Hot Android Posts
How To: Install a Custom Recovery on Your Bootloader-Locked Galaxy S5 (AT&T or Verizon)
As the largest wireless service providers in the United States, AT&T and Verizon Wireless carry some serious clout. Sadly, they use some of this power to heavily modify the Android phones that they offer.
How To: Magically Add All the Right Emoji to Your Messages with Emojify, Gboard's New Emoji Generator
Emoji characters make messaging more fun, and Google has continuously added convenient and fun ways to insert playful symbols into your conversations using Gboard. After getting Emoji Kitchen in early 2020, we now have Emojify, a tool that automatically adds emoji to your message drafts.
How To: Use Your iPhone or Android Phone as a Remote Control for Android TV or Google TV
If you can't find the remote for your Android TV or Google TV, don't like using its voice control feature, are sick of using the directional pad to type, or can't get it to work at all, use your smartphone instead. Using your iPhone or Android phone as a virtual remote control can be more convenient, easier to use, and more helpful than the original remote, so it's definitely worth trying out.
How To: Get iOS 16's Emoji Wallpapers on Your Android Phone's Home or Lock Screen
Customization has always been the main draw of Android for me, but Apple has an impressive feature on iOS 16 that lets iPhone users create customized emoji wallpapers for their home and lock screens. While Android doesn't have something like that built-in by default, it's easy enough to make emoji wallpapers for your Android phone.
How To: Hide Apps on Your Samsung Galaxy's Home Screen, App Tray, and Search
You don't have to see every app installed on your phone if you don't want to. Samsung One UI makes it easy to hide apps from your Samsung Galaxy's home screen, app tray, and search tool, whether you want to declutter, simplify things, or keep other people from seeing some of the apps you use.
How To: Bring Back the Squeeze Gesture for Google Assistant on Your Pixel 5 — No Root Needed
The Pixel 5 is a bit of a departure from previous Pixels. Gone are the Pixel 4's Soli-based Motion Sense gestures, the Pixel 3's dual front-facing speakers, and the glass back panel of previous generations. But perhaps the most notable omission for long-time Pixel users is the lack of a squeeze gesture to trigger the Google Assistant.
How To: Bring Back the 9-Tile Grid in Android 11's Quick Settings
Android 11 has plenty of new features as you'd expect, including a fancy new embedded media player. Rather than a constant notification, your audio controls now get pushed up into the Quick Settings panel when playing music. However, to make way for this new media player functionality, your total number of quick settings tiles had to be cut from nine down to six.
How To: Customize Your Google Pixel with New Accent Colors
Google lets you change the system-wide accent color on its Pixel devices, but the options are a bit muted. If you'd like something more vibrant, developer Tulsadiver created a mod that will give you a wide selection of punchier colors.
How To: Give One Device More Bandwidth on Your Google Wifi or Nest Wifi Network
One of the main goals of Google Wifi (and Nest Wifi after it) is to make managing your internet connections as simple as possible. A great example of this is how easy it is to prioritize one device and allot it more bandwidth when your network is bogged down with other traffic.
How To: Disable the Full-Screen Calendar Alerts on Your Samsung Galaxy Phone
By default, when there's a new event in Samsung's Calendar app, it pops up with an obnoxious full-screen window to let you know. Thankfully, there's a way to turn these into regular notifications.
How To: Get Google's Call Screen Feature on Your OnePlus
Spam calls are one of the most annoying things to happen in the world of smartphones for more than one reason. Not only are they bothersome, but they can also be dangerous to people who don't know any better. Google has come up with a crafty solution known as "Call Screen" to let the Google Assistant handle the call for you while you listen in on the caller like a stealth ninja.
How To: Save Your Parking Location from Your OnePlus Home Screen
There once was a time before smartphones when you had to actually remember where you parked your vehicle. This really sucked when visiting a location with a large parking lot — they even made a whole Seinfeld episode about it. But now you can just tap a button to solve this problem. Who says we're not living in the future?
How To: Fix Bootloops Caused by Magisk Modules Without Factory Resetting Your Phone
When it comes to customizing Android, there's nothing quite like Magisk. You can potentially combine dozens of modules to create a one of a kind user experience tailored to you, but not all modules will work well together. You might run into a bootloop by accident once in a while, which could cause some issues on its own.
How To: Enable Dark Mode in Google's Contacts App for Android
With the rise of OLED displays, Android users have been begging Google for a true system-wide dark mode for years. While a system-wide solution is still somewhat unlikely, Google has given in by providing a dark mode for certain apps, including Contacts.
How To: 8 Must-Have Magisk Modules for OnePlus Phones
The idea of a perfect phone is a myth. There are lots of pros when it comes to OnePlus devices, but there are also a few things that could be better. And even if there were a phone without flaw, there are still things that you might want to customize for personal preference. That's why we set out to find the very best tweaks for OnePlus phones, and to make it easier for you to apply them.
How To: Make the BlackBerry KEY2's Convenience Key Launch Different Apps Based on Your Location
Extra hardware buttons have become a trend with smartphones lately. Often, these are unmodifiable buttons designed to launch a voice assistant. That isn't the case with the BlackBerry KEY2. Making a return from the KEYone is the Convenience Key, which also received an upgrade.
How To: Improve Palm Rejection on Your Galaxy Device to Prevent Accidental Touches
Samsung has made curved displays a signature element of their flagship phones, but the Edge Screen, as it's called, has proven to be a magnet for accidental touches. Fortunately, Samsung has developed a little known app to help prevent this problem.
How To: 3 Ways to Get Around Google's Uncertified Device Ban
Google has started blocking certain devices from accessing the Google Play Store and other Google services. This is part of an effort to clamp down on OEMs that skirt its certification requirements, but now millions of phones have been uncertified to download or update Google apps. Fortunately, there are a few workarounds.
How To: Set Up Google Voice to Get Visual Voicemail on Your Unlocked Android Phone
Buying an unlocked phone is usually the correct move. By doing so, you bypass a lot of bloat that carriers put on your phone, and you can also use that phone with another carrier should you decide to switch to a new one. However, a lot of carriers won't give unlocked devices access to their visual voicemail apps. For that, there's Google Voice.
How To: Quickly Disable Fingerprints & Smart Lock in Android Pie for Extra Security
Following in iOS 11's footsteps, Android 9.0 Pie will include a security feature that lets you immediately disable the fingerprint scanner as well as extended Smart Lock features. After initiating the feature, you will be required to insert your PIN, pattern, or password before any other unlock methods will work again.
How To: Comparing the 5 Best Internet Browsers for Android
For all those times when an app either isn't available or simply won't cut it, your phone's internet browser provides access to your favorite websites and services. But some browsers are flat-out better than others, and chances are, the browser that came pre-installed on your phone isn't the best option out there.
How To: Add a Google Cast Button to Your Quick Settings Tiles on Any Phone — No Root Needed
Android's Quick Settings menu gives you easy access to certain actions from any screen, but the tiles available are largely dependent on your phone's OEM skin. For instance, the Google Cast button that can cast your entire screen has been exclusive to Nexus and Pixel devices, even though other phones have the requisite software to use it. Fortunately, there's a way to add it on any device running Nougat or higher.
How To: Use VLC's Picture-in-Picture Mode on Android Oreo to Watch Videos While Multitasking
A new feature in Android O is making it incredibly easy to multitask while you're watching a video. It's called Picture-in-Picture mode, and if you've ever used a TV with this option, you should already have a pretty good idea of how it works.
How To: Root Your HTC 10 & Install TWRP
There are many great reasons to root your phone, but if you're not experienced with tools like ADB and Fastboot, it can seem like a daunting task. Fret not, because if you want to root your HTC 10, we're here to walk you through the process.
How To: This Linux-Style Launcher Turns Your Home Screen into a Command Prompt
Running commands on Linux seems so complicated for the layman that it may as well be a foreign language. But for the die-hard terminal users, or for those who are just curious about the Linux experience, there's a new Android launcher that gives your home screen a command line makeover.
How To: Unlock the Bootloader on Your LG G6 (T-Mobile Variant)
Preorders for the LG G6 have all been fulfilled, and the phone has been up for grabs at local cell phone providers for three weeks now. However, not every LG G6 was created and released equally. The T-Mobile variant of the LG G6 features an unlockable bootloader, while most other North American variants come with a tightly locked down bootloader, which effectively limits the full potential of your brand new fairly expensive phone.
How To: Install Apps from the Play Store Without Gapps or Google Services
Android is Google's project, so of course you can see the search giant's fingerprints all over the operating system. Aside from the obvious user-facing apps, there's Google Cloud Messaging, Google Connectivity Services, and the much-maligned Google Play Services running in the background, to name a few.
How To: Set Up Location Alarms on Android That Wake You When You Reach Your Destination
If you have a long commute, it only makes sense to catch a bit of shuteye while you're headed to work on the train or bus. The only problem with this is that, if you're napping a little too hard, you might end up oversleeping and missing your stop when the subway pulls into your station.
How To: Copy Text from Any Screen on Android by Long-Pressing the Home Button
Selecting text on a touchscreen device has always been a major pain point. Those tiny little arrows that let you adjust the selection area are always too hard to actually adjust, making precision all but impossible. Then there's the issue of some apps not even allowing text selection in the first place, so the entire experience is basically a big mess.
How To: Test for Adups' Spyware on Your Phone—& Disable It
Mobile security researchers at Kryptowire recently uncovered spyware preinstalled on hundreds of thousands of Android smartphones by FOTA provider Adups which was gathering personally identifiable information (PII) such as call logs, app usage data, and even the full contents of text messages and sending these to a third-party server—all without the users' knowledge.
How To: Turn Off Your Android's Screen with Your Fingerprint Scanner
Google's Pixel phones have a feature that lets you swipe down on the fingerprint scanner to open your notification shade and Quick Settings panel. It's one of those features that make you wonder why it wasn't there in the first place, since it gives you another way to interact with your device, and your fingerprint scanner isn't being used while you're screen is on anyway.
How To: Combine WhatsApp, Facebook, & Other Messengers into One App
With new messaging services being pushed out constantly, it can be a pain trying to keep track of them all on your Android device. We had previously shown how to stay on top of them all with a unified "inbox" app, but that still requires you to have each individual app installed. While looking for a true one-stop messenger, I came across Disa.
How To: Fingerprint-Lock Apps on Android Without a Fingerprint Scanner
If you have a specific app you want to lock so that others can't access it, the most secure way of doing so is with biometrics. While there are options to lock apps with either a PIN or pattern, these can easily be figured out with a simple glance over your shoulder. It's much more difficult for someone to crack your fingerprint ID, unless they chop off your finger, of course.
How To: Top 7 Free Wallpaper Apps for Android Phones & Tablets
Out of all the questions that we receive from our readers and viewers here at Gadget Hacks, the most frequently asked one is "What wallpaper is that?" On occasion, our wallpapers may be personal or images from the web, but for the most part, they come from dedicated wallpaper apps.
How To: Run Your Favorite Android Apps on Your Computer
Google recently announced the beta release of a developer tool called ARC Welder for Chrome, which allows developers to run and test their Android apps on any computer with the Chrome browser installed.
How To: Boost Performance & Battery Life on Your Rooted Android Device
Performance boosters generally get a bad rap, but that doesn't mean they should all be dismissed—particularly when they're as well thought out as the latest work from developer Danijel Markov. After recognizing a few inefficiencies in the way Android handles memory management and other system-level functions, he created a flashable ZIP that will apply many fixes in one fell swoop.
Android Basics: How to Install BusyBox Commands
If you're a rooted user, you've probably heard the term "BusyBox" by now. Many mods require these powerful root commands, but the process of installing BusyBox can be a bit confusing for the uninitiated.
How To: Disable ANY Bloatware App on Your Android Device (No Root Required)
Due to the way Android works, you normally need to be rooted to uninstall the pre-loaded system apps, aka bloatware, that came with your device. This is because the underlying files for these apps are stored on your system partition, which can only be modified with root-level access.
How To: Use Directional Swipes to Unlock Your Galaxy S6 with the Hidden 'Direction Lock' Feature
In addition to the fingerprint scanner, the Samsung Galaxy S6 has all of the basic lock screen options that other Android phones have: swipe, pattern, PIN, and password. There also just happens to be a secret sixth option called "Direction lock" that protects the device with a series of customizable directional swipes—only it's hidden in an unsuspecting settings menu.
How To: Open Links Directly into Chrome's Incognito Mode on Android
Chrome's Incognito Mode is a great feature for folks that don't want their browsing history tracked. When it's enabled, Incognito Mode makes sure that all cookies and cache that are saved while you're browsing are deleted as soon as you leave a webpage.