Privacy-focused messenging app Signal has been exploding in popularity, and it’s a surprisingly competent replacement for WhatsApp for those Apple users who have been forced to use the Facebook-owned messaging service for cross-platform communications.

If you had problems launching apps on your Mac—or if it was just behaving weirdly—around 4 PM Eastern Standard Time on 12 November 2020, here’s why.

The latest set of cellular networking standards—collected under the rubric of “5G”—improves mobile networking performance ever closer to Wi-Fi and wired connections, but it’s not worth all the hype. Not yet, anyway.

In its continuing effort to improve the security and privacy of its videoconferencing service, Zoom is offering a technical preview of its new end-to-end encryption feature.

You can access Google’s Gmail in desktop email clients, but its IMAP support can be awkward. Enter Mimestream, a native Mac app that uses Google’s Gmail API to more faithfully bring Gmail’s features to the desktop. Mimestream is still in beta and the developer has much to do, but you can try the app now for free.

Get ready for macOS 11 Big Sur, iOS 14, and iPadOS 14, and learn more about Zoom videoconferencing with four new and updated titles from Take Control.

Videoconferencing has surged during the pandemic, and keeping track of meetings on multiple platforms is a hassle. Julio Ojeda-Zapata tried two software tools, Meeter and Fantastical, that promise to make this juggling act easier.

Discourse-based discussion forums have become increasingly common, but until now, there has been no way to map Discourse notifications to iOS push notifications. Fig, a free Discourse client for iPhone and iPad, now provides that feature, along with a browsable catalog of Discourse communities and a unified inbox for your notifications.

Your cellular carrier is likely offering a larger data allowance for no extra charge during the coronavirus pandemic. Wirecutter has a guide on how to make sure you know what you’re getting.

Following several terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days for Zoom, with the disclosure of multiple security and privacy exploits and problems, the company has, instead of moving to Australia, fixed nearly every outstanding issue and even enhanced its interface. Will it be enough to restore trust?

Those who live in rural communities are finding themselves stuck at home without sufficient Internet access, so they’re turning to community-driven mesh networks that reward relayers with cryptocurrency.

Have you run across Web sites that steal control of your Web browser so you can’t copy text or use standard system functions? StopTheMadness can give you back control over your browser.

Here’s yet another reason to hold off on upgrading to macOS 10.15 Catalina—reports of data loss in Mail after updating its data store from Mojave to Catalina and when moving messages between mailboxes.

Apple seemingly squeezed Intel into an impossible position by negotiating for a purchase while working on a settlement with Qualcomm. Now Apple has control over a current steady supply of 5G smartphone chips and a path to make its own for future iPhones.

Planning a European vacation? If you don’t want to pay through the nose for cellular connectivity, look into the Orange Holiday Europe SIM, which provides 3 GB of data (or 8 GB if you activate soon) for just $22.