There are so many Windows apps out there, that picking a list of the very best, most must-install software for your desktop or laptop feels daunting. We've pored over pages of recommendations, countless forum posts, and lots of comments to come up with this year's Lifehacker Pack for Windows, a list of software champions across four categories: productivity, internet/communications, music/photos/video and utilities.

It's probably been a while since you signed up for internet service, but you should have an idea of how fast your plan is. If not, give your ISP a call. Write down your plan's maximum download and upload speeds. You can then use these speed-testing websites to see just your wifi's actual performance stacks up to what you're theoretically paying for.

We’re so used to using computers and phones that they feel like an extension of our brains — it isn’t just me, right? A Google query comes back as fast as a thought, and the information at my fingertips feels intangible like the information in my brain.

Most of us have a reasonable understanding of how the internet works - but it can be notoriously difficult to explain in plain English. This infographic from Internet.Frontier does a pretty good job of breaking it all down in easy to understand language.

Dear Lifehacker, Is there a way to use my phone to provide wifi to my laptop and smart tv so we can say goodbye to our home broadband? I'm flabbergasted at the cost of internet!

I rent a room in a house and one of my overlords is a former networking engineer for one of those companies here in the area. In other words, he knows his stuff. But I've encountered a perplexing issue with my room's networking setup that we haven't pinned down yet. And we'd prefer to find an easy solution before we start having to lay new ethernet cable through the wall or anything crazy like that.

You’re probably used to bookmarking your favourite sites for easy access, but the web goes much deeper than the top domains you’re familiar with. From your social networks to your email box, having the right URL to hand can enable you to jump right into the page, feature, setting, or search you need. Here are 10 of the most useful ones.

My web browser of choice is Google Chrome, but I'm always on the hunt for a better browser. After all, it's the app I use most often on pretty much any computer. If a browser can perform faster and more efficiently than Chrome, I'd absolutely consider it. So I decided to give Firefox a try.

By 2020, every household in Australia is expected to connect to the NBN - and those who don't will have a raft of telecommunications products and services switched off. The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) has put together an infographic explaining five things you need to know to ensure the big switch runs as smoothly as possible.

WiFi networks, especially free ones, are always the hardest to find when you actually need them. Now Google has made tracking one down a little easier thanks to a new feature in its data-saving app Datally.

In 2016, the Federal Court ordered ISPs to block five popular torrent websites including The Pirate Bay, TorrentHound and IsoHunt within 15 business days. Since then, a swathe of additional sites have been added to the block list in a bid to eradicate piracy.

Torrenting itself is completely legal of course, and it's not all that difficult to circumvent ISP blocking of torrent websites. For instance, you can do it through a VPN, which often requires a monthly subscription fee. Here are some ways to gain access to blocked torrent sites for free.

NBN Co says that since December 2017, orders for wholesale speed tiers of 50 Mbps or higher have almost tripled 16 percent to 44 percent and average bandwidth network congestion reduced from more than five hours to less than 30 minutes per service per week compared to this time last year. This numbers exclude the Sky Muster satellite service that's been deployed in rural areas.

The company behind the National Broadband Network has updated its searchable rollout map to coincide with its revised three-year timetable. Want to know when the NBN is coming to your suburb? All you need to do is type your address into the website.

With the NBN rollout moving forward we should be expecting Australia to move up through the global broadband rankings. After all, with tens of billions of dollars being ploughed into connecting people across the nation, we should be seeing things get better. But is that the case? How do we compare to other countries and are we treading water compared to other countries or are we getting world-class performance? Let's see what the data says.

Over the past six months, internet service providers have made a raft of changes to their National Broadband Network (NBN) products in a bid to improve transparency with customers. Based on recommendations provided by the ACCC, the changes are supposed to make it easier to compare NBN products between different telcos. Here's what you need to know.

We can think of more than a few dead or long-ignored websites we want dusted off and brought back to life. Here are the seven sites we miss the most. Let's surf the web of nostalgia.

Browser cookies are useful in some instances; unpleasant in others. While they can save you from having to go through a complicated authentication process whenever you're trying to access your favourite sites, they can also store data on what you've done on a particular website -- which can then be used to serve you more "relevant" advertising at a future point.

Maybe you've heard someone mention GDPR in passing, but were too embarrassed to ask what those letters actually stood for. Or maybe your friend posted something online about what GDPR means for online data protection. At the very least, you've probably received a few dozen emails from various companies about how their updated their privacy policies comply with the new law.

Bad news for many regional customers on NBN's fixed wireless network, with NBN Co announcing on Thursday night that they have killed off 100 megabit per second speeds to their fixed wireless network, citing a lack of "mass-market demand" and "the economics".