Apple : People are still the biggest security threat

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• People are still the biggest security threat
• New Apple TV 2019: what we want to see
• tvOS 13: All the news and features of Apple's next TV operating system
• Apple slams Google for 'stoking fear' among iPhone users
• Virgin Media's flash broadband deal: get a free 43-inch 4K TV or £150 bill credit
• Best free website builder 2019
• World's biggest email server hit with security flaw
• Wikipedia goes offline following DDoS attack
• Best website builder of 2019
• The best cheap laptop deals and sales in September 2019: prices from just £139
• Basketball World Cup 2019 live stream: how to watch FIBA quarter-finals online from anywhere
• Apple Arcade release date, price info and everything you need to know
• Apple TV Plus release date, price info and everything you need to know
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10 price cut at Best Buy: save $200 & get a free charging pad
• Ashes 2019 live stream: how to watch the last England vs Australia cricket Test from anywhere
• The best free iPhone games of 2019
• Best cloud storage of 2019 online: free, paid and business options
• Prediction rather than prevention is way forward to stay one step ahead of hackers

People are still the biggest security threat Posted: 09 Sep 2019 12:53 PM PDT New research from Proofpoint has revealed that more than 99 percent of cyberattacks require human interaction to execute. To compile its Human Factor report, the cybersecurity firm conducted an 18-month analysis of data collected across its global customer base. Vice president of Threat Operations for Proofpoint, Kevin Epstein provided further insight on the report's findings, saying: “Cybercriminals are aggressively targeting people because sending fraudulent emails, stealing credentials, and uploading malicious attachments to cloud applications is easier and far more profitable than creating an expensive, time-consuming exploit that has a high probability of failure. More than 99 percent of cyberattacks rely on human interaction to work—making individual users the last line of defense. To significantly reduce risk, organizations need a holistic people-centric cybersecurity approach that includes effective security awareness training and layered defenses that provide visibility into their most attacked users.”  US utility firms hit by state-sponsored spear-phishing attack Over a billion Android phones vulnerable to phishing attack Phishing is the top security threat for businesses Proofpoint's research sheds new light on the importance of social engineering when it comes to enabling successful cyberattacks as potential victims need to enable a macro, open a file, follow a link or open a document for almost all attacks to execute. Very Attacked People Proofpoint's report also found that almost 1 in 4 phishing emails sent last year were associated with Microsoft products. Cybercriminals have begun to target users via cloud storage, DocuSign and Microsoft's products as phishing attacks launched through these services are far more effective. When it comes to the top malware families over the past 18 months, they have consistently included banking Trojans, information stealers, RATs and other non-destructive strains as cybercriminals look to keep their malicious software on infected devices longer in an effort to continuously steal data that can be used in future operations. Cybercriminals have also begun to target Very Attacked People (VAP) located deep within an organization. These users are more likely to be targets of opportunity or those with easily searched addresses and access to funds and sensitive data. Proofpoint found that nearly 23 percent of VAPs email identities could easily be discovered through a Google search. Finally the firm's report found that education, finance and advertising/marketing were the industries with the highest average Attack Index. The education sector is frequently targeted with attacks has it has one of the highest average numbers of VAPs across industries while the financial services industry has a relatively high average Attack Index but fewer VAPs. We've also highlighted the best free anti-malware software of 2019 This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

New Apple TV 2019: what we want to see Posted: 09 Sep 2019 11:32 AM PDT As hard as it is to believe, it's already been two years since the launch of the Apple TV 4K - the streaming box Apple promised us would deliver 4K HDR streaming. It's certainly done that, but now, with new emerging technologies like Apple Arcade on the horizon, it seems like the time is ripe for a new Apple TV in 2019. Of course, nothing's certain. It's been a tough road for the Apple TV from its inception: Labeled a “hobby” project by Steve Jobs, the idea of a set-top box was very much on the back burner at Apple for many years, and still isn't on the same annual release cycle that the company's phones and tablets are on. [Update: Is a new Apple TV about to be announced? Rumors have been circulating about a new Apple TV 4K with upgraded hardware that would serve as a micro-console for the company's new Apple Arcade and Apple TV Plus services. Apple is holding its annual phones keynote at 10am PDT / 5pm BST / 1PM EST on September 10, and could make the announcement of new hardware there. Be sure to tune in to our Apple event live blog to see what's announced, if anything, and what we make of it!] All that said, the 4K-enabled Apple TV that arrived in 2017 finally saw the streamer meet the promise it’s always held, boasting super-high resolution playback, some fun gaming options and voice control that actually worked. So what will the follow-up look like? Here's what we might see from the Apple TV 2019, which would be the 6th generation of the box. Cut to the chase What is it? A new version of Apple’s set-top box When is it out? We’d expect an announcement in September 2019 What will it cost? Hopefully around the price of previous models Apple TV 6 (2019) release date As ever with unannounced Apple products, outside the annual iPhone release, it’s hard to know when, if ever, a new product will hit stores. But we can make educated guesses based on previous models’ release dates. The fifth-generation, 4K-capable Apple TV model was revealed on September 12, 2017, almost two years to the day that the 4th generation Apple TV was announced.  By that reckoning, a September 2019 reveal is most likely, giving time for TV technology to progress enough for Apple to have something new to discuss. An Apple TV in 2018 might just not be worth it for Apple – though we're got our eyes on the new iPhone launch event today in case they get in an announcement early. Of course we now know that WWDC 2018 came and went without any mention of a new Apple TV. Maybe next year. Apple TV 6 (2019) price Of course, without a confirmed spec sheet, it’s difficult to speculate on cost. Apple knows that messing with the formula too much might hurt sales, though. It's worth bearing in mind that as far as set-top boxes have gone in the past, Apple’s has always commanded a premium price.  For the sake of context, the current-gen Apple TV costs £179 / $179 / AU$249 for the 32GB version, while the 64GB option costs £199 / $199 / AU$279. The Apple TV 2018 (or 2019) would be around that, we think. Apple TV 6 (2019): what we want to see The Apple TV line has made some solid steps forward over the last two generation revisions, but there’s still room for improvement should a 6th-generation Apple TV ever hit stores.  Apple’s approach to content and voice control still frustrates at times, and it’s in these areas we’re mostly looking for some progress with a new Apple TV, what with the underlying hardware being reasonably solid at this period in time. An open approach to apps and third-party video The walls of Apple’s closed garden have been slowly eroding over the years, but it’s still quite picky about what makes it to its TV-based app store. That’s particularly clear when you’re comparing the Apple TV with something like Android TV-based set-top boxes, where a wide range of applications (including some more controversial options like Kodi) are available. It’d be great to see Apple take a similarly open approach to its TV viewing options in the future. Tastes across the globe vary, and a wider variety of programming and streaming options (as well as ways to play back your own media) would go down a treat if they were included in the Apple TV 2018. More gaming options The last two generations of Apple TV have seen the company dip its toes deeper into the world of gaming – something that, outside of the iOS app store, it’s been reticent to do in a home space in the past.  But with the 5th-gen release and the partnership with Thatgamecompany for its game Sky, it started to seem like it was finally taking home gaming seriously. However, outside of Sky’s release, Apple TV gaming still hasn’t been particularly high profile. Its clearest rival in this respect is the Nvidia Shield, which takes gaming very seriously with built-for-purpose console conversions for its hardware, and a cloud streaming gaming service.  It’d be great to see Apple get more high-quality developers onboard – which shouldn’t be as hard as it's making it seem, considering the relationship that it already has with mobile developers. Deeper voice control with Siri Controlling your TV with voice commands is still a thrill, but Apple’s Siri lags behind the capabilities of Google’s Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa.  The TV space would be a great area for it to invest in, given the relatively narrow contextual window it has to work within.  We’d love to see Siri integration really dive deep with the 6th-gen Apple TV 2018 – perhaps scheduling a calendar notification for your favorite show release date, for instance. Better HomePod syncing Apple’s smart speaker can frustrate thanks to Siri’s sometimes weak recognition capabilities, but one thing that is undeniable about the hardware is its sound quality.  It’s easily the best-sounding smart speaker on the market – if among the most expensive of them, too. Now that HomePod speakers support stereo pairing and multi-room, would it be possible to get the HomePod to automatically set up in a surround sound configuration if multiple speakers and the TV box are present?  It’d be great to be enveloped by an epic Hollywood soundtrack through those speakers. Better exclusive content Apple’s been investing in exclusive content for a few years now, and while Carpool Karaoke still has a relatively loyal following, there wasn’t much fanfare around its reality TV Planet of the Apps Show.  Compare that to what Amazon is producing for its Prime service and Fire TV devices, and it seems majorly lacking.  Apple needs to do better to pull in big name TV and movie directors if it’s going to compete with Jeff Bezos’s service and Netflix. Perhaps this could be integrated and subsidized by the long-rumored Apple TV subscription service that the company has been allegedly trying to iron out for years. Amazon Echo vs Apple HomePod vs Google Home: the battle of the smart speakers This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

tvOS 13: All the news and features of Apple's next TV operating system Posted: 09 Sep 2019 11:18 AM PDT There's a very good chance that tvOS 13 - the latest version of Apple TV and Apple TV 4K software - will be available on September 10, 2019, the day Apple has picked out for its iPhone 11 event in Cupertino, California. The big differences for tvOS 13 are that it will finally offer multi-user support with personalized recommendations, a new-and-improved Control Center, improvements to the TV App ahead of Apple TV Plus, as well as be compatible with both the Xbox One and PS4 DualShock 4 controller for Apple Arcade play.  We got our first look at the software during this year's WWDC 2019 conference back in June and, as of right now, the tvOS 13 public beta is ready to download on Apple TV and Apple TV 4K (all you need to do is go to the software update section).  Want to know more about Apple's next big tvOS release? Here's everything we know about Apple's next TV smart platform, tvOS 13.  Features Multi-user support Support for PS4 and Xbox One controllers A new-and-improved Control Center Improvements to the TV app New 4K screensavers tvOS 13 release date The public beta of tvOS 13 is available to all testers now. We still aren't sure when it will be ready for public roll out, but based on previous years, global availability on Apple TV and Apple TV 4K should happen sometime in September or October - around the time Apple could launch its Apple TV Plus streaming service. tvOS 13 will have personalized recommendations for everyone in your home - here's what Blue Planet looks like. Image Credit: Apple tvOS 13 news and features New home screen and multi-user support The most important update coming to tvOS 13 is the new home screen, which will offer better recommendations for everyone in the family. For this to work, each user in the home will need their own profile, including your kids, but when it's setup you'll see TV shows, movies and music recommendations personalized to you. What's unclear at this point is if those profiles will need to be tied to an Apple account or if there will be one master account that has the payment info for everyone - attaching a credit card to a kid's account sounds like a potentially awful idea, but it seems likely that Apple will adopt Parental Controls for these accounts. So how will you switch between accounts? Apparently, you'll be using Control Center. Shown briefly on-stage during the keynote, Control Center on tvOS will be the brains behind the operation - allowing you to switch accounts, access settings and sync devices. That last bit is important because... Apple tvOS will support Xbox One and PS4 controllers  It was apparent that Apple Arcade would require controllers ever since it was announced last year - how else could you play 3D platformers like Oceanhorn 2?  Now we know exactly which controllers we'll be using: the Xbox One and PS4 DualShock 4 gamepads. Apple announced that Microsoft and Sony's first-party controllers would be compatible with tvOS in the next update, whenever it arrives. There are still a few question marks here - like what functionality, if any, will the DualShock 4's touchpad have on the Apple TV - but it's the first time Apple has ever announced compatibility with Sony and Microsoft's gaming hardware on-stage at a WWDC, so that's big news in and of itself. Here's what OceanHorn looks like on tvOS13. Image Credit: Apple. Apple Music lyrics and a new screensaver  We knew Apple Music would play a key role at WWDC this year, just not on Apple TV. That said, however, we're happy it made an appearance. New on tvOS 13 will be the ability to see lyrics on Apple Music in time with the song - a minor feature, but one that's nice to see all the same. To go alongside the new lyrics, you'll also see personalized song recommendations on the new home screen based on your listening habits to help you find that next hit. The last new feature Cook mentioned was a new screen saver that Apple shot in 4K HDR. It's of a coral reef and it should turn a few heads when it arrives on tvOS 13. Picture-in-picture mode As we move through the various tvOS 13 beta releases, we're seeing features that weren't announced on stage at WWDC 2019 – like a picture-in-picture mode for the Apple TV app, so you can minimize a video to a small thumbnail in the corner of the screen while you get on with something else. We're expecting the PiP mode feature to be retained in the final version of tvOS 13, though it might get tweaked along the way. It would be good to see it support other apps besides Apple's own, for instance. Catch all the announcements from the event in our WWDC 2019 news hub This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Apple slams Google for 'stoking fear' among iPhone users Posted: 09 Sep 2019 10:19 AM PDT Google's reporting of a major iOS security vulnerability has been criticised by Apple, which says its rival had exaggerated the impact of the situation. Last month, Google’s Project Zero research team detailed a flaw that could see user data, such as files, messages and location data, compromised if a user with an affected device visited a malicious website. “There was no target discrimination; simply visiting the hacked site was enough for the exploit server to attack your device, and if it was successful, install a monitoring implant,” Google's team had said. The best Android antivirus apps of 2019 Over a billion Android phones vulnerable to phishing attack Apple is now making it easier to get an iPhone repair Apple Google security The vulnerability was patched six months ago and Apple says it was already in the process of fixing the flaws when it was contacted by Google. Indeed, it says the issue was resolved just 10 days after the communication. However Apple has taken issue with Google’s disclosure. It refutes the suggestion that the target was ‘indiscriminate’, arguing that fewer than a dozen sites were affected – mainly those serving the Chinese Uighur community, and says the post unnecessarily caused panic among iOS users. “Google’s post, issued six months after iOS patches were released, creates the false impression of ‘mass exploitation’ to ‘monitor the private activities of entire populations in real time,’ stoking fear among all iPhone users that their devices had been compromised,” says Apple. “This was never the case.” Apple regards the relative security of the iOS platform as a key differentiator, so the topic is a sensitive one for the company. The company launched a bug bounty programme for iOS three years ago, offering up to $200,000 to ethical hackers that responsibly reported vulnerabilities. However it increased the upper limit to $1 million earlier this year, a move which would combat claims the rewards on offer were too low. "Project Zero posts technical research that is designed to advance the understanding of security vulnerabilities, which leads to better defensive strategies," a Google spokesperson told TechRadar Pro. "We stand by our in-depth research which was written to focus on the technical aspects of these vulnerabilities. We will continue to work with Apple and other leading companies to help keep people safe online.” Here are the best iPhone deals for August 2019 This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Virgin Media's flash broadband deal: get a free 43-inch 4K TV or £150 bill credit Posted: 09 Sep 2019 10:13 AM PDT Bored of seeing broadband 'deals' that can only muster up a meagre discount or throw in an old tablet? Well, Virgin Media is changing the game this week by offering new customers a free 43-inch UHD Toshiba Smart TV worth £349 or £150 credit to your bill with selected big broadband bundles.  The broadband and TV deals on offer go large on speeds and channels. The Bigger Bundle + Sports offers electric 100Mb+ broadband, 240+ channels (including all Sky Sports and BT Sport options) and weekend landline calls. While the so-called Ultimate Oomph bundle offers incredible average download speeds of 516Mb, 270 TV channels as well as a mobile SIM with unlimited data, texts and calls. In fact, this bundle includes the UK’s fastest widely available broadband. Or say, you don't really need a new 4K TV right now (have you already spent some quality time with our 4K TV deals guide?), this fabulous flash sale also offers a choice of £150 credit to your bill on any of these bundles.  However if you want this, you will have to hurry as this deal ends soon. You will have to place your order before 11.59pm this Wednesday, September 11 to claim this ace freebie. Compare this to the other best broadband deals in the UK today Just want a new TV? We have all the info you need on cheap 4K TV deals We've got all of the UK's best cheap broadband only deals in one handy guide Virgin's flash sale broadband deals in full: Is Virgin fibre broadband available in my area? Around 60% of the UK households are now able to receive superfast Virgin broadband. It's easy to discover whether you're one of the lucky 3-in-5 - head to our dedicated Virgin broadband deals page (or the price comparison chart at the bottom of this page), enter your postcode where indicated at the top of the page and if deals show as available then you're laughing. If no results are returned, then head to our best fibre broadband deals page instead and do exactly the same thing to see whether you can get superfast fibre broadband with another provider, such as BT Superfast. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Best free website builder 2019 Posted: 09 Sep 2019 09:57 AM PDT Creating a website used to be the domain (geddit?) of professional designers and coders, but thanks to free website builder applications, these days it's something anyone can tackle. The problem is that there are so many website creation applications and services vying for attention that it can be difficult to know which one to opt for – this is where we can help. We've collated the very best free website builders available, including a mixture of offline software and online tools. It's usually quicker, easier and more efficient to create and edit a site entirely online with a WYSIWYG editor, but if you want complete control over every aspect of your site's design and web hosting, you'll need a desktop-based free website builder. So whether you're looking to create a site for your business, a new blog, or you just fancy creating an online presence for yourself, here are the best free website builder services to help you out. If you want website builders with more oomph and features, check out our best website builder shortlist which includes paid-for services. Wix makes it very easy to design a website, while giving experts plenty of power to customize elements if they need it Wix is a big-name website builder which offers a free plan, enabling you to have the run of this service without having to put your hand in your pocket. And you benefit from one of the most impressive website editors in the business. This editor can be run in ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) mode, which has a very basic interface to keep everything really simple and user-friendly. This is great for beginners, as you can create a basic site without even remotely breaking a sweat (a range of attractive templates are provided, as well). Those who want to get more involved with tweaking the design of their website can step up to the full Wix editor, which boasts powerful functionality, and the ability to really hone your website and get it looking just as you want. Visual previews of page elements make it easy to pick what you need for any particular part of a web page, too. Wix is so polished that putting together your site using the editor feels more like using a native application rather than a website builder, and it also sports excellent support for a diverse range of media, and quality customer support as well, even on the free plan. In addition, Wix Turbo was recently released which improves the performance and speed of all Wix websites. Powerful blogging functionality rounds things off nicely, and you’re getting a truly high quality offering with the free version of this website builder. Try Wix online Constant Contact provides an intelligent website builder and ecommerce store platform, both of which are free to use. Setting up a website is easy using drag-and-drop functionality, allowing you to set up a design simply and easily, and insert the features you need.  Settings are automatically optimized for mobile platforms and SEO, and there is a free image library with over 50,000 images included as part of the package. The ecommerce platform allows for online payments through Paypal, Mollie, or Stripe. There are order and inventory features that automatically updates inventory with orders, and sends an email alert when items become out-of-stock. While the basic level website is free, there are paid plans which add more features. Additionally, there is also a paid email marketing option available to allow you to reach new customers. Overall, Constant Contact does a good job of setting up the basics. The free plan is a great way to set up your website, and there is a 60-day free trial if you do upgrade. You can signup to Constant Contact here If you want to create a website as quickly as possible, look no further than Weebly. It's so easy to use, you'll have a great-looking site online in mere minutes Weebly offers you two ways to build your website. Both involve creating it online, and both are as quick and painless as possible. The simplest option is to use the basic editor builder which will guide you through a series of questions before automatically creating a site for you. There is scope for customization, but the focus here is really on fast results for anyone who is terrified of designing websites. A more hands-on approach is available if you decide to use the standard Editor. There are literally hundreds of stylish templates to choose from – and, yes, they are genuinely impressive – which you can tweak and tailor to your needs using a beautiful WYSIWYG editor. Despite being a cloud-based website builder, Weebly gives you a great degree of control over the look of your site and placement of page elements. You can also liven it up using additional features such as a newsletter and live chat. This power and flexibility make Weebly a top-notch website builder. Try Weebly online WordPress is the tool of choice for many blog owners. It takes a little getting used to, but once you've mastered it, you'll love its flexibility Causing a slight degree of confusion, there are actually two different versions of WordPress. The more complex variant can be downloaded from wordpress.org, and you will need to upload it to your own web space and install it using the automated online installer. You can then customize the templates and use add-ons to make the site your own. This is the route many bloggers go down, but there is a simpler option for people who don’t want the hassle of fiddling about with scripts and getting dirty with hardcore editing. The hosted version of WordPress lets you create your own site on wordpress.com. You can create everything from a blog or photo site, to a fully fledged online store, and there are a number of templates to choose from. Additionally, Mailchimp users have a benefit of adding a Mailchimp block, which can grow your mailing list among other things. Whether you're creating a static site, or a blog-style site with regularly updated content, the online editor is a joy to use and allows just about anyone to create an impressive, professional-looking site. The only downside is the limited range of plugins and templates compared with the desktop website builder. Try WordPress online Download WordPress WebSite X5 makes building a website on your desktop easy, with good-looking templates and an intuitive site builder Incomedia WebSite X5 received an overhaul in April 2019 with new templates, an updated interface, new paid versions and more. The main thing to note is that the service now has a free version for everyone (note that the free version for TechRadar readers is still available to download). There are two paid versions, Evo and Pro, priced at $79.99 and $229 respectively. This is a one time purchase and naturally, both versions come with additional and improved features compared to the free one. There is also a demo version of both paid versions that you can try out. Unlike WordPress and Wix, WebSite X5 is a desktop website builder, which means you can work on your site offline and have more freedom to make your website look exactly the way you want. There's a range of ready-made templates to choose from, or you can create your own design from scratch. Next, build up your site map, showing the hierarchy of your pages and how they connect to one another – a feature you won't find in most web-based site builder apps. Once that's done, you're ready to start building your pages using Website X5's simple drag-and-drop interface, which includes tools for editing both rich text and photos.  If you don't want to be tied down to an online site builder, WebSite X5 is the tool for you. Download Incomedia Website X5 CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor isn't a WYSIWYG website builder, but it provides a live preview of your site as you create it CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor is one of a dying breed of web building programs that don't use a CMS (content management system). While not in the same league as the likes of Adobe Dreamweaver, Free HTML Editor packs quite a professional punch. With split screen code/preview views, it's possible to see the effect the changes you make have straight away. To help you get started quickly, there are a number of templates built into the program, and there are some very nice features such as tag and code suggestions as you type. For absolute beginners, the program might seem a little overwhelming to start with, but it's worth sticking with – assuming you have some HTML knowledge. There is one slight issue; a number of features, such as spell-checking and code optimization, are only included in the paid-for version of the program. CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor review Download CoffeeCup Free HTML Editor If you've used WordPress before, you might be interested in the power of Joomla. It's not as easy to use though, so beginners are better off sticking with a simpler option like Wix Joomla is a well-known name in the CMS world. It may not be as popular as WordPress, but it offers the same two options: build a site using the web app at launch.joomla.org and have it hosted on the company's servers, or download the software from joomla.org and host it yourself. If you choose the latter option, you'll notice that the interface is much less approachable than WordPress. It's not completely impenetrable, but there are lots of menus and options to work through and it doesn't feel quite as polished as WordPress. Joomla's online website builder is nearly as complex, but doesn't involve the same setup process, making it a better option for beginners. Its key selling point is a huge collection of themes and extensions, which provide endless ways to customize the way your site looks and works. Try Joomla online Download Joomla You might also want to check out our other website hosting buying guides: WordPress Cloud hosting E-commerce Dedicated server Small business Windows Managed Green Business Colocation Email hosting Resellers VPS Shared Cheap Website builders Best website hosting This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

World's biggest email server hit with security flaw Posted: 09 Sep 2019 09:38 AM PDT A security bug has been discovered in millions of Exim servers that could be exploited to give potential attackers the ability to run malicious code with root privileges. The Exim team revealed in a recent advisory that all of its servers running version 4.92.1 or lower are vulnerable though the company has released version 4.92.2 to address the vulnerability. If you're unfamiliar with Exim, the software is a mail transfer agent (MTA) that runs in the background of email servers. In addition to helping send and receive messages, email servers also serve as relays for other user's emails and MTA helps handle this. Researchers compromise bare-metal cloud servers These are the best web hosting services for your website Thousands of servers can be remotely hacked Exim is currently the most popular MTA today and a big reason for this stems from the fact that the software is bundled with many popular Linux distros including Debian and Red Hat. Exim vulnerability If an Exim server is configured to accept incoming TLS connections, an attacker can send a malicious backslash-null sequence attached to the ending of an SNI packet and this would allow them to run malicious code with root privileges. A security researcher named Zerons first discovered the issue and reported it to Exim in early July. Since then, the company has secretly worked to patch the vulnerability because of its seriousness and how many of its servers could be vulnerable to a potential attack. Luckily the vulnerability can be mitigated by disabling TLS support on all Exim servers though this fix does expose email traffic in cleartext which makes it vulnerable to being intercepted as well as to sniffing attacks. However, if you own an Exim server and live in the EU, this fix is not recommended as it could lead to data leaks and fines under GDPR. Exim installations do not have TLS support enabled by default though Exim instances that are included with Linux distros do. Additionally, Exim instances that ship with cPanel also support TLS by default but cPanel has already integrated the Exim patch into an update they've begun to roll out to customers. If you're unsure of the TLS status of your Exim servers, it is highly recommended that you install the Exim patch as this is the only way to fully prevent the vulnerability from being exploited on your server. We've also highlighted the best email providers of 2019 Via ZDNet This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Wikipedia goes offline following DDoS attack Posted: 09 Sep 2019 09:27 AM PDT A major cyberattack took down Wikipedia in several markets over the weekend, the company has confirmed. The popular reference site said it had suffered a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that took down its sites across part of Europe and the Middle East. The attack meant users in the UK, as well as France, Germany and Italy were among thoser affected, with the outage monitoring service Downdetector reporting that Wikipedia was offline for several hours before being restored. Best DDoS protection services of 2019 DDoS attacks could cost the UK £1bn this year Telegram hit in major DDoS attack Malicious In a statement, Wikipedia parent company Wikimedia confirmed the site had been hit by a "malicious attack that has taken it offline in several countries for intermittent periods," with the company's German Twitter account said its server was "paralysed by a massive and very broad DDoS attack". "As one of the world’s most popular sites, Wikipedia sometimes attracts “bad faith” actors," Wikimedia's statement added. "Along with the rest of the web, we operate in an increasingly sophisticated and complex environment where threats are continuously evolving. Because of this, the Wikimedia communities and Wikimedia Foundation have created dedicated systems and staff to regularly monitor and address risks. If a problem occurs, we learn, we improve, and we prepare to be better for next time. The company stated that it condemned the attack, which it said was not just about taking Wikipedia offline.  "Takedown attacks threaten everyone’s fundamental rights to freely access and share information," it said. "We in the Wikimedia movement and Foundation are committed to protecting these rights for everyone." Best disaster recovery services of 2019  Via TechCrunch This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Best website builder of 2019 Posted: 09 Sep 2019 09:10 AM PDT Website builders have been around for decades but a new generation now exploit new technologies like responsive and mobile platforms. A website builder can help individuals or businesses build anything from a simple single-page site to a professional web store, even if you've no design or HTML experience at all.  Whether you're a sole trader or a multinational corporation, just about every business needs an online presence – in other words, a website. A growing number are adding bells and whistles like an email list or form facility, domain name registration and much more. Even if you don't sell products online a site can help people find you, learn more about your skills and services, and provide a way to share your details with other potential customers. It's like having a permanent, always-on-call personal assistant, ready to answer queries. And it can even be free Also check out our best website hosting services for 2019 More experienced users can customize and fine-tune the design to suit their own needs, or perhaps install a more traditional web design package that allows them to build the perfect site from scratch. There are free options, but these often have major restrictions, including limits on the size of the site and the lack of any ability to use your own domain. Fortunately, the commercial options are very reasonably priced, from around £5/$5 to £10/$10 a month, with hosting included. To help you decide which option is best for your needs, we’ve picked out the cream of the crop: these are the five top players in the website building world right now.  Wix has more than 100 million registered users Wix is one of the most popular online website creators, offering a range of plans and products. The free version has Wix branding, limited storage space (500MB) and bandwidth, but move up to the most popular plan (unlimited) and there’s no Wix ads. You get unlimited bandwidth (hence its name) and 10GB storage, along with a free domain, Google Ad vouchers and much more. The e-commerce plans start with the "Business Basic" plan with a price of $17 (£13.30) per month. Read our review of Wix An excellent collection of 500 plus templates gets the design process off to a quick start. The drag-and-drop editor gives you all kinds of tools and features to explore – an image editor, video backgrounds, animations, social buttons, an integrated site blog – and just about everything can be tweaked, tuned and restyled. Furthermore, as of recently, Wix introduced Wix Turbo, which increases the speed and performance of websites substantially. All the core editing functions are really smartly designed, and operate more like a native app than your average website builder. Wix does have some weaknesses, with tech support seeming a little sluggish and limited in some respects. But there’s no denying that the superb editor and range of top-notch templates make it easy for web building novices to create something impressive. 1&1 IONOS is one of the biggest web hosting companies in the world There’s a lot to like here in terms of a powerful drag-and-drop editor bristling with professional features and highly customizable templates, but at the outset, let’s make it clear that this isn’t the cheapest service around. There’s no free plan (or indeed trial – although there is a 30-day money-back guarantee), and the most basic plan is priced at $1 (£1 for UK) a month for first six months, rising to $7 (£7 for UK) afterwards. That gives you unlimited pages and web space, a simple integrated blog, limited SEO settings, plus website backup and restore, so it’s a touch pricey for what you get. Read our review of 1&1 MyWebsite That said, 1&1 IONOS MyWebsite offers a wide range of responsive templates, and an editor which provides loads of potential adjustments and tweaks, all with plenty of visual feedback and context-sensitive menus to help streamline the whole process. What’s clever here is that the top-level stuff is easy to use and understand for beginners, yet expert users can dive more deeply into the menus to really play around and customize elements. You also get your own personal consultant free of charge. Other highly useful features include the ability to point to your old website in order to import media content from there straight into your new site. This could be a huge timesaver for some. There also an e-commerce plan starting  at  $1 – (£1 for UK) – a month for the first six months, rising to $25 - (£25 for UK) a month). Weebly is one of the few website builders that offer a free hosting tier. Weebly is another big name in the website building world which offers a powerful editor and capable set of features. There’s a free plan, which like Wix limits space to 500MB and imposes ads on your site. However, if you move up to the Professional plan – at $12 (£9.5)  a month – the ads and storage limit are dropped, plus you get a free domain, and even support for a web store containing up to 25 products. The supercharged Business plan lets you create sites with unlimited web store products and high-end store features like product reviews and discount coupons, retailing at $25 (£19) a month. Read our review of Weebly The service offers hundreds of professionally-designed web templates, covering just about any site type. The drag-and-drop editor is neatly designed, although you don’t get full control over where you can position elements on the page, and the interface can seem a little cluttered. A further niggle is that there is no global Undo feature. Like Wix, we found tech support was a little wobbly in terms of sluggish responses, but Weebly offers a host of powerful features, some very stylish templates, and easy access to free images for your site is another definite boon. As we’ve seen, many a website builder pitch themselves towards novices and making life easy for the less site-savvy out there, but what about experts who want powerful low-level control? Those are the users Voog has in mind. So you don’t get many templates here, for example, and there’s the bare minimum of media support – but what you do get is a compact drag-and-drop editor which does its best to stay out of your way. There are weaknesses here, and the interface is somewhat clunky in respects – and it’s another which lacks a global Undo function – but it has some real power you can drill down into. Read our review of Voog For example, clicking a text box gives you the option to use bullet-point lists, insert tables or videos, or even edit the HTML source to customize effects. Voog also lets multiple users easily collaborate on a site project, and if you’re after nifty, unusual features like these, you won’t see them elsewhere. The entry-level Starter plan is priced at $7.40 (£5.30) per month (billed annually) and gives you 2GB storage, and all the core features you’ll need, including SSL security (although it’s limited to 30 pages). If you know what you’re doing in terms of website design, and want some true power and customization capabilities, there is a 30-day trial you can check out (no credit card details needed). Jimdo is a somewhat quirky website builder targeted largely at novice users, but it’s well worth your attention for a number of reasons, not the least of which is a free plan which boasts more than the average offering. Yes, there are the usual limitations including adverts, a 500MB storage limit, no custom domain, and very limited SEO. But there are a few features you won't get in other free plans, like a password protected area, for example. Read our review of Jimdo The site editor itself is simple and consistent, even if it’s somewhat unconventional in terms of its design. Also, the editor doesn’t have as many functions and features as some rivals. For example, there aren’t that many templates, and the widgets on offer aren’t as plentiful as you might find elsewhere – plus there’s no global Undo (although Jimdo isn’t alone in this respect). Another neat touch is a good web knowledgebase which means help is generally close at hand when it comes to troubleshooting. Overall, this is a compelling product, that is well worth giving a whirl. You might also want to check out our other website hosting buying guides: WordPress Cloud hosting E-commerce Dedicated server Small business Windows Managed Green Business Colocation Email hosting Resellers VPS Shared Cheap Best website hosting This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

The best cheap laptop deals and sales in September 2019: prices from just £139 Posted: 09 Sep 2019 08:49 AM PDT Checking through the cheap laptop deal scene here in the UK can be a bit overwhelming as there are so many options to choose from. Luckily for you, we're used to sifting through the net's laptop sales all year round. So if you need to buy a new laptop sharpish, we should be able to find you something that fits with your budget nicely. We've split this guide into sections based on price to help you keep that budget in check. We'll give you a bit of info about each laptop we highlight too, so you can see some specs at a glance before you click through to the store and have to browse their lengthy descriptions for those vital stats you're after.  Not everyone needs a super powerful laptop, especially if you just want something for the basics like casual browsing, email and document editing, so don't feel like you have to spend £500 on a laptop for that - you can get something for far less if you want. Naturally, if you're a bit of a multitasker, love to have loads of tabs open and want a little extra grunt for media editing, we've found laptop deals with higher spec. Chromebooks get a mention most weeks too as they're increasingly popular nowadays as users look to ditch Windows for the stripped down speedy Chrome OS instead. For you Apple fans, you might be interested in our MacBook prices and deals page too. If you're from the States or Down Under, be sure to check out our selection of the top laptop deals in the US or Australia. Cheap laptop sales and deal highlights Here's an extensive selection of cheap gaming laptop deals We'll continue adding the best cheap laptop deals in the latest sales as we find them. Up next, you'll find the latest prices on some of the most popular laptops around along with a list of retailers who often have a great selection of laptop sales if nothing else takes your fancy here. Amazon: retail giant is often the cheapest in the UK. AO: lots of cheap laptops at this growing electronics specialist. Argos: home delivery or pick up a cheap laptop locally today. John Lewis: models come with at least two-year guarantee. ebuyer: the UK computing specialists have some great promotions. Very: Often surprises with cheap prices on electronics. Currys: the retailer that's seemingly always having a laptop sale. Laptops Direct: specialist UK store has a huge selection of laptop deals. Dell: get a great laptop deal direct from Dell. Apple: MacBooks aren't exactly cheap, but they're excellent workstations The cheapest laptop deals on these popular picks On release, the Chromebook Flip reached new heights for the Windows-free laptops as it came rocking a proper Intel Core processor along with a HD screen. Most models nowadays come with 64GB of storage instead of the 32GB which is plenty for running apps and storing regular documents and a fair few media files - you can always use a USB drive for more space. For most users, the newer PixelBook is what we'd call 'overkill', not to mention considerably more expensive, so we'd recommend this model if you just need something for work, browsing the net and so on. The Chrome OS works beautifully in this 2-in-1 laptop's tablet mode too. A sturdy choice for a study laptop for school/college/uni. The HP Pavilion 15 has plenty of power for the average student's needs while keeping the costs sensible. There are plenty of configurations available too. Some favour speedy SSDs, while other go for larger regular hard drives, so it all depends on what you're going to need more really. Faster loading or more space for storing media files and downloads. The Asus Transformer Mini series is one of the most reliable brands of 2-in-1 tablet/laptop hybrids on the market. This upgrade includes a fingerprint sensor and double the RAM at 4GB for speedier performance compared to the older models. For your money, this is one of the most impressive two-in-one transformer models out there. Available in orange/white as seen above, or in a traditional grey steel colour. Ready to stretch that budget a bit (ok, maybe a lot) further? Then be sure to check out our selection of the very best laptops money can buy as we've used our dedicated price comparison technology to find the cheapest prices for them too. You can always come back to this page if they seem a bit overpowered (and over-expensive) for what you need. Best Laptop 2019: our pick of top 15 laptops on the planet This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Basketball World Cup 2019 live stream: how to watch FIBA quarter-finals online from anywhere Posted: 09 Sep 2019 08:43 AM PDT The 18th edition of the FIBA Basketball World Cup is in full swing in China across eight different venues - and we're down to the quarter-finals. It may feel like a long way from you are, but at least you're in the right place to discover how to get a Basketball World Cup live stream from your corner of the Earth. While usually held every four years, there's been a bit of a longer wait for Basketball fans this time out, with the tournament delayed by a year, meaning it now falls out of sync with the FIFA World Cup for the first time. There's also a new expanded format, with 32 teams now taking part, up from the previous 24. The USA go into the tournament as two-time defending champions as well as clear favorites, and will be looking to become the first nation to win the World Cup three times on the bounce. They play France next and have shown no evidence of disappointing so far, despite the lack of big names from the NBA. The likes of Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, Kyrie Irving, Paul George and Anthony Davis all withdrew from the squad before the tournament even began. And that all said, the chasing pack this time out are looking stronger than ever. Serbia and Spain could be  genuine contenders and have safely made it through to the round of eight. They'll take on Argentina and Poland respectively, while Australia take on Czech Republic in the fourth and final match-up. Beyond the tournament itself there's more at stake - the  FIBA World Cup will this year act as qualification for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, with seven of the twelve spots up for grabs (the top two finishers from both Europe and the Americas, along with the top one from each of Africa, Asia and Oceania). If you want to know where you'll be able to watch all the action - it's ESPN+ if you're in the US - we'll tell you exactly where you can catch it online with our 2019 Basketball World Cup live stream guide below. How to watch the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 from outside your country Below we have a full rundown of your viewing options for the 2019 Basketball World Cup in different countries - check out how to watch in the US (where ESPN+ will be streaming the tournament in its entirety), the UK, Canada and Australia. The problems start when you try to watch your domestic coverage online while out of the country. Give it a go and you'll quickly find your stream in geo-blocked. That's super annoying, but not unavoidable. We've found that using a Virtual Private Network - or VPN - to be a handy solution. You select a server in your home country and then watch as if you were sat back at home on your couch. FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 fixtures Quarter-finals Argentina vs Serbia - Tuesday, September 10 - 7pm local time (7am ET, 4am PT) Spain vs Poland - Tuesday, September 10 - 9pm local time (9am ET, 6am PT) USA vs France - Wednesday, September 11 - 7pm local time (7am ET, 4am PT) Australia vs Czech Rep. - Wednesday, September 11 - 9pm local time (11pm AEST, 9am ET, 6am PT) Semi-finals QF1 vs QF3 - Friday, September 13 - Times TBD QF2 vs QF4 - Friday, September 13 - Times TBD Final SF1 vs SF2 - Sunday, September 13 - 8pm local time (8am ET, 5am PT, 10pm AEST) How to watch the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019: US live stream  - Discover our pick of all the US's best sports streaming sites How to watch FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 in Canada for free How to live stream the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 in Australia  How to stream the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 live in the UK  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Apple Arcade release date, price info and everything you need to know Posted: 09 Sep 2019 08:30 AM PDT The Apple Arcade subscription service for games is just the latest sign of Apple getting on the gaming bandwagon – with a curated list of quality titles all set to come to your iPhones, iPads, Macbook computers and even Apple TV at an affordable monthly cost. That's what it looks like, anyway – the official Apple Arcade pricing hasn't been confirmed, but a leak from Apple's internal preview of the platform points to a pretty low $4.99 (£4 / AU$7) pricing. Who are we to complain? It's Apple's take on the whole "Netflix-for-gaming" approach – tying gamers into a monthly subscription that gives them access to top-quality videogaming adventures that aren't available anywhere else. Apple Arcade has a good heritage behind it – Apple was arguably the first company to take mobile gaming seriously and make it financially viable, and as a result it's now got the backing of some of the most important names in mobile game development. It's also great news for Mac owners, who have always played second fiddle to PC gamers when it comes to finding top-notch game experiences on their platform. Apple Arcade was unveiled with over 100 unique (read 'indie') titles, exclusive to Apple's devices, including Beneath a Steel Sky, a remake of the classic adventure game, with art by Watchman comic book legend Neil Gibbons. In addition, the collection of games available is set to be curated by experts, will be updated monthly, and will include original releases from renowned creators Hironobu Sakaguchi, Ken Wong, Will Wright and more. All these exclusive games could cost Apple a pretty penny, with some reports suggesting that Apple is set to spend over $500 million on the new service – while Google Play's own plans for a similar gaming service, and possibly even one from Samsung, could eat into their profits somewhat. But with a new iPod Touch being released in the same year, Apple seems to be intelligently luring youngsters to its new service. We haven't heard much about Apple Arcade since it was announced earlier this year, but we're expecting to get all the juicy details during tomorrow's iPhone 11 launch including an official price, when exactly the service will launch and more about what games are going to be on offer. So ahead of the big event, we've rounded up everything we know so far about the Apple Arcade subscription service and what we expect to see tomorrow. Cut to the chase What is it? Apple's mobile and Mac gaming subscription service When does it launch? Autumn 2019 (Between September and November 2019) What can I play it on? iPad, iPhone, Mac, and Apple TV How much will it cost? Likely $4.99 (£4 / AU$7), but pricing isn't yet official Apple Arcade release date Apple Arcade is due to release in "fall 2019", which means we can expect it to launch between September and November 2019.  Apple has promised the service will be supported in 150 regions at launch. We're currently in September, so we wouldn't be surprised if Apple Arcade launches alongside Apple's new iPhone range on September 10 - if not in the coming weeks. iPad OS: release date, features and public beta details Apple Arcade price Ann Thai, marketing manager for the App Store, unveiling Apple Arcade on stage. Surprisingly, it looks like Apple Arcade is going to buck the trend for Apple's usual pricing strategies. While Apple Arcade will offer a monthly subscription plan in the vein of Apple News Plus, Apple Music, and Apple TV Plus, it is rumored to cost only $4.99 (£4 / AU$7) per month rather than the $9.99 cost of its sibling platforms. That may reflect on the size of the library at launch, or just be Apple trying to find a competitive foothold in a pretty packed market – with the likes of Xbox Games Pass and PS Now already out there, and Google Stadia on the way, even Apple Arcade could have trouble becoming established. It's worth noting this price point isn't official and we're expecting official price confirmation at the iPhone 11 launch event - but it's likely to be in and around this price. Apple Arcade trailers Apple revealed the Apple Arcade service during an Apple special event on March 25, 2019. You can check out the first trailer for the service below: Apple Arcade controllers Any good gaming platform needs a great controller – but Apple Arcade is in a rather unique position of having to work across multiple hardware platforms and input devices – be that over a touchscreen for iPad and iPhone, a keyboard and mouse for Mac, and a remote for Apple TV. But when it comes to gaming, nothing beats a gamepad. At WWDC 2019, Apple announced that, if you're playing Apple Arcade games on an Apple TV device, you'll be able to pair the excellent Sony PlayStation 4's DualShock 4 pad, and Microsoft's Xbox One gamepad up with the TV box too. Now, potentially, there's not much preventing Apple from extending this support to Apple Arcade for mobile devices, and surely to Mac too – there are already many workarounds to make both devices usable as a controller for Apple's computers. Fingers crossed Apple will expand native support for both pads to Apple Arcade, no matter what device you're playing on. Apple Arcade features No ads, no ad-tracking and no additional purchases Apple Arcade will be a single subscription service – pay your money each month, and you won't have to endure any adverts on the service. There will be no ad-supported version at launch, and Apple has given no suggestion that that will ever be on the cards. Over 100+ games Apple Arcade will give users access to over 100 games, all of which will be Apple Arcade exclusives, curated by experts and updated monthly. "You can try whatever you want, whenever you want," according to Apple. Games available offline According to Apple, all the games on Apple Arcade will be available to play offline, so no need to worry about losing access to them if you're on the subway or out in the middle of nowhere away from a mobile connection. Family sharing The Apple Arcade service offers a Family Sharing plan so all household members can play the game for a single subscription cost. That'll make it attractive to households that have bought into the Apple ecosystem with iPads, Macbooks and iPhones – especially if it means mum and dad don't have to hand over the iPhones so that the kids can play. What's Apple Arcade available on? iPad, iPhone, Mac, and Apple TV. You'll also be able to pick up where you left off in a game, even if you switch devices. Image credit: Apple Private and secure Apple Arcade games cannot collect any data about you without your consent. Push for indies While we know that Apple Arcade will include games such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Beneath a Steel Sky and Where Cards Fall, Apple promises games from the likes of Bossa Studios, Cartoon Network, Annapurna Interactive, Finji, Giant Squid, Klei Entertainment, Mistwalker Corporation, SEGA, Snowman, ustwo games, Konami, Lego, and many more. Apple isn't just handpicking the games The company is also contributing to the development costs and working closely with creators to bring their games to Apple devices. Apple's never really had much success (or, arguably, interest) in being a game developer itself, so this marks a rare moment where the company is getting directly involved in the industry. Here's what Phil Schiller has to say... “The App Store is the world’s biggest and most successful game platform. Now we are going to take games even further with Apple Arcade, the first game subscription service for mobile, desktop and the living room,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.  “We are working with some of the most innovative game developers in the world to create over 100 new and exclusive games to play across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV.  "Apple Arcade games will be great for families, respect user privacy and will not have ads or require any additional purchases. We think players of all ages are going to love Apple Arcade.” Apple Arcade news and rumors Early access program 9to5Mac gained access to the internal early testing program for Apple Arcade which is reserved for employees. The early access program charges a subscription of just $0.49 per month, with one month free trial - but don't expect this for the full service. According to the site, Apple Arcade's early access program finishes in mid September - meaning its launch is likely to coincide with the launch of iOS13. How to download According to the same report by 9to5Mac, users are offered a one-month free trial period. Once you've signed up for your Apple Arcade subscription, you can simply download a game by pressing the 'get' button - a bit like with downloading an app on your iPhone. Apple Arcade: what we expect to see We're expecting to hear more about Apple Arcade during Apple's iPhone 11 launch on September 10, but what information are we hoping to gather from the event? Release date We'll almost certainly get an official launch date for Apple Arcade during the event. We already know the service will launch "fall 2019", so we wouldn't be surprised if it launches alongside iOS13 later this month.  Price We also expect to get official confirmation on global subscription pricing for Apple Arcade including a potential family plan. The service is rumored to cost only $4.99 (£4 / AU$7) per month and we think it's likely the official price be far off.  More games We already know some of the games coming to Apple Arcade but we're expecting well over 100 titles to grace the service (mostly indie). It could be that since Apple announced the service earlier this year, that it's got some bigger names on board.  Explanation of how it'll work 9to5Mac may have provided us a look at the early access program, but we're hoping to see exactly what Apple Arcade's UI will look (maybe with iOS 13?) plus a look into how we can actually download games using the service. Apple TV hardware? A possibility, though unlikely, there are rumors circulating that there could be new Apple TV hardware on the horizon that could complement the Apple Arcade service. But we're not holding out hope. Apple Arcade games These are all the games that have been officially confirmed for Apple Arcade: Atone: Heart of the Elder Tree  Beyond a Steel Sky Box Project Cardpocalypse Doomsday Vault Down in Bermuda Enter The Construct Fantasian Frogger in Toy Town Hitchhiker Hot Lava  Kings of the Castle Lego Arthouse Lego Brawls Lifelike Little Orpheus Mr Turtle Monomals  No Way Home Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm  Overland Projection: First Light Repair Sayonara Wild Hearts  Shantae 5 Sneaky Sasquatch Sonic Racing Spidersaurs Spyder The Artful Escape The Pathless  The Bradwell Conspiracy UFO on Tape: First Contact Where Cards Fall Winding Worlds Yaga  Read more: Apple News+: the all-you-can-read service for your iPhone, iPad and Mac This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Apple TV Plus release date, price info and everything you need to know Posted: 09 Sep 2019 08:29 AM PDT At its special March 2019 event, Apple announced Apple TV Plus, a brand new streaming service that, according to its CEO Tim Cook, "is unlike anything that's come before". As we approach the launch of iPhone 11, we're expecting to find out more about Apple's long-awaited entry into television and movies. For years, Apple has threatened to take on the might of Hollywood, and with Apple TV Plus, the company won't just be selling movies and TVs, it'll be producing them too. Here's what we know so far. UPDATE: We've known for a while that Apple TV Plus will be coming to smart TV platforms, but we've now got our first confirmed third-party carrier (outside of the Apple device ecosystem) of Apple's shows. And, surprisingly, it'll be Samsung which has been first to announce Apple TV Plus will be accessible from its television range. For more on features, shows, and trailers for the streaming service, read on below. Cut to the chase What is it? A rival streaming service that Apple will place its own content on, among other titles.  When will it be released? Probably November 2019  How much will it cost? Still TBC, but it could be $9.99 per month according to a Bloomberg report  Stars, shows and channels The streaming service will offer exclusive shows, movies and documentaries from acclaimed filmmakers, including JJ Abrams, Steven Spielberg and M. Night Shyamalan. A recent Bloomberg report says that Apple is planning to release its streaming service by November 2019, and it will cost $9.99 per month, but that's all still to be confirmed. Unlike the basic package of Hulu, Apple TV Plus will be ad-free from the start, and will be available in 100-plus countries through a section of the Apple TV app. It will be available starting in autumn 2019 (September through November) on smart TVs, MacOS and iOS. How much it will cost precisely remains to be seen, but it's been suggested that, as well as the base subscription price, you'll be able to bolt on individual channels too. The service will include shows like Amazing Stories and The Morning Show, and stars like Reese Witherspoon, Steve Carell and Jason Momoa are signed up to be involved. There's even a show for the preschool crowd called Helpsters. It's also been announced that Oprah and Prince Harry will also be teaming up for a mental health docu-series, which will come to Apple TV Plus in 2020.  In a statement posted to Instagram, Prince Harry said "our hope is that this series will be positive, enlightening and inclusive – sharing global stories of unparalleled human spirit fighting back from the darkest places, and the opportunity for us to understand ourselves and those around us better." Most recently, Apple dropped a trailer for a revisionist comedy-biopic on the life of the poet Emily Dickinson, with Hailee Steinfeld taking the starring role. You can get a taste of the anachronistic music and dance moves – in the style of Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite – in the trailer below. WWDC 2019 also saw the unveiling on new alternative history show from Battlestar Galactica's show lead, Ron Moore. Called 'For All Mankind', it'll reimagine the space race of the 1960s and 1970s, from a position that sees the Soviet Union putting man on the moon first. Find its first trailer below: Here's the full list of the first Apple TV Plus shows Here's everything you need to know about Apple Arcade And here's all the info on Apple News Plus In addition to Apple TV Plus, Apple introduced Apple TV Channels, which combines cable subscription services and streaming services like Amazon Prime Video into the Apple TV app. (Unfortunately, however, Apple TV Channels doesn't incorporate Netflix.)  Apple TV Channels will be incorporated into the Apple TV app on iOS starting in May, and on MacOS later in the year, but will sit outside Apple TV Plus' purview. So Apple TV Plus is like Netflix? This is where things get a little confusing. While on stage, Tim Cook mage it very clear that Apple TV Plus isn't like Netflix – at least not yet. While the service will offer original content by the boatload, Apple TV Plus won't offer licensed content like Netflix or Amazon Prime does, which covers all syndicated shows, like The Big Bang Theory, Mr. Robot or Seinfeld.  For now, you'll still have to buy those shows through iTunes or via your terrestrial cable app in Apple TV Channels and turn to Apple Plus for its library of originals. There's also the question of availability. Cook named a number of major TV manufacturers who will offer the new Apple TV app in his keynote, but never came close to mentioning all the platforms where Netflix is available, like Android TV, PC desktops and laptops, and non-Apple tablets. We do now know though that Samsung, at the very least, will be supporting Apple TV Plus at launch through its smart TVs. It's also worth mentioning that Apple Plus has been compared to Disney's upcoming streaming service, Disney+. But it looks like even though they might compete in the streaming space, Disney+ will still be available via Apple TV. How much will Apple TV Plus cost? That's another mystery, as Tim Cook ended the keynote without divulging how much Apple TV Plus will set you back every month. WWDC 2019 came and went without a mention of price, too. However, a recent leak has suggested that the service will cost $9.99 per month (around £8.20 / AU$15), which would match the cost of Apple Music and Apple News Plus – though Apple Arcade looks set to undercut it with a subscription that's half the price. That US pricing is slightly more expensive than Netflix's cheapest subscription, which costs $9 (£5.99 / AU$9.99) per month, though it's significantly higher than the soon-to-be-released Disney Plus, which will cost $6.99 (around £6 / AU$10) per month instead. Disney Plus: the Disney streaming service to take on Netflix (and Apple) This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 price cut at Best Buy: save $200 & get a free charging pad Posted: 09 Sep 2019 08:27 AM PDT If you're looking to snag a discount on the newly released Samsung Galaxy Note 10 smartphone, then you're in luck. For a limited time, Best Buy is offering $200 in savings on the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus with a qualifying activation. Plus, Best Buy is including a free wireless charging pad that will be automatically added to your cart with your purchase of the Galaxy smartphone. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 features a 6.3-inch display and is available in Aura Black, Glow and White and a Blue color that's exclusive to Best Buy. The new Galaxy Note phones feature a 10MP front-facing camera that sits discreetly in the center of the phone and receives an upgraded video recording experience thanks to the Live Focus Video feature. The Galaxy Note 10 Plus features a larger 6.8-inch display and offers a DepthVision camera that the Note 10 lacks and provides a slighter longer battery life. The Galaxy Note 10 packs 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and the Note 10 Plus offers a 512GB storage option and includes 12GB of RAM. This limited-time offer is exclusive to Best Buy, and the savings will be deducted off the total price of the phone and are reflected in either instant savings or monthly bill credits. This deal also includes a free wireless charging pad which currently retails for $49.99 and allows you to charge your Galaxy phone completely cord-free. Shop other offers with the best Samsung Galaxy Note 10 deals and plans happening now. Learn more about the Note 10 with our hands on Samsung Galaxy Note 10 review. If you're interested in the Note 10 Plus you can also read our hands on Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus review. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Ashes 2019 live stream: how to watch the last England vs Australia cricket Test from anywhere Posted: 09 Sep 2019 08:25 AM PDT While we already know where the Ashes urn will spend the next two-and-a-bit years (OK, so it will stay at Lord's, but you get what we mean), you better believe that England and Australia will still be desperate to win at the Oval. And you can watch all of the action from the last England vs Australia Test match of 2019 no matter where you are in the world with our 2019 Ashes live stream guide. Forget your World Cups and Twenty20s - winning the Ashes is the biggest feather in a cap for any cricketer from old rivals England and Australia. It's one of oldest sporting rivalries and the Ashes series still stands as the pinnacle of Test cricket. England will be smarting after the loss at Old Trafford, but Australia will be desperate not to lose at the Oval so that they can seal their first series win on English soil for almost 20 years. The home side have had some great individual performances in the series (see Stuart Broad and Rory Burns), and some unforgettable memories thanks to Ben Stokes. But their batsmen - including captain Joe Root - didn't play wel Australia went into the series with former captain Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft all reinstalled to the line-up after completing their bans for the infamous sandpaper ball-tampering scandal. And Steve Smith really has been the difference maker throughout. That said, plenty of praise should be heaped onto Pat Cummins' machine-like accuracy and Josh Hazelwood's nagging line. It's set to continue to be a fascinating end to the series - follow the instructions below to watch all of the action where we'll tell you how to grab an England vs Australia Ashes live stream from pretty much anywhere on Earth. The great news...it's absolutely free in Australia. Watch an Ashes live stream when away from your country For cricket fans in the UK, Australia, India or the US and looking to find out how to watch the Ashes, we've got all the details about the broadcasters with the rights to show the England vs Australia Test series in your region below.  If you're away from home country and looking to see the action you'll likely to find you won't be able to thanks to geo-blocking. Thankfully there's a way to alleviate that frustration. By using a VPN you'll be able to watch the game without having to resort to watching via an illegal feed from a dodgy website you've discovered on Reddit. England vs Australia: how to watch the Ashes in the UK How to live stream the Ashes 2019 in Australia for FREE How to get an Ashes live stream in New Zealand How to watch England vs Australia: live stream in India How to live stream England vs Australia in America What is the Ashes? One of the longest-running rivalries in sport, the Ashes series is traditionally five Tests, hosted in turn by England and Australia at least once every two years. Why is the Ashes called the Ashes? The name of the Test series stems from when England lost to Australia for the first time on home soil at The Oval on August 29 1882. The Sporting Times carried a mock obituary of English cricket the following day which concluded that: "The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia". When England next toured Australia a pair of bails were burned and the ashes put into the now famous urn. These days, the players of the side who wins the series are given a replica to celebrate with, with the original Ashes urn on display in the MCC museum at Lord's cricket ground in London. Who is favourite to win this year's Ashes? Having not lost a home Ashes series since 2001, England are the outright favourites for a series win with Betfair. Who are the current holders of the Ashes? The Aussies are the current holders of the Ashes, having won the last series in convincing style 4-0, back in 2017. Who has won the Ashes the most? Australia are currently ahead on 33 Ashes series wins to England’s 32 and five series drawn. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

The best free iPhone games of 2019 Posted: 09 Sep 2019 07:40 AM PDT Free iPhone games have a reputation for being rubbish and full of IAP. But loads of superb free titles await your twitchy gaming thumbs – if you know where to look. To save you the effort of finding them, we’ve compiled the best here, split into handy categories. So if you fancy an arcade blast, a brain-bending puzzle, or a thrilling racer – for free – read on. Plus, check back weekly for our free iPhone game of the week, which you'll find below. Free iPhone games of the week: Yokai Dungeon Yokai Dungeon is a fast-paced arcade title that involves running about and squashing demons. It’s set in a series of linked arenas, which are peppered with movable objects you can use to unsportingly squash your adversaries against a wall. The Japanese-themed game looks superb, whether you’re moseying to the between-stages shop or taking on one of the large bosses in an end of stage battle. Most importantly, it plays really well, with fluid and intuitive controls. With its grid-like structure and non-stop action, old hands might detect a hint of Bomberman; veterans will find Pengo coming to mind. But despite such retro inspiration, and the old-school pixel art, Yokai Dungeon feels every bit the modern iPhone title, with a sleek design, bite-sized battles, and approachable gameplay that’s suited to newcomers and seasoned gamers alike. Keep your mobile secure with one of these best free VPN apps Our favorite free iPhone arcade games, including brawlers and fighting games, auto-runners, party games, pinball, and retro classics. Knight Brawl Knight Brawl takes the amusingly bouncy physics and frenetic skirmishes from Colin Lane’s mobile sports gems – Dunkers 2; Touchdowners; Rowdy Wrestling – and applies them to knights who fancy getting a bit stabby. Your knights leap about the place in a somewhat controllable manner. With deft button taps – and a little luck – you can quickly relieve opponents of helmets and shields, prior to delivering the killing blow. Only that’s barely scratching the surface, because Knight Brawl is absurdly generous with what you get. There are multiple battle modes and also quest-like missions, where you get to leap into a castle and duff everyone up. It’s bonkers, entertaining, superb stuff, and seriously raises the bar on Lane’s work – which was already impressive to start with. Project Loading Project Loading is a speedrun arcade test about the adventures of a loading bar on its way to reach 100%. Yes, you read that right: the star here is the bane of many computer users’ existence – a loading bar. In Project Loading’s universe, though, loading bars don’t slowly inch from left to right – they must cope with slow-down and speed-up mats, deadly giant crosses and bouncers. To aid their way, there are restart points, and gold stars to collect, but everything happens against the clock. There’s no dawdling for loading bars here. It’s an interesting conceit, lifted by clever level design, arty visuals, and responsive tilt controls. However, given how tricky later stages are, you’ll likely never gripe about a standard loading bar again. Boost Buddies Boost Buddies is a twitch-based arcade effort, where you’re a cat in a box, trying to reach a crown. Fortunately for the cat, the box is rocket-powered, boosted every time you tap. Less fortunately, between the cat and the crown are… things. Sometimes you’re pitted against massive laser beams or swinging axes. Occasionally you’re blown about by fans, or chased by critters. Quite what’s going on, we’ve no idea, but it’s a lot of fun figuring out how to beat each test, and stringing together high scores. Do well enough and you can add to your menagerie of boosting beasts, each of which get their own music and background visuals. And while the game’s basic nature means sessions don’t last an age, it’s always good for giving you a quick boost yourself. Williams Pinball Williams Pinball recreates – and augments – a range of classic Williams tables on your iPhone. It then bakes them into a freemium business model that’s, perhaps surprisingly, actually pretty good. Select a starter table, and that one’s unlocked from the get-go. You’ll be playing this one a lot, so choose wisely. (The superb Attack From Mars is a good bet.) You then partake in daily challenges to boost your XP, win parts, and unlock other tables. Eventually, tables are unlocked for offline play, and optionally have animated components, like Zen Pinball’s more fantastical tables. Getting there is a grind, but you’re playing superbly simulated pinball, so that’s no great hardship. And even though pinball is admittedly a bit fiddly on the iPhone, any progress made is instantly zipped across all your devices via iCloud. Unicycle Giraffe Unicycle Giraffe is a balancing game that features a unicycle and a giraffe. Unfortunately for the giraffe, it attempts to ride said unicycle – not a comfortable state of being for the typical ungulate. It’s all very comical, though, as your giraffe wobbles left and right, before seconds later inevitably crashing to the floor in a tangle of legs and neck. Despite being a one-note game, Unicycle Giraffe rewards mastery with the sheer thrill of staying seated for a few precious extra seconds. Rescuing yourself from very nearly overbalancing is fun, and extra risk comes by way of coins and bombs to tap elsewhere on the screen. There’s little longevity, of course (short of ‘upgrading’ the animal with new hats and skins), but this one’s endearing, and always good for a quick blast. Don’t Trip Don’t Trip has you direct stompy feet through increasingly surreal terrain. You start off in a kitchen that could do with a tidy-up. Last long enough and you find yourself avoiding crazed vacuum cleaners decked out with knives and axes. Eventually, you end up fleeing from lava, splashing in swimming pools and walking in space. This all comes off as quite trippy, and that’s only exacerbated by the viewpoint and controls. Everything is zoomed in to the point you can barely see where to head, and the controls have you press the screen to plant a foot, and rotate your phone to find space for the next step. Don’t Trip! really is a game very much designed with mobile in mind – and it’s all the better for it. Super Fowlst Super Fowlst is an arcade game featuring a flappy chicken out to stop angry red demons from taking over the world. This heroic fowl can flap left or right at the command of one of your thumbs, briefly flying in an arc – or plummeting to the ground when you don’t prod the screen again. The aim throughout is to biff enemies (while avoiding the projectiles they spew), grab bling, and make for the exit. As you travel through the procedurally generated levels, you’ll discover secrets, weird bits of landscape, and ferocious bosses looking to turn you into a roast dinner. Fortunately, coins you collect can be traded for upgrades, including the ability to fire rockets from your behind. Clucking great? You betcha. Train Party Train Party is an arcade-oriented puzzle game designed for multiple people to play together. Between two and 12 people on the same Wi-Fi network do their best to keep the train on time, largely by laying down tracks in front of it. In order to avoid disastrous derailment, you must also figure out how to deal with roaming wildlife and a renegade track bomber. There are two ways to play: collaboratively and competitively. In the former case, the train always heads to the player with the most complete track, so you can keep going for as long as possible. In competition mode, though, the train goes around devices in order, and the winner is the last person not to turn the 9:45 to Washington Union Station into a crumpled heap of twisted metal. Beat Street Beat Street is a touchscreen brawler that wears its influences on its sleeve. The pixelated art recalls classic beat ’em ups, and the stop-start gameplay - with occasional unsporting use of baseball bats to bash enemies around the head - smacks of Double Dragon and Streets of Rage. Yet this isn’t slavish retro fare. The game feels familiar, but its set-up is entertainingly oddball (liberating a city being terrorized by sentient, bipedal, suited rodents), and everything is controlled by a single thumb. The controls could have spelled the end for Beat Street, but - amazingly - they work brilliantly, enabling deft footwork, punches, kicks, special moves, and the means to smash an evil rat’s face in with a brick. Apart from unnecessary grind-to-unlock levels, Beat Street’s the perfect freebie iPhone brawler. PinOut! If you’re a fan of knocking metal balls about, you’re likely frustrated with iPhone pinball. Even an iPhone Plus’s display is a bit too small, resulting in a fiddly experience replete with eye strain. Enter PinOut!, which rethinks pinball in a manner that works perfectly on the smaller screen. In PinOut’s neon-infused world, you play against the clock, hitting ramps to send your ball further along what’s apparently the world’s longest pinball table. Rather than losing a ball should it end up behind the flippers, you merely waste vital seconds getting back to where you were. When the clock runs out: game over. The result is exciting and fresh, and the relatively simple mini-tables are ideal for iPhone. Moreover, the game’s immediacy makes it suitable for all gamers, overcoming pinball’s somewhat inaccessible nature. Our favorite free endless iPhone games where you sprint, jump, drive, hoverboard, dig or pinball to victory – or your doom. Magic Bridge! Magic Bridge! is an endless vertical scroller, featuring feline heroes and cartoonish foes from superb mobile platformer Super Cat Tales 2. Here, though, there’s just a single platform – the titular ‘magic bridge’. This sits at the foot of the screen, and you tilt it to make your moggie run. The aim is to avoid doddering enemies and rows of spikes. This is easier said than done – the bridge is twitchy, and it’s easy to over-compensate, avoiding one deadly collision only to blunder into the next. Persevere, though, and you’ll learn how to more subtly move the bridge, and to take advantage of the courageous kitties’ recovery abilities. And while this tale might lack the depth of the game that inspired it, you’ll reason that it’s fun enough for meow. Image credit: TechRadar Race the Sun Challenge Edition Race the Sun Challenge Edition is an endless flyer. You zoom along in your craft, zigzagging between minimalist structures, and trying very hard to not fly into a wall. But collisions aren’t your only enemy – and that’s because your craft is solar powered. Apparently, no-one in Race the Sun’s universe has mastered battery storage, because the second the sun sets, your race is over. Fortunately, you can delay the inevitable by grabbing boosts that reverse the direction of the sun for a few moments. Staying in the light also helps you eke out a few extra yards. With an eminently fair energy system, gorgeous visuals, and a daily challenge, this is a must-download, whether or not you’re familiar with the not so free original. The VideoKid The VideoKid is an infusion of the 1980s for your iPhone. The core gameplay is an auto-scrolling avoid ’em up, where you periodically hurl deliveries at mailboxes positioned at the side of the road. If you’re very old, you’ll instantly recognize this as a take on arcade classic Paperboy. But what elevates The VideoKid beyond being a mere clone of a much-loved – albeit ancient – game is it being peppered with chunky versions of cultural references. There are transforming robots, and martial-arts-obsessed turtles. A guy in red trunks sprints down the street. Every game you’ll spot something new. Importantly, it also plays pretty well. You tap to throw a video tape, and swipe to move and perform stunts. Reaching the end of your round will be tough – but you’ll have a ball getting there. Pigeon Wings Strike Pigeon Wings Strike is an endless flyer, which marries the speed of ALONE, the bullet hell of many a Japanese shooter, and the cute factor of an animated cartoon. It initially features a pigeon in a biplane, which you must direct through twisting corridors and caverns, and periodically have shoot down drones and massive enemy airborne battle stations. The controls are pitch perfect, with one button for speed, another for boost or blasting, and vertical tilt controls for subtle or abrupt changes in altitude.  It’s simple stuff, but hugely compelling. And although there’s not a ton of depth, Pigeon Wings Strike has multiple characters (each with unique skills) to unlock, and a cleverly designed upgrade system that encourages you to take extra risks when belting along at speeds no pigeon should be subjected to. PAKO Forever PAKO Forever seemingly takes place in a world where law-enforcement really doesn’t want you mucking about in what appears to be the world’s largest parking lot. The second you move, police cars are on you like a shot, and if one smashes into you, that’s your lot. Pretty quickly, you figure out that you need to drift and snake about to survive – and then you start seeing gigantic gift boxes bouncing along. Snag one of those and your car temporarily balloons to giant size, or acquires a handy ball and chain to smash the cops. Visually, the game’s quite crude, and the staccato nature of missions can pall, but for a quick blast of breezy endless driving larks, it’s a decent install. Will Hero Will Hero is a superb one-thumb arcade game that features a blocky hero dashing through a world of levitating islands, being all heroic and duffing up enemies. His foes are mostly bouncing cubes, and you must carefully time dashes to pass beneath them, or engineer collisions to knock them into the abyss. Crack open a chest you find on your travels, and you’ll get weapons that transform dashes into violent attacks. Add in the game’s collectible helms (from unlocking loot crate chests), and you’ll end up with many potential weapons to choose from, including missiles and colossal swords. Will Hero is fast-paced, inventive, and a lot of fun. It has a unique feel, and pleasingly bucks convention when you rescue a princess. When you do so, she tags along on subsequent adventures, gleefully hacking away at the enemies who once imprisoned her. ARcade Plane ARcade Plane – with emphasis in the ‘AR’ – combines the complex and the simple, providing you with an augmented reality gaming experience controlled by a single digit. The game projects a tiny city on to a nearby surface, above which a plane circles. It’s low on fuel and – for reasons unknown – must grab a set number of stars before it lands. The tiny snag: the city is rather suspiciously surrounded by extremely tall, spiky hills – and between them is where the stars are found. You hold the screen to dive, carefully timing doing so to snatch up stars, then release the screen so your plane briefly soars heavenward again. All the while, your city grows and you unlock more planes. Simple stuff, then, but an effective and fun use of AR that anyone can get into. Power Hover: Cruise Power Hover: Cruise is three endless runners (well, surfers) for the price of one. It borrows the boss battle levels from the superb, beautiful Power Hover, and expands on them. You get to speed through a booby-trapped pyramid, avoid projectiles blasted your way by an angry machine you’re chasing through a tunnel, and whirl around a track that snakes through the clouds. This is a gorgeous game, with silky animation and minimal, but vibrant objects and scenery. The audio is excellent, too – the rousing electronic soundtrack urging you on. There are a couple of snags: games can abruptly end due to difficulty spikes, and the controls initially seem floaty. But we grew to love the inertia, which differentiates Power Hover: Cruise and makes it feel like you’re surfing on air. As for the difficulty, spend time learning the hazards and mastering the game, and you’ll soon be climbing the high score tables. Dashy Crashy Although, at its core, this is a fairly standard lane-based survival game (swipe to avoid traffic; don’t crash), Dashy Crashy has loads going on underneath the surface. It’s packed full of neat features, such as pile-ups, a gorgeous day/night cycle, and random events that involve maniacs hurtling along a lane, smashing everything out of their way. It also cleverly adds value to mobile gaming’s tendency to have you collect things. In Dashy Crashy, you’re periodically awarded vehicles, but these often shake up how you play the game. For example, the cop car can collect massive donuts for bonus points, and an army jeep can call in tanks – just like you wish you could when stuck in slow-moving traffic. Disney Crossy Road Disney Crossy Road builds on the endless Frogger-style hopping shenanigans found in Crossy Road, mostly by mashing it into a ton of famous Disney properties. It kicks off with a fairly humdrum take on the original, just with Mickey Mouse instead of a chicken, trying very hard to move ever onwards and not get run over by cars or drown in a river. But you soon start winning coins, enabling you to unlock new characters. When you get to visit blocky endless takes on Toy Story, Lion King, Wreck-It Ralph, Monsters Inc, and more, sound and vision alike get a major overhaul. Even better: many of these worlds offer subtle changes to the way the game plays, making it more varied, and boosting long-term appeal. Our favorite free iPhone gem-swap, tile-match, and rhythm action games. Sprint RPG Sprint RPG, with its black-and-white stylings and basic first-person maze, instantly transports you back to the halcyon days of retro gaming. Quite some way back, in fact, since it’s reminiscent of the ancient (yet terrifying) 3D Monster Maze.  Here, though, the aptly named Sprint RPG ramps up gameplay speed. Everything plays out against the clock, and you’ve mere fractions of a second to make decisions. When confronted by a monster, you need to tap the optimum sequence of actions to proceed. Get the order wrong and you’re dead. Despite its RPG and speedrun trappings, then, Sprint RPG is effectively a match game – and one that feels very much suited to quick missions on an iPhone, obliterating gigantic spiders and skeletons until your overworked thumb begs for mercy. Slydris 2 Slydris 2 whiffs a bit of Tetris. It has similar shapes that drop into a well, the aim being to form solid lines that vanish. Breach the top of the well and your game ends. Simple. Only Slydris 2 then performs a handbrake turn and gleefully speeds off in an entirely different direction. For a start, it’s turn-based. Also, several shapes drop into the well each turn, and you can only move one (whether it’s ‘hanging’ or already in the well). This subverts the classic formula, transforming it into a smart, unique game of strategy.  Everything you thought you know goes out the window as you figure out how to shatter pieces, make use of power-ups and survive long enough to get a high score. Top stuff, then, and just as compelling as the game that inspired it. Six Match Six Match is a match-three game with a twist. Rather than arbitrarily swapping gems, you control a character with the oddly literal moniker Mr Swap-With-Coins, and as the game’s name suggests, he has just six moves after every successful match to make another. The game wrong-foots you from the start. Any muscle memory you have from the likes of Bejeweled evaporates as you figure out the most efficient way to make the next match. The result is a game heavy on puzzling and light on speed. Just when you think you’ve got it worked out, Six Match throws new mechanics into the mix: diamonds you clear by dropping them out of the well, deadly skulls and cages that push entire lines of coins. The layered strategy should keep you matching for the long term, as you figure out new ways to crack your high score. Tappy Cat Tappy Cat is a rhythm action game, with you playing as a musical moggie. Your cat sits before a ‘tree guitar’, and notes head out from the middle of the screen along two rails. These must be tapped, held, or tapped along with another note, depending on their color. This is routine for a rhythm action game, but it’s the execution that makes Tappy Cat delightful. It feels perfectly tuned for iPhone (your thumbs can always reach the notes), and there’s a cat-collection meta-game, rewarding you with new kitties when you totally nail a tune. The only bum notes are a lives system (a video ad will give you five lives – although there is also a $2.99/£2.99/AU$4.49 endless lives IAP for those who want it), and the way in which a single major blunder ends your latest attempt at musical superstardom of the furry kind. Finger Smash Finger Smash is more or less whack-a-mole with fruit - and a big ol’ dose of sudden death. You get a minute to dish out tappy destruction, divided up into seconds-long rounds. In each case, you’re briefly told what to smash, and set about tapping like a maniac. Hit the wrong object, and your game ends with a flaming skull taunting you. (Lasting the full minute is surprisingly tough.) This is a simple high-score chaser, and so there’s understandably not a lot of depth here. However, there are plenty of nice touches. The visuals have an old-school charm, and the music is suitably energetic. But also, there’s the way you can swipe through multiple items, the bomb that ominously appears during the final ten seconds, and varied alternate graphics sets if you feel the need to squish space invaders, fast food, or adorable cartoon robots. Great stuff. Higher Higher! Minimal arcade game Higher Higher! is another of those titles that on paper seems ridiculously simple, but in reality could result in your thumb and brain having a nasty falling out. A little square scoots back and forth across the screen, changing color whenever it hits the edge and reverses direction. Your aim is to tap a matching colored column when the square passes over it. The snag is that the square then changes color again; furthermore, the columns all change color when the square hits a screen edge. To add to your troubles, Higher Higher! regularly speeds up, too, thereby transforming into a high-octane dexterity and reactions test. Combos are the key to the highest scores and, as ever, one mistake spells game over. Satellina Zero Satellina Zero is a somewhat abstract game that borrows from endless runners and rhythm action titles. You play as a white hexagon, sliding left to right to scoop up green hexagons streaming in from the top. You can also tap, which jumps you to the relative horizontal location while simultaneously switching deadly red hexagons to green (and greens to red). It sounds complicated, but it really isn’t. Survival is reliant on observation and quick thinking, where you must constantly ensure whatever hexagons are coming up are the right color, jump across at the perfect moment, and slide to scoop them all up. Last long enough and you unlock new modes and music. It would have been interesting to see choreographed levels with percentage scores, rather than games comprising semi-randomized waves that always end on a single missed hexagon; nevertheless, Satellina Zero is a fresh, compelling arcade experience. Blokout Blokout is a furious, high-speed color-matching game that punishes you for the slightest hesitation. The initial mode plonks you in front of a three-by-three grid, and you have to swap colored squares, Bejewelled-style, to make complete lines, which then vanish. The timer is the key to the game. A clock sits in the upper-left of the screen and rapidly counts down, giving you only a few moments to complete a line. If the timer runs dry it's game over; make a line and it resets, giving you another few seconds. The intensity is therefore always set to maximum, nicely contrasting with the game's friendly, bold colors (which amusingly turn stark black and white the instant you lose); and if you stick around, you'll find further challenges by way of boosters and tougher modes. Threes! Freeplay Threes! Freeplay is a sliding puzzler with the same kind of compulsion loop found in the likes of Tetris. That might sound like a bold claim, but Threes! really is one of those rare games that’s easy to understand but that has enough depth and strategy to potentially keep you playing for years as you master your tactics. It takes place on a grid, on which you slide cards. Those that match merge to create ever higher numbers, and new items appear on the side of the grid they moved from. Also, all the cards move as one. It’s clever stuff, which becomes apparent the more you play; as does the care and polish within, from the pleasant background ditty to the character and charm infused even into the very cards you move. Triple Town Triple Town is a think-ahead match game, where you combine trios of things to make other things. Three bushes make a tree, and three trees become a hut. Through careful positioning and a chess-champion’s ability to think ahead, you can chain moves together, thereby freeing up the space required to continue evolving your tiny town. Then there are the bears. For some reason, the place is full of them. Some roam about the place in a semi-random fashion. Others are leapy ninjas. All of them need to be taken into consideration when laying down new objects. If you fancy a surreal, novel, challenging match game, then, this is definitely a game to bear in mind. Groove Coaster 2 Groove Coaster 2 is a rhythm action game twinned with a roller-coaster. Everything’s on-rails, with you zooming along Rez-like vector pathways, all manner of colorful blocky pyrotechnics spinning and exploding beneath the track. All you need to do is get your timing right, tapping, swiping and rubbing when the icons tell you to. Only it’s not that simple. The track flips and lurches, and the stages are designed to give your thumb a serious choreographic workout. As ever, perseverance reaps rewards, by way of massive score-enhancing chains, and, frankly, just the smugness that comes from knowing your prodding perfection means you’ve got rhythm. Our favorite free iPhone platform games, from classic side-on 2D games to ambitious console-style adventures. OCO OCO is a platform game of a decidedly minimalist stripe. Its levels all take place on circular courses that fit within a single screen. As they rotate, you prod the screen to jump – and that’s it. This could all have been reductive and awful, but OCO excels due to gorgeous visuals reminiscent of modern art coupled with superb level design. You really have to think about how to grab all of the collectibles and reach your goal. And once you get there, you’ll discover move-limit and speedrun challenges that force you to upend your existing tactics and figure out new paths to your goal. As if that’s not enough, OCO makes a case for a permanent spot on your iPhone with a daily challenge, and a built-in level editor that lets you share creations with friends. Spicy Piggy Spicy Piggy is a platformer that has a top tip for anyone eating insanely hot chilli: make sure between you and a refreshing juice stand there isn’t a slew of zombies, whirling saw blades, deep spiked pits, and all manner of other things keen for your end to be messy and sticky. Fortunately, the pig of the hour has skills to hand (or, rather, trotter). As it scoots along, auto-runner style, you prod buttons to jump, stylishly slide, or belch disgusting breath so fiery it can take out entire walls. The game is hard. You will die often until you crack a level’s layout and the perfect timing required to avoid porcine death. But this one’s a lot of fun too, with bright visuals, tricky traps, and plenty of auto-running goodness. Yeah Bunny 2 Yeah Bunny 2 features a little rabbit sprinting around colorful landscapes, squashing enemies, collecting coins, freeing trapped chicks, and generally being awesome before reaching a goal. Pretty standard platforming territory, then – Mario with bunny ears. Only this game’s different, because all your direction for the running rabbit comes from a single digit. Tap and the bunny leaps. Hold the screen and the leap is higher. You must therefore figure out how to traverse levels by bouncing the auto-running rabbit off of walls, and ensure during boss-battle pursuits you don’t get inadvertently rebounded towards your doom. You get vibrant visuals, loads of varied levels, and an endearingly cute lead character. It’s a fab little platformer, ideally suited to one-thumb mobile play and quick bouts of gaming on the go. Super Cat Tales 2 Super Cat Tales 2 is a platform game that works brilliantly on your iPhone. That in itself is rare, but also this isn’t a stripped-back one-thumb leapy game. Instead, it’s a full-fledged 2D platforming experience reworked for the touchscreen. The game features a group of cats, determined to save their world from a robot invasion. They sprint, jump, grab coins, and occasionally hop into tanks to eradicate the metal aggressors. It’s a visual treat – all vibrant colors and chunky pixels. The controls are fab too – a two-thumb system that’s ideal for touchscreens, flexible enough to allow for a range of actions, and that transforms challenges into feats of choreography. In short, this is one of the very best platform games on mobile, and it would be an insult to the creator to not give it a try. Soosiz Soosiz is a side-on classic platformer – of a sort. Most such games echo Super Mario Bros, having you sprint from left to right, jumping on enemy heads, grabbing bling, and hot-footing it to an exit. Soosiz takes that basic framework, but has you explore tiny chunks of land floating in space, each of which has its own gravitational pull. As you run, the screen flips and lurches; your brain flips, too, as you try to figure out which way is up, locate a bunch of tiny critters who’ve got themselves lost, and not accidentally careen into the void due to a misdirected jump. But once everything clicks, what amounts to a 2D take on Super Mario Galaxy proves to be a smart, engaging mobile platformer, putting a new spin on the genre. It’s Full of Sparks It’s Full of Sparks finds you in a world where firecrackers are cruelly imbued with sentience. Aware of their imminent demise, they make a beeline for water to extinguish their spark and therefore not explode. Your aim is to help them make a splash. Each of the 80 hand-crafted levels takes a mere handful of seconds to complete – at least when you master the precise choreography required. Before then, there’s plenty of trial and error as you tap colored buttons to turn hazards and chunks of the landscape on and off, and grab rotors that let you soar heavenward. Despite occasionally slippy controls, this one’s a joy – full of personality and smart level design. It’s likely to put a smile on your face even when your firework goes out with a bang. Cally’s Caves 4 Cally’s Caves 4 continues the adventures of worryingly heavily armed pigtailed protagonist Cally, a young girl who spends most of her life leaping about vast worlds of suspended platforms, shooting all manner of bad guys. For once, her parents haven’t been kidnapped (the plot behind all three previous games in the series) – this time she’s searching for a medallion to cure a curse. But the gameplay remains an engaging mix of console-like running and shooting, with tons of weapons to find (and level-up by blasting things). But perhaps the best sections feature Bera, Cally’s ‘ninja bear cub’ pal. His razor-sharp claws make short work of enemies, resulting in a nice change of pace as the furry sidekick tears up the place. Infiniroom Infiniroom is an endless runner set inside a claustrophobic room. The dinky protagonist leaps from wall to wall, going in circles and avoiding electrified boxes that periodically pop-up. Every now and again, a chunk of surrounding wall turns orange, before vanishing and opening things up a bit. But sometimes space within the room turns red – a warning that it’s about to become wall again, and that you really shouldn’t be there when it does. Lasers and whirling saw blades add further complications. Each character in the game has a special power, designed to increase their longevity. But make no mistake: this is intense twitch gaming of the Super Hexagon kind. Managing to survive for a minute requires almost superhuman reactions. Just be aware all those short games add up – Infiniroom might be brutal and frustrating, but it’s also hugely compelling. Super Phantom Cat 2 Super Phantom Cat 2 is an eye-searingly colorful side-scrolling platform game. Like its predecessor, this game wants you to delve into every nook and cranny, looking for hidden gold, unearthing secrets, and finding out what makes its vibrant miniature worlds tick. It’s also a game that never seems content to settle – and we mean that in a good way. It revels in unleashing new superpowers, such as a flower you fire at walls to make climbing vines, or at bricks to increase their fragility. It also wants you to experiment, figuring out how critters who are ostensibly your enemies can be coerced into doing your bidding. The only downside is the presence of freemium elements (ads and an ‘energy’ system) - although both can be removed with inexpensive IAP if you agree this is one cool cat to hang out with. Drop Wizard Tower Drop Wizard Tower is a superb mobile take on classic single-screen arcade platform games like Bubble Bobble. Your little wizard has been thrown in jail by the evil Shadow Order, and must ascend a tower over 50 levels to give his enemies a good ‘wanding’ (or something.) It’s all very cute, with dinky pixelated enemies, varied level design (skiddy ice; disappearing platforms; watery bits in which you move slowly), and fast-paced boss battles against gargantuan foes. Most importantly, it’s very much designed for mobile. You auto-run left or right, and blast magic when landing on a platform. Said blasts temporarily stun roaming enemies, which can be booted away, becoming a whirling ‘avalanche’ on colliding with cohorts. The auto-running bit disarms at first – in most similar games, the protagonist stays put unless you keep a direction button held. But once the mechanics click, Drop Wizard Tower cements itself as a little slice of magic on your iPhone. Swordigo Swordigo is a love letter to the classic side-scrolling platform adventures that blessed 16-bit consoles. You leap about platforms, slice up enemies with your trusty sword, and figure out how to solve simple puzzles, which open up new areas of the game and move the plot onwards. The plot is, admittedly, nothing special – you’re embarking on the kind of perilous quest to keep evil at bay that typically afflicts videogame heroes. But everything else about Swordigo shines. The virtual controls are surprisingly solid, the environments are pleasingly varied, and the pace ranges from pleasant quiet moments of solitude to intense boss battles you’ll struggle to survive. All in all, then, a fitting tribute to those much-loved titles of old. Mikey Jumps The Mikey series has evolved with every entry. Initially a speedrun-oriented stripped-back Mario, it then gained swinging by way of grappling hooks, before ditching traditional controls entirely, strapping jet boots to Mikey in a kind of Flappy Bird with class. With Mikey Jumps, the series has its biggest shift yet. Scrolling levels are dispensed with, in favor of quick-fire single-screen efforts. Now, Mikey auto-runs, and you tap the screen to time jumps so he doesn’t end up impaled on a spike or plummet to his death. It sounds reductive, but the result is superb. Devoid of cruft and intensely focused, Mikey Jumps is perfect for mobile play, makes nods to previous entries in the series (with hooks and boots peppered about) and has excellent level design that sits just on the right side of infuriatingly tough. Our favorite free iPhone logic tests, path-finding challenges, bridge builders, and turn-based puzzlers. Total Party Kill Total Party Kill finds a mage, a knight, and a ranger lost in a maze of dungeons. And the architect of these dungeons clearly wasn’t planning on anyone escaping. The floors and walls are littered with spikes and traps, and each single-screen room’s exit is far out of reach. How you get out turns out to be novel – you kill off your allies, and use their corpses in a darkly comic yet enterprising manner. The knight’s sword can hurl a lifeless friend at switches; the mage can freeze allies into blocks of ice; and the ranger’s arrows can pin bodies to walls, which can then be used as impromptu platforms. The concept is fresh and brilliantly realized – the game taking a turn towards being properly brain-smashing as you work towards its conclusion. XOB XOB describes itself as a kinetic puzzle game with a psychedelic poetic aesthetic. It’s certainly nailed the psychedelic part – its visuals are an arresting mix of low-fi TV fuzz, color-cycling, and chunky shapes. Fortunately, the game’s not merely visually arresting – the puzzling bit has a lot going for it, too. The aim is to grab a bunch of collectables before reaching a goal. To do so, you drag to tilt the entire landscape. Land on a ceiling, and everything flips. Pathfinding therefore requires precision and thought. The game exudes confidence from every pore. Also, it has one of the most user-friendly ad models in existence. You’ll never see more than 24, and you can watch them all in one go, if you like, for a subsequently permanently ad-free experience. Nice. Invaders 2048 Invaders 2048 is, as its name might suggest, a mash-up of arcade classic Space Invaders, and tile-sliding mobile phenomenon 2048. Usually, we wouldn’t be recommending a 2048 game, given that it’s a massive rip-off of the far superior Threes!, but Invaders 2048 does plenty to differentiate itself. As ever, you merge tiles by sliding matching pairs together, doubling their face values. Above, alien craft lurk menacingly. At any point, you can unleash your numbers as missiles, depleting your foes’ energy reserves.  Invaders 2048 is rounds-based, and so the challenges and pace are shaken up as you play. And because levels are short, it’s a super little title to dip into for a few minutes, rather than requiring hours of your life, as Threes! quite often does. Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle is more or less classic sliding puzzler Sokoban infused with South Park-style humor, and dressed in the garb of a famous horror series. As horror icon Jason Voorhees, you slide around each tiny scene to capture campers, cops, inmates, and more besides. On grabbing them, you’re greeted to a splattering of cartoon gore, while the levitating decapitated undead head of your mother offers sagely advice. This could so easily have been a gimmicky release, but Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle gets everything right. The puzzles are smartly designed, forcing you to find labyrinthine paths to targets; there’s a sense of progression as you unlock new worlds; and the dark sense of humor at the heart of the game gives it a real sense of character. A Way to Slay A Way to Slay is a game of epic sword fights reimagined as time-attack turn-based puzzling. You begin each round surrounded by enemies eager to separate your head from your shoulders. A quick double-tap on any of them and you strike with a killing blow – but then your opponents get their chance to move, and if you’re too near one of them, your innards end up sprayed across the sparse landscape. Assuming you don’t mind quite a lot of ‘red’ as you go about solving its challenges, A Way to Slay proves itself to be a novel take on turn-based puzzling. And even though your view’s more limited on an iPhone than an iPad, you can use gestures to pan and zoom the screen like you’re directing your very own stabby Hollywood epic. King Rabbit King Rabbit has some unorthodox enemies. Having kidnapped his rabbit subjects, said foes have dotted them about grid-based worlds they’ve filled with meticulously designed traps. Mostly, this one is a think-ahead puzzler, with loads of Sokoban-style box sliding. But instead of being purely turn-based fare, King Rabbit adds tense swipe-based arcade sections, with you running from scary creatures armed with rabbit-filleting weaponry. Really, this isn’t anything you won’t have seen before, but King Rabbit rules through its execution. Visually, everything’s very smart, from the clear, colorful backgrounds to the wonderfully animated hero (and the little jig he does on rescuing a chum). But the puzzles are the real heroes, offering a perfect balance of immediacy and brain-scratching. Moveless Chess There’s a bit of cheating going on in Moveless Chess. Although your opponent plays a standard game, you’re some kind of wizard and apparently don’t want the hassle of moving pieces. Instead, you’ve limited action points, which are used to transform pieces you already have on the board. (So, for example, with three points, you can cunningly change a pawn into a knight.) The aim remains a game-winning checkmate, and, presumably, avoiding the ire of your non-magic opponent. It’s chess as a puzzler, then, and with a twist that’ll even make veterans of the game stop and think about how to proceed at any given moment. After all, when you get deep into the game’s challenges, you might find wizarding powers don’t always make for a swift win when you can’t move your pieces. Cubway Cubway is an abstract logic test that challenges you to reach the goal in dozens of scenes. Your little red square simply has to get past objects that block its path and respond to its presence in different ways. This would all be a lot easier if you could move freely, but you’re limited to moving forward or backward. Solutions therefore involve precisely when to move – and in what direction. Often, you perform a kind of dance, moving a little way on, stopping for a moment, moving back a bit, an then continuing. It’s a fresh, inventive take on logic tests, and the aesthetics provide a real sense of atmosphere and artistry. Mekorama Mekorama finds a little robot ambling about mechanical dioramas, trying to reach a goal. It’s a tactile game, where you spin the tiny world with a finger, tap to direct the android, and sometimes urge it on by using a lift, or flinging it across the screen with a pulley system. It’s a ponderous game but that suits the aesthetic. There’s polish and consideration in every moment that deserves to be breathed in. Also, it’s a very generous game, from how it always provides several levels to tackle, to the built-in construction kit when you’ve finished all the built-in challenges and fancy creating some of your own. If you enjoy your time in Mekorama, do fling the creator some (entirely optional) IAP. Our favorite free iPhone on-rails, 3D and 2D racers, and trials games. Beach Buggy Racing 2 Beach Buggy Racing 2 is a fast-paced kart racer from the team behind the visually-stunning Riptide series. This one takes place on dry land, though, as you barrel along, grabbing power-ups and flinging them at your opponents. The courses aren’t as bonkers as those in an Asphalt game, but certainly have their moments. One has a dragon that unsportingly barbecues racers, while a pirate-themed course gets all splashy as you race through a half-sunken ship. You do sometimes wish this was a premium effort. There’s grind and loot boxes, and difficulty spikes are overly apparent when you level up. Even so, Beach Buggy Racing 2 manages to be an exciting, great-looking kart racer, on a platform with far too few entries on this sub-genre’s starting grid. Asphalt 9: Legends Asphalt 9: Legends is a madcap, streamlined racer. Much like Super Mario Run has the plumber ‘auto-run’, leaving you to time jumps, Legends corners and steers while you focus on timing. You must perform show-off drifts, jumps, and control frequent blasts of nitro. The notion of a driving game stripped of steering might seem odd, but it works. Races are exhilarating and the courses become puzzle-like as you figure out where and when to perform the correct actions. If letting the game do the work is not your cup of tea, there is also a manual option which puts you back in control. As with all Asphalt games, you spend an unfeasibly long time hurtling through the air; car pinwheeling in a manner that would make even the most maverick stunt-person’s eyes widen. For a visually dazzling, entirely over the top slice of mobile-focused arcade racing, Asphalt 9: Legends is hard to beat. Retro Highway Retro Highway marries the accessibility of modern mobile titles with the high-skill challenge and aesthetics of old-school racers. Visually, it comes across like Hang On and Enduro Racer (or, if you’re not old enough to recognize those titles, those weird games your dad used to play). But in gameplay terms, we’re very much in endless survival territory. As you zoom along, you collect coins and jump high into the air using ramped trucks, gradually unlocking better bikes and new places where you can ride them. It’s not a very deep experience, but Retro Highway is fun to dip into when you fancy an exhilarating blast of weaving between lorries at breakneck speed, regularly leaping from ramps, and only occasionally splattering your hapless rider against an overpass. Disc Drivin’ 2 Disc Drivin’ 2 is a turn-based racing game. That might make no sense on paper, but it translates well to the screen, effectively mashing up shuffleboard with high-tech levitating tracks full of speed-up mats, gaps, and traps. You can play alone, tackling a daily challenge or partaking in speed-runs. The latter option is ideal for getting to know the tracks – essential when battling other players online. You then swap moves – bite-sized chunks of gameplay where you inch your disc around the circuit, in races that can last for days. There are freemium shenanigans going on, mostly for cards that unlock new disc powers, and the fixed camera can be frustrating – although if you’re facing the wrong way, you should probably resolve to learn that track’s layout a bit better. Those minor niggles aside, this is a compelling, entertaining racer that rewards extended play. Data Wing Data Wing is a neon-infused story-driven racing adventure. It’s also brilliant - a game you can’t believe someone has released for free, and also devoid of ads and IAP. It starts off as an unconventional top-down racer, with you steering a little triangular ship, scraping its tail against track edges for extra boost. As you chalk up victories, more level types open up, including side-on challenges where you venture underground to find bling, before using boost pads to clamber back up to an exit. The floaty world feels like outer-space, but Data Wing actually takes place inside a smartphone, with irrational AI Mother calling the shots. To say more would spoil things, but Data Wing’s story is as clever as the racing bits, and it all adds up to the iPhone’s most essential freebie. Built for Speed Built for Speed is a top-down racer with chunky old-school graphics, and a drag-and-drop track editor. Make a track and it’s added to the pool the game randomly grabs from during its three-race mini-tours; other users are the opposition, with you racing their ‘ghosts’. Handling’s simple – you steer left or right. Winning is largely about finding the racing line, not smacking into tires some idiot’s left in the road, and not drifting too much. Initially, though, the game’s so sedate you wonder whether someone mistook an instruction to make it “very 80s” by having it seem like the cars are driven by octogenarians. But a few upgrades later and everything becomes nicely zippy. The only real snag is the matchmaking doesn’t always work, pitting you against pimped-out cars you’ve no chance against. Still, even if you take a sound beating, another tour’s only ever a few races a way. One Tap Rally One Tap Rally distils the top-down mobile racer into a one-thumb effort. Press the screen and you accelerate; let go and you slow down. In the nitros mode, you can also swipe upward for an extra burst of speed. It feels a bit like slot-racing, but the tracks are organic and free-flowing, rather than rigid chunks of plastic. Learning each bend and straight is essential to get around without hitting the sides – important because such collisions rob you of precious seconds. You’re also not alone – One Tap Rally pits you against the online ghosts of other players. Each time you better your score, you improve your rank on the current track, ready to face tougher opponents. This affords an extra layer of depth to what was already an elegant, playable mobile racer. Crazy Taxi Crazy Taxi is a port of a popular and superb Dreamcast/arcade title from 1999. You belt around a videogame take on San Francisco, hurling yourself from massive hills, soaring through the air like only a crazy taxi can, and regularly smashing other traffic out of the way. Given the ‘taxi’ bit in the title, fares are important. Getting them where they want to go in good time replenishes the clock. Excite them and you’re awarded bonuses. Go ‘crashy’ rather than ‘crazy’ and the fare will take their chances and leap out of your cab, leaving you without their cash. Crazy Taxi looks crude, but still plays brilliantly, and even the touchscreen controls work very nicely. For free, you must be online to play, however – a sole black mark in an otherwise fantastic port (and one you can remove with IAP). Asphalt 8: Airborne Asphalt 8: Airborne is a nitro-happy racer with four tires firmly planted in arcade racing. That said, tires don’t remain planted for long, because this game has a need for speed, having you bomb along larger-than-life courses peppered with fantastical set pieces (Rocket launches! Active volcanos!), and hurling you into the air at every available opportunity. There’s a ton of content to unlock, although the game regularly cynically nudges you towards IAP to hurry things along. This in itself feels like someone’s welded massive unwieldy bumpers to what’s otherwise a sleek iPhone sportscar racer. But for the most part, Asphalt 8 is a madcap, exciting blast, insane drifts and mid-air barrel rolls pushing your car way beyond anything the manufacturer ever envisioned. Our favorite free iPhone FPS games, precision shooters, twin-stick blasters, and vertically scrolling shoot ’em ups. Yuseong Yuseong comes off like someone has shoved an arcade machine from 1979 into your phone – albeit a machine with broken controls. The basic game resembles a cross between Asteroids and Space Invaders, with your ship obliterating space rocks before they hit the planet below. Too many strikes and you’re out; a single hit to your ship and it’s game over for you. The twist is the aforementioned controls. Instead of a joystick and fire button, this is one-thumb fare, your ship shooting and switching direction when you prod the screen. Muscle memory goes out the window as you battle with this new minimalism, but what starts off seeming impossible and frustrating soon transforms into a smart, tight shooter once you understand its idiosyncrasies. Heli 100 HELI 100 comes across like a hyper-casual take on a twin-stick arena shooter, albeit without the twin stick bit. You merely steer left and right, while your ship automatically targets and blasts away at enemies. It seems a bit dull. But hang on, because HELI 100 gets much better. Something happens around level ten. Mostly, the game ramps everything up, and it becomes clear you’ve been trundling around on training wheels. You suddenly find the arena boundaries rapidly close in. You weave between bullet hell, making use of pick-ups that enable your craft to spew all manner of projectile death – or encase itself in a huge shield. So give this one a chance – recognize the slightly dull early levels are primarily there to help you get to grips with HELI 100, and then prepare to have a blast. Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs provides a new dimension on one of mobile’s biggest hits. As ever, you catapult deranged feathered missiles at rickety contraptions housing rotund green pigs. The aim: eradicate the pigs, and the structures they’re hiding in. Their shoddy construction – along with quite a lot of ill-advisedly stored TNT – helps. Unlike previous Angry Birds efforts, this one’s AR-based. You set up a virtual 3D game on a table or the floor, and can investigate each level from every angle to figure out the optimum shot. This adds freshness to a concept that has become tired since its 2009 iPhone debut. Here’s hoping Rovio can keep the momentum going with new levels – although the dozens you get make this a no-brainer download, given the game’s lack of a price tag. Piffle Piffle is a shooter that has you blast away encroaching blocks, which are under the control of the nefarious Doc Block, and on landing will presumably do something terrible and evil. To keep them at bay, you lob strings of piffle balls – cat-like critters that bounce around while emitting endearingly cute meowing noises. As the sort-of cats ricochet around, the numbers on the blocks drop until they’re finally destroyed. Rinse, repeat, and the world is saved. Only, things aren’t quite that simple due to tricky layouts that demand precision aiming, blocks that annoyingly duplicate or deflect your piffles in the wrong direction, and setups that demand you grab and master powerups to aid you in your task. Fun stuff to dip into when you fancy some colorful, destructive action. Fortnite Fortnite is a massively multiplayer online ‘battle royale’. You’re dropped into a playfield with 100 other players, each aiming to be the last standing. To achieve that goal, you must explore your surroundings, find a dangerous weapon, and use it to do some serious violence. This in itself isn’t unique – even on mobile. But Fortnite differentiates itself in key ways. It has a sense of humor – and a sense of style that isn’t dull military fare. Also, rather than just shooting things, Fortnite encouragers you to build, creating strategic defensive barriers. The relatively complex controls are, naturally, a problem on iPhone, and can frustrate in the heat of a battle. For the most part, though, this is impressive and ambitious multiplayer gaming that makes your iPhone feel like a console. Shadowgun Legends Shadowgun Legends is a first-person shooter with swagger, which depicts you as a show-off gun for hire, partaking in a probably prescient mix of wiping out evil aliens and reality TV. After arriving in the game’s hub, you immediately find yourself on missions, which mostly involve following fairly linear pathways, violently shooting everything that moves – and some things that don’t. Control mostly happens by way of two thumbs (movement and gaze), with the odd trip to special power-up buttons. For anyone deep into the world of console shooters, Shadowgun Legends may feel stripped back and reductive, but you’d have to be a misery to not have fun blasting away, gradually working your way through dozens of missions. Just remember when your worryingly eager fans build a statue of your wonderful self to worship, they’ll ditch you the second their next hero comes along. Pixel Craft - Space Shooter Pixel Craft takes no prisoners. No sooner have you found your feet in your little auto-firing spaceship than hordes of aliens blow you into so much stardust. Before long, you clock formations and foes, learn to dodge huge arrows fired by a massive space bow, figure out how to avoid kamikaze ships, and discover how to best an opponent that’s apparently ambled in, lost from arcade classic Caterpillar. Then you face a massive boss and get blown up again. It’s staccato at first, then – even grindy. But Pixel Craft has a sense of fun and urgency that makes it worth sticking with. The aesthetics and controls are impressive, and death always feels fair – to be blamed on your fingers failing you. But with perseverance comes collected bling and ship upgrades. Then you’re the one dishing out lessons in lasery death! (At least until you meet the next boss.) Darkside Lite Darkside Lite is a visually stunning twin-stick shooter that has you protecting outer-space mining colonies under attack from aliens who’d rather humans weren’t messing up the place. The tiny snag is the mining bit – the bases you patrol are surrounded by massive ship-smashing rocks slowly ambling about. In classic Asteroids-style, you must make short work of them, while ensuring you don’t get blown to pieces by alien foes. It’s a dizzying, thrilling ride as you zoom over the planetoids, dodging installations, blasting space rocks, and taking out UFOs coming in for the kill. Should you hanker for more, additional modes (and handy smart bombs) are available in the full Darkside game. Smash Hit Smash Hit is a 3D on-rails shooter, seemingly aimed at people who really like smashing things. You float in ghostly fashion through its various scenes, hurling your limited cache of metal balls at glass objects minding their own business, or huge panes of glass that rather unwisely block your path. Initially, you’ll fling balls with merry abandon, but you soon realize getting deep into the game requires a solid aim and sparing use of ammo – not least when the camera starts to spin and the shots become increasingly tough. You’ll need to be a pretty hardcore smasher and a crack shot to reach the end – although you can ease the journey by way of a one-off IAP that unlocks checkpoints. Time Locker Time Locker is a vertically scrolling shoot ’em up with a twist: when you stop, time stops. This means that although you’re often weaving between bullet hell and blowing up swarms of enemies, you at least get the chance to think for a bit and consider your next move. That said, Time Locker doesn’t make things too easy: hang around and a relentless world-consuming darkness gobbles up your craft. This means although you can pause for a bit, you must remain on the move, utilizing power-ups to zoom ahead wherever possible. It’s a unique, engaging shooter, and its distinctive nature is further cemented by its vibrant low-poly world, which at any moment may see you attacked by gigantic tanks, dinosaur herds, or deadly waddling penguins. Our favorite free iPhone soccer, golf, tennis, basketball and other sports games. Super Over! Super Over! strips back cricket to an almost ludicrous degree. A sport where a single match in the real world can take up to five days is here distilled into mere minutes – and many would argue is all the better for it. The single-player game has you in bat, chasing a total from a limited number of balls. Your bat whizzes once back and forth across the screen. You must tap to stop it on a number, whereupon you get the requisite number of runs – or lose the game if you hit W (for wicket). The best bit, though, is the same-device two-player mode. It’s faintly absurd playing this on an iPhone, but the simple interface and very silly gameplay seem entirely appropriate to such larks, as you attempt to smack your ball toward the boundary. Image credit: TechRadar / Noodlecake Studios Golf Blitz Golf Blitz is a side-on crazy golf game, with emphasis on the crazy. Infused with the DNA of the Super Stickman Golf series, its larger-than-life courses have you thwacking balls about islands suspended in space, often with walls covered in sticky goo, or massive wooden contraptions spinning around. As if this wasn’t enough, each Golf Blitz contest also happens to be a multiplayer race. You take on three other golfers, all aiming to be first to putt. Those who win get kudos and XP. Those who don’t lick their wounds and try again. It’s fast, breezy fun, and although there’s a mite too much randomness, regular play yields rewards by way of player upgrades, without you having to dip into your golf bag for a pile of cash to spend on IAP. Nano Golf: Hole In One Nano Golf: Hole In One is mini golf in fast forward, redefined as a pastime of perfection. Every tiny course you’re presented with must be completed in a single shot. Miss just once and your game is over. Shooting, at least, is simple enough – you drag your finger back to aim/set power, and then let go. The game’s also rather generous regarding how near to the hole you need to be in order to succeed. Given the hazards on these courses, that’s just as well. Along with the usual awkward corners and bumps, there are ball-frying heaters and teleporters, and some courses take place underwater. It’s all simple stuff, but the compulsion loop here is strong – not least because you can rattle through a complete game in a matter of minutes. Rowdy Wrestling Rowdy Wrestling is a sports game that doesn’t take itself remotely seriously – and that says a lot, given the spectacle it’s simulating. But all the weirdness of pro wrestling has nothing on this game, which features ludicrously bouncy physics and fighters whose arms whirl around in an entertainingly cartoonish manner. There’s the feeling throughout that you’re only just in control, whether trying to dropkick an opponent in the face, or unceremoniously hurl them out of the ring. But when Rowdy Wrestling clicks, it grabs hold for good. Just as well, then, that you get a range of modes – Tag Team; a solo career; and the ‘last man standing’ Rumble – along with multiple fighters to unlock. Golfing Around Golfing Around transports you to a simpler age of golf video games. You don’t get lush 3D visuals, enough club choices to give a pro caddie a nervous breakdown, or inch-perfect takes on real-life courses. Instead, you have basic controls, minimal top-down visuals, and a handful of holes dreamed up by the developer. On iPhone, though, this works really well. The visuals provide clarity, and the straightforward controls afford Golfing Around immediacy. There’s some nuance too – push the power meter into the red and your aim wobbles about, your dream of extra distance at risk from potentially smacking the ball in the wrong direction. All this ensures Golfing Around makes the cut, but it’s boosted up the leaderboard by a construction kit. Making and sharing your own courses is a cinch. Probably don’t spell out “I prefer soccer actually” using water traps, mind. Kind of Soccer Kind of Soccer will be catharsis in gaming form for anyone who ever felt their soccer team was wronged by an official. That’s because although this game has a pitch and a ball, points are scored by belting the ball directly at the referee’s head. The controls are a straightforward slingshot – just drag an arrow indicator and let rip. At first, your only danger is bad aim – kick the ball out of bounds and a point is awarded against your team – but in later rounds, defenders attempt to save the ref from a beating. Fortunately, you can continue your unsporting rage by using bonuses that pop-up, including laser sights, and one option that entertainingly turns every opposition player into a tree. Pocket Run Pool Pocket Run Pool reimagines pool for the solo player. It gives you a table from above, with the twist that each of the pockets has a multiplier on it. Your score comprises the number on the ball multiplied by the number on the pocket, and you lose one of your three lives every time you miss a shot or pocket the white. Aficionados of videogame pool may grumble at this game’s basic nature. The visuals are 2D and minimal, and there’s some major hand-holding regarding aiming. But any such complaints miss the point. Pocket Run Pool isn’t about slavish realism, but taking a fresh look at pool, and fashioning a modern, quick solo game around scoring and taking risks, rather than getting soundly beaten again and again by a computer opponent on a 3D table. Flick Soccer 17 Flick Soccer is all about scoring goals by booting a ball with your finger. It looks very smart, with fairly realistic visuals and nicely arcade-y ball movement. You can unleash pretty amazing shots as you aim for the targets, and occasionally bean a defender. The game includes several alternate modes, providing a surprising amount of variation on the basic theme. There’s a speed option that involves flicking at furious speed, and the tense sudden-death Specialist, which ends your go after three failed attempts to hit the target. Rather more esoteric fare also lurks, demanding you repeatedly hit the crossbar, or smash panes of glass a crazy person has installed in the goalmouth. Like real-world sport on the TV, Flick Soccer is a bit ad-infested. You can, though, remove ads with a one-off $0.99/99p/AU$1.99 IAP, or – ironically – turn them off for ten minutes by watching an ad. Frisbee Forever 2 Flinging a plastic disc about isn’t the most thrilling premise for a game, which is why it’s a surprise Frisbee Forever 2 is so good. The game finds a little toy careening along rollercoaster-like pathways, darting inside buildings and tunnels, and soaring high above snow-covered mountains and erupting volcanos. You simply dart left and right, keeping aloft by collecting stars, and avoiding hazards at all costs – otherwise your Frisbee goes ‘donk’ and falls sadly to the ground. Grab enough bling and you unlock new stages and Frisbees. This game could have been a grindy disaster, but instead it’s a treat. The visuals are superb – bright and vibrant – and the courses are smartly designed. And even if you fail, Frisbee Forever 2 lobs coins your way, rewarding any effort you put in. PKTBALL PKTBALL is tennis on fast-forward – a racket game that appears to have absorbed the pace and power from air hockey, squash, and a demented take on classic videogame Pong. Each match features cute characters facing off, smacking a ball back and forth at insane speed. Bonuses regularly appear on the court, and if you can direct the ball over one, you might end up with some shields – or find the ball unhelpfully turns into a fish. It’s like Wimbledon as reimagined by Salvador Dali. And PKTBALL’s bonkers nature only increases once you start collecting characters. Courts become strewn with rainbows, searing neon-nightmares, or have games of Tetris running in the background. Our favorite free iPhone RTS and turn-based strategy games, board games, and card games. Pocket Cowboys Pocket Cowboys is a strategy game in a Wild West that exists in a permanent state of high noon. You pit your trio of gunslingers against those controlled by other humans, the aim being to be the first to rack up three kills. Where Pocket Cowboys excels is in its mix of immediacy and depth. Each turn gives you the option to move, shoot, or reload – and everyone takes their turn at the same time. The mix of strategy and guesswork proves a lot of fun, in what ultimately amounts to four-player rock/paper/scissors. The game of course also comes lumbered with the usual in-game currencies and upgrades. But it always seems to place you in fair fights, rather than giving you no chance to avoid pushing up the daisies. King Crusher King Crusher comes across like someone compressed an epic fantasy RPG and turn-based strategy into a shoebox and squirted the result into your iPhone. It has all the trappings of its more expansive cousins, but is perfectly streamlined for mobile play. Your little band embarks on quests that mostly take the form of grid-based battles. As adversaries try to shoot, flatten or even eat the heroes, you must swipe them about, getting them into the best positions to mete out some punishment of their own. With dozens of events and 12 character classes, there’s plenty to discover in King Crushe, but its bite-sized nature means it won’t rule over your day, instead filling odd moments with tiny procedurally-generated adventures fit for a king. Sneak Ops Sneak Ops is a stealth game that wants you to “get to the chopper”. The snag: between you and your airborne escape route are rooms packed with enemy soldiers, traps, and – occasionally – inconveniently unbreathable air. Also, you’re unarmed. Thanks, budget cutbacks! You must therefore sneak about, avoid detection and unsportingly wallop enemies over the head whenever you get the chance. Along the way, you grab floppy disks, which for some reason are used to buy restart points. Perhaps evil dudes are all retro gamers at heart. It’s tense, pacy stuff, with some fab visuals. Even better: there’s a new mission every day – and everyone gets the same one, thereby pitting you against many thousands of other wannabe strategic operators. Look, Your Loot! Look, Your Loot! takes the basics of free-roaming RPGs and shoves them into a grid-based interface not dissimilar from puzzlers like Threes! The rodent protagonist – a heavily armed mouse – moves about the grid as you swipe, his energy being depleted during battles or replenished on grabbing elixirs and shields. Whenever you enter a new tile, something new appears from the opposite side of the grid. The key to survival – and a high-score – is carefully planning your route, ensuring you don’t end up trapped between a number of powerful and angry adversaries. It’s the sort of RPG-lite that’s perfect to quickly fire up during a few minutes of downtime; but multiple level layouts and surprising depth in the mechanics also make Look, Your Loot! a rewarding game to master over the longer term. Cobalt Dungeon Cobalt Dungeon finds an explorer roaming dungeons, battling monsters, going on quests, and occasionally getting a bit shoppy. The action’s turn-based, and success often depends on engaging your chess brain to think several moves ahead. When you’re surrounded by enemies, you must figure out in which order to dispatch them. This infusion of puzzling isn’t uncommon in top-down games of this kind, but it plays out really nicely in Cobalt Dungeon. When you’re surrounded by roaming floating eyeballs, you might initially panic. But then you’ll spot a narrow path to coax them down, to off them one by one, or figure out how to exploit their sluggish movement patterns. With procedurally generated dungeons and in-game upgrade stores, every game is different. But more importantly, Cobalt Dungeon’s clever design means that every game is fun. Flipflop Solitaire Flipflop Solitaire reasons that a card game you play on an iPhone should be designed for its screen and mobile play rather than a table. To that end, it takes spider solitaire as a basic framework, then messes around with the formula. You’re still working with stacks of cards, aiming to sort them back into suits. However, in this game you have only five columns to work with and the height of your iPhone’s display provides a vertical limit. Flipflop Solitaire shakes things up more by letting you stack cards in increasing or decreasing value. This single change proves transformative, turning every deal into a solvable puzzle, and games with a single suit into frantic, entertaining speed-runs. The Battle of Polytopia The Battle of Polytopia is more or less a classic version of Civilization played in fast-forward. You start off with a single city, surrounded by the unknown. You then explore, research technologies, and give anyone who gets in your way a serious kicking. Unlike the sprawling Civilization games, Polytopia is focused and sleek. The technology tree stops before guns arrive, the standard game mode limits you to 30 moves, and new cities cannot be founded – only conquered. For the more bloodthirsty, there’s a domination mode, where you aim to be the last tribe standing. The maximum map size expands and online asynchronous multiplayer opens up if you pay for more tribes. However you play, this is a furiously addictive, brilliantly realized slice of mobile strategy. Really Bad Chess Apparently turned off by chess’s commitment to beauty, elegance and balance, the developer of Really Bad Chess set out to break it. You therefore start your first game with a seriously souped-up set of pieces: several queens, and loads of knights. Your hapless computer opponent can only look on while lumbered with a suspicious number of pawns. One easy win later and you’re full of confidence, but Really Bad Chess keeps switching things up. Rather than the AI getting better or worse, the game changes the balance of your set-up. As you improve, your pieces get worse and the computer’s get better, until you’re the one fending off an overpowered opponent. It’s a small twist on the chess formula, to be sure, but one that opens up many new ways of playing, whether you’re a grandmaster or a relative novice. Spaceteam Spaceteam is the best multi-device party game for iPhone. The backstory is that you’re attempting to outrun an exploding star, in a ship that’s seen better days. Unhelpfully, the control panel for your craft was seemingly designed by an engineer who considers user-friendliness an offensive abomination. The system provides instructions, but they’re usually not related to controls on your display. Games therefore turn into people desperately screaming “will someone turn on the dangling shunter?”, while combing every inch of their own screen for an elusive ‘eigenthrottle’ switch. With Spaceteam offering cross-device play, up to eight players can immerse themselves in this madness, as long as they’re on the same Wi-Fi network. Hearthstone Hearthstone is a one-on-one card battler set in a magical world of mystics and warriors. You and an opponent take it in turns to attack, using cards that unleash spells, minions, and other acquired skills. Given how complicated card games of this sort can be, Hearthstone proves intuitive and welcoming to the newcomer – and it’s also extremely well balanced. It’s possible, if you take the time and effort to master the game, to top the leaderboards without splashing out IAP on new cards – although such temptation might get the better of you anyway once you’re immersed in this engaging world of strategy, chance, and fantasy. Our favorite free iPhone games all about crosswords, anagrams, and playing with letters. Typochondria Typochondria is a game about typos. You sit before an algorithmically generated crime novel, looking for mistakes in each of its pages. Tap one and you move on to the next. Which probably doesn’t sound all that thrilling, but Typochondria is played against the clock. When you’re deep into a round, the timer running dry at ferocious speed, it’s surprisingly exciting partaking in a videogame take on proofreading. And if that isn’t quite enough challenge for you, an alternate mode has you figure out how many mistakes are on any given page. Should you get fully drawn in, but need a bit of a break during your downtime, there’s a risk-free zen mode, too, along with a bunch of additional genre options available via IAP. Alphabear 2 Alphabear 2 introduces you to a world where bears have made a major blunder with a time machine, and need you to fix things by… spelling words. Even the in-game protagonists don’t seem convinced by that setup, but it’s a fun hook on which to hang the sequel to one of the iPhone’s best word games. As in the original Alphabear, you make words from Scrabble tiles on a grid. When tiles are used, bears expand into the gaps. Tiles also have countdown timers, and turn to stone if you don’t use them in time, thwarting your ability to make full-screen bears. There’s a lot going on, including several modes, oddball ‘bear speech’ victory screens, a smattering of (horrors!) education, and a mildly baffling bear collection meta-game. In all, though, it’s furry much worth a download. Wordgraphy Wordgraphy looks like a stripped-back crossword puzzle with letters crammed into a grid, but the letters are muddled up and you can’t just drag them wherever you fancy. Tap any letter and you’ll be presented with a small set of possible destinations. The aim is to ensure you create complete words. It’s often easy enough to make one or two, but then you’ll be left with the likes of CCRZK along one axis, and a realization that perhaps your other words aren’t the right ones. A smart, interesting piece of logic word puzzling, then, and a game that’s suitably different from its contemporaries when you’re getting bored with more conventional fare. Letterpress Letterpress is a mix of Boggle and Risk. Two players (you and an online or computer opponent) face a five-by-five grid of letters and take turns tapping out words. But the key isn’t to show off your vocabulary; instead, you must strategize to secure territory. Captured letters turn your color, but those surrounded by your tiles become a darker shade and cannot be flipped by your opponent during their turn. With careful play, you gradually chip away at the board; to win, you must secure every tile. It’s a simple premise, but one that makes for surprisingly exciting battles. Games can turn on a smart play you didn’t see coming; many become like a tug of war, with you and an opponent trading blows. The claustrophobic board further adds to the intensity, and makes a nice change from countless Scrabble clones. Scrabble Scrabble [non-US App Store link] is a digital take on the famous boardgame. You play the computer or human opponents (over Wi-Fi or the internet), carefully placing letters on the grid, trying to position them over bonus spots for double and triple points. Crossword games of this ilk are now commonplace, but Scrabble’s board layout remains the best. It also gives you the option for ponderous play or a kind of time-attack take, forcing everyone to quickly make moves. On the iPhone, things are perhaps a touch cramped compared to on larger devices, and you’ll quite often get ads thrown in your face. Even so, Scrabble remains a solid download, not least if you’re a fan of the original. The Impossible Letter Game The Impossible Letter Game isn’t actually impossible, but it does get decidedly tricky once you’re deep into the game. Each challenge presents you with a grid of letters, the idea being to find the odd one out. This might be a W in a grid of M’s, or a 2 sneakily nestled within rows and columns of Z’s. Initially, the letters are fairly large, but they soon shrink, and even start animating, to try and throw you off the scent of your prize. The smallish screen of an iPhone adds an extra layer of difficulty to the mix. Good for your powers of observation; not so much for resting your eyes! Bonza Word Puzzle Bonza Word Puzzle deconstructs classic crosswords – and then has you put them back together again. You’re given a clue, hinting at the words you need to make, and then a bunch of fragments that resemble tetrominos. The game ends up coming across like a mix of Scrabble and jigsaws as you slowly piece together the puzzle. And just like with jigsaws, everything gets a mite tougher when you’re grasping with a larger number of pieces. Packs in the game are split between free, IAP, and those you can buy with coins earned in-game. There’s also a daily freebie, and the option to create your own puzzles – a nice touch for people who get seriously into the game. Four Letters Four Letters is a word game based around speed. You get four letters, a rapidly depleting timer, and a handy note that says how many words can be made from the letters in front of you. Tap out a word and your game gets to continue for a bit longer. Once you’re a few dozen words in, Four Letters becomes a fast, frantic, panic-inducing flurry of quick thinking and super-fast tapping. In some ways, it’s perhaps a pity there’s no timer-free mode for training purposes (and the faint hearted), but Four Letters is a great bet if you fancy a simple, entertaining word game that doesn’t let you dawdle. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Best cloud storage of 2019 online: free, paid and business options Posted: 09 Sep 2019 07:38 AM PDT Businesses and consumers are increasingly reliant on cloud based storage solutions instead of in-house, on-premise local storage hardware. Your files are stored in the cloud, which is a simplified view of what is essentially someone else's infrastructure (data center, server, hard drive, connectivity etc). Ever since Amazon popularised storage online with S3 (Simple Storage Service), 13 years ago, Google data shows that interest for "Cloud Storage" alone has increased by 40x over the past decade. So much so that people less frequently refer to it as "online storage". Given the multitude of cloud storage providers out there, one has to wisely choose a provider who will offer the maximum amount of low-cost storage and bandwidth, while still keeping your data safe. This list represents our top picks for cloud storage: most offer a free tier allowing you to see if they're right for you before handing over any hard-earned cash.  Business users will need to consider carefully what their needs are as terms and conditions as well as quality of service is likely to differ significantly from their consumer alter ego. Go straight to your desired option through the jump links below: Best free cloud storage Best business cloud storage Best cloud backup  IDrive secures servers, desktop system and mobile devices with equal aplomb (Image credit: IDrive) IDrive offers continuous syncing of your files, even those on network drives. The web interface supports sharing files by email, Facebook and Twitter. Cautious or click-happy users will be pleased to hear that files deleted from your computer are not automatically deleted from the server, so there's less danger of removing something important by accident. Up to 30 previous versions of all files backed to your account are retained. Another thing to note is that IT admins have access to IDrive Thin Client application, which allows them to backup/restore, manage settings, and more for all their connected computers via a centralized dashboard. For photos, you have a neat facial recognition feature that helps you to automatically organize them as well as syncing them across all your lined devices. IDrive also offers IDrive Express which sends you a physical hard disk drive if you lose all your data, allowing for the swift restoration of all your backed up files. That applies to the newly introduced disk image backup feature. A business version exists and offers priority support, single sign-on as well as unlimited users and server backup. pCloud delivers an affordable Cloud storage facility with a selection of apps (Image credit: pCloud) While some bandwidth limits apply, there seems to be no limit to the size of files you can upload, so feel free to sync large media files with pCloud. The service is available for all desktop and mobile platforms – users can also log in via the website. The company itself is registered in Switzerland which has strong privacy laws and you can also pay a premium of $4.99 a month for pCloud Crypto to lock (and unlock) individual files with passwords. Note that it is one of the very few cloud services that offer lifetime subscriptions. The latter come with 30 days trash history and unlimited remote upload traffic (you only need the URL of the file); you are - as expected - limited on the download link traffic: 500GB for the Premium package and 2TB for the Premium Plus package. [$175 one time payment] Lifetime premium subscription with 500GB storage [$350 one time payment] Lifetime premium subscription with 2TB storage [$47.88 per year] Premium package with 500GB storage [$95.88 per year] Premium package with 2TB storage Image credit: Zoolz There are lots of things to like about Zoolz Cloud Backup for both personal use and business deployment. It offers an easy to follow interface with excellent web management options, and the ability to combine cloud operations with local external storage. This UK-based company leverages Amazon’s Glacier infrastructure to deliver a compelling price/performance ratio, with prices far cheaper than the competition. With 20PB of data stored for three million users for more than a decade, Zoolz is also not as ephemeral as some of its rivals. Image credit: Degoo Swedish outfit Degoo is not a household name, and therefore it comes as a surprise that it has managed to carve itself a niche inside the ultra-competitive cloud storage market. With only two offerings, this outfit has managed to attract more than 15 million users globally since its inception earlier in 2019 – an estimated 20,000 people join Degoo every day. It is one of the few cloud storage companies worldwide that encrypts stored files and disperses them across four different continents. It also supports two-factor authentication via the Google sign-in. Image credit: Mega With an insanely generous free tier and a simple drag-and-drop interface, New Zealand-based Mega is one of the cloud storage heavyweights. There's a handy mobile app to allow you to upload files and photos, as well as sync clients with desktop machines. The company also has business tailored plans. Mega claims that all data stored in its cloud is encrypted on your device before it reaches the firm’s servers. As the company has released the source code to its sync client, experts can check that there are no vulnerabilities.  Price: 50GB free. 200GB for $6 a month (£4.50, €4.99, around AU$7.50). 1TB for $12 a month (£9, €9.99, around AU$16). 4TB for $23 a month (£17, €19.99, around AU$30). 8TB for $35 a month (£26, €29.99, around AU$46). Sign up for Mega here Image credit: Microsoft OneDrive is integrated into Windows 10's File Explorer. You don't have to download an additional app – it's there to use out of the box, which is obviously very convenient for those who have made the jump to Microsoft’s newest operating system. Microsoft's Photos app can also use OneDrive to sync pictures across all your devices. As of late March, Autodesk AutoCAD has been integrated with OneDrive which is good news for anyone using the software's drafting tools. There's an app for Android and iOS devices, and there's even one in the App Store for Mac users (although it has received mixed reviews). Price: 5GB free. 100GB for $3 a month (£1.99, around AU$4). 1TB for $7 a month (£5.99, around AU$11). Unlimited (as part of Onedrive for Business) for $10 a month (£7.99, around AU$14) Sign up for OneDrive here Image credit: Apple If you want to back up your iPhone to iCloud, you'll need more than the free 5GB allowance Apple gives you, but compared to rivals iCloud prices are very reasonable.  The Mac Finder app integrates iCloud Drive, where you can store any files you wish. Documents created in the iWork office suite are also saved to iCloud and can sync across your devices. Windows users can also sync their files with iCloud Drive using the official client, and access the iWork apps on the iCloud website.  Price: 5GB free. 50GB for $0.99 a month (£0.79, AU$1.49). 200GB for $2.99 (£2.24, AU$4). 2TB for $9.99 (£8, AU$13) Sign up for iCloud here Image credit: Google Google Drive is a natural choice for owners of Android devices as it's already integrated, but users of other platforms may appreciate the generous free storage too. You can also store high definition photos on your mobile phone with companion app Google Photos, and make use of Google's own office suite (now known as G Suite). Also, upgrading to paid Google Drive plans is now called Google One (although it might not yet be available, depending on the region). Downsides include the fact that the web interface isn't very easy-to-use, although Windows and Mac users can download a desktop app to drag-and-drop files easily.  Price: 15GB free. 100GB for $1.99 a month (£1.59, around AU$2.50). 200GB for $2.99 a month (£2.35, around AU$4.10). 2TB for $9.99 a month (£8, around AU$13). 10TB for $99.99 a month (£74, around AU$130). 20TB for $199.99 a month (£148, around AU$260). 30TB for $299.99 a month (£236, around AU$426).    Sign up for Google Drive here Image credit: Box Box's website currently seems to be pushing its Business plans as clicking ‘sign up’ takes you to the pricing page where for $15 per user (£11, around AU$19) you can benefit from advanced collaboration options and unlimited storage. But there is a 10GB free option, too. As Box has been around for a while, it is supported by a number of mainstream apps such as Google Docs and Office 365. It's also integrated with G-Suite, which means Docs, Sheets and Slides are automatically saved and managed in Box. Additionally, like OneDrive, it's also been integrated with AutoCAD. The Box Sync client is available from the Downloads page for Mac and Windows, plus there's also an official Android client. Price: 10GB free. 100GB for around $10 a month (£7.50, around AU$13) Sign up for Box here Image credit: NextCloud NextCloud isn’t an online cloud storage provider itself, but offers free software to download and install a cloud storage service on your own server. Using a server on your home network for cloud storage is much faster. You can also enable encryption and make sure the information never leaves your home network, which is far safer.  If you've no server or IT experience, you can even purchase a preconfigured NextCloud Box (if you can find one) which comes with a 1TB hard drive and will work with an inexpensive Raspberry Pi board to keep your data synced. Unfortunately, NextCloud Box is sold out but you can check out the alternatives on their website Price: Free to install and use. Self-hosting so storage costs vary. Sign up for NextCloud here Image credit: SpiderOak SpiderOak is part of a new trend of zero knowledge cloud storage providers. The website claims that after installing the client your data is encrypted before syncing. Unfortunately since SpiderOak hasn’t made the client source code public, there's no way to confirm this.  The SpiderOakOne client is available for Windows, Mac and Linux as well as Android and iOS (although, both Android and iOS are read-only apps, meaning you can only view files, and can't upload or sync anything). You can also log in via the web interface but privacy lovers may prefer not to as it exposes your password to SpiderOak employees.  Price: 21-day free trial. 150GB for $6 a month (around £4.5, AU$8.25). 400GB for $11 a month (around £8.4, AU$15). 2TB for $14 a month (around £10.7, AU$19.25). 5TB for $29 a month (around £22.1, AU$39.9) Sign up for SpiderOak here Best free cloud storage Image credit: Google Free storage allowance: 15GB (expandable) If you're a Google user, you already benefit from Google Drive integration, such as the ability to save email attachments from Gmail. However, anyone can sign up for the free cloud storage, even if they don't have a Gmail address, by creating a new Google account. Google is also in a process of releasing Google One as a sort of substitution for Google Drive, although depending on your region it might not be available yet. With 15GB of space for new users, Google Drive is one of the more generous cloud offerings, and there are occasional ways to boost this capacity free of charge. The catch is that this Google storage space is also shared with a user’s other Google services including Gmail and Google Photos. Mobile apps are available to allow easy access for iOS and Android users, and Google’s Backup and Sync desktop app lets you synchronize files from your PC to the cloud. Google Drive also includes online office tools for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations which can makes sharing files with others effortless. Google Drive Image credit: pCloud Free storage allowance: 10GB (expandable) You might not recognize the name, but if you're looking for a decent chunk of cloud storage free of charge, pCloud could be just the ticket. To kick things off, you're given a fairly generous 10GB to play with, and there's a bandwidth allowance of 50GB of downlink traffic per month. While we're primarily interested in the free version of pCloud, note that you can upgrade to 500GB of space for a monthly plan of $4.99 (£3.70), or 2TB for $9.99 (£7.50) a month – both of which are great deals for storage. You also have annual and lifetime plans, which are a cheaper option in the long run. The initial 10GB free offering can also be expanded up to 20GB via an additional 4GB for completion of offers, as well as referrals that add 1GB each. It’s also worth noting that pCloud offers well-designed desktop and mobile apps that supplement the website for seamless integration into a user’s workflow. With no limit on file sizes, and simple sharing options, pCloud is a great way to send large files to friends and colleagues – it's even possible to share with people who aren't using the service themselves. Add in decent streaming options and a neat online interface, and pCloud is well worth a look. pCloud Image credit: Microsoft Free storage allowance: 5GB Coming from Microsoft – a company with plenty of money to throw at the cloud – it's a little disappointing to find that OneDrive doesn’t include more space free of charge. Free users get a mere 5GB of storage, although it's relatively inexpensive to increase this to 50GB. If you have Office 365, you'll automatically get boosted to 1TB of space, but not everyone wants an Office subscription. The best free alternatives to Microsoft Office Like Google Drive's appeal to Google users, OneDrive will be a good fit for anyone who is committed to using Microsoft's services. There's neat integration with Outlook.com, for instance. It's also integrated with non-Microsoft services like AutoCAD. OneDrive also ties in nicely with Windows 10, and there is a selection of reasonable mobile apps to facilitate access on the move. It's possible to share files with other people even if they aren't OneDrive users (complete with customizable permissions), and the ability to edit files online without downloading them is a welcome touch. Microsoft OneDrive Image credit: Dropbox Free storage allowance: 2GB (expandable) Dropbox is a stalwart of the free cloud storage world, with a web interface that remains streamlined and easy-to-use. Despite its popularity, Dropbox actually has one of the least generous free packages for new users (just 2GB), but there are various ways to boost this space without paying, including inviting friends to join (you get 500MB per referral up to 16GB), completing the Getting Started guide (250MB) and contributing to the Dropbox forum (which elicits 1GB per 'Mighty Answer' provided). DropBox really comes into its own when you start delving into the service’s extra features. There's a great collaborative working tool called Dropbox Paper that acts as a group workspace, and – if you install the desktop app – you can back up photos automatically. The File Requests feature also allows you to request another user to upload a file to your Dropbox account. Additionally, a feature called Dropbox Rewind lets you restore folders or your entire account to a specific point in time. There are desktop apps for Windows, Mac and Linux, and mobile apps including Android, iOS and even Kindle. This gives Dropbox broad appeal, as does the support for third-party apps and services. The web version of Dropbox lets you edit files without needing to download them, and really the only thing that counts against the cloud storage service is that most alternatives offer more space to free users. Dropbox Image credit: MediaFire Free storage allowance: 10GB (expandable) MediaFire has been around for over a decade, and those years of experience really show. You're given 10GB of free space initially, but you can boost this by an extra 40GB through activities like referring friends and following MediaFire's social media accounts. Few people would disagree that 50GB of free cloud storage is impressive. Free accounts carry ads, but this is a small sacrifice to make. There's support for large files up to 20GB, and the sharing options are very impressive, even allowing sharing with non-users. The web-based interface is excellent too, and MediaFire offers mobile apps for convenient uploading and downloading on iOS and Android. These make it easy to access files you're storing in the cloud, and include convenient features such as automatic photo syncing. MediaFire Best business cloud storage Image credit: SpiderOak SpiderOak is a collaboration tool, online backup and file hosting service founded in 2007. The platform allows users to access, synchronize and share data using a cloud-based server. The company places a strong emphasis on data security and privacy. They offer a cloud storage, online backup and sharing service which they claim uses a ‘zero knowledge’ privacy environment. This means the client is the only one who can view all stored data. Not even SpiderOak themselves have access to your data. SpiderOak’s main focus is on privacy and security. As a result, the tool itself has a very basic design. This makes the admin console and all central device management very straightforward to use. They also include a handy drag and drop feature for organising files. From the centralized device management dashboard, users can access settings for all applications such as backup selection and sharing. The dashboard also allows users to manage their accounts, set group permissions and gain insight into usage. Prospective business clients will need to contact SpiderOak’s Sales Team directly to obtain a quote. 500 users minimum is required. Online commentators have observed that SpiderOak lacks many of the collaboration tools available from other cloud storage providers. You can sign up for SpiderOak here Image credit: Tresorit Tresorit is a cloud storage provider based in Hungary and Switzerland. It was founded in 2011. The provider emphasizes enhanced security and data encryption for businesses and personal users alike. If you are concerned with ensuring that your stored data is kept safe online then Tresorit is the service for you. This provider allows you to keep control of your files through ‘zero-knowledge encryption’ meaning that only you and the chosen few you decide to share with can ever see your data. Your Tresorit account can also be secured by two-factor authentication login. Furthermore, you also have features like Document Scanner which securely scans and uploads documents directly to Tresorit. Tresorit’s ‘Small Business’ Packages starts at $25 (£19.60) per month (or $20 monthly for the annual plan) for teams with 2-9 users. This includes 1000GB encrypted storage, secure access on up to 10 devices and synching of existing folder structure.  Tresorit’s ‘Business’ plan begins at $30 (£23.30) per month (or $24 monthly for the annual plan) for businesses with over 10 users. This comes with extras such as digital rights management, remote wipe and phone support. At the time of writing there is a 50% discount on "Business plan", so you can pay as low as $12 (£9.4) per month The ‘Enterprise’ tier weighs in at $34 (£26.65) per month (or $27 monthly for the annual plan) for businesses with more than 100 users. Extras included in this are personalized staff training, admin API and on-premises deployment. In order to sign up for this plan, users need to contact Tresorit directly. All tiers come with a 14-day free trial. The extra security offered by Tresorit makes it relatively expensive compared to other cloud backup solutions. However most users will probably appreciate the greater piece of mind and extra features offered by Tresorit. You can sign up for Tresorit here Image credit: Egnyte Egnyte was founded in 2007. The company provides software for enterprise file synchronization and sharing.  Egnyte allows businesses to store their data locally and online. All types of data can be stored in the cloud, whilst data of a more sensitive nature can be stored on servers on-premise. This makes for better security. Business teams can work how and where they want with an easy to use collaboration system through Egnyte’s content services platform. Egnyte integrates with popular industry applications such as Office 365 or Gmail. This allows both remote and internal employees to access all files with ease. Egnyte’s ‘Office’ plan starts at $8 (£6.21) per employee per month. This covers 5-25 employees, 5TB of storage and 10GB max file size. The ‘Business’ packages starts at $20 (£15.7) per employee per month. This includes 25-100 employees, 10TB online storage and 10GB max file size. In order to take advantage of their ‘Enterprise tier’, which includes over 100 employees, 25GB max file size and unlimited storage, you will need to contact Egnyte directly. Egnyte offer a 15-day free trial for all packages. Users have observed that some files, such as photos, can take a long time to load. You can sign up for Egnyte here Image credit: Dropbox Dropbox is one of the oldest cloud storage providers. It was founded in 2007. To date it is one of the simplest storage providers to use. Dropbox can be installed on most computers or devices and syncs easily between apps. The app can store almost any kind of file while never having any issues with compatibility. You can drag and drop files into the desktop app with ease. You can also share files with other users easily through links. These can be shared with users who don’t have a Dropbox account.  As Dropbox has been around for a long time it integrates with most other apps such as MS Office and Slack. All files and folders can be shared with other users even if they are not part of your account. These users will be limited to their own plan's storage limits. Dropbox Business can be connected to your personal account so you can access all your files in once place. Personal account feature "automatic camera upload" is now also available to Business accounts, as of November 2018. The dashboard is simple and easy to use. From here, admins can see how many team members they have as well as any pending invites. You can restrict sharing, and allow/block commenting as you see fit. The dashboard allows you to access settings and to monitor usage. Dropbox offers a 30-day free trial which asks for your payment details. Your plan will automatically upgrade after the trial at which point your card is charged. The ‘Standard’ plan starts at $12.50 (£9.71) per user per month starting at 3 users and includes 3TB storage. The ‘Advanced’ package begins at $20 (£15.70) per user per month with unlimited storage. In order to subscribe to the ‘Enterprise’ tier, users will need to contact Dropbox directly. Some users have commented on the lack of online editing tools.  You can sign up for Dropbox Business here Image credit: Box Box is a cloud content management and file sharing service for businesses. It was founded in 2005. Box offers strong management capabilities and security features. The interface is made for ease of use and is simple to navigate.  The dashboard allows access to settings, files and folders. Admins can manage all users, monitors activity and control sharing. As Box has been around for a while, it is supported by a number of mainstream apps such as Google Docs and Office 365. The Box Sync client is available from the Downloads page for Mac and Windows. There's also an official Android client. Box offers a 14-day free trial for all packages. Their ‘Starter’ plan is priced at $5 (£3.88) per user per month. This includes 100GB secure storage, 2GB file upload with a maximum of 10 users. The ‘Business’ plan starts at $15 (£11.80) per user per month which includes unlimited storage, 5GB file upload and no maximum number of users. The ‘Business Plus’ package is $25 (£19.60) per user per month and comes with unlimited storage, 5GB file upload and unlimited external collaborators. In order to subscribe to Box’s ‘Enterprise’ plan, users will have to contact them directly for a quote. If you choose to share files external users are limited to read-only access. You can sign up for Box for Business here Stay safer online with a Virtual Private Network - discover the best VPN This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Prediction rather than prevention is way forward to stay one step ahead of hackers Posted: 09 Sep 2019 06:44 AM PDT Predictive risk management strategy rather than prevention is the need of the hour in the cybersecurity space to enable organisations to proactively identify threats and allow them to stay one step ahead of potential threats, industry experts said.  “What we have learned so far is the preventive approach, how to prevent an incident happening from the network. Now, we talk about predictive approach, how we can predict an attack happening on the network and block it from happening,” Anand Choudha, managing director at Spectrami, a cybersecurity solutions distributor, told TechRadar Middle East. As the threat landscape has been evolving over the years, he said that new and sophisticated attacks happen every day. “As everything is connected in today’s world, the cyber warfare is becoming more relevant than before and which is driving the need to relook at the strategies and develop a predictive risk management strategy,” he said. Going after the hackers According to Choudha, the three-way framework of prediction-based approach - vulnerability analytics, security analytics and multi-vendor threat intelligence – is the new trend and will help all the decision-makers to stop the attacks before they hit their organisation. Gartner has endorsed it as predict, prevent, detect and respond (PPDR) framework. Sarfaraz Kazi, chief technology officer at Spectrami, said that the whole idea is to stay one step ahead of the hackers.  Moreover, he said as most people practised prevention, detection and response method, nobody talked about prediction. “People need to go beyond the network and to the dark web and deep web to see how the hackers work. Rather than waiting for the attacker to come to your doorstep, we are flipping the switch now and go after the hacker to learn his tricks and procedures. Instead of being reactive, we are going to be proactively hunting the hacker. “Once I know the IP addresses of the hacker, I can block him whenever he is online. I cannot prevent him from getting to my door but I can prevent him from entering my house,” he said. The three-way framework is a fusion of manual and automation.  “The framework is evolving and cannot be 100% sure of what is going to help but what we are seeing is that companies that have gone into the predictive mode are more secure than the traditional approach and vendors in the Middle East are expected to follow and adopt the framework.  In few years, we may say that predictive framework is outdated and a new framework may be out,” Choudha said. Kazi said that Cybersecurity is like insurance. “We buy cheap car insurance as we don’t make accidents. When we make accidents, we think of expensive insurance. Everything works but it comes at a cost. The infrastructure cost of defence mechanism for blocking nation-state attacks is north of $10m a year. What is lacking is the support of the management and how many companies are willing to invest that much money,” he said. SIM swap fraud leaves two-factor authentication users at risk Russia and Iran expected to conduct disruptive cyber-attacks in Middle East Following sanctions, Iran bombards US with phishing emails This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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