Pete Buttigieg — the Transportation Secretary under former President Joe Biden and potential Democratic 2028 presidential candidate — torpedoed Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany’s claim that the American people “stand” with President Donald Trump’s deportation forces.

Buttigieg appeared on McEnany’s show, Saturday in America, where he argued that Americans believe “we need a different direction” on deportation tactics, as evidenced by the shooting deaths of two people this month in Minneapolis.

“It’s a tragedy any time an American citizen dies, absolutely,” McEnany said. “We heard Tom Homan this week talk about how he prays every time before he goes out. He doesn’t want even the illegal immigrant who might have a criminal record to be harmed in the process of obtaining them.”

McEnany continued, “But at the same time, Americans clearly called for immigration enforcement. They called for not a lawless southern border where two million gotaways happened during the Biden administration. So what’s the response to those in your party who are saying ‘abolish ICE?’ ‘Cause that is not where the American people stand.”

“Yeah, I think Americans want and expect that we’ll have a secure border, understand that we have immigration laws, and that those immigration laws have to be enforced,” Buttigieg said. “But what we’re seeing is not that. What we’re seeing is, the people who are supposed to be enforcing the law are breaking the law. It’s been held in court that they have violated countless court orders, and the people they’re going after are not — increasingly and proportionally — not just the person we can all agree needs to be deported and dealt with, somebody with a criminal record.”

He continued:

But when you see a 5-year-old kid in a Spiderman backpack being treated — being incarcerated — this way, when you see people who did follow the rules, follow the laws, did everything they’re supposed to and they are still getting arrested, mistakenly deported, having their rights violated. When you see an American — this photo of an American woman opening the door to her home and on her doorstep finds half a dozen agents, federal agents, in tactical gear that is more tricked out than what I would take outside the wire when I was in Afghanistan, again, on the door of an American porch — I think most people get that is wrong. It is not making us safer.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

The post Pete Buttigieg Torpedoes Fox Host’s Claim Americans ‘Stand’ With Trump Deportation Forces first appeared on Mediaite.

LEFT: Don Lemon (Screenshot) RIGHT: Pam Bondi (Mark Schiefelbein/AP photo/X)

Conservative legal commentator and Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy delivered warnings to both Don Lemon — the former CNN journalist who has been arrested in connection with his alleged participation with a protest that interrupted a St. Paul church service — and the Department of Justice on Friday.

In a column for National Review, McCarthy reminded readers of a point he has previously made: “Assuming there is an indictment, whether now or in the near future, if Lemon is going to have to try to get the case thrown out on a pretrial motion to dismiss; the First Amendment does not protect a journalist from being charged with a crime; it may protect him from being convicted.”

“The Justice Department gives the press a wide berth based on regulations and norms that honor the First Amendment’s acknowledgment of a free press; there is a reluctance to prosecute or compel the production of information. But the Constitution is not a press shield,” argued the former federal prosecutor. “If a reporter violates a criminal statute — whether or not ostensibly in the course of journalistic reporting — the First Amendment does not immunize the reporter from prosecution.”

“On the other hand, if a reporter truly was acting as a journalist, that may influence a court’s assessment of whether ambiguous evidence shows true criminally culpability. For example, unless there is evidence of involvement in conspiratorial planning or hands-on forcible activity, it would be tough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a reporter who was merely present at a riot was not investigating it for journalistic purposes, rather than actionably participating in it,” concluded McCarthy, who noted that there is a “much lower standard” for securing an indictment than convicting a defendant.

The post Fox’s Andy McCarthy Warns Don Lemon He’s Not Immune From Prosecution — But Says It Will Be ‘Tough’ to Convict Him first appeared on Mediaite.

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Last August, ChatGPT developers OpenAI unceremoniously killed the fan favorite GPT-4o model, before giving in to complaints and bringing it back a week later. Now, the company's taking a second swing at getting its users to move on. In a new post to its website, OpenAI announced that it's retiring GPT-4o again.

The model's set to disappear from ChatGPT's model picker on Feb. 13, alongside other older models like GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and OpenAI o4-Mini. And OpenAI is clearly nervous about the decision.

"While the announcement applies to several older models," OpenAI wrote, "GPT-4o deserves special context."

According to the company, it has taken user outcry over the initial deprecation of 4o to heart while developing its newest models, GPT-5.1 and GPT-5.2, and has built these models with the idea of maintaining the features fans liked best about the old model. The company says that now "only 0.1% of users" opt for GPT-4o on a daily basis.

As such, the company wants to focus on "improving the models most people use today," which apparently means removing older ones. "We know that losing access to GPT-4o will feel frustrating for some users, and we didn't make this decision lightly," the post reads.

What's the big deal with GPT-4o?

So, what's with OpenAI treating its users so gingerly, especially when GPT-4o is a few generations behind, and there are newer models that supposedly do everything it does, but better?

Well, when GPT-4o was first deprecated, people weren't happy. Users called its successor, GPT-5, "an unmitigated disaster," and accused OpenAI of pulling "the biggest bait-and-switch in AI history."

Some criticized the model's usefulness, saying it got answers wrong and broke code, but what maybe stuck out the most was people calling out its more concise tone.

GPT-4o has been called "sycophantic" by critics, something the company addressed and said it wanted to pull back on in future updates. But I guess one person's "yes man" is another person's "active listener." When the company initially pulled GPT-4o, users complained that its replacement was cold and felt less like a "friend." Even OpenAI acknowledged this, saying in today's post that users "preferred GPT-4o's conversational style and warmth."

In short, in the words of 4o-supporters themselves, they were "grieving" the model.

Is GPT-5.2 a good replacement for 4o?

That said, with so many users now seeming to have moved on from 4o, OpenAI's decision does seem understandable on the surface. Personally, one of the things that drives me away from AI is how much reassuring filler text seems to fluff up most answers ("you're absolutely right" and such), seemingly just to make me feel good about myself. More concise, to-the-point responses would be a little less off-putting for me.

To try to split the difference, OpenAI reworked its Personalization feature in GPT-5.1, so users can simply choose how the chatbot will treat them. There are options for more professional responses, more nerdy ones, more efficient ones, and for those who want that active listener style, more friendly ones.

Going by OpenAI's numbers, that seems to have been enough for most people, but there are still some calling foul at the company's new announcement.

GPT-4o loyalists are still out there

In a Reddit thread responding to OpenAI's new posts, users doubted that the 0.1% number for 4o was accurate, saying that prompts have been "rerouting to 5.2 no matter what" and that "something somewhere in their calculations doesn't add up." Others pointed out that free users can't use GPT-4o and that it's not enabled by default, which will naturally juice the numbers against it.

As such, calls to cancel ChatGPT subscriptions are once again circulating amongst 4o's more dedicated fans. In a popular thread on the OpenAI subreddit, one user called 4o "OpenAI's most advanced and beloved model," and praised its "personality, warmth, and consistency," saying that its fans have built long-term project and "emotional support routines" around it, and that suddenly losing it without even the option for a legacy mode "feels abrupt and deeply disappointing."

"This isn't about resisting innovation," the post writes. "It's about respecting bonds users have formed with specific models."

Whether the fan outcry will work again remains to be seen. However, as ChatGPT chief Nick Turley has previously looked at those kinds of bonds with skepticism, and because keeping old models in operating condition probably takes developer resources away from making new ones, I wouldn't count on it.

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Zendaya is busy. Euphoria, which she produces in addition to starring in, is finally set to return for its third season on April 12, four years after our last visit to East Highland, and nearly seven since it premiered.

As frustrating as these between-season breaks can be, they leave plenty of time to explore other tales of the wild lives of high schoolers. It's all relative, though: While growing up in never a picnic, there's drama, and then there's drama. These 15 streamalikes vary widely in tone and style, but they all make clear that being a young person in the 21st century is not f*cking easy. Stream the first two seasons of Euphoria on HBO Max.

The Sex Lives of College Girls (2021 – 2025)

Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) is an endlessly naïve scholarship student; Bela (Amrit Kaur) is an aspiring comedy writer on the make for the hottest guys; Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) is an overachieving athlete and senator’s daughter;and Leighton (Reneé Rapp) is a closeted sorority girl. They're all randomly assigned to room together as freshmen at the fictional Essex College in Vermont. Created by Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble, this comedy-drama isn't nearly as salacious as its title suggests. There's sex for sure, but like Sex and the City before it, the funny, queer-friendly show is more about female friendship. Stream The Sex Lives of College Girls on HBO Max.

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My Mad Fat Diary (2013 – 2015)

Period drama is having a moment, and this one goes way, way back...to the 1990s. This British comedy-drama stars the brilliant Sharon Rooney (you might know her as Lawyer Barbie) as Rae Earl, a 16-year-old who just spent several months in a psychiatric hospital for a cocktail of mental health issues, poor body image being near the top of that list. Heading back to school, she tries to conceal the truth of her absence and ongoing challenges—with expectedly mixed results. Despite the show's comedy elements, it's about as good a narrative about growing up with serious mental health issues as you're likely to find. Rooney won a well-deserved Best Actress BAFTA for her performance. Stream My Mad Fat Diary on Prime Video, Hulu, and Tubi.

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Boarders (2024 – )

This British import feels a bit like a latter-day Skins, featuring a scholastic setting and a talented cast of young stars-in-waiting (including leads Josh Tedeku and Jodie Campbell). At the (fictional) prestigious boarding school St. Gilbert’s, five Black teens are newly attending on scholarships, but their integration into the existing cliques is less than smooth. The blend of coming-of-age drama with a willingness to take the piss when it comes to the whole "rich private school thing" makes this Tubi original a smashing good time. Stream Boarders on Tubi.

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Gossip Girl (2007 – 2012)

Teen drama at its finest and most bitchy, Gossip Girl follows the many scandals of a group of young Upper East Side socialites and hangers-on. The tangled teenage lives of Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively), her best frenemy Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), scholarship kid Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley), and plenty more pretty young boys and girls are chronicled in meticulous detail by the title's mysterious, omnipresent Gossip Girl (voiced by Kristen Bell). This one shares with Emily an impeccable sense of style, as its leads never miss a fashion beat. It all seems a bit tame when help up to Euphoria, but the show carved a path nonetheless, scandalizing parents in the mid-aughts. (The two-season 2021 follow-up is also available on HBO Max.) Stream Gossip Girl on HBO Max and Netflix.

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Prisma (2022 – 2024)

Andrea and Marco are twin brothers (both played by Mattia Carrano) with a broad circle of friends living in modern day Italy. Marco has a history of self-harm that impacted his burgeoning swimming career, while Andrea has a secret social media life,messaging men while presenting as a woman. Sexual and gender exploration is the prime mover here, but the show also deals realistically with issues like drugs and bullying and any number of other coming-of-age trials. A bit of a hidden gem. Stream Prisma on Prime Video.

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Elite (2018 – 2024)

With a bit of Gossip Girl’s juicy style, Elite follows a group of working-class friends who wind up with scholarships to Las Encinas, a fictional private school that is, in the show’s universe, the most exclusive in Spain. What they find there is snobbery, for sure, but also mystery, murder, and lots and lots of sex (between and among characters of various sexual orientations and numerical groupings). The smart, wonderfully trashy show ran for an almost shocking (in our modern streaming era) eight seasons, with a couple of regional remakes. Stream Elite on Netflix.

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Blood & Water (2020 – )

This top-tier teen drama stars Ama Qamata as Puleng Khumalo, a teenage girl who’s lived her entire life in the shadow of a sister who was taken as a baby by human traffickers (Puleng’s parents still hold a birthday celebration for the sister each year). When invited to a party by popular Fikile Bhele (Khosi Ngema), a student at an elite school in Cape Town, Puleng can’t help noticing their similarities. Steeped in the story of her sister, Puleng transfers to the school to get to the bottom of things. There’s plenty of juicy high school drama and family secrets in the mix, but the show is elevated by its unexpected dramatic heft and a multitude of queer characters and storylines. (This is ostensibly a South Africa remake of Elite, but its flavor and sense of identity are so unique that you'd hardly notice.) Stream Blood & Water on Netflix.

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Overcompensating (2025 – )

Comedian Benito Skinner plays himself, sort of, in this buzzy comedy that sees a former high school jock facing his freshman year in college while desperately trying to convince himself and everyone else that he's as straight as they come (relatable, except for the jock part). Much of the appeal is in its deft blending of tones: It's a frequently raunchy college comedy and simultaneously a sweet coming-of-age story about accepting yourself without worrying about what everyone else thinks. The cast includes Adam DiMarco (The White Lotus) and Rish Shah (Ms. Marvel) and while it definitely doesn't go as hard as Euphoria, there are moments of real drama and heartbreak. Stream Overcompensating on Prime Video.

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Sex Education (2019 – 2023)

Many of us come from families with philosophies that could be described as less than sex positive. Which is not great. This popular British series imagines the life of a teenager with a parent on the opposite end of that spectrum: Mom (Gillian Anderson) is a sex therapist who’s not particularly good at romantic relationships. As a result, Asa Butterfield’s Otis Milburn grew up with an ambivalence toward the topic—a lack of interest that held until he realized that his inside knowledge of doing the deed could earn him friends (and paying customers) at school. Alongside some classmates, he establishes his own clinic to help his fellow students with their sexual concerns. In the process, Otis, and the show, address a wide range of issues, from birth control and abortion, to masturbation, sexually transmitted diseases, and developing sexual identities. Emma Mackey and Ncuti Gatwa (Doctor Who) also star. Stream Sex Education on Netflix.

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Industry (2020 – )

Industry isn’t concerned with a power struggle among people at the top of the ladder; instead, its focus is the fight to climb said ladder. The young wannabe investment bankers it follows would all love to be the terrible rich people from that other show. The main characters come from a variety of backgrounds, but they’re all competing for a limited number of permanent positions at the fictional Pierpoint & Co., a London bank, and they’ll do anything it takes to earn their shot at the big prize. The setting here is seemingly very different from Euphoria's vague greater Los Angeles, and the whole investment banking thing hardly doesn't line up with the trials of high school, but there's a a definite vibe match, as young people face high pressure situations and fight to stay above water in a world rife with traps and temptations. Stream Industry on HBO Max.

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We Are Who We Are (2020)

Director Luca Guadagnino (Challengers, Queer) created this series about two American teenagers, Fraser (Jack Dylan Grazer) and Caitlin (Jordan Kristine Seamón), living with their families on a U.S. military base in Chioggia, Italy. Fraser's two moms are both in the army, but he's new to base life. Caitlin, on the other hand, has lived in Chioggia for years with her conservative father. Over the course of a summer, the two gradually bond over their mutual feelings of isolation, as well as their explorations of gender and sexuality. Stream We Are Who We Are on HBO Max.

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Baby (2018 – 2020)

As with many teen dramas, Baby kicks off at an elite boarding school (poor kids come of age too, ya know), but this one has a fairly wild spin: It's based (quite loosely) on a real-life Italian scandal involving teen sex workers. Benedetta Porcaroli (Immaculate) stars as Chiara, a rich kid who makes a new bestie in Ludovica (Alice Pagani), who needs money and happens to know a very sketchy guy who might be able to help her earn it. The tone is somehow less lascivious than the premise suggests, although the sex-work-as-teenage-rebellion angle is not for every taste. Stream Baby on Netflix.

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Heartbreak High (2022 – )

There’s a lot of backstory here that you don’t really need to know to enjoy the show, but in brief, Heartbreak High is a sorta soft-reboot of a popular and long-running 1990s show in Australia, which was itself a spin-off from a 1993 movie. There’s a solid blend of teen drama (sealing with issues related to gender identity, race, and teen sexuality) and comedy (the main characters corralled into the Sexual Literacy Tutorial, with the unfortunate acronym SLT). It all starts with Amelie and Harper, two students at a diverse Sydney high school, who set off a firestorm when they create a detailed map of the sexual exploits of the student body. Stream Heartbreak High on Netflix.

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Riverdale (2017 – 2023)

"What the hell is this doing here?" you're probably asking yourself. And, fair. But hear me out: This reimagining of the once entirely wholesome Archie comics universe is generally way over-the-top, but it tackles the trials and tribulations of growing up (including recurring storylines involving substance abuse) in a similarly...let's say "operatic" fashion. It veers wildly between genres, starting out by blending several coming-of-age storylines with a hot-for-teacher whodunnit: The dour, elderly Miss Grundy of the comics is younged up and is having an affair with Archie in the series opener, leading in to a bloody murder mystery. Before long, we're folding in supernatural horror and alternate universes, things made all the weirder by the way the show seems to take itself absolutely seriously in the face of one bonkers plot twist after another. It's the whackadoo comic-book version of Euphoria. Steam Riverdale on Netflix.

Riverdale (2017 – 2023)

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Skins (2007 – 2013)

The popular and controversial British series launched names like Nicholas Hoult, Daniel Kaluuya, and Dev Patel while dealing with hot-button issues like mental illness, substance abuse, and bullying. The show also never forgets—not even for one episode—that it's about teenagers, and doesn't shy away from the sex lives of its large (and ever-changing) cast of characters. There's a pretty straight line to be drawn between the success of Skins and that of Euphoria. Stream Skins on Hulu.

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To avoid a court proceeding, Google has agreed to a $135 million class-action settlement over its data collection practices with Android. News of the settlement was first reported by Reuters. Upon approval by a judge, the settlement could see Android users in the U.S. getting up to $100 each, provided they qualify.

The settlement was filed in San Jose, California on Tuesday evening, and focused on claims that Google collected unnecessary cellular data from customers even when Google apps were closed, location-sharing was disabled, and screens were locked. The lawsuit alleges that Google collected the data with the intent of "conversion," a legal term that in this case would likely mean using the captured data for product development and targeted advertising.

Google denied any wrongdoing, but as part of the settlement, agreed to not transfer data during Android set-up without consent from the user. The company will also initiate new toggles within Android to stop further cellular data transfers, and disclose any data transfers in its Google Play terms of service.

According to Glen Summers, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, the $135 million payout is the largest ever in a conversion case. While the settlement is still awaiting approval from a judge, given Summers' comments, it's likely the plaintiffs will accept it. Here's how to determine if you can claim your slice of that pie.

Who is eligible for a payment in the Android settlement?

Google's settlement covers a fairly wide swath of users: anyone who has used an "Android-powered mobile device" since Nov 12, 2017. However, there appear to be a few caveats. Specifically, because the class-action applies to cellular data, it's unlikely to apply to users of any wifi-only devices, like many Android tablets.

How much you can get in the Android settlement

Payments for the class-action settlement cap out at $100 per class member, although it's unclear whether all users can expect to get that much. Reuters states that lawyers for the class-action may seek up to roughly 30% of the settlement in legal fees, and while there aren't any official numbers on how many Android users there are in the U.S., estimates from third-party firms place the count at roughly 40% of the mobile market overall. As such, $135 million might be spread pretty thin across all eligible class members.

When payments could go out

An initial trial date for the case was originally scheduled for Aug. 5, although the judge could approve the settlement prior to then. Class-action settlements can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to be approved, in order to ensure the settlement is fair to all class members and doesn't show any signs of collusion.

How you'll know when a payment has been sent

The methods of contacting eligible class members varies from case to case. In some instances, payment is automatic. However, in many cases, a website is set up where users must file a claim, and physical mail and emails are sent out with PIN numbers and IDs to ensure as many class members know about their eligibility as possible. The company offering the settlement is often involved in sending out these notices, so if you believe you're affected, keep an eye out for an email or physical letter from Google, as well as for a settlement website to be set up.

If you believe you're eligible but don't receive any communication, there will also usually be an email address you can contact. This email address will usually be specific to the case, and while it hasn't been revealed yet, it might be worth reaching out to Google Support if you're worried about missing any deadlines.

Other current Google settlements you may qualify for

Google's data collection settlement isn't its only big class action payout as of late. The company also recently agreed to pay $68 million in another settlement involving Google Assistant after an accusation that it listened in on users without their consent. Google also denied wrongdoing in this instance.

If approved, the settlement will apply to anyone who had at least one device with Google Assistant pre-installed on it as early as 2016. Those who purchased the device will receive anywhere from $18 to $56, while those who lived in a household with one of these devices in it could earn $2 to $10. Steps for receiving your money will likely be similar to those in the Android data collection case.

They were supposed to be released. President Donald Trump signed a bipartisan law under intense pressure requiring the Justice Department to make them public. The deadline passed. The files did not appear. The DOJ is now breaking a statute its own president approved.

And almost no one is talking about it.

That silence reflects a presidency built on velocity replacing consequence and spectacle replacing governance.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act gave the attorney general 30 days to release all unclassified DOJ material related to Jeffrey Epstein. That deadline came and went in December. The department has released only a sliver of documents, offered no firm timeline, and provided no serious public explanation for its failure to comply. Reporters have not pressed the issue with any persistence. The absence of explanation has become part of the story.

Under normal conditions, this would be consuming Washington. A president signs a law. His own Justice Department ignores it. That is not a messaging problem. It is a constitutional stress test.

The Epstein files are not just a legal malfunction. They are a political exposure, best evidenced by a Ford factory worker shouting “pedophile protector!” at the president which elcited a presidential bird flip in response.

Trump’s base thrives on the idea that he pulls back the curtain on elites and protects the innocent against predation and cover-ups. When he signs a law meant to force release of evidence and then allows his own Justice Department to blow past the deadline without answer, it undercuts that core mythology. That is why this story should be more damaging — not just legally, but politically.

Instead, the space where accountability should live has been overtaken by a blur of crises:

Trump directing the military to invade another sovereign country and extract the Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro.…Trump openly threatening military action against Iran…Trump openly talking of invading or taking Greenland as a territorial acquisition…Federal immigration enforcement in Minneapolis erupting into national unrest and deadly encounters in Minneapolis…Senior administration officials leaking and attacking one another in public.

Any one of these would have defined an entire presidency. In Trump’s second term, they barely define a week.

All of this feels far less like improvisation and more of a deliberate strategy of stacking controversies faster than accountability can form. The firehouse of scandal and conflict worked well for the White House in 2025, so why not turn it up for 2026 ahead of the midterms? The phrase for it is “flooding the zone,” and every timeline proves it works. Every recap demonstrates the same thing: Trump dominates coverage by ensuring nothing has time to mature into consequence.

The Epstein files matter because they demand patience. They require follow-up, institutional memory, and sustained pressure. They are not visual. They do not trend. They are exactly the kind of scandal that cannot survive in a system optimized for speed and outrage.

A movement built on exposing hidden elites is now watching its own president quietly run out the clock, shielded by the noise he generates.

There is a trap here. Even naming the pattern participates in it. But silence participates more. Letting a statutory violation dissolve into the churn is the outcome this strategy is designed to produce.

The Justice Department is still breaking the law. The files are still unreleased.

What Trump has built is not just chaos. It is a political amnesia machine — an endless present tense where yesterday is unreachable before consequences can arrive.

The post Remember the Epstein Files? Trump’s DOJ Is Still Breaking the Law. first appeared on Mediaite.

It feels as though Google Chrome has been around forever, but it's actually still just a teenager: The browser launched back in 2008, originally just for Windows—though it's now made its way to macOS, Linux, and mobile devices too of course. It's a powerhouse of a browser that is more widely used than any other.

In the 18 years since its release, Chrome has changed a lot: A host of features have been added and taken away down the years, and it's very possible that you don't know everything that Chrome can do, even if you use it every day. Here are my favorite hacks for Chrome, covering everything from casting tabs to playing audio and video.

Change the look and feel of Google Chrome

If you've always stuck with the 'out of the box' Chrome aesthetic, you might not be aware that it's relatively simple to change up the theme of the browser—which covers the colors of menus and tabs, as well as what you see on the new tab page. To see the available options, open up a new tab, then click the Customize Chrome button (lower right).

You can apply any of the color themes just by clicking on them, or set up your own colors by clicking the color picker (the little pipette icon). For a more significant visual overhaul, click Change theme: You'll then see a range of options created and curated by Google. Click Chrome Web Store to see more official and third-party themes you can install.

Claw back some RAM from Chrome

Activate Memory Saver for smoother performance. Credit: Lifehacker

It's fair to say Chrome doesn't have the best reputation for efficient RAM usage, but you can get some of it back. In any tab, click the three dots (top right), then choose Settings > Performance, and activate the Memory Saver option. As Google explains, this will put tabs you've not used in a while in an inactive state, and recover some RAM from them.

Put your tabs up on a big screen

It's not a Chrome feature that gets much attention, but you can cast tabs wireless to a big screen via Google TV or Chromecast devices. It's useful for everything from music streaming to slide presentations, though the latency is usually too high for video playback (and bear in mind that YouTube, for example, has its own casting button for this).

With a tab open in Chrome, click the three dots in the top right corner, then choose Cast, save and share > Cast. You'll then be asked to choose the device to cast to (which must be on the same wifi network of course). Via the Sources button, you can choose to cast just the tab you're in, or your entire Windows or macOS desktop, including Google Chrome.

Switch up your search engine

Chrome can use whatever search engine you tell it to. Credit: Lifehacker

Just because you use Google Chrome doesn't mean you have to use Google Search—maybe you want to switch to a privacy-first alternative, like DuckDuckGo. To set up search engines in Chrome and change the default one, click the three dots in the top right corner of any tab, then choose Settings, and open the Search engine page.

Use the Add button to add new search engines, the pencil icons on the right to edit their details, and the three dots on the right to set which one is used by default (when you type some search terms into the Chrome address bar). Each search engine can also have a shortcut: Type the shortcut into the address bar to run a search using that specific site.

Group your tabs together

Tab grouping can make it much easier to manage the myriad tabs you've got open in every single session—these groups can be moved and closed and saved all together, so you could set up different groups for different research projects, for example, or for different tasks in the browser (maybe one for work-related browsing and another for shopping).

The easiest way to get started with tab groups in Chrome is to right click on a tab header and pick Add tab to new group from the pop-up menu. Give your tab a name and color, and if you then right-click on other tab headers, you'll be able to add them to the group (or create a new one). Right-click on the headers of grouped tabs to access further options.

Switch between user profiles

Add a new profile to separate your browsing activities. Credit: Lifehacker

User profiles are a hugely powerful Chrome capability that more people should know about: It lets you split your browsing into work and personal categories, for example, (and separate Google accounts, if needed). It means that logins, browsing history, and all the other data that gets stored in Chrome don't all get lumped together in one place.

So, you could use your work profile for the day, and then switch to your personal profile at night—making it easier to access your Netflix login and Amazon shopping history, for example. To get started with profiles, click your current profile avatar (in the top right corner, next to the three dots), then choose Add Chrome profile from the menu.

Edit webpages with Tampermonkey

If you're prepared to invest some time and effort into your Chrome hacking, give the Tampermonkey extension a look (it's actually available for several browsers, not just Chrome). The tool lets you inject your own custom code to modify the websites you're looking at, so you can alter the appearance or even the functionality of pages.

You could remove distractions from a page, for example, add your own keyboard shortcuts for navigation, or insert new buttons for sharing links on social media. We don't have the space for a full tutorial here, but if you head to the Tampermonkey website you'll find a wealth of help to get you started, plus some links to user script repositories on the web.

Install web apps in Windows or macOS

Spotify's web app as a desktop app. Credit: Lifehacker

There are plenty of powerful web apps you can get at through Chrome—Slack, Gmail, Spotify—and Google's browser lets you set these up as if they were desktop apps in Windows or macOS. You can get a shortcut straight to the app on the Windows taskbar or macOS dock, and when you launch it, it appears in its own distinct desktop window.

With the web app open in Chrome, click the three dots (top right), then choose Cast, save and share > Install page as app. You'll then be asked to give your new app a name, and click Install to confirm. The app launches right away, and you can then organize it into your Windows or macOS system as you want (by pinning it to the taskbar, for example).

Run a check for safety and privacy

Chrome comes with a built-in Safety Check that runs an audit on passwords, security updates, third-party extensions, and more. You can find the Safety Check screen by clicking the three dots to the top right of any tab, then choosing Settings > Privacy and security: As well as running the check, you can follow the recommended actions.

Use Chrome to preview files and preview media

Chrome can quickly open files like PDFs. Credit: Lifehacker

Google Chrome can handle more than webpages: It's also able to open up PDF documents, and image, video, and audio files saved in common formats (like MP3 or MOV). Just drag a file into an empty tab to open it, or associate the file type with Chrome in Windows or macOS (which means it'll automatically open in the browser when you double-click on it).

Chrome isn't the most advanced PDF editor or video player you're ever going to see, but it's a quick and easy way of opening up local files without having to launch an entirely separate program each time. You could use this alongside the Split View feature, for example, to watch a video stored on your system while making notes in Google Docs.