to watch a TV series that’s only available on Netflix in Canada. You could create a profile called “Netflix Canada” that connects to the fastest Canadian server with just one click. We’d call profiles situationally useful, but they can save a lot of time if you regularly perform the same action on your VPN.

    Proton VPN customer support options

    We went to Proton VPN’s FAQ pages with two questions that came up while researching other sections: which of Proton VPN’s servers are managed by third parties, and why do certain server locations (like Marseilles) run slow despite the app showing a light load?

    You can access the help center through any of Proton VPN’s apps, or by going directly to the website. Articles appear to be organized into six categories. Oddly, clicking any category button only shows you a handful of the articles in that section — for example, the Troubleshooting category looks like it only has five articles. If you type “troubleshooting” into the search bar, though, you’ll see dozens pop up. There are even some sections, like Billing, that don’t appear on the main page at all.

    It has the feel of a website update that wasn’t adequately brought in line with the bulk of the support content. Until Proton fixes it, just use the search bar for everything. The articles themselves are well-written, give or take some stilted English.

    Getting quick help

    We couldn’t find written answers to our questions about ownership and server load, so we turned to live chat. Free users should keep in mind that live chat support is only available on paid accounts, but there’s a fairly active subreddit at r/protonvpn where Proton staff frequently post.

    Live chat is not intuitively located on protonvpn.com. We finally found it by scrolling all the way to the bottom of the main page, only to be told nobody was online to help at the moment — live chat is only accessible from 9 AM to midnight Central European Time (CET). We submitted our question about the Marseille servers as an email ticket instead.

    Emailing a question to the Proton VPN support team.
    Sam Chapman for Engadget

    This part was easy, at least, as the form helpfully populated our system information. We also got a prompt response within 24 hours. We ended the interaction there, as we weren’t able to reproduce the sluggish behavior on the French server locations, but it’s nice to know the team will answer quickly.

    Proton VPN background check: The CERN origins of Proton AG

    Proton VPN launched in 2017, but its team’s experience goes back much farther. The founders of its parent company, Proton AG, met while working at CERN in Switzerland, and the company remains under Swiss jurisdiction.

    Their first product, Proton Mail, went live in 2014 after a successful crowdfunding campaign, and claims to have 100 million users today. Proton VPN was Proton AG’s second project. Like Proton Mail, it consists of a free plan supplemented by paid upgrades.

    Since then, Proton has introduced several more products: Proton Calendar in 2020, Proton Drive cloud storage in 2022 and the Proton Pass password manager in 2023, each designed around using end-to-end encryption to make user data inaccessible.

    The Proton Foundation

    Proton announced in 2024 that the majority of its shares had been acquired by the Proton Foundation, a nonprofit whose only purpose is to control Proton stock. Among other benefits, this prevents it from being purchased by anyone who disagrees with its mission. To sell to an objectionable parent company, the entire board of trustees would have to agree, which feels unlikely based on Proton’s track record.

    Throughout Proton’s history, we only found two incidents serious enough to comment on, and only one of them concerned Proton VPN. We’ll cover them both below.

    ProtonMail law enforcement collaboration allegations

    On the page that hosts its annual transparency report, Proton states openly that it “may be legally compelled to disclose certain user information to Swiss authorities” (see the Privacy Policy section of this article for more on precisely what information that describes). In 2021, the company admitted it had given Swiss police (acting on a French warrant) a ProtonMail user’s IP address and device logs. The police arrested the user, a French environmental activist.

    While that’s unnerving for privacy-minded users, there are some important contextual issues to consider. Most importantly, ProtonMail is not governed by the same policy as Proton VPN. At the time the case unfolded, Swiss law obliged all email companies to comply with court orders from Swiss authorities to hand over data. VPNs aren’t subject to those retention requirements.

    Today, Swiss email companies have been reclassified so they’re also exempt from data retention requirements, thanks in part to a policy change Proton fought for. A representative from Proton confirmed that “under Swiss law, we are not obligated to save any user connection logs.” It’s also reassuring that, despite complying with the subpoena, Proton wasn’t able to turn over the contents of any emails.

    Alleged WireGuard memory vulnerability

    In January 2025, researchers at Venak Security alleged that Proton VPN lacks memory protection for keys generated under the WireGuard protocol, which might let hackers scrape the keys and decrypt intercepted communications. Proton responded to Venak in a blog post, which a Proton representative confirmed remains their official response to the allegations.

    In short: the Venak article only demonstrates that it’s possible to view public keys, not private ones. This isn’t much of a bombshell, given that “public” is right there in the name. But asymmetric encryption — the kind used by VPN protocols like WireGuard — requires both keys to decrypt any messages. Even if a hacker were able to get ahold of a private key, they likely wouldn’t be able to use it for anything. WireGuard incorporates perfect forward secrecy by default, changing session keys often enough that any given key is obsolete by the time it’s stolen.

    Final verdict

    In short, we’re prepared to recommend Proton VPN to almost anybody. Whether you’re mainly concerned with security, streaming or something else, chances are good that you’ll be satisfied. The only serious downsides are that the long-term plans are overpriced and that it’s hard to get live tech support if you live outside of Europe.

    It’s also our unqualified pick for the best free VPN, but with the caveat that it’s a bad choice for anyone who needs to choose specific server locations. If all you care about is staying hidden from your ISP and advertisers, Proton should be your first choice.

    This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/proton-vpn-review-2025-a-nonprofit-service-with-premium-performance-153046073.html?src=rss


    Source: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics.

  • Razer Pro Click V2 Vertical Review: A Hybrid Gaming Mouse

    Razer Pro Click V2 Vertical Review: A Hybrid Gaming Mouse

    July 26, 2025
    Technology

    vertical mouse is a hard sell. Having to change how you use a mouse completely can be an intimidating task, especially with how unnatural the new hand position feels at first—you’re going entirely against the muscle memory you’ve spent years building up.

    One of the largest challenges to the switch is the initial loss of pointer accuracy. If you’re in an office setting, you may find yourself wandering around a bit or struggling to move your new mouse as quickly as you did before. But in a slow-paced setting like that, all you struggle with is a few mis-clicks or slightly slower navigation. If you try to make this transition with gaming, it’s far more jarring, and the consequences are much more immediately noticeable.

    But even if it’s difficult to adapt to, could vertical mice be the future of gaming? Razer’s new Pro Click V2 Vertical Edition is a hybrid productivity and gaming vertical mouse. Vertical mice typically cater to office workers, but the focus on gaming performance makes the $120 Pro Click V2 one of a kind.

    Image may contain Computer Hardware Electronics Hardware Mouse Computer Computer Keyboard and Speaker
    Photograph: Henri Robbins

    The Pro Click V2 Vertical looks, more than anything else, like a modern gaming mouse. It has the textured exterior, metallic highlights, and slightly organic, H.R. Giger-esque curvature typical of Razer’s design language. But everything has been shifted around. The curved, cutting thumb rest sits on top of the mouse instead of on the side. A flare juts out from the right side as a place to rest the underside of your hand. The gunmetal highlight sits at the peak of the mouse rather than between the two buttons. Even the USB port is vertical, a humorous attention to detail.

    It’s intentionally designed as a gaming mouse that just happens to be vertical. Aesthetically, the only downside is the minimal RGB lighting. With only one section of lighting that runs along the bottom of the mouse, RGB lighting fans might feel disappointed. Still, it’s bright, reactive, and has great color accuracy. It’s more than enough for me, especially with how customizable it is with Razer’s Chroma software.

    The Pro Click V2 Vertical has the same specs as the standard Pro Click V2, with a 1,000-Hz polling rate, a 2.4-GHz dongle that can be stored on the underside, Bluetooth multi-device connectivity, and a reprogrammable button on top. The only features lost are the mouse wheel’s horizontal scrolling and toggleable non-ratcheted rotation.

    Image may contain Computer Hardware Electronics Hardware and Mouse
    Photograph: Henri Robbins

    Source: Wired.

  • The Drifter is a good old-fashioned thriller

    The Drifter is a good old-fashioned thriller

    July 26, 2025
    Hardware

    Point-and-click adventure games often tell silly, lighthearted stories. For me, the mishaps of the pirate Guybrush Threepwood in the Monkey Island series come to mind. The nature of the genre – wandering around, talking to people, and trying to solve puzzles – lends itself well to humor, as every interaction with a person or object offers an opportunity for a joke. The Drifter, a new point-and-click game from Powerhoof, cleverly uses the format to instead tell a dark, twist-filled thriller, and it sucked me in like a gripping novel.

    In The Drifter, you play as Mick Carter, who you meet shortly after he hops aboard a train as a stowaway. Wit …

    Read the full story at The Verge.


    Source: The Verge.

Previous Page
1 … 852 853 854 855 856 … 911
Next Page
MONIMEGA
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
Gestisci Consenso
Per fornire le migliori esperienze, utilizziamo tecnologie come i cookie per memorizzare e/o accedere alle informazioni del dispositivo. Il consenso a queste tecnologie ci permetterà di elaborare dati come il comportamento di navigazione o ID unici su questo sito. Non acconsentire o ritirare il consenso può influire negativamente su alcune caratteristiche e funzioni.
Funzionale Always active
L'archiviazione tecnica o l'accesso sono strettamente necessari al fine legittimo di consentire l'uso di un servizio specifico esplicitamente richiesto dall'abbonato o dall'utente, o al solo scopo di effettuare la trasmissione di una comunicazione su una rete di comunicazione elettronica.
Preferenze
L'archiviazione tecnica o l'accesso sono necessari per lo scopo legittimo di memorizzare le preferenze che non sono richieste dall'abbonato o dall'utente.
Statistiche
L'archiviazione tecnica o l'accesso che viene utilizzato esclusivamente per scopi statistici. L'archiviazione tecnica o l'accesso che viene utilizzato esclusivamente per scopi statistici anonimi. Senza un mandato di comparizione, una conformità volontaria da parte del vostro Fornitore di Servizi Internet, o ulteriori registrazioni da parte di terzi, le informazioni memorizzate o recuperate per questo scopo da sole non possono di solito essere utilizzate per l'identificazione.
Marketing
L'archiviazione tecnica o l'accesso sono necessari per creare profili di utenti per inviare pubblicità, o per tracciare l'utente su un sito web o su diversi siti web per scopi di marketing simili.
  • Manage options
  • Manage services
  • Manage {vendor_count} vendors
  • Read more about these purposes
Visualizza le preferenze
  • {title}
  • {title}
  • {title}