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• Darktrace reports cryptojacking via a compromised AI gateway (LiteLLM‑Proxy on AWS Bedrock), breached through exposed SSH and abused with XMRig mining
• Attackers also showed suspicious IAM activity, hinting at possible cloud credential misuse, with connections traced to Vietnam
• Experts warn AI gateways concentrate privileged access, urging strict port closures, least‑privilege roles, and control‑plane monitoring to reduce blast radius

If you are using AI gateways as part of your tech stack, be wary - they are being leveraged in cryptojacking attacks, experts have warned.

Cybersecurity researchers Darktrace have published a new report on a cloud-hosted AI gateway, connected to Amazon Bedrock, which was compromised and used for cryptocurrency mining.

An AI gateway is a piece of software that runs between users or applications and one or more AI models. It is not unlike a reverse proxy or an API gateway, but just for AI services. In this case, an Amazon EC2 instance running an AI gateway called LiteLLM-Proxy was given centralized access to large language models (LLM) hosted on Amazon Bedrock (AWS’ fully managed generative AI platform).

Shady Vietnamese accounts

According to Darktrace, threat actors gained access most likely through a brute-force attack, since the EC2 instance was configured to accept SSH connections from anywhere on the internet.

After breaking in, they downloaded XMRig, by far the most popular cryptocurrency mining program. Within minutes, the instance started making repeated encrypted connections to a cryptocurrency mining pool, which also set off Darktrace’s alarms and spotted the attack.

Soon after, Darktrace spotted more suspicious activities, this time involving an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) user. This account started giving out unexpected and previously unused commands, such as enumerating and invoking Amazon Bedrock foundation models, or trying to set up a new IAM user account.

The final red flag was the IP address of that user - tracing back all the way to Vietnam. Darktrace said there was insufficient evidence to conclusively link the IAM activity with the earlier compromise of the AI gateway, but stressed that the behavior could indicate attempted cloud credential misuse.

Brave Leo arrived in November 2023 as a sidebar AI assistant for the Brave browser, and it has grown into one of the more unusual offerings in the AI chat market. Unlike most platforms that treat privacy as an afterthought, Leo bakes it into the architecture: no IP logging, no conversation storage, and no requirement to create an account. In late 2025, Brave went further by introducing Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) powered by NEAR.AI and Intel TDX technology, giving users cryptographically verifiable assurance that requests are processed exactly as described.

Two features set Leo apart from the field. The Bring Your Own Model (BYOM) option lets you connect Leo to locally-running models via Ollama or your own API endpoints, which is rare among browser-native AI tools. The Skills feature, launched in December 2025, lets you assign keyboard shortcuts to frequently used prompts to cut down on repetitive setup.

Agentic browsing, which lets Leo autonomously navigate and complete tasks on your behalf, entered early testing across all Brave release channels in May 2026.

I've been covering AI platforms and B2B software at TechRadar Pro since 2018, including our 2026 vibe coding buying guide and the Microsoft Build conference this year in San Francisco. Here's how Leo holds up.

What is Brave Leo AI?

Brave Leo is an AI chat assistant built directly into the Brave browser, accessible from a sidebar panel, a full-page view, or the address bar. It's available on Windows, macOS, and Linux on desktop, and on Android and iOS on mobile. No separate installation, app, or account is needed to get started with the free tier.

Leo's defining quality is page awareness. It reads the content of the active tab, whether that's a webpage, PDF, Google Doc, Google Sheet, or YouTube video, and uses that content as context for your questions. You don't need to copy-paste anything or upload files to an external server.

Moreover, Brave Search pulls in real-time information from across the web when your question calls for it.

The platform targets privacy-conscious individuals, students, and professionals who want AI assistance without feeding personal data to third parties. It's also a practical option for people already running Brave who'd rather not switch tabs to reach a separate AI app.

Brave Leo AI: At a glance

Attribute

Notes

Underlying model(s)

Qwen, Meta Llama, Google Gemma (free); Claude Haiku, Claude Sonnet, DeepSeek V3.1 (premium); all hosted on Brave's own secure infrastructure

Best for

Privacy-conscious users, web research, document summarization, coding assistance

Distinguishing functions

Privacy proxy, BYOM, Skills shortcuts, Automatic mode, agentic browsing (early access)

UI features

Sidebar panel and full-page mode; address bar integration; in-chat model selector

Subscription costs

Free (open models, rate-limited); Leo Premium at $14.99/month or $149.99/year

API pricing

Not available; Leo is a browser-only product with no public API

Buy it if…

• You prioritize AI privacy above all else. Leo doesn't log your conversations, store your IP address, or use your chats for model training. For users handling sensitive research or confidential work, that's a real distinction from most AI chatbots.
• You're already a Brave browser user. Leo is built directly into Brave with no extra installation required. It picks up page context automatically, making web research faster with very little setup.
• You want model flexibility. The ability to switch between Llama, Claude, Qwen, and others, or connect your own model via BYOM, gives you more control than most browser-native AI tools offer.

Don't buy it if…

• You need AI across multiple browsers or tools. Leo only works inside Brave. If you regularly use Chrome, Firefox, or other apps, you won't have Leo available in those environments.
• You rely on intensive daily free usage. The free tier hits its ceiling quickly during heavy use. A Premium subscription is more or less necessary for anyone using Leo throughout the working day.
• You need enterprise features or team access. Leo is a personal assistant with no team accounts, admin controls, or organization-level management. Businesses looking to deploy it across multiple users will need individual subscriptions for each.

My time with Brave Leo AI

My first impression of Leo was how little friction there was to getting started. No account confirmation, no model selection screen, no onboarding pop-ups. Within seconds of opening the sidebar, I was summarizing a lengthy policy document open in another tab.

The sidebar stays out of the way until you need it, which I found more practical than switching to a dedicated AI app.

Automatic mode worked well in practice. Leo picked Claude Sonnet for a nuanced writing task and shifted to a faster model for a quick factual question, all without me having to intervene. I did run into rate-limit warnings during a longer research session on the free tier.

Those limits don't reset frequently enough for sustained daily use, and that was what ultimately pushed me to test the Premium plan.

The Skills feature was a useful addition for repetitive tasks. I set up a shortcut for a summarization prompt I return to frequently. After a few days, it saved real time.

New users may not find it easily, though, since it's tucked away and not highlighted in Leo's default interface.

Brave Leo AI: Features

Leo's feature set has expanded considerably since its 2023 launch. The platform covers summarization, translation, code generation, content writing, question answering, and document analysis across webpages, PDFs, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and YouTube videos. Image understanding was added more recently, and agentic browsing, which lets Leo autonomously complete multi-step tasks in an isolated browser profile, entered early access across all release channels in May 2026.

Page awareness is one of Leo's strongest practical assets. It reads whatever you're currently viewing and uses it as live context for your prompts. This works without uploading anything to a third-party server, which keeps the privacy model consistent across all use cases.

BYOM is a genuine differentiator. You can connect Leo to locally-running models via Ollama, to OpenAI-compatible endpoints, or to other third-party APIs. For developers or power users who want a specific model or prefer to keep everything on-device, this adds a level of control that most browser AI tools don't offer.

The Skills feature lets you save and trigger custom prompts with keyboard shortcuts. It's useful for repetitive workflows, though the current library of built-in skills is still relatively narrow. More customization here would strengthen the feature, and it's an area I'd like to see Brave expand.

Multi-tab context and Tab Focus Mode let Leo work across several open tabs rather than just the active one, which helps when cross-referencing multiple sources. The Brave Talk integration is a useful bonus for anyone using Brave's video conferencing tool: Leo can transcribe meetings in real time and produce summaries and action items without sharing data externally.

The one area where Leo falls behind dedicated AI platforms is memory. Leo doesn't retain context between separate sessions, so every conversation starts from scratch. Users who want a long-running assistant that remembers preferences or project history will find this limiting.

Brave Leo AI: User experience

The interface is clean and minimal. The sidebar slides open without disturbing your active page, and the full-page view at brave://leo-ai works well for longer sessions. Switching models takes a couple of clicks from the dropdown at the top of the chat.

Automatic mode removes the decision entirely if you'd rather not think about it.

The address bar integration is a small but practical touch: typing a question and selecting "Ask Leo" opens the response in full-page view without interrupting your browsing. Mobile support on Android and iOS covers the same core features as desktop, with voice input available on iOS. The experience is consistent across platforms, which isn't always the case with browser-based AI tools.

Brave Leo AI: Customer support

Brave handles Leo support through its Help Center at support.brave.app. The documentation is well-organized and covers most common scenarios, from initial access to advanced configuration options like BYOM and model settings. Articles are generally current, which is more than can be said for some AI products that update fast but leave documentation behind.

There's no live chat or dedicated support line for Leo. Community forums and the Help Center are the primary routes for getting help. For a free or modestly priced tool, this is standard, but business users with time-sensitive issues may find the self-serve model inadequate.

(Image credit: Brave Browser)Brave Leo AI: Pricing

• Free tier: Access to open-source models (Llama, Qwen, Gemma), rate-limited usage, no account required
• Leo Premium: $14.99/month or $149.99/year, with a 7-day free trial. Includes Claude Haiku, Claude Sonnet, DeepSeek V3.1, and other advanced models; higher rate limits; early access to new features

The free tier works for light, occasional use. You get solid open-source models and full privacy protections without signing up for anything. Rate limits are the catch: they kick in faster than you'd expect during sustained sessions, and there's no way to pay for a small top-up without committing to Premium.

At $14.99/month, Leo Premium is cheaper than ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) and sits comfortably within range for an individual AI subscription. The annual plan at $149.99 brings that down to about $12.50/month, which is reasonable given the model access on offer. There's no team or enterprise pricing.

Leo also has no public API, so external workflow integration isn't an option.

Brave Leo AI: alternatives you should consider

• ChatGPT Atlas: A Chromium-based web browser from OpenAI with built-in access to the most widely used AI assistant. However, it's only available to macOS users for now and has now Windows version.
• Microsoft Copilot: Built into Microsoft Edge and deeply integrated with the Microsoft 365 suite. The stronger pick for users already working in the Windows and Office ecosystem.
• Perplexity AI: A research-focused AI that delivers sourced, real-time answers from the web. Worth considering if web research and fact-finding are your primary use cases rather than general-purpose chat.

How I tested Brave Leo AI

• Used Leo's free tier for web research, PDF summarization, and content drafting over multiple sessions to assess response quality and the real-world impact of rate limits.
• Tested Premium-tier models including Claude Sonnet on complex writing and analysis tasks, comparing output quality against the default open-source models.
• Configured BYOM with Ollama, created custom Skills shortcuts, and put the multi-tab context feature through a multi-source research task.

Testing covered Brave Leo on desktop (Windows and macOS) and on Android, using both the sidebar and full-page chat modes. I evaluated response accuracy across summarization, factual questions, code generation, and writing tasks, and cross-referenced Brave's privacy claims against official documentation and third-party reporting from sources including The Register.

Brave Leo arrived in November 2023 as a sidebar AI assistant for the Brave browser, and it has grown into one of the more unusual offerings in the AI chat market. Unlike most platforms that treat privacy as an afterthought, Leo bakes it into the architecture: no IP logging, no conversation storage, and no requirement to create an account. In late 2025, Brave went further by introducing Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) powered by NEAR.AI and Intel TDX technology, giving users cryptographically verifiable assurance that requests are processed exactly as described.

Two features set Leo apart from the field. The Bring Your Own Model (BYOM) option lets you connect Leo to locally-running models via Ollama or your own API endpoints, which is rare among browser-native AI tools. The Skills feature, launched in December 2025, lets you assign keyboard shortcuts to frequently used prompts to cut down on repetitive setup.

Agentic browsing, which lets Leo autonomously navigate and complete tasks on your behalf, entered early testing across all Brave release channels in May 2026.

I've been covering AI platforms and B2B software at TechRadar Pro since 2018, including our 2026 vibe coding buying guide and the Microsoft Build conference this year in San Francisco. Here's how Leo holds up.

What is Brave Leo AI?

Brave Leo is an AI chat assistant built directly into the Brave browser, accessible from a sidebar panel, a full-page view, or the address bar. It's available on Windows, macOS, and Linux on desktop, and on Android and iOS on mobile. No separate installation, app, or account is needed to get started with the free tier.

Leo's defining quality is page awareness. It reads the content of the active tab, whether that's a webpage, PDF, Google Doc, Google Sheet, or YouTube video, and uses that content as context for your questions. You don't need to copy-paste anything or upload files to an external server.

Moreover, Brave Search pulls in real-time information from across the web when your question calls for it.

The platform targets privacy-conscious individuals, students, and professionals who want AI assistance without feeding personal data to third parties. It's also a practical option for people already running Brave who'd rather not switch tabs to reach a separate AI app.

Brave Leo AI: At a glance

Attribute

Notes

Underlying model(s)

Qwen, Meta Llama, Google Gemma (free); Claude Haiku, Claude Sonnet, DeepSeek V3.1 (premium); all hosted on Brave's own secure infrastructure

Best for

Privacy-conscious users, web research, document summarization, coding assistance

Distinguishing functions

Privacy proxy, BYOM, Skills shortcuts, Automatic mode, agentic browsing (early access)

UI features

Sidebar panel and full-page mode; address bar integration; in-chat model selector

Subscription costs

Free (open models, rate-limited); Leo Premium at $14.99/month or $149.99/year

API pricing

Not available; Leo is a browser-only product with no public API

Buy it if…

• You prioritize AI privacy above all else. Leo doesn't log your conversations, store your IP address, or use your chats for model training. For users handling sensitive research or confidential work, that's a real distinction from most AI chatbots.
• You're already a Brave browser user. Leo is built directly into Brave with no extra installation required. It picks up page context automatically, making web research faster with very little setup.
• You want model flexibility. The ability to switch between Llama, Claude, Qwen, and others, or connect your own model via BYOM, gives you more control than most browser-native AI tools offer.

Don't buy it if…

• You need AI across multiple browsers or tools. Leo only works inside Brave. If you regularly use Chrome, Firefox, or other apps, you won't have Leo available in those environments.
• You rely on intensive daily free usage. The free tier hits its ceiling quickly during heavy use. A Premium subscription is more or less necessary for anyone using Leo throughout the working day.
• You need enterprise features or team access. Leo is a personal assistant with no team accounts, admin controls, or organization-level management. Businesses looking to deploy it across multiple users will need individual subscriptions for each.

My time with Brave Leo AI

My first impression of Leo was how little friction there was to getting started. No account confirmation, no model selection screen, no onboarding pop-ups. Within seconds of opening the sidebar, I was summarizing a lengthy policy document open in another tab.

The sidebar stays out of the way until you need it, which I found more practical than switching to a dedicated AI app.

Automatic mode worked well in practice. Leo picked Claude Sonnet for a nuanced writing task and shifted to a faster model for a quick factual question, all without me having to intervene. I did run into rate-limit warnings during a longer research session on the free tier.

Those limits don't reset frequently enough for sustained daily use, and that was what ultimately pushed me to test the Premium plan.

The Skills feature was a useful addition for repetitive tasks. I set up a shortcut for a summarization prompt I return to frequently. After a few days, it saved real time.

New users may not find it easily, though, since it's tucked away and not highlighted in Leo's default interface.

Brave Leo AI: Features

Leo's feature set has expanded considerably since its 2023 launch. The platform covers summarization, translation, code generation, content writing, question answering, and document analysis across webpages, PDFs, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and YouTube videos. Image understanding was added more recently, and agentic browsing, which lets Leo autonomously complete multi-step tasks in an isolated browser profile, entered early access across all release channels in May 2026.

Page awareness is one of Leo's strongest practical assets. It reads whatever you're currently viewing and uses it as live context for your prompts. This works without uploading anything to a third-party server, which keeps the privacy model consistent across all use cases.

BYOM is a genuine differentiator. You can connect Leo to locally-running models via Ollama, to OpenAI-compatible endpoints, or to other third-party APIs. For developers or power users who want a specific model or prefer to keep everything on-device, this adds a level of control that most browser AI tools don't offer.

The Skills feature lets you save and trigger custom prompts with keyboard shortcuts. It's useful for repetitive workflows, though the current library of built-in skills is still relatively narrow. More customization here would strengthen the feature, and it's an area I'd like to see Brave expand.

Multi-tab context and Tab Focus Mode let Leo work across several open tabs rather than just the active one, which helps when cross-referencing multiple sources. The Brave Talk integration is a useful bonus for anyone using Brave's video conferencing tool: Leo can transcribe meetings in real time and produce summaries and action items without sharing data externally.

The one area where Leo falls behind dedicated AI platforms is memory. Leo doesn't retain context between separate sessions, so every conversation starts from scratch. Users who want a long-running assistant that remembers preferences or project history will find this limiting.

Brave Leo AI: User experience

The interface is clean and minimal. The sidebar slides open without disturbing your active page, and the full-page view at brave://leo-ai works well for longer sessions. Switching models takes a couple of clicks from the dropdown at the top of the chat.

Automatic mode removes the decision entirely if you'd rather not think about it.

The address bar integration is a small but practical touch: typing a question and selecting "Ask Leo" opens the response in full-page view without interrupting your browsing. Mobile support on Android and iOS covers the same core features as desktop, with voice input available on iOS. The experience is consistent across platforms, which isn't always the case with browser-based AI tools.

Brave Leo AI: Customer support

Brave handles Leo support through its Help Center at support.brave.app. The documentation is well-organized and covers most common scenarios, from initial access to advanced configuration options like BYOM and model settings. Articles are generally current, which is more than can be said for some AI products that update fast but leave documentation behind.

There's no live chat or dedicated support line for Leo. Community forums and the Help Center are the primary routes for getting help. For a free or modestly priced tool, this is standard, but business users with time-sensitive issues may find the self-serve model inadequate.

(Image credit: Brave Browser)Brave Leo AI: Pricing

• Free tier: Access to open-source models (Llama, Qwen, Gemma), rate-limited usage, no account required
• Leo Premium: $14.99/month or $149.99/year, with a 7-day free trial. Includes Claude Haiku, Claude Sonnet, DeepSeek V3.1, and other advanced models; higher rate limits; early access to new features

The free tier works for light, occasional use. You get solid open-source models and full privacy protections without signing up for anything. Rate limits are the catch: they kick in faster than you'd expect during sustained sessions, and there's no way to pay for a small top-up without committing to Premium.

At $14.99/month, Leo Premium is cheaper than ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) and sits comfortably within range for an individual AI subscription. The annual plan at $149.99 brings that down to about $12.50/month, which is reasonable given the model access on offer. There's no team or enterprise pricing.

Leo also has no public API, so external workflow integration isn't an option.

Brave Leo AI: alternatives you should consider

• ChatGPT Atlas: A Chromium-based web browser from OpenAI with built-in access to the most widely used AI assistant. However, it's only available to macOS users for now and has now Windows version.
• Microsoft Copilot: Built into Microsoft Edge and deeply integrated with the Microsoft 365 suite. The stronger pick for users already working in the Windows and Office ecosystem.
• Perplexity AI: A research-focused AI that delivers sourced, real-time answers from the web. Worth considering if web research and fact-finding are your primary use cases rather than general-purpose chat.

How I tested Brave Leo AI

• Used Leo's free tier for web research, PDF summarization, and content drafting over multiple sessions to assess response quality and the real-world impact of rate limits.
• Tested Premium-tier models including Claude Sonnet on complex writing and analysis tasks, comparing output quality against the default open-source models.
• Configured BYOM with Ollama, created custom Skills shortcuts, and put the multi-tab context feature through a multi-source research task.

Testing covered Brave Leo on desktop (Windows and macOS) and on Android, using both the sidebar and full-page chat modes. I evaluated response accuracy across summarization, factual questions, code generation, and writing tasks, and cross-referenced Brave's privacy claims against official documentation and third-party reporting from sources including The Register.

Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO: One-minute review

If you follow my camera coverage at TechRadar, you'll need no introduction to Viltrox, a Chinese lens manufacturer who's rapidly becoming a major player by delivering high-quality and particularly affordable optics.

Viltrox's most recent efforts are the 75mm f/1.8 and 90mm f/2.2: a twin-like pair of lightweight primes for APS-C cameras from its mid-range 'EVO' series, available in Sony E, Nikon Z and Fujifilm X-mount versions.

Viltrox offered to send me a lens to test, and I strategically asked for the Fujifilm X-mount version of the 90mm f/2.2, because it was the only option with a proprietary alternative for me to pit it against: Fujifilm's XF 90mm f/2 R LM WR. A 'character rich' XF 90mm f/2 APD was also listed in a public poll earlier this year among lenses that Fujifilm would love to make — but we don't know if it will be made.

Could the Viltrox 90mm do the unthinkable — beat Fujifilm's legendary portraiture lens? I called in the Fujifilm lens, and tested the pair using a Fujifilm X-T5, and much of my test focuses on how viable an alternative the Viltrox lens is.

The Fujifilm XF 90mm f/2 R LM WR lens (left), alongside the Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO lens attached to a Fujifilm X-T5 camera (Image credit: Tim Coleman)

For context, a fast aperture 90mm lens for APS-C has a 135mm equivalent focal length in full-frame terms, meaning it's a mid-telephoto focal length, delivering a highly compressed background and dreamy bokeh — the hallmarks of high-end portraits. At this focal length, you'll need the freedom of moving a decent distance away from your subject, so it's not necessarily one for tight studio spaces.

I shot self portraits controlling the camera remotely from my phone using the Fujifilm X app, and various closeups with low-lying sunlight involved, plus a range of other shots just with the Viltrox lens. Overall, I've come away majorly impressed, especially when you consider just how small, lightweight and affordable the Viltrox 90mm f/2.2 is.

The bulkier Fujifilm lens wins for the dreamiest bokeh and will be worth the extra outlay for portrait specialists. If I had the choice, I'd probably still go for this lens. However, for most people, the Viltrox is a stellar alternative, and furthermore the only one of its kind for Sony and Nikon crop-sensor mirrorless cameras, and I highly recommend it for both — after all, Nikon especially has so few options for its crop-sensor cameras such as the Z50 II.

Once again, Viltrox has delivered an excellent value autofocus prime lens.

Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO: Price and availability

• Costs $369 / £359 / Australia price TBC
• Available in Sony E, Fujifilm X and Nikon Z-mount versions

The Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO is available in Sony E, Fujifilm X and Nikon Z-mount versions, and I tested the Fujifilm version, not least of which because Fujifilm has its own legendary 90mm lens and I was keen to see how the two compared. Sony and Nikon have no such lens for APS-C — and the closest alternative would be a full-frame optic.

Viltrox's EVO lenses are almost always way more affordable when compared to the closest proprietary alternatives. Costing $369 / £359, that's certainly the case with the Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO, when you consider how the Fujifilm 90mm lens costs between 2-3x the price. It's the small, light, and affordable choice.

Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO: specsViltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO specs

Type:

Mid-telephoto prime

Mount:

Sony E, Fujifilm X, Nikon Z

Sensor:

APS-C

Focal length:

90mm (135mm effective)

Max aperture:

f/2.2

Minimum focus:

0.74m

Max reproduction

0.14x

Filter size:

58mm

Dimensions:

2.7 x 3.0in / 69 x 76mm

Weight:

11.3oz / 320g (bare lens without hood)

Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO: Design

• Just 11.3oz / 320g — lightweight and compact for a lens of this type
• Modest 0.74m minimum focus distance — not one for closeup photography
• Very well-made, with rubber sealed mount

The lens comes with a lens hood, and Viltrox has improved on the fiddly design of previous efforts. This one attaches easily. Tim ColemanA really decent balance with the X-T5Tim ColemanTim ColemanTim Coleman

As an APS-C lens, the 90mm focal length is equivalent to 135mm in full-frame terms, which is a classic portraiture lens. I've tested my fair share of full-frame 135mm lenses, including Viltrox's own 135mm F1.8 LAB and indeed Fujifilm's own 90mm f/2 for APS-C, and the Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO is the smallest and lightest of the lot by some margin.

I've shared some comparison photos below alongside the Fujifilm 90mm f/2 to illustrate the difference — at 11.3oz / 320g, the Viltrox lens is not far off being half the weight. When paired with an X-T5, I thought both lenses balanced well, but with a rangefinder-style camera such as the X-E5, the Viltrox would win for balance.

Don't let its size and price fool you, though — the Viltrox 90mm is very well made, with an all metal body, rubber-sealed lens mount, while both control rings handle beautifully: the focus ring is smooth and light, the knurled aperture ring precise. No doubt it would be a bigger and heavier lens if it had a larger maximum f/2 aperture like the Fujifilm.

The lens takes 58mm threaded filtersTim ColemanThe Fujifilm version has no external controls, whereas the Sony and Nikon versions have three buttons/ switchesTim ColemanThis means the X-mount version has a clicked aperture ring onlyTim ColemanThe rear mount has a rubber seal to keep out dust / water ingressTim Coleman

The metal barrel of some of the previous Viltrox lenses that I've tested has scratched easily. I didn't thrash the 90mm lens around particularly, so it remains mint. I'll update this review if I discover it also scratches easily.

Curiously, the X-mount version of the Viltrox 90mm f/2.2 EVO has no buttons or switches, whereas the Nikon Z and Sony E-mount versions (which I didn't ask to test) have three; an AF/MF switch, customizable function button and a click switch for the aperture ring.

Omitting the click switch especially is an oddity given that Fujifilm cameras also shoot video — Fujifilm X users here are stuck with a clicked aperture ring. As a result, despite being excellent value, it feels like Fujifilm users are shortchanged. That being said, however, the Fujifilm 90mm f/2 lens also has zero buttons or switches.

The Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO lens (left) held alongside the Fujifilm XF 90mm f/2 lens (right)Tim ColemanTim Coleman

The STM stepping motor makes light work of the 10 lens elements in 8 groups, for snappy and quiet autofocus. Of course autofocus performance accuracy and speed are affected by which camera system and autofocus mode is in use, but I never felt like the lens was slowing down the X-T5 camera's autofocus.

Minimum focus is 0.74m, which delivers a maximum 0.14x magnification. Put simply, this is not a lens for closeup photography, though neither is the 75mm f/1.8 EVO which has a 0.12x magnification, nor most 135mm lenses I've used.

Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO: Performance

• Optically very sharp
• Smooth bokeh, but with cats-eye shaping. Minor chromatic aberration and vignetting
• Snappy and quiet autofocus

I've included a range of photos taken with the Viltrox and Fujifilm 90mm lenses below, matching the lens settings where possible (though the Fujifilm lens has an extra photo at f/2), and you can read on for my analysis of the images.

ViltroxViltrox at f/2.2Tim ColemanViltrox at f/2.8Tim ColemanViltrox at f/4Tim ColemanViltrox at f/2.2Tim ColemanViltrox at f/2.8Tim ColemanViltrox at f/4Tim ColemanFujifilmFujifilm at f/2Tim ColemanFujifilm at f/2.2Tim ColemanFujifilm at f/2.8Tim ColemanFujifilm at f/4Tim ColemanFujifilm at f/2Tim ColemanFujifilm at f/2.2Tim ColemanFujifilm at f/2.8Tim ColemanFujifilm at f/4Tim Coleman

Viltrox's lens portfolio is split into various series, being topped by the LAB series of full-frame lenses, which is followed by its Pro series, and then below that the Evo series. Evo lenses are mid-range; small, lightweight, excellent value, with one or two concessions.

For me, all of the Evo lenses I've tested are an easy recommendation for enthusiast photographers, including the AF 90mm F2.2. Optically its sharp. Not the sharpest lens I've ever seen, but in a similar league as the pricier Fujifilm 90mm nonetheless.

Where sharp detail is top concern, stopping the aperture down to f/4 yields better results than wide open at f/2.2. You'll see a reduction in vignetting and chromatic aberration by doing so, too. Those lens distortions are only minor at f/2.2, but they are present.

The main topic for a wide aperture 135mm equivalent lens is bokeh — the quality of out of focus areas — and I have good news, with two caveats.

ViltroxThe Viltrox lens, see the bokeh cats eye shapingTim ColemanTim ColemanTim ColemanFujifilmFujifilm XF 90mm f/2 R LM WR lens — bokeh is smooth and roundTim ColemanTim ColemanHere I've dropped the aperture down to match the Viltrox's maximum f/2.2. Tim Coleman

Bokeh is deliciously smooth. You can see the smooth edges in the dappled light in my self portraits and the series of photos of a fern (above). This is the most important attribute of bokeh, and the Viltrox 90mm nails it.

Bokeh is clearly cats-eye shaped, mind you, not fully round like you might find in the very best portrait lenses, such as the Nikon Plena. Personally, I don't mind cats-eye shaping in bokeh at all, while you might think it's ugly — it's subjective. What's not subjective, is bokeh smoothness, and like I say, the Viltrox lens scores highly.

The other caveat is the maximum f/2.2 aperture, which is slightly smaller than the f/2 of the Fujifilm lens I was comparing the Viltrox lens with. While this minor difference doesn't particularly affect depth of field, I did find the Fujifilm lens' bokeh to be even bigger and rounder at f/2 compared to the Viltrox lens at f/2.2.

If bokeh is a top concern, money is no object and you don't mind a larger lens, then the Fujifilm XF 90mm f/2 is the better pick (see comparisons, above).

I've included a general sample gallery and included notes with further comments on the lens quality.

Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO sample imagesI love the compression effect you get with a 135mm lens. It's possibly my favorite focal length for portraiture but also landscape photographyTim ColemanWith the aperture set to f/2.2, Tim ColemanThis unedited RAW image was shot at f/2.2. Note the dark corners and then scroll to the next image. Tim ColemanThe same scene at f/5.6. See how vignetting is gone, so the corners are brighter. Detail is also slightly sharperTim ColemanI moved to the other side of the pub sign to shoot towards bright light. The edges of the pub sign bracket and the out of focus house show minor chromatic aberration.Tim ColemanVignetting in this image worked to my advantage because it kept the detail in the sky rather than it being overblownTim ColemanTim ColemanTim ColemanTim ColemanTim ColemanShould you buy the Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO?Buy it if...

You want an affordable mid-telephoto prime for portraiture
At just 40% of the price of the Fujifilm XF 90mm f/2 lens, which also has an equivalent 135mm focal length, the Viltrox is much more affordable, while there is no such lens for Sony and Nikon cameras.

You'd like a compact mid-telephoto prime
The Viltrox lens is particularly compact when you consider that it's a 135mm f/2.2 effective lens, especially when you see it in action alongside the bulkier Fujifilm offering.

Don't buy it if...

You want the absolute dreamiest bokeh
Given its small size and low(er) price, there had to be a compromise somewhere, and for me it's bokeh — which has a tendency for cats-eye shaping — and that maximum f/2.2 aperture, which is ever so slightly smaller than the Fujifilm's f/2.

You'd like external controls
Besides its clicked aperture ring and focus ring, there are no external controls in the Fujifilm version. Only with the Sony and Nikon versions do you get an MF/AF switch, function button, and click control for the aperture ring for smooth video transitions.

How I tested the Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO

(Image credit: Tim Coleman)

• Viltrox sent me the X-mount version of the AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO lens
• I paired it with a Fujifilm X-T5 camera
• Fujifilm loaned me the XF 90mm f/2 R LM WR lens at my request, to make comparisons

Viltrox sent me the X-mount version of the AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO lens and I paired it with a Fujifilm X-T5 camera. It's also available for Sony E and Nikon Z-mount cameras.

I tested the lens over the course of two weeks, alongside the Fujifilm XF 90mm f/2 R LM WR lens, which Fujifilm loaned to me at my request, and I have shot like-for-like images with both lenses to make comparisons.

As with all of my lens reviews, I have put the Viltrox 90mm through a number of real world tests, including a series of the same image at the various aperture settings, and situations where strong light could induce lens distortions such as flare and chromatic aberration.

I always shoot in both RAW & JPEG format, and turn off in-camera lens corrections, checking the unprocessed RAW files. I also use each lens for the situations that it is designed for, in this case portraiture and for isolating subjects.

First reviewed: July 2026

Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO: One-minute review

If you follow my camera coverage at TechRadar, you'll need no introduction to Viltrox, a Chinese lens manufacturer who's rapidly becoming a major player by delivering high-quality and particularly affordable optics.

Viltrox's most recent efforts are the 75mm f/1.8 and 90mm f/2.2: a twin-like pair of lightweight primes for APS-C cameras from its mid-range 'EVO' series, available in Sony E, Nikon Z and Fujifilm X-mount versions.

Viltrox offered to send me a lens to test, and I strategically asked for the Fujifilm X-mount version of the 90mm f/2.2, because it was the only option with a proprietary alternative for me to pit it against: Fujifilm's XF 90mm f/2 R LM WR. A 'character rich' XF 90mm f/2 APD was also listed in a public poll earlier this year among lenses that Fujifilm would love to make — but we don't know if it will be made.

Could the Viltrox 90mm do the unthinkable — beat Fujifilm's legendary portraiture lens? I called in the Fujifilm lens, and tested the pair using a Fujifilm X-T5, and much of my test focuses on how viable an alternative the Viltrox lens is.

The Fujifilm XF 90mm f/2 R LM WR lens (left), alongside the Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO lens attached to a Fujifilm X-T5 camera (Image credit: Tim Coleman)

For context, a fast aperture 90mm lens for APS-C has a 135mm equivalent focal length in full-frame terms, meaning it's a mid-telephoto focal length, delivering a highly compressed background and dreamy bokeh — the hallmarks of high-end portraits. At this focal length, you'll need the freedom of moving a decent distance away from your subject, so it's not necessarily one for tight studio spaces.

I shot self portraits controlling the camera remotely from my phone using the Fujifilm X app, and various closeups with low-lying sunlight involved, plus a range of other shots just with the Viltrox lens. Overall, I've come away majorly impressed, especially when you consider just how small, lightweight and affordable the Viltrox 90mm f/2.2 is.

The bulkier Fujifilm lens wins for the dreamiest bokeh and will be worth the extra outlay for portrait specialists. If I had the choice, I'd probably still go for this lens. However, for most people, the Viltrox is a stellar alternative, and furthermore the only one of its kind for Sony and Nikon crop-sensor mirrorless cameras, and I highly recommend it for both — after all, Nikon especially has so few options for its crop-sensor cameras such as the Z50 II.

Once again, Viltrox has delivered an excellent value autofocus prime lens.

Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO: Price and availability

• Costs $369 / £359 / Australia price TBC
• Available in Sony E, Fujifilm X and Nikon Z-mount versions

The Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO is available in Sony E, Fujifilm X and Nikon Z-mount versions, and I tested the Fujifilm version, not least of which because Fujifilm has its own legendary 90mm lens and I was keen to see how the two compared. Sony and Nikon have no such lens for APS-C — and the closest alternative would be a full-frame optic.

Viltrox's EVO lenses are almost always way more affordable when compared to the closest proprietary alternatives. Costing $369 / £359, that's certainly the case with the Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO, when you consider how the Fujifilm 90mm lens costs between 2-3x the price. It's the small, light, and affordable choice.

Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO: specsViltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO specs

Type:

Mid-telephoto prime

Mount:

Sony E, Fujifilm X, Nikon Z

Sensor:

APS-C

Focal length:

90mm (135mm effective)

Max aperture:

f/2.2

Minimum focus:

0.74m

Max reproduction

0.14x

Filter size:

58mm

Dimensions:

2.7 x 3.0in / 69 x 76mm

Weight:

11.3oz / 320g (bare lens without hood)

Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO: Design

• Just 11.3oz / 320g — lightweight and compact for a lens of this type
• Modest 0.74m minimum focus distance — not one for closeup photography
• Very well-made, with rubber sealed mount

The lens comes with a lens hood, and Viltrox has improved on the fiddly design of previous efforts. This one attaches easily. Tim ColemanA really decent balance with the X-T5Tim ColemanTim ColemanTim Coleman

As an APS-C lens, the 90mm focal length is equivalent to 135mm in full-frame terms, which is a classic portraiture lens. I've tested my fair share of full-frame 135mm lenses, including Viltrox's own 135mm F1.8 LAB and indeed Fujifilm's own 90mm f/2 for APS-C, and the Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO is the smallest and lightest of the lot by some margin.

I've shared some comparison photos below alongside the Fujifilm 90mm f/2 to illustrate the difference — at 11.3oz / 320g, the Viltrox lens is not far off being half the weight. When paired with an X-T5, I thought both lenses balanced well, but with a rangefinder-style camera such as the X-E5, the Viltrox would win for balance.

Don't let its size and price fool you, though — the Viltrox 90mm is very well made, with an all metal body, rubber-sealed lens mount, while both control rings handle beautifully: the focus ring is smooth and light, the knurled aperture ring precise. No doubt it would be a bigger and heavier lens if it had a larger maximum f/2 aperture like the Fujifilm.

The lens takes 58mm threaded filtersTim ColemanThe Fujifilm version has no external controls, whereas the Sony and Nikon versions have three buttons/ switchesTim ColemanThis means the X-mount version has a clicked aperture ring onlyTim ColemanThe rear mount has a rubber seal to keep out dust / water ingressTim Coleman

The metal barrel of some of the previous Viltrox lenses that I've tested has scratched easily. I didn't thrash the 90mm lens around particularly, so it remains mint. I'll update this review if I discover it also scratches easily.

Curiously, the X-mount version of the Viltrox 90mm f/2.2 EVO has no buttons or switches, whereas the Nikon Z and Sony E-mount versions (which I didn't ask to test) have three; an AF/MF switch, customizable function button and a click switch for the aperture ring.

Omitting the click switch especially is an oddity given that Fujifilm cameras also shoot video — Fujifilm X users here are stuck with a clicked aperture ring. As a result, despite being excellent value, it feels like Fujifilm users are shortchanged. That being said, however, the Fujifilm 90mm f/2 lens also has zero buttons or switches.

The Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO lens (left) held alongside the Fujifilm XF 90mm f/2 lens (right)Tim ColemanTim Coleman

The STM stepping motor makes light work of the 10 lens elements in 8 groups, for snappy and quiet autofocus. Of course autofocus performance accuracy and speed are affected by which camera system and autofocus mode is in use, but I never felt like the lens was slowing down the X-T5 camera's autofocus.

Minimum focus is 0.74m, which delivers a maximum 0.14x magnification. Put simply, this is not a lens for closeup photography, though neither is the 75mm f/1.8 EVO which has a 0.12x magnification, nor most 135mm lenses I've used.

Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO: Performance

• Optically very sharp
• Smooth bokeh, but with cats-eye shaping. Minor chromatic aberration and vignetting
• Snappy and quiet autofocus

I've included a range of photos taken with the Viltrox and Fujifilm 90mm lenses below, matching the lens settings where possible (though the Fujifilm lens has an extra photo at f/2), and you can read on for my analysis of the images.

ViltroxViltrox at f/2.2Tim ColemanViltrox at f/2.8Tim ColemanViltrox at f/4Tim ColemanViltrox at f/2.2Tim ColemanViltrox at f/2.8Tim ColemanViltrox at f/4Tim ColemanFujifilmFujifilm at f/2Tim ColemanFujifilm at f/2.2Tim ColemanFujifilm at f/2.8Tim ColemanFujifilm at f/4Tim ColemanFujifilm at f/2Tim ColemanFujifilm at f/2.2Tim ColemanFujifilm at f/2.8Tim ColemanFujifilm at f/4Tim Coleman

Viltrox's lens portfolio is split into various series, being topped by the LAB series of full-frame lenses, which is followed by its Pro series, and then below that the Evo series. Evo lenses are mid-range; small, lightweight, excellent value, with one or two concessions.

For me, all of the Evo lenses I've tested are an easy recommendation for enthusiast photographers, including the AF 90mm F2.2. Optically its sharp. Not the sharpest lens I've ever seen, but in a similar league as the pricier Fujifilm 90mm nonetheless.

Where sharp detail is top concern, stopping the aperture down to f/4 yields better results than wide open at f/2.2. You'll see a reduction in vignetting and chromatic aberration by doing so, too. Those lens distortions are only minor at f/2.2, but they are present.

The main topic for a wide aperture 135mm equivalent lens is bokeh — the quality of out of focus areas — and I have good news, with two caveats.

ViltroxThe Viltrox lens, see the bokeh cats eye shapingTim ColemanTim ColemanTim ColemanFujifilmFujifilm XF 90mm f/2 R LM WR lens — bokeh is smooth and roundTim ColemanTim ColemanHere I've dropped the aperture down to match the Viltrox's maximum f/2.2. Tim Coleman

Bokeh is deliciously smooth. You can see the smooth edges in the dappled light in my self portraits and the series of photos of a fern (above). This is the most important attribute of bokeh, and the Viltrox 90mm nails it.

Bokeh is clearly cats-eye shaped, mind you, not fully round like you might find in the very best portrait lenses, such as the Nikon Plena. Personally, I don't mind cats-eye shaping in bokeh at all, while you might think it's ugly — it's subjective. What's not subjective, is bokeh smoothness, and like I say, the Viltrox lens scores highly.

The other caveat is the maximum f/2.2 aperture, which is slightly smaller than the f/2 of the Fujifilm lens I was comparing the Viltrox lens with. While this minor difference doesn't particularly affect depth of field, I did find the Fujifilm lens' bokeh to be even bigger and rounder at f/2 compared to the Viltrox lens at f/2.2.

If bokeh is a top concern, money is no object and you don't mind a larger lens, then the Fujifilm XF 90mm f/2 is the better pick (see comparisons, above).

I've included a general sample gallery and included notes with further comments on the lens quality.

Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO sample imagesI love the compression effect you get with a 135mm lens. It's possibly my favorite focal length for portraiture but also landscape photographyTim ColemanWith the aperture set to f/2.2, Tim ColemanThis unedited RAW image was shot at f/2.2. Note the dark corners and then scroll to the next image. Tim ColemanThe same scene at f/5.6. See how vignetting is gone, so the corners are brighter. Detail is also slightly sharperTim ColemanI moved to the other side of the pub sign to shoot towards bright light. The edges of the pub sign bracket and the out of focus house show minor chromatic aberration.Tim ColemanVignetting in this image worked to my advantage because it kept the detail in the sky rather than it being overblownTim ColemanTim ColemanTim ColemanTim ColemanTim ColemanShould you buy the Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO?Buy it if...

You want an affordable mid-telephoto prime for portraiture
At just 40% of the price of the Fujifilm XF 90mm f/2 lens, which also has an equivalent 135mm focal length, the Viltrox is much more affordable, while there is no such lens for Sony and Nikon cameras.

You'd like a compact mid-telephoto prime
The Viltrox lens is particularly compact when you consider that it's a 135mm f/2.2 effective lens, especially when you see it in action alongside the bulkier Fujifilm offering.

Don't buy it if...

You want the absolute dreamiest bokeh
Given its small size and low(er) price, there had to be a compromise somewhere, and for me it's bokeh — which has a tendency for cats-eye shaping — and that maximum f/2.2 aperture, which is ever so slightly smaller than the Fujifilm's f/2.

You'd like external controls
Besides its clicked aperture ring and focus ring, there are no external controls in the Fujifilm version. Only with the Sony and Nikon versions do you get an MF/AF switch, function button, and click control for the aperture ring for smooth video transitions.

How I tested the Viltrox AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO

(Image credit: Tim Coleman)

• Viltrox sent me the X-mount version of the AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO lens
• I paired it with a Fujifilm X-T5 camera
• Fujifilm loaned me the XF 90mm f/2 R LM WR lens at my request, to make comparisons

Viltrox sent me the X-mount version of the AF 90mm f/2.2 EVO lens and I paired it with a Fujifilm X-T5 camera. It's also available for Sony E and Nikon Z-mount cameras.

I tested the lens over the course of two weeks, alongside the Fujifilm XF 90mm f/2 R LM WR lens, which Fujifilm loaned to me at my request, and I have shot like-for-like images with both lenses to make comparisons.

As with all of my lens reviews, I have put the Viltrox 90mm through a number of real world tests, including a series of the same image at the various aperture settings, and situations where strong light could induce lens distortions such as flare and chromatic aberration.

I always shoot in both RAW & JPEG format, and turn off in-camera lens corrections, checking the unprocessed RAW files. I also use each lens for the situations that it is designed for, in this case portraiture and for isolating subjects.

First reviewed: July 2026

There used to be a time when you’d buy an Apple app by paying for it once and never again. Then along came the idea of app subscriptions, and slowly but surely, Apple has started selling more and more of its software products through recurring payments. From iCloud+ to Apple TV, there are many ways to spend your cash on Apple’s wares on an ongoing basis.

Today, Apple flogs bundles of its own apps to its users, with Apple One in particular offering a cluster of apps for a single monthly price. And Apple hasn’t stopped there, with the Creator Studio package being introduced a few months ago for users of its artistic apps.

But while these app groupings ostensibly give you a way to get the software you need without paying multiple subscription fees, I’m starting to worry about how they restrict your choices and force you down avenues you might not want to travel.

Not only can they be expensive, but they’re also inflexible, giving you very little ability to customize them to your needs. If subscriptions are the future of app monetization, then Apple needs to do a whole lot better.

Enter the Creator Studio

(Image credit: Apple)

Apple likes to portray itself as the company of creatives — think about its “Here’s to the crazy ones” or “I’m a Mac” commercials of days gone by. And the firm already sells apps made specifically for this demographic, including Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, and more. So it makes sense that Apple would want to offer a software suite that grants interested users access for a single fee, instead of requiring several payments, whether one-off or ongoing.

That’s what you get with the Creator Studio, which is priced at $12.99 / £12.99 / AU$19.99 a month or $129 / £129 / AU$199 a year. In return for your cash, you get a pass for the following apps:

• Final Cut Pro
• Logic Pro
• Pixelmator Pro
• Keynote
• Pages
• Numbers
• Motion
• Compressor
• MainStage

And yes, some of these apps — like Keynote, Pages, and Numbers — are already free, but pay the Creator Studio entry fee and you get “a library of high-quality, royalty-free photos and graphics, and powerful intelligence features” in addition to what comes with the toll-free editions, Apple says.

Considering Logic Pro alone costs $199.99 if you want to buy it outright (rather than pay an ongoing subscription), this package might seem like a rather good deal. But it’s not the price that I’m interested in — it’s the way app bundles like Creator Studio work.

Right now, there are two main app collections available from Apple: Creator Studio and Apple One. While Creator Studio contains the aforementioned creative apps, Apple One starts at $19.95 / £18.95 / AU$24.95 a month and comes with 50GB of iCloud+ storage, plus memberships to Apple TV, Apple Music, and Apple Arcade.

There are two additional tiers, with the most expensive costing $37.95 / £36.95 / AU$49.95 a month and throwing in 2TB of iCloud+ storage, Apple Fitness+, and Apple News+, in addition to what’s already in the entry-level option.

But what if you want to mix and match your apps and services from Apple? What if you want, say, Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro from Creator Studio, plus Apple Music, Apple Fitness+, and Apple News+? Well, you’re going to have to either take out the top Apple One bundle and separately buy those creative apps outright, or you’ve got to pay for memberships of two distinct ongoing subscriptions.

In this instance, combining Creator Studio with the most expensive edition of Apple One means paying $50.94 a month when all you want are five apps. The rest of the content you pay for is superfluous. Throw in AppleCare+, and you’re forking out even more.

Apple gives practically no flexibility or customization with its app collections. You can’t mix and match apps and services, and if there are some you want from both subscriptions, you’ve got to pay for both. That makes it an incredibly expensive way to go.

But with Apple seemingly getting evermore enthusiastic about subscriptions — and the revenue they bring in — don’t be surprised if this state of affairs continues.

Is there a better way?

(Image credit: Apple)

You might feel that, since Creator Studio is relatively new, Apple is still working out the logistics of how to sell the apps and services it contains. But Apple is no stranger to subscriptions. It’s been offering the likes of Apple Music and Apple Arcade for years now, so it knows a thing or two about how to structure subscription offerings.

Is the lack of flexibility here and the absence of any way to pick and choose apps a deliberate policy on Apple’s behalf? We can’t know for sure, but it’s not a good look.

While the Creator Studio might seem like a decent bargain on its face, it becomes considerably less so if you’re not interested in everything it offers and want to pair its apps with those from the Apple One bundle.

Considering how keen Apple seems to be on subscriptions, I’m surprised it doesn’t offer individual memberships for each component app within these packages. For instance, why is there no individual subscription for Pixelmator Pro? Instead, you’ve got to choose between a one-off fee or the full Creator Studio.

If Apple were to go down this route — and it's what I'd do if I were CEO-to-be John Ternus — it would instantly solve the problem of pairing different apps from different collections. You could simply add whichever apps you wanted to your own “build a bundle” package and get exactly what you need for a more acceptable price.

But that kind of process doesn’t seem to be anywhere on the horizon. There are no rumors saying it’s coming, no telltale clues nestled in Apple’s code. Don’t hold your breath for its imminent arrival.

Until we do get something like that, Apple customers are going to continue to feel ripped off by a rigid, inflexible system that is happy to take their cash in return for apps they don’t want or need. It’s a situation that’s in desperate need of a rethink.

Across 100 engineering organizations, 61% already run AI agents. Yet almost none trust them enough to bring them into production.

There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, agents are prone to making mistakes that humans know to avoid through experience. They move at a much faster pace, and by their nature operate autonomously. If something goes wrong, there’s often no audit trail or visibility into what they are doing across the organisation.

This is problematic when a rogue agent inevitably leaks credentials, hits unauthorized repositories, or burns through cloud budget before anyone notices.

This unreliability is why most organizations keep agents away from anything that matters.

However, the real problem is not the agents. It’s the absence of governance around using them. The controls already exist, and have for a long time.

They are the same principles that have been applied to human engineers for years: minimal privileges, audit logging, identity management, and scoped access. Though familiar, companies struggle to apply these fundamental rules.

To ensure organizations get off to a good start with deploying AI agents, they should implement three simple governance controls: isolate, scope, and approve.

Isolate by default

Start with isolated, ephemeral workspaces. Every task that is spun up from a clean template should be erased the moment it is completed. No shared state or bleeds between runs. This means that should something go wrong, the damage will be confined to that task, and nothing beyond it.

Then from that workspace, all agents should have zero outbound access by default. Not limited. Zero. An explicit ‘allowlist’ then defines exactly which domains, methods, and paths an agent can touch. Everything else gets blocked. And even with narrow access, sensitive systems such as GitHub or Salesforce should get read-only access also.

Your agent is in an isolated workspace. Network connectivity is limited. Now it’s time to control tool calls. Model context protocol (MCP), for instance, is how agents invoke external tools, including file systems, databases, and APIs. Without airtight guardrails, an agent can reach any MCP server available to it.

The danger is that this is a significant and largely invisible attack surface. Proxies that sit in front of those tools allow administrators to define an approved list, filter at the per-tool level, and log anything that tries to reach outside the boundary.

Scope permissions and real-time monitoring

Even a well-isolated agent can cause problems if it’s running with more permissions than it needs. Agents should never inherit a user’s full credentials. API keys should only carry the permissions required for that specific task, and nothing more.

In addition to scoped identities, there must be clear visibility. Streaming every request through real-time monitoring and alerting teams when an agent makes 10x its typical API calls, contacts a new domain, or starts burning tokens unusually fast will provide timely, and actionable signals.

Identity-aware LLM routing ties it all together. Authenticating users through existing SSO, and routing all model requests through centrally managed keys solves the problem of API key sprawl. Without this measure of control, hundreds of loose keys with no attribution or clear revocation path quietly accumulate.

Approve agentic tasks with a human in the loop

Think of an agent as a talented junior employee. High output, eager to help, but not yet trusted to push to production unsupervised. AI agents should generate output but not decide what ships. This is where human approval gates, backed by existing role-based access controls, come in. Humans must be held mutually accountable for their agent’s output. This is as much a mindset as a technical control.

However, there is one area where you should assist human oversight: model selection. Not every task should go to the same model. For example, regulated data has different requirements than content generation. Routing by policy ensures that compliance requirements are met without relying on individual developers to make the correct call every time.

Full audit trails make the whole lot accountable. Every prompt, every tool call, every model interaction should be mapped to an authenticated identity and exportable to whatever observability stack is already in place. It should always be clear which authenticated user sent which prompt to which model, and why.

Embed governance in your infrastructure, not your apps

Overall, the goal is to empower organizations with the confidence to deploy their AI agents safely without slowing down their developers, agents or the business. Ensure this happens by laying down a governance layer to make AI agent adoption sustainable. But there’s a catch. Implement governance at the infrastructure layer. There are two reasons why.

Firstly, it avoids duplicating policy for every AI stack you deploy. Secondly, it ensures a consistent governance across a very fast-changing world where agents, models, and harnesses will leapfrog each other monthly. You do not want to rewrite governance policies at the pace of AI change.

Done right, infrastructure-lever governance makes AI production ready. Security teams with visibility over what agents are doing will be more inclined to approve more, compliance teams with clear audit trails will sign off faster, and developers who trust the guardrails will be able to push further.

Those enterprises that build in governance now will not just have better security posture, they’ll outpace competitors waiting for sign-off to run their first pilot.

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"We've heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark," Meta wrote in a blog post.

HuggingChat is Hugging Face's free, open-source chat interface . It might be the most underrated AI tool available right now. You get access to over 120 open-weight models including Llama, Mistral, Qwen, DeepSeek, and Falcon, all without spending a cent. The newest addition is Omni, a routing layer that automatically picks the most suitable model for your request.

What makes HuggingChat worth paying attention to is the sheer scope of model access it bundles into a single free product. I've been reviewing B2B software at TechRadar Pro for the past 10 years and our team covers the AI space closely. Take a look at our 2026 best AI tools roundup and read our in-depth explainers on open-source platforms like OpenClaw and Moltbook.

What is HuggingChat?

HuggingChat is the conversational AI interface built by Hugging Face, the company behind the world's largest open-source AI model repository. Instead of locking you into a single proprietary model, it lets you chat with any of 120+ community-hosted, open-weight models directly from your browser.

It's aimed squarely at developers, ML researchers, and technically curious users who want to compare model outputs, test different architectures, or simply avoid handing their data to a closed-source provider. For anyone evaluating an open-weight model before self-hosting it internally, this is an obvious starting point.

The platform also works for general use cases: writing, coding help, document analysis, and Q&A. But it's at its best when the person on the other end knows what they're asking of each model.

HuggingChat: At a glance

Attribute

Notes

Underlying model(s)

User-selectable from 120+ open-weight models including Meta Llama, Mistral, Qwen, DeepSeek, Falcon, and Cohere Command R+

Best for

Developers testing open models, researchers, ML engineers, privacy-conscious users

Distinguishing functions

Multi-model switching, Omni routing, web search, custom Assistants, document upload

UI features

Clean single-column chat interface with persistent model selector and sidebar conversation history

Subscription costs

Free (unlimited), Hugging Face Pro at $9/month

API pricing

Via Hugging Face Inference API; pricing varies by model and hardware; starts from $0.03/hour for CPU instances

Buy it if…

• You want to compare open-weight models side by side. HuggingChat is the fastest way to test how Llama, Mistral, and Qwen handle the same prompt without switching tools.
• You need a free AI chat tool with no usage caps. Unlike many free tiers, HuggingChat doesn't cut you off after a certain number of messages per day.
• Avoiding vendor lock-in matters to your organization. Every model on the platform is open-weight, meaning you can evaluate it here and self-host the exact same model later.

Don't buy it if…

• You want a polished, feature-complete interface. There's no canvas mode, no voice input, and no image generation. That puts it behind ChatGPT and Claude for everyday productivity use.
• Consistent response speed is critical. Inference speed varies depending on server load, and the free tier runs on shared infrastructure. Peak hours can slow things down noticeably.
• You need mobile-first access. HuggingChat is browser-only with no dedicated iOS or Android app, which limits how well it works on the go.

My time with HuggingChat

My first impression was that HuggingChat is more of a research tool than a daily driver. The interface is minimal: a chat window, a model selector, and a sidebar. That's about it. Once I got past the expectation of feature parity with ChatGPT, I found myself appreciating how little gets in the way of just talking to a model.

The Omni routing feature is a genuine improvement. Rather than guessing which model handles a given task best, In my testing, Omni made sensible choices more often than not. For users who don't want to manage model selection manually, it reduces friction considerably.

Where I ran into friction was speed. During busier periods, response latency was noticeably longer than on paid commercial platforms. For quick back-and-forth conversations, that's tolerable. For longer document analysis tasks, it started to feel slow.

HuggingChat: Features

The model catalog is HuggingChat's biggest selling point, and it's hard to overstate how much value that represents for free. At the time of writing, you can chat with 120+ models including Llama 3.1 405B, Mistral Large 2, Qwen 2.5 72B, DeepSeek V3, Command R+ from Cohere, and several Falcon variants. The list updates regularly as new community models are released.

Web search integration is available and works well enough for pulling in current information, which helps avoid stale knowledge cutoff responses. It's not as tightly integrated as Perplexity's approach, but it does the job without requiring a separate tool.

Custom Assistants let you set system prompts, attach knowledge bases via retrieval-augmented generation, and share a pre-configured assistant via a direct link. This is particularly useful for teams who want a repeatable AI workflow without paying for an enterprise platform. Document upload is also supported, which lets you drop in a PDF or text file and ask questions against it.

HuggingChat's limitations are harder to ignore if you're coming from a commercial product. There's no image generation, no voice mode, no plugin system, and no equivalent of ChatGPT's canvas or Claude's Projects feature. For general productivity use, those gaps matter.

HuggingChat: User experience

The interface is clean and gets out of the way quickly. A new conversation starts within seconds. The model selector is easy to find, and conversation history is accessible from the sidebar once you're logged into a Hugging Face account. There's no learning curve beyond understanding what each model is good at. That knowledge gap is real for non-technical users.

Hugging Face has been transparent in interviews about positioning HuggingChat as the open-source community's answer to proprietary chat products. That framing shows in the design decisions: the priority is access and transparency over UX polish. For the target audience of developers and researchers, that's a reasonable trade.

HuggingChat: Customer support

Support for HuggingChat itself is primarily community-driven, via the Hugging Face Discord and forums. There's no in-product live chat or dedicated help desk for the free tier, which means troubleshooting usually involves hunting through documentation or community threads.

Hugging Face Pro subscribers gain access to prioritized support channels, and Enterprise customers get dedicated support. For individual users on the free plan, the documentation is thorough but the response loop can be slow if you hit an edge case.

(Image credit: HuggingFace.co)HuggingChat: Pricing

• Free: Full access to all 120+ models, web search, document upload, and custom Assistants with no daily message limits
• Hugging Face Pro ($9/month): 20x inference credits, 10x private storage, ZeroGPU priority access, Spaces Dev Mode, and early access to new features
• Team ($20/month per user) and Enterprise ($50/month per user): Adds SSO, audit logs, storage regions, SCIM provisioning, and dedicated support

The free tier is impressively generous and covers most use cases without restriction. Upgrading to Pro makes sense if you're a developer who also uses Hugging Face's broader platform for model hosting, inference, or dataset work. The credits and storage benefits extend well beyond HuggingChat itself.

There's no standalone HuggingChat subscription. The Pro plan is a Hugging Face platform upgrade, which means you're paying for the full platform rather than just the chat product. That's either good value or unnecessary overhead, depending on how embedded you are in the HF ecosystem.

HuggingChat: alternatives you should consider

• ChatGPT (OpenAI): The most polished AI chat product on the market, with voice mode, image generation, and a canvas editor. Better for general productivity but fully proprietary and locked behind a subscription for advanced features.
• Claude (Anthropic): Strong at long document analysis and nuanced writing. More consistent response quality than most open-weight models, though it's closed-source and doesn't offer model selection flexibility.
• Perplexity AI: A strong alternative if web search and real-time information retrieval are your main use cases. Less flexible on the model side but more tightly integrated with live web data.

How I tested HuggingChat

• Ran identical prompts across Llama 3.1, Mistral Large 2, and Qwen 2.5 to evaluate output consistency and quality differences.
• Tested web search integration, document upload, Omni routing, and custom Assistant creation over multiple sessions.
• Ran tests across different times of day to assess latency variability on the free tier.

Testing covered both technical tasks (code generation, document Q&A) and general use cases (writing, research, open-ended reasoning) to give a representative picture of day-to-day performance.

HuggingChat is Hugging Face's free, open-source chat interface . It might be the most underrated AI tool available right now. You get access to over 120 open-weight models including Llama, Mistral, Qwen, DeepSeek, and Falcon, all without spending a cent. The newest addition is Omni, a routing layer that automatically picks the most suitable model for your request.

What makes HuggingChat worth paying attention to is the sheer scope of model access it bundles into a single free product. I've been reviewing B2B software at TechRadar Pro for the past 10 years and our team covers the AI space closely. Take a look at our 2026 best AI tools roundup and read our in-depth explainers on open-source platforms like OpenClaw and Moltbook.

What is HuggingChat?

HuggingChat is the conversational AI interface built by Hugging Face, the company behind the world's largest open-source AI model repository. Instead of locking you into a single proprietary model, it lets you chat with any of 120+ community-hosted, open-weight models directly from your browser.

It's aimed squarely at developers, ML researchers, and technically curious users who want to compare model outputs, test different architectures, or simply avoid handing their data to a closed-source provider. For anyone evaluating an open-weight model before self-hosting it internally, this is an obvious starting point.

The platform also works for general use cases: writing, coding help, document analysis, and Q&A. But it's at its best when the person on the other end knows what they're asking of each model.

HuggingChat: At a glance

Attribute

Notes

Underlying model(s)

User-selectable from 120+ open-weight models including Meta Llama, Mistral, Qwen, DeepSeek, Falcon, and Cohere Command R+

Best for

Developers testing open models, researchers, ML engineers, privacy-conscious users

Distinguishing functions

Multi-model switching, Omni routing, web search, custom Assistants, document upload

UI features

Clean single-column chat interface with persistent model selector and sidebar conversation history

Subscription costs

Free (unlimited), Hugging Face Pro at $9/month

API pricing

Via Hugging Face Inference API; pricing varies by model and hardware; starts from $0.03/hour for CPU instances

Buy it if…

• You want to compare open-weight models side by side. HuggingChat is the fastest way to test how Llama, Mistral, and Qwen handle the same prompt without switching tools.
• You need a free AI chat tool with no usage caps. Unlike many free tiers, HuggingChat doesn't cut you off after a certain number of messages per day.
• Avoiding vendor lock-in matters to your organization. Every model on the platform is open-weight, meaning you can evaluate it here and self-host the exact same model later.

Don't buy it if…

• You want a polished, feature-complete interface. There's no canvas mode, no voice input, and no image generation. That puts it behind ChatGPT and Claude for everyday productivity use.
• Consistent response speed is critical. Inference speed varies depending on server load, and the free tier runs on shared infrastructure. Peak hours can slow things down noticeably.
• You need mobile-first access. HuggingChat is browser-only with no dedicated iOS or Android app, which limits how well it works on the go.

My time with HuggingChat

My first impression was that HuggingChat is more of a research tool than a daily driver. The interface is minimal: a chat window, a model selector, and a sidebar. That's about it. Once I got past the expectation of feature parity with ChatGPT, I found myself appreciating how little gets in the way of just talking to a model.

The Omni routing feature is a genuine improvement. Rather than guessing which model handles a given task best, In my testing, Omni made sensible choices more often than not. For users who don't want to manage model selection manually, it reduces friction considerably.

Where I ran into friction was speed. During busier periods, response latency was noticeably longer than on paid commercial platforms. For quick back-and-forth conversations, that's tolerable. For longer document analysis tasks, it started to feel slow.

HuggingChat: Features

The model catalog is HuggingChat's biggest selling point, and it's hard to overstate how much value that represents for free. At the time of writing, you can chat with 120+ models including Llama 3.1 405B, Mistral Large 2, Qwen 2.5 72B, DeepSeek V3, Command R+ from Cohere, and several Falcon variants. The list updates regularly as new community models are released.

Web search integration is available and works well enough for pulling in current information, which helps avoid stale knowledge cutoff responses. It's not as tightly integrated as Perplexity's approach, but it does the job without requiring a separate tool.

Custom Assistants let you set system prompts, attach knowledge bases via retrieval-augmented generation, and share a pre-configured assistant via a direct link. This is particularly useful for teams who want a repeatable AI workflow without paying for an enterprise platform. Document upload is also supported, which lets you drop in a PDF or text file and ask questions against it.

HuggingChat's limitations are harder to ignore if you're coming from a commercial product. There's no image generation, no voice mode, no plugin system, and no equivalent of ChatGPT's canvas or Claude's Projects feature. For general productivity use, those gaps matter.

HuggingChat: User experience

The interface is clean and gets out of the way quickly. A new conversation starts within seconds. The model selector is easy to find, and conversation history is accessible from the sidebar once you're logged into a Hugging Face account. There's no learning curve beyond understanding what each model is good at. That knowledge gap is real for non-technical users.

Hugging Face has been transparent in interviews about positioning HuggingChat as the open-source community's answer to proprietary chat products. That framing shows in the design decisions: the priority is access and transparency over UX polish. For the target audience of developers and researchers, that's a reasonable trade.

HuggingChat: Customer support

Support for HuggingChat itself is primarily community-driven, via the Hugging Face Discord and forums. There's no in-product live chat or dedicated help desk for the free tier, which means troubleshooting usually involves hunting through documentation or community threads.

Hugging Face Pro subscribers gain access to prioritized support channels, and Enterprise customers get dedicated support. For individual users on the free plan, the documentation is thorough but the response loop can be slow if you hit an edge case.

(Image credit: HuggingFace.co)HuggingChat: Pricing

• Free: Full access to all 120+ models, web search, document upload, and custom Assistants with no daily message limits
• Hugging Face Pro ($9/month): 20x inference credits, 10x private storage, ZeroGPU priority access, Spaces Dev Mode, and early access to new features
• Team ($20/month per user) and Enterprise ($50/month per user): Adds SSO, audit logs, storage regions, SCIM provisioning, and dedicated support

The free tier is impressively generous and covers most use cases without restriction. Upgrading to Pro makes sense if you're a developer who also uses Hugging Face's broader platform for model hosting, inference, or dataset work. The credits and storage benefits extend well beyond HuggingChat itself.

There's no standalone HuggingChat subscription. The Pro plan is a Hugging Face platform upgrade, which means you're paying for the full platform rather than just the chat product. That's either good value or unnecessary overhead, depending on how embedded you are in the HF ecosystem.

HuggingChat: alternatives you should consider

• ChatGPT (OpenAI): The most polished AI chat product on the market, with voice mode, image generation, and a canvas editor. Better for general productivity but fully proprietary and locked behind a subscription for advanced features.
• Claude (Anthropic): Strong at long document analysis and nuanced writing. More consistent response quality than most open-weight models, though it's closed-source and doesn't offer model selection flexibility.
• Perplexity AI: A strong alternative if web search and real-time information retrieval are your main use cases. Less flexible on the model side but more tightly integrated with live web data.

How I tested HuggingChat

• Ran identical prompts across Llama 3.1, Mistral Large 2, and Qwen 2.5 to evaluate output consistency and quality differences.
• Tested web search integration, document upload, Omni routing, and custom Assistant creation over multiple sessions.
• Ran tests across different times of day to assess latency variability on the free tier.

Testing covered both technical tasks (code generation, document Q&A) and general use cases (writing, research, open-ended reasoning) to give a representative picture of day-to-day performance.

• Australian eSafety Commissioner views VPN detection as a "reasonable step" for tech companies enforcing age limits
• The watchdog notes that service providers must prevent workarounds under new industry codes
• Australia's position mirrors a growing global debate surrounding age assurance and VPNs

Australia's internet watchdog is keeping a close eye on VPN services as the country steps up its efforts to enforce strict online age verification rules.

According to documents obtained by The Guardian under freedom of information (FOI) laws, the Australian eSafety Commissioner expects tech platforms and service providers to actively block workarounds that allow users to bypass age-restricted content and social media bans.

The internal documents explicitly detail how the government plans to approach these privacy tools under its Unlawful Material Codes and Standards. Under the Codes, the documents state, "service providers must take reasonable steps to prevent workarounds like VPNs so eSafety will look at this when considering compliance with codes."

For everyday web users, this raises a troubling question: could turning on a virtual private network (VPN) to protect your personal data soon flag you as a circumventor?

As cybersecurity protections increasingly find themselves in the crosshairs of child safety regulations, digital privacy advocates are sounding the alarm.

The push for VPN detection

(Image credit: Unsplash / Brooke Cagle)

Under the new codes, the Australian government is placing the burden directly on industry providers to prevent the exposure of age-restricted material, defined by regulators as Class 1 and Class 2 material.

Because a VPN encrypts your internet traffic and spoofs your IP address, it can easily make you appear as though you are browsing from a different country, bypassing local geoblocks and age gates. That's exactly why VPN downloads skyrocketed after Australia enforced mandatory age verification for adult content last March.

However, Australian authorities are confident that platforms can counter this.

According to the FOI documents, the government's ongoing Age Assurance Technology Trial has convinced regulators that network detection is feasible. The documents note that "the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts knows that tech companies can tell when a VPN is in use."

Consequently, the eSafety Commissioner is treating the detection of these tools as a fundamental requirement. The internal log clarifies that "this is similar to eSafety’s regulatory guidance for the social media minimum age, where eSafety considers VPN detection as a reasonable step to prevent underage users from having an account."

A global ripple effect?

Australia is far from the only country struggling to balance child safety legislation with the right to online privacy. The debate over whether to treat VPNs as essential security software or mere circumvention tools is heating up worldwide.

Recent analysis of Australia's age verification rules suggests that trying to plug these "loopholes" could severely compromise the digital safety of the broader population. In fact, some experts argue that demanding that platforms actively block VPN connections sets a dangerous precedent for civil liberties.

The ripple effect is already visible across Europe.

As the EU launches its own age verification initiatives, regulators are increasingly signaling that VPNs might be next in line for restrictions. Similarly, the shifting role of VPNs in the UK has prompted rigorous discussions about whether incoming social media bans could lead to VPN restrictions.

Ultimately, the eSafety Commissioner’s plan highlights a growing reality: as governments worldwide roll out strict age assurance mandates, child safety measures and VPN use are on a collision course.

Whether everyday Australians will still be able to freely protect their data on public Wi-Fi without being blocked from their favorite sites remains to be seen.

• Zoom Virtual Agent Receptionist is now available to any business
• As a first port of call, it frees up humans to handle more valuable calls
• Available from $24.99/month, it speaks 10+ languages and works 24/7

Zoom has announced the launch of a dedicated AI receptionist that customers can deploy within their existing business telephone system, meaning that prospective customers will no longer have to commit to migrating to Zoom Phone, as was previously the case.

By helping customers to avoid disruptive infrastructure changes and waste years of investment in other telephone solutions, Zoom could end up with even more paying customers who would otherwise have dismissed the tool due to the migration requirements.

The system is designed to supplement existing human teams by answering incoming calls and directing them to the right support channels.

Zoom's AI receptionist is now available to all, including non-Zoom Phone customers

"Businesses shouldn’t have to replace their phone system to benefit from AI," Zoom Phone GM Chris Moss wrote.

The company boasted that its virtual receptionist can speak more than 10 languages, will work around the clock and has built-in transcription to help agents later down the line.

It can automatically handle routine business questions and schedule appointments, but it will also transfer calls to the relevant people or departments wherever necessary. By pairing customers up with an AI agent first to hopefully answer some of the most basic and common questions, it frees up human workers time to handle the more valuable and complex interactions.

The virtual receptionist also promises to plug the gaps when human agents might otherwise be busy handling other calls, or our of hours when customer service would usually be unreachable.

According to the company's own data, one in two consumers say they'd switch to a competitor after a single bad experience. Around three-quarters (71%) also said they find calling a company more stressful than the issue itself.

Zoom Virtual Agent Receptionist is available now, priced at $29.99 per month for 100 minutes, or $24.99 with an annual commitment.

The first two episodes of new MGM+ crime drama The Westies are now streaming, but strap in — we've still got another six installments to go.

The new show follows the real-life Irish-American crime family of the same name, who ran the streets of Hell's Kitchen for decades from the 1960s. Basically, it's the perfect warm-up act for MobLand season 2 and The Gentleman season 2, which are both set to return in September.

Led by J.K. Simmons as patriarch Eamonn Sweeney, we've got an epic cat-and-mouse game afoot between our shady leads and the FBI, who have been tasked with bringing them to justice.

The trailer set up the high-stakes drama to come, but some fans weren't entirely happy with the teaser. Scroll through the YouTube comments on the clip below, and you'll see multiple fans complaining that The Westies looks far too tame for a mobster story.

In a way, they have a point. If you're tuning in looking for glory through guts and gore, you're not going to find it. However, that doesn't mean that intense action sequences are few and far between.

Not only have lead stars Simmons and Tom Brittney (James) seen the comments, they're the first in line to disagree — and they've got pretty good reasoning as to why.

'There's some stuff that I'm surprised we could get away with'

"God, no," Brittney says when I ask if The Westies felt tame when filming. "I think I saw that comment. Someone sent something to me about going, 'oh, I think it's tame.' And I was like... well, you better watch then.

"We can't put everything that's in the show into that trailer because you wouldn't be able to show it on TV as a teaser. Especially depending on the time that you're showing it. It's a brutal one. There's some stuff in this that I was surprised that they could get away with."

From a marketing standpoint, it makes complete sense that the best parts of The Westies, which would include the grittiest and most intense fights, won't be revealed immediately. They wouldn't even be in the two-episode premiere... think of them as a reward for investing in the new series long-term.

"If I may... don't watch the trailer. Watch the show," Simmons adds. We're both in it. You know it's gonna be good! So, just watch the show. July 12th. Or you could watch it on the 13th if you want. That's the beauty. Go crazy. Watch it on the 14th, whatever. Just watch it sometime in the first week, please."

You heard the man... lock in now, and reap the benefits as The Westies continues to drop on a weekly basis.

Hoo boy, is anybody else still coming to terms with X-Men 97 season 2 episode 4's ending? I know I am but, with a new chapter of the Marvel TV show set to drop very soon, it's time to re-compose and emotionally steel ourselves for whatever comes next.

So, when will this season's fifth entry — titled 'Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs' — make its debut on Disney+? Read on and you'll find out!

What is the launch time for X-Men 97 season 2 episode 5?

This week's installment sounds like it'll focus on James 'Logan' Howllet, aka Wolverine (Image credit: Marvel Animation/Disney+)

X-Men 97 season 2's next installment will air on Wednesday, July 15 at 12am PT / 3am ET in North and South America.

Viewers living elsewhere will also be able to catch it on Disney+, aka one of the world's best streaming services, on the same date. Depending on where you're based, though, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) adjacent TV series' next episode will come out at a different time. Check out the list below for more details:

• US — 12am PT / 3am ET
• Canada — 12am PT / 3am ET
• UK — 8am BST
• India — 12:30pm IST
• Singapore — 3pm SGT
• Australia — 5pm AEST
• New Zealand — 7pm NZST

How many more episodes are there in X-Men 97 season 2?

DISC 02▶ X-MEN '97TRACK 04 00:00 ────◉─── 01:05Stream a new episode of Season 2 now, only on Disney+. pic.twitter.com/YuoCJfi484July 8, 2026

After this week's episode, there'll be four more episodes of X-Men 97's second season to enjoy.

Want to know the exact dates that the Marvel Phase 6 show's remaining entries will appear? Run your eyes over the below list for more on the schedule for the X-Men animated show's sophomore season:

• Season 2 episode 1 — out now
• Season 2 episode 2 — out now
• Season 2 episode 3 — out now
• Season 2 episode 4 — out now
• Season 2 episode 5 — July 15
• Season 2 episode 6 — July 22
• Season 2 episode 7 — July 29
• Season 2 episode 8 — August 5
• Season 2 episode 9 — August 12

• Cast confirms on social media that Mayor of Kingstown season 5 has officially wrapped production
• No official release date has been confirmed, but predictions suggest new episodes could be seen as soon as November 2026
• Plot details have largely been kept under wraps

If you've been keeping a close eye on all things Paramount+ in the last week, you might have noticed that Mayor of Kingstown season 5 has wrapped production.

Tobi Bamtefa, who plays Bunny on the show, confirmed the news on Instagram, adding in a caption, "To those about to start from season 1, I envy you. Your socks are about to get blown off in the best way possible. 5 seasons with no breaks!!"

New episodes of the Taylor Sheridan series are set to be the last ever, despite the crime thriller originally being mapped out to run for seven seasons.

The Hollywood Reporter speculated that the unexpected cut falls in line with other Paramount+ original series, none of which have ever exceeded a fifth season. However, the studio has never given an official statement on this.

With production now finished, thoughts turn to when we might see Mayor of Kingstown season 5 episodes released. No date has been confirmed as of writing, but that doesn't mean that we can't use context clues to hazard an educated guess.

Opinion: Mayor of Kingstown season 5 could be released as early as November 2026

(Image credit: Paramount)

Let's look back at the Taylor Sheridan TV canon to see what sort of release schedules have come before. Landman season 2 was released in November 2025, with filming having completed in early August 2025.

Similarly, Yellowstone spinoff Dutton Ranch wrapped production in March 2026, resulting in an incredibly quick turnaround, ready for its release in May 2026.

In short, Sheridan shows that only a matter of months is needed between filming and hitting the small screen as a finished product, which means — in a best-case scenario — we could expect Mayor of Kingstown season 5 to premiere as early as November 2026.

In Sheridan's world, anything is possible, but an exact release strategy will likely depend on what else is confirmed for Paramount+'s year-on-year schedule. We're expecting Dexter: Resurrection season 2 and Yellowjackets season 4 to arrive at some point before the year is out, and I don't think seeing Landman season 3 or The Madison season 2 is too far-fetched, either.

It all comes down to how much of a priority Mayor of Kingstown season 5 is for Paramount+, and that's a question that we just can't answer. However, the editing process starts now, and that can only be a good thing.

• Ireland's data center electricity demand reportedly rises 360% in ten years
• Data centers now account for 23% of the entire country's power consumption
• New data centers can now only be constructed if certain power demand considerations are met

Ireland’s data center electricity consumption has risen 360% in ten years, and now accounts for 23% of the entire country’s electricity demand in 2026.

With total residential consumption accounting for 28%, and data center demand rising quickly, it won’t be long before the server farms overtake the consumption of Ireland’s population of just over five million.

These figures come from an Ireland Central Statistics Office report, which shows data center electricity consumption has risen 10% year over year from 2024 to 2025, despite a moratorium on new data center grid connections enacted in 2021. In total, the country’s data centers consumed 7,663 GWh last year, despite the rest of Ireland's demand rising only 2% in the same period.

Ireland battling data center power demand

The 2021 moratorium, put in place by Ireland’s Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU), required the national grid operator, EirGrid, to stop processing standard power applications for data centers in the Greater Dublin Area. New data centers built after this ruling were therefore required to supply their own on-site energy or construct new projects in regions not subject to this restriction.

Consumption since 2021 has risen steadily, prompting the CRU to replace the previous moratorium with the Large Energy Users (LEU) Connection Policy, which subjects new data center projects to a set of measures designed to ease the level of consumption on the national grid, while also creating new sources of energy.

Data centers over 10 MVA are now required to construct on-site, flexible power generation that covers 100% of demand, while also sourcing at least 80% of their annual electricity from new, unsubsidized renewable projects within six years.

Ireland has become a hub for big tech. Many companies have built European headquarters in the country, with hyperscalers such as AWS, Google, Meta, and Microsoft building and operating the majority of Ireland’s 89 data centers to power cloud infrastructure and AI models.

As a result of the rapid increase in demand, Ireland now has the highest electricity cost in Europe, with Irish households paying around €480 ($550) more per year compared to the EU average. Higher electricity prices have been a catalyst for data center opposition, especially in the US, where working class communities are challenging new data center projects at an unprecedented scale.

This opposition has been a leading contribution to more than half of US data centers being cancelled or delayed, with US citizens citing rising electricity costs, concerns over water consumption, and fears of AI job replacement as the main causes for opposition.

The U.S. and Iran exchanged fire over the weekend amid tensions over the Strait of Hormuz. And, Congress returns from recess facing tight deadlines.

(Image credit: Majid Saeedi)

Secondhand tech is an affordable alternative for must-have tech, but the RAM shortage is increasing the demand for it.

• A software update bricked Philips Hue Bridge Pro devices
• The bug required a very specific set of circumstances
• Philips Hue has promised free replacements to affected users

Over the last few weeks, reports have emerged of Philips Hue Bridge Pro smart home devices becoming bricked, and it looks like the culprit has now been identified. According to Philips Hue, the fault lay with a recent software update — but the company has won plaudits for what it's giving to customers in order to make amends.

The trouble started in late June when Philips Hue released software update 2071353020, which was intended to include “several small changes” that improved the product’s operations. Yet reports started flooding in that the update had caused people’s Hue Bridge Pro devices to fail and become completely unresponsive.

In a statement to Ars Technica, Philips Hue explained the very specific circumstances that caused the problem: “The issue affects users who disabled automatic software updates, remained on an older software version for an extended period, and then manually installed a firmware update after the update package had been stored on the Bridge for more than 10 days.”

As well as that, the spokesperson noted that “Our data shows fewer than 100 Philips Hue Bridge Pro devices have been impacted.”

Still, any disruption like this is a pain. If you’re affected, not only will you have to wait for a replacement to arrive, but you’ll also have to reconfigure your lights and settings from scratch. That’s the kind of disturbance that is made all the more irritating due to the fact that it occurred after users updated their software — something that people are often encouraged to do in order to get the latest bug fixes and improvements.

Free replacements

(Image credit: Philips)

While it’s always unpleasant to see a software update brick your device, Philips Hue has attracted praise for the way it’s responded. Not only has it issued a fix, but the company has promised that “We will replace affected Philips Hue Bridge Pro devices free of charge, regardless of warranty status.”

The decision has proved popular with Hue owners on Reddit, who've noted in one popular thread that it's a rare example of "big company actually making good". Another comment noted: “Considering the RAM prices too those Bridges went up in costs too. W to Philips on this one.”

If you haven’t updated your Philips Hue Bridge Pro for a while and think your device could be vulnerable according to Philips Hue's description, it might be worth getting in touch with the company first before attempting to update. The last thing you want is a bricked product on your hands.

And if you already have been affected, don’t spring for a replacement device just yet. You might be able to get a free replacement from Philips Hue, so be sure to explore that avenue first before spending a dime on anything new.

• Hisense has announced a phone with a detachable rear screen
• The front display is e-ink, and the rear one is LCD
• Currently the phone has only been announced for China, so it might not be widely available

We don’t see much experimentation in smartphone design anymore, so I always applaud when companies try something new. That’s exactly what Hisense has done with its new A10 handset, as this has two screens — and one of them is detachable.

Specifically (via GoodEreader), this has a 6.13-inch monochrome e-paper display on the front (it isn't clear if this is officially an E Ink one), and a detachable color LCD screen on the back.

It runs Android 16, but most of the specs haven’t been revealed yet, other than it using an octa-core 4nm chipset, which according to leaker Experience More is a Snapdragon one. In any case, it being 4nm means this won’t be a high-end phone, but then high-end specs would arguably be wasted on an e-paper screen.

According to Experience More, the detachable LCD display will be sold separately. This makes sense, since not everyone will necessarily want two screens.

But it’s an interesting idea, potentially giving you the benefits of both e-paper and a conventional phone display — and since the second screen is detachable, you don’t have to add the bulk or fragility of the second screen when you don’t want to.

The Hisense A10 without its detachable screen (Image credit: Hisense)The wrong way round

I can’t help but think that it would have made more sense to make the e-paper screen the detachable rear one. After all, for most people an e-paper display is more of a secondary device — one you might use to read a book or to conserve battery, but not for the majority of smartphone tasks.

There is a market for e-paper phones — those who desire simplicity or less eye strain are drawn to them for one, and they can help encourage people to use their phones less too, because there is more friction there than with an LCD or OLED display.

But they remain niche devices, and while the Hisense A10 in some ways gives you the best of both worlds, it could end up being even more niche, since it combines the niche of an e-paper screen with the niche of a dual-screen device.

So personally, I’d love to see this the other way around — giving buyers a conventional smartphone with the option of an e-paper attachment. But until a company gives us that, there’s always the Xteink X4 — a tiny ereader that can magnetically attach to the back of phones.

The trouble with this is that it doesn’t run Android or integrate with your phone’s apps, making it a bit more limited than a true dual-screen device would be. But it’s better than nothing.

As for the Hisense A10, that’s currently only announced for China, so you might have to import it.