Unwanted email is a daily part of life. How you deal with it could put you at risk, though. Handling it the “right” way by clicking on an unsubscribe link or button could actually send you to a phishing or otherwise dangerous site. The reason: For years, the advice was to unsubscribe from email lists—even those you hadn’t signed up for. The thought was that your data got sold to a legitimate business, so they would heed the requests to get off their mailing lists. But more commonly now, scammers and would-be attackers are using email lists as a way to try to sneak data from you without you knowing. Some may just be verifying that the email address is valid—and if the recipient is willing to interact with spam. A hacker could then build a profile about you, in order to try to successfully scam you through tactics like social engineering. Other false unsubscribe links could aim to steal data from you, like through phishing sites designed to capture login information. (If a website ever wants your password to unsubscribe, stop immediately and close that tab!) Malware downloads are also a possibility, though less likely according to experts interviewed by the Wall Street Journal.  Still, the same WSJ article also notes that one in every 644 clicks on unsubscribe links sends individuals to shady sites. So what do you do, if unsubscribing from an email is a dangerous proposition? You have three options:  If the website is a known, legitimate site: Open a fresh tab in your browser, then use a search engine to find the site’s unsubscribe page. Or, if you have an account with the site, log in and look for a “Manage communications preferences” section in your account settings. Mark the message as spam. You can also block the sender if it’s obvious it’s a junk account. Create a filter for email with that subject line (or style of subject line) that sends such messages straight into the trash. (Example: “Get 50%off specislty items!” is something that flooded my work inbox for a while until I filtered by subject instead of sender.) In addition to being more careful about unsubscribe links, also keep your antivirus software up to date—for the times you accidentally forget, or you decide to trust an email that turns out to be malicious, it’ll help provide protection. Read...

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At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Very fast disk, partition, and file/folder backup Highly reliable backups Super-versatile backup configuration Mounts images as virtual machines Guards backups from accidental or mischievous alteration Cons Subscription-only makes it costly over time No online storage included or supported Our Verdict While we love Reflect X’s speed, interface, options, and reliability, $50 a year for a pure backup program without support for online storage is a rather bold ask. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Macrium Reflect X Home backup Retailer Price Macrium $49.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket As an imaging program, Macrium Reflect X is second to none. In fact, it currently stands alone as the only such beastie that’s never created a bad backup in my hands. (Sadly, former-favorite R-Drive is no longer a member of that club.) The problem is that Macrium’s new subscription-only pricing for Reflect X makes it prohibitively expensive over time. Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best Windows backup software for comparison. What are Macrium Reflects features? At its core Reflect X is an imaging program, i.e., it creates byte-for-byte copies of drives and partitions — including “empty” sectors if you wish, which can be handy for recovering deleted or corrupted files. It can also create backups of files and folders you select to the same type of container file. Creating backups with Reflect X is a breeze — once you’re up to speed. Being a backup geek, I was truly taken with Macrium Reflect X’s incorporating full, incremental, and differential backup options into a single job with separate scheduling for each. Most software forces you to choose between incremental and differential. It’s brilliant. Now if the company would only do that with destinations. The vast majority of users have one set of data that they would like to keep backed up to multiple locations — for instance, to a local drive as well as cloud locations. Recreating a job for each is a pain. Reflect X’s interface is nicely laid out with three main tabs, for creating backups, existing backups (for testing or restore), and logs. Each has sub-tabs for related tasks — scripts, definitions, etc. I find them intuitively organized and easy to navigate. Full, incremental, and differential backup all in the same job with different schedules. Sweet. Creating a backup is done largely from two dialogs: a main/parent dialog with the major options and an advanced-options child dialog accessed by an icon in the lower-left corner of the parent. Perhaps not as easy as a wizard, but certainly a lot quicker once you know what’s where. Reflect X features a secure background monitor that watches over your backups for attempts to change or delete them, and also folds in Oracle VirtualBox functionality so you can mount your images as Virtual Machines. Both are very cool features. At least to this self-confessed backup geek. The VM mounter and a VM running in the VirtualBox add-in. There’s also a full-featured Windows PE-based recovery disc included for booting and recovering your system after a disaster. Mecrium’s Reflect X WinPE boot disc in all its glory. While Reflect X is aces at imaging, it’s not particularly versatile. For instance, there’s no sync or plain-file backup (simple copy with options), but most saliently — no support for online storage services, proprietary or otherwise. The company points out that many of its rivals (Acronis, Aomei, Easeus, etc.) are of possibly unfriendly foreign origins and that storing data with them might be a security risk. Sadly, that’s not beyond the realm of possibility, though last I heard the Swiss (Acronis) were allies. Note that there is zero proof of ill intent from any of them. Regardless, there are plenty of storage vendors within friendly territories they could use or at least allow access to. Offering support for known safe third-party services such as Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive etc. would be a nice compromise. Note that you can still use Reflect X to back up to the cloud by employing a cloud storage manager. To this self-confessed backup geek, a background monitor for backups and VirtualBox support are cool features. What’s new in Macrium Reflect X? Macrium touts its new open source file/image container format. This, however, simply means that developers have access to the format, not that it’s a commonly supported one you can mount with Windows or other means. If you have programming chops, this might do you some good if your program futzes out. But until other utilities take advantage, it’s of little significance to the average user who will still need the program for restore chores. Jon L. Jacobi Also new is the ability to pause and resume backups. It can be handy if you need to free up some CPU for another task, but it’s limited to the current session. I.e., you can’t quit the program or Windows and still resume. Note that the previous version of Reflect was 8.x, the company skipped over 9.x for the sexier 10.x, aka X. How does Macrium Reflect X perform? Macrium claims a significant increase in performance over version 8 and that was evident in my testing. Reflect X blew through a 240GB internal SSD-to-SSD backup in 2 minutes, 30 seconds, which is cooking with gas. The 7 minutes it took backing up to an external 5Gbps SSD isn’t bad either. Both procedures maximized the potential bandwidth. The only other program I’ve seen that’s comparably fast is Easeus ToDo Backup, which is glitchier, albeit in non-fatal ways. I reinstalled version 8 to test the difference and it was far slower, taking just over 9 minutes for the first task, and just over 10 minutes for the second. Obviously, the 5Gbps SSD (the Samsung T5 Evo) was the limiting factor in the second test, but that’s a lot of minutes saved between the two test runs. If there are any issues in a Reflect X backup, you’ll find them in the extensive logs. Of course, backup performance isn’t something a lot of users worry about, as the task generally runs in the background. Macrium thoughtfully puts a throttle on the progress page so you can vary the CPU usage. Most modern systems with SSDs won’t require throttling. How much does Macrium Reflect X cost? Now we come to the conundrum with Reflect X. If you want to continue making backups with the program, you have to pony up $50 every year. Yup, Macrium has gone from a company that offered a free personal-use version of Reflect 8, to one that sells the latest version only on a subscription basis. The program remains functional for restores if you discontinue your subscription, so your data remains recoverable. The real problem with this policy is that Reflect X isn’t photo, video, or music software whose basic utility can evolve substantially. It’s backup software whose core capability — imaging — isn’t going to change appreciably. Yup. No perpetual license is offered for Reflect X. In CA-speak, that’s a bummer. There are features Macrium could definitely add such as sync, multiple destinations, and especially support for online storage services. But I’d rather pay an upgrade fee, or buy the program again rather than be essentially on the hook for $50 year after year. Rival Acronis True Image is also subscription-only, but at least it includes relatively affordable cloud storage — secure or not. Not to mention malware protection. Hence, I haven’t been as negative towards Acronis’s annual fee. Should you buy Macrium Reflect X? Reflect X is a very quick, competent, and historically reliable imaging program. However, $50 a year? If you find it worth it, and/or can write it off as a business expense, have at it. But I can’t recommend it for the average user when there are so many free, and cheaper options — including the older, slower, but gratis version of Macrium Reflect 8 which I just used to restore a system that Microsoft’s Recovery Drive trashed. Thus my 4.5-stars rating for the excellent software gets a half-star deducted for the ongoing cost. Read...

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Millions of laptops get tossed in the U.S. every year. Most still work, but they end up in landfills or collecting dust in drawers. Only about one in five gets properly recycled, according to Lifewire. That’s a problem, but also a chance to do better. You can make a real difference through the choices you make when buying, using, and disposing of your laptop. That’s where we come in (hi there!). We’ll show you how to make a smarter, greener choice next time you upgrade. What makes a laptop sustainable? A sustainable laptop is designed with longevity, reparability, and energy efficiency in mind. Some companies are already deep in the game. For example, Framework makes laptops with modular parts, so you can replace or upgrade just about anything without tossing the whole thing. It’s honestly just fun to jump in and start messing around. If you’re up for a little challenge, they’ve got a DIY version where you build the whole thing yourself. IDG / Mark Knapp And then there’s the materials. Dell uses ocean-bound plastics in some laptops and packaging to keep waste out of the oceans. Apple’s newer MacBooks are made from recycled aluminum, cutting down on mining. Acer and Lenovo also sneak recycled plastics into their devices, helping reduce the need for new raw materials. HP is also stepping up by offering programs that take back old devices to recycle them responsibly. All these efforts might seem small on their own, but together they really add up. Further reading: How 6 top laptop manufacturers are lowering their carbon footprints Okay, but does this stuff really matter? It sure does! If you end up springing for a laptop made from recycled aluminum (like a newer MacBook, for instance), you’re already one step ahead of the game. Great job lowering your carbon footprint! Plus, fixing or reusing old parts helps reduce digging up new materials from the earth. And there’s the energy side of things, too. A traditional laptop eats up about 25 kilowatt-hours of electricity every year. That’s like a keeping a light bulb on for two whole weeks. Over a four year period, you’re looking at around 100 kWh. But ENERGY STAR laptops? They use way less energy — 30 to 40 percent less. Are sustainable laptops more expensive? Some are, but it pays off over time. Lots of laptops let you upgrade stuff like RAM and SSD, not just the Framework ones. Plenty of mainstream models (especially in the business lines from brands like Dell, HP, and Lenovo) still give you access to those parts. That means you can start with a more affordable configuration and upgrade later if you need more storage. Just a heads up, though! Some super-thin models don’t let you upgrade because the parts are usually soldered in. So check reviews before you buy if upgrades matter to you and look for mentions of upgradeability in product listings, it can save you money and frustration down the road. Refurbished laptops are also a solid way to go because they’re cheaper and better for the planet, since you’re reusing something that’s already been created. Sustainability doesn’t have to mean dropping big bucks or only choosing niche models. Even small choices help like picking a model with longer battery life or better repairability. And even simple stuff like clearing out dust or replacing an old battery can keep your laptop going way longer than you’d expect. Taking a little extra time to look after your laptop can save you from having to drop cash on a new one any time soon. It’s a lot less waste, too. Check out pcworld`s top pick for best upgradeable laptop Framework Laptop 13 (2025) Read our review What should you look for in a sustainable laptop? If you’re ready to pick up a sustainable laptop, here are some key features to keep an eye out for. If you want even deeper info, check out PCWorld’s 5 factors to consider when shopping for an eco-friendly laptop. EPEAT Gold Rating EPEAT works like a medal system for how eco-friendly a product is. There’s Bronze, Silver, or Gold. Gold is the highest medal and it means the device is ultra-efficient and made with fewer toxic materials. ENERGY STAR certification ENERGY STAR certification means the device is energy-efficient and better for the environment. Modular or tool-less design This means you can swap parts like the battery or storage without tools or tech skills. Companies like Framework make laptops easy to upgrade or fix, so you don’t have to toss the whole thing if something breaks. Long software support (5+ years) Long software support mostly matters for Chromebooks. Some cheap models only get updates for a couple more years and then they’re basically useless. Fortunately, Google now offers up to 10 years of support on some models. This PCWorld article explains what to look for. Manufacturer take-back program Got an old laptop? Some companies will take it back and recycle it properly. It’s very easy and many companies even give you a free shipping label or drop-off spot. Brands like Apple, Dell, and HP do this to keep old tech out of landfills. Small habits, big difference Buying a sustainable laptop won’t save the planet overnight, but it’s a solid place to start. These little choices add up, especially when more of us start making them. And honestly, just keeping your laptop around a little longer makes a bigger difference than you might think. Just hanging onto your laptop a little longer makes a real difference. Less waste. Fewer new materials needed. Your wallet’s probably happier, too. So, next time you’re thinking about upgrading, hit the pause button for a second and ask yourself: Will I still be happy with this in three or four years? Can I fix it if something breaks? Will the company help me recycle it when I’m done? Saying yes to any one of those questions means you’re making a smarter, more sustainable choice. 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If you own a Windows 10 PC, now is a good time to consider the question: should I buy something to replace it before support expires this October? And if so, what? For years, the choice between Intel and AMD was a toss-up. Both offered compelling options. Now, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip has become a viable contender, at least in notebooks. And the issues go beyond price and performance when AI—and how Microsoft treats each vendor—become a factor. Why consider a Copilot+ PC? Consider this a high-level look at what to buy as you migrate from Windows 10 to new Windows 11 hardware before support expires, assuming that you don’t want to pay Microsoft $30 for an additional year’s worth of Windows 10 support. The other assumption that we’re making is that you’ll want to invest in a Copilot+ PC—not because we’re endorsing AI, but because an AI PC will likely become the norm. You might not see any need for AI now, but why lock yourself out of something that might eventually become mandatory? OpenAI’s ChatGPT was a wild card when it debuted at the end of 2022, catching Microsoft (and everyone else) off guard with this surprising new thing, AI. Most everything Microsoft has announced since then, from hardware to software to services, has been a reaction to that. Some AI services, like Copilot, can run in the cloud. The Copilot+ PC program was designed to ensure that AI services could run directly on PCs in the future. Microsoft is still trying to figure out which AI services can run on PCs and what they’ll do. This situation presents a catch-22. When Microsoft began previewing Copilot+ PC capabilities last year—generative AI art inside Paint, local image editing in Photos, the controversial Recall feature, and so on—only one vendor, Qualcomm, had an AI engine (the NPU) powerful enough to make those features a reality. Microsoft imposed a minimum performance baseline: 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS), a measure of NPU performance. Today, both Intel and AMD ship processors with integrated NPUs powerful enough that the PCs that include them qualify as a Copilot+ PC. But all three chip vendors aren’t created equal, and this article will help explain the differences. There’s one quirk: at press time, with an exception or two, there are basically no Copilot+ desktops. The nice thing is that all of the Copilot+ chips from all three chipmakers are quite good in their own way. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite: Power that lasts all day The good: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips often provide the best battery life, lasting over a day. Set a Snapdragon PC aside for a week while you go on vacation, and the battery level barely budges. Otherwise, performance is solid across the board. Qualcomm is clearly Microsoft’s favorite when it comes to rolling out new AI features, and you’ll typically see them arrive on Snapdragon PCs first. (We have an exhaustive review of the Snapdragon X Elite here.) Qualcomm is running ads pointing out that the Snapdragon PC chips deliver the same performance while plugged in as on battery, and that’s generally true. YouTube The bad: Some users report issues with application compatibility. Qualcomm, however, has made great strides to solve this problem, and it’s far less of an issue than it has been. But the current iteration of Snapdragon, even the X Elite, is just not as good for gaming as X86 chips from AMD and Intel in any context. In detail: AI has existed for years on smartphones, specifically in all of the tricks a smartphone camera makes to make your photos look good. So Qualcomm, which is the “Intel Inside” of most smartphones not made by Apple, understood the market. Its redesigned Snapdragon X Elite PC Arm processor platform was essentially Microsoft’s Copilot+ launch partner, and Microsoft has made it its first choice for its latest Surface Laptop and Surface Pro devices. For now, you can only buy a laptop with a Snapdragon X Elite chip inside, though they’re available from a variety of major PC makers. Though Qualcomm has teased a desktop PC (or all-in-one PC) launch, that hasn’t happened. Qualcomm has three laptop chip lines: the Snapdragon X Elite, which is the most popular, as well as the more moderate Snapdragon X Plus and the basic Snapdragon X processor. (It’s a little confusing since Qualcomm uses the “Snapdragon X” term to refer to the entire family of chips, as well as its specific, most basic processor.) Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 7, one of the flagship devices for the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite family.Matthew Smith / IDG Qualcomm Snapdragon PCs are first and foremost productivity devices. Though Snapdragons are an ARM architecture and don’t natively run Windows apps designed for X86 processors, Qualcomm claims that it runs all of the top 100 apps on Windows, based on information gathered from Microsoft. (Ninety-six of those have ARM versions, while four are emulated.) That includes everything from Microsoft’s own Office (Microsoft 365) apps down to more niche options like Unigram and RingCentral. Still, it’s very unlikely your ancient HP printer will have its own ARM driver; mine does not. What to buy: I didn’t personally review the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, but I brought it with me on more than one business trip, and it’s been excellent. Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2 (Lunar Lake): The best all-rounder The good: Intel’s Core Ultra Series 2 (Lunar Lake) chips finally qualify for Copilot+ status, and Intel paid attention to the example Qualcomm set. At about 21 hours, a Lunar Lake laptop might not have quite the battery life as a Snapdragon — but with that longevity, you probably won’t care. When plugged in, Intel’s Lunar Lake chips perform well, and their integrated GPU is very good, allowing for light gaming. They’ll run all Windows apps without a problem. The bad: How does Intel achieve long battery life with Lunar Lake notebooks? By clocking down while unplugged, which lowers the notebook’s performance significantly. Intel also has a problem: too many processors and a confusing naming scheme. Processors like the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H are Intel “Meteor Lake” (Core Ultra Series 1) processors, which lack the requisite TOPS. So too does Intel’s Core Ultra 7 200H or “Arrow Lake” laptop chips. The “good” Core Ultra 2 (Lunar Lake) chips use a “V” suffix and an initial “2,” like the Core Ultra 7 258V I reviewed, rather than the “H” suffix used by Arrow Lake. A benchmark slide plucked from our Core Ultra Series 2 review: this productivity chip can game, too.Mark Hachman / IDG In detail: Intel’s Lunar Lake chips (again, look for the “2” and the “V” on the model number) are terrific and offer all-around performance that the Snapdragon chips do not. Enthusiasts know that Intel has been repeatedly beaten in both desktops and laptops several times in the past decade, but these Core Ultra 200V chips deliver the performance and battery life that you don’t have to worry about. They’re the safe bet. You simply don’t have to worry about running apps, as Intel’s X86 architecture is the default. While Qualcomm’s work with developers has also produced apps written specifically for Arm chips, Intel’s influence also extends into app developers, and third-party AI apps will take advantage of the Core Ultra NPU. Windows, however, is another story. Qualcomm and Microsoft forged a tight partnership early on, and new AI functions within Windows usually lag behind Snapdragons by several months. Lenovo’s Yoga Pro 9i is one of our recommended Intel Core Ultra (Lunar Lake) PCs.IDG / Ryan Whitwam What to buy: Lenovo’s Yoga Pro 9i is one of the better laptops on the market, period, though Lenovo paired it with a discrete GPU that takes the battery life down to (just?) nine hours. Otherwise, the Asus ZenBook S14 that was my test platform delivered over 17 hours of battery life with top performance. AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 and AI Max: Performance first The good: If you prefer better performance and are willing to give up some battery life, AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 series should be your choice. My Ryzen test laptop ran for almost 11 hours before shutting down, and the Ryzen AI 300 generally outperformed the competition in productivity applications. (I’ll refer you to both our dedicated Ryzen AI 300 review as well as the Intel Core Ultra 200 “Lunar Lake” review, if only because both include the other processors.) AMD also has an odd AI alternative: the Ryzen AI Max+, which includes an NPU with 50 TOPS but an absolutely massive cache for its GPU, optimized for games and AI alike. It’s actually inside one of the only Copilot+ desktops you’ll be able to buy, the Framework Desktop, when it ships in the third quarter of 2025. AMD The bad: Again, battery life slips a bit with the Ryzen AI 300. I also tested the ROG Flow Z13 gaming tablet with a Ryzen AI Max+ chip, and the battery life under a gaming load was about 90 minutes. Microsoft has also put AMD and Intel into the same tier for Windows feature releases, letting them lag behind Qualcomm Snapdragon PCs by a few months. AMD notebooks are sometimes hard to find, too. In detail: Last year, I encouraged AMD to adopt a performance-first approach, and it’s done so. If you want the fastest laptops, AMD’s Ryzen platform generally delivers. We just don’t see that many of them cross our desk. That’s probably because PC makers don’t have the flexibility to design laptops with a choice of three different processors; they generally pick two, and that’s been the old standby, Intel, and the new hotness, Qualcomm. Kind of hard to believe, but yes, this is a Copilot+ -capable desktop.Framework I would really like to see PC makers adopt the Ryzen AI Max+ in a traditional clamshell notebook! Under our normal productivity tests, the ROG Flow Z13 lasted 12.5 hours. It’s still a possibility. As I stated above, Intel’s Lunar Lake, AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 (Strix Point), and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite are all very good choices for a productivity laptop, and it’s a unique time in history where we can say that. If you want a gaming laptop, AMD and Intel are your choices. AI really hasn’t arrived on the desktop yet, unfortunately. Nevertheless, it’s a safe bet that all three chipmakers will continue building in AI through generations to come. Eventually, it will likely become an afterthought…but right now, it’s an important decision! Read...