I never use my Pixel phone without these powerful open-source apps
…As expected, there are no tracking pixels or telemetry reporting back to a third-party server. I don’t have to deal with ads as well. I would love to see the…
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Windows XP wasn't better, it was just simpler — and Windows 11 forgot that lesson
…This level of customization is not natively available in Windows 11, and you are forced to use third-party apps to customize the Start menu . Related 5 ways Windows has gotten worse…
These 4 Android launchers prove Windows Phone's design never really died
…It's easy to mold the third-party app icons to the design scheme, and I use the launcher theme design on icons to make everything look cohesive. I also have a…
Proxmox running Xpenology gave me the best of both worlds for my home NAS
…data integrity for longevity of the platform. The largest win versus prebuilt enclosures is the ability to service the entire system, from hardware to software, without relying on a third party. Docker…
DeskScapes 2026 lets you generate and edit wallpapers entirely offline, no AI subscriptions needed
…Related How to use animated wallpapers on Windows 11 Windows 11 may not support animated wallpapers out of the box, but you can liven up your desktop thanks to a third-party…
Cloudflare Mesh gave me everything Tailscale did, minus another company in my network
…I just extended the existing DNS/domain/tunnel ecosystem, and it reduced another third-party networking layer. I was just simplifying the stack I already had. There were a few trade-offs…
Microsoft Phone Link completely dropped the ball, but here's what I use instead
…Forcing authentication through a third-party server is frustrating, and I only put up with it because Phone Link also requires Microsoft account credentials. At the risk of playing devil's advocate…
The Steam Deck won because Valve solved what Microsoft refuses to fix for gaming handhelds
…You are still left looking at a broken background process, forcing the user to touch the screen, swipe, or resort to a third-party overlay like Asus Armory Crate or Lenovo Space…
I stopped fighting Windows 11's Start menu — and found a fix Microsoft never bothered to build
…But third-party tools revived those customization options that Microsoft had quietly stripped away. I was not trying to relive the Windows 7 era; I genuinely like where Windows 11 has landed…
Linux has quietly become more forward-thinking than Windows, and these 6 features prove it
…On Windows 11, you can tweak the wallpaper, use something like Windhawk to mod taskbar behavior and icons, and maybe install a few more third-party apps. However, what greets you on…