How-To Guides from Gadget Hacks: Page 66

I've seen my fair share of heartbreaks when it comes to used phones. As a repair tech, I often had to try and help out customers who bought used handsets which turned out to be useless, either because it was stolen or not working on their carrier's network. More often than not, there was very little I could do. To help you from being stuck in the same situation, here are some tips to prevent you from getting scammed out of your hard earned money when buying a used handset.

When it comes to ad blocking on Android, there's no better app than AdAway. The popular root mod filters out ads at the hosts file level, so no extra processing power is used, and your phone is literally incapable of loading most ads.

Put yourself in Google's shoes: You know that business is becoming increasingly mobile, but the mobile operating system you maintain is wide open by design, and it's garnered legions of loyal fans that love to explore and exploit every aspect of it. There's a clear conflict of interest developing.

Nobody likes ads, especially when they're tailored to your browsing history like the promoted content posts on Twitter. These deceptive advertisements are injected into your feed, trying to hijack your attention with clickbaity headlines and distracting images. You most certainly don't need it, and I'm positive the Kardashians don't need any more publicity, they seem to be doing quite well.

NetGuard is a well-established app known for its highly secure firewall, which blocks unwanted web activity from individual apps that can take up both precious bandwidth and battery life. Not quite as well known, however, is the fact there's a second official version of NetGuard that comes with a hidden ad-blocking feature, which can be activated with just a little tinkering in the app's settings menu.

When a new jailbreak method comes out, Apple is quick to patch the vulnerability it exploits by issuing a new iOS update. If you were to accept such an update, you'd no longer be able to jailbreak your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch unless you could roll back your firmware to a version that could be jailbroken. But Apple even takes things a step further and stops signing older iOS firmware versions, which makes downgrading next to impossible. This is where your SHSH2 blobs come into play.

The Galaxy S8 and S8+ come with a set of AKG-tuned earbuds that would cost you $99 by themselves. Unfortunately, the earbuds alone don't automatically translate to superior sound, and they've been met with lukewarm reception. But as it turns out, there's a fairly hidden menu on Samsung's flagships that'll give you a tailor-made audio experience and help you get the most out of your S8-AKG pairing.

The internet's an amazing place. The entirety of human knowledge is now accessible in an instant, and all sorts of media can be streamed directly to the palm of your hand. But, of course, that also includes the darker side of humanity, so there's plenty of NSFW content floating around out there that's certainly not suitable for children.

There were some new hurdles to clear, and then there were a few more, but legendary root developer Chainfire has created a fully-functional root method for Google's Pixel and Pixel XL flagships. Like past devices, this method relies on the SuperSU ZIP, but now, there's an additional file that needs to be flashed in order to bypass issues with Android Verified Boot (AVB).

Up until now, enabling full-time Immersive Mode on an Android device has been a tedious task which required you to run individual ADB commands each time you wanted to toggle it on or off. This was a shame, too, since Immersive Mode helps reclaim lots of screen real estate by auto-hiding your navigation and status bars.

Open your Spotify app, search for an artist, view its "Spotify Code," and display it to that friend lurking over your shoulder. Sound familiar? Probably not ... yet.

The Note 7 debacle taught Samsung an important lesson on cramming oversized batteries into their handsets, and they've applied it diligently to their Galaxy S8 and S8+. You might even say the company has gone a little too far in trying to achieve a balance between battery size and battery life, as it not only not only sets screen resolutions to 1080p by default and warns users about maxing out display brightness, but it also keeps close tabs on individual apps' battery usage.

Prison Architect, the BAFTA winner for the Best Persistent Game in 2016, has finally soft launched on iOS. Originally a PC game, Prison Architect lets you build and maintain a maximum security prison. Comparable to running a small city, the game has you manage an ever-expanding correctional facility and contend not only with violent offenders and ever-present prospect of a chaotic riot, but also more mundane affairs like balancing the prison's budget and employee payroll.

Recent launches of YouTube TV and YouTube Go created a bit of excitement on the web. Though the latter allows downloading, it doesn't allow background playback, as that would require a YouTube Red subscription for $10 a month. However, there's still a way to get both of these features without paying a dime.

Like Russian Matryoshka dolls, the features on the Galaxy S8 and S8+ often have hidden components within them that add to their functionality. The phone's flashlight is a great example of this since there's a hidden shortcut within the "Flashlight" Quick Settings tile that lets you adjust its brightness level.

The Samsung Galaxy S8's almost bezel-less display is truly a sight to behold, especially when set to Immersive Mode. While transparent when on the home screen, the navigation and status bars on the S8 will often turn opaque depending on what app you're using at the moment. This, in turn, can detract from the overall experience when viewing anything from the S8's display, as the bars along the top and bottom of the screen bump the phone's aspect ratio down to lower levels.

A great many S8 and S8+ users have undoubtedly spent quite a bit of time figuring out ways to unlock their new Galaxy in as few steps as possible. One of the most endearing features of previous Galaxy models was the ability to unlock the phone by pressing the home button and momentarily leaving your finger there for the sensor to do its job, almost instantaneously opening the device — all without having to pick up the phone.

Running diagnostics on your Android phone can be a very tedious process. More often than not, you need to key in dialer codes to see if your device's hardware is functioning properly, though you can also download apps — but these are often hard to understand for a layperson. When a smaller component like a proximity sensor fails, you're often left with no other choice but to take it to a professional.

DSP Manager, Dolby Atmos, ViPER4Android — how are you supposed to pick just one from the wide variety of Android equalizers? Depending on your OEM, your phone may have come with a stock equalizer, but they're usually not enough. Combine them with a third-party equalizer, and then we're getting somewhere. However, installing multiple equalizers at the same time has always seemed to cause audio glitches — until now.

Google's own devices have always been the first to get new Android features — but unlike the Nexus series, last year's Pixel phones have a handful of exclusive tweaks that were never intended to trickle down to other devices once the newer Android version rolled out to them. These Pixel exclusives included the Pixel launcher and a unique set of on-screen navigation buttons.