Feed aggregator

A year and a half after its rebranding, Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) ranks near the very top in our books thanks to its automation-friendly workflows and more than 125 million IPs across 195 locations.

With the public data access platform (as Decodo labels itself), users gain access to residential (dynamic and static), data center, and mobile proxies to level up their browsing security. There’s also a handy Site Unblocker feature that facilitates bypassing CAPTCHA and IP bans, and enables entry to restricted sites.

Besides the ethically sourced proxy pool, Decodo offers APIs for scraping, providing users with a wide array of options to automate the extraction of publicly available information from websites. These include several types of APIs for different levels of expertise and various objectives.

Plans and pricing

Decodo’s pricing is based on how many IPs you require, the volume of traffic, the type of IPs, and the volume of requests. At first glance, the pricing structure is complex, though the gist of it is that it scales directly with your data consumption. So, the more bandwidth or IPs you buy, the cheaper your rate becomes.

Decodo promotes its residential IPs starting from $2 per GB per month under enterprise pricing (excludes individuals and small businesses). However, you need to take the 1000 GB plan, which means you’ll be charged $2000 per month plus VAT (all the prices are VAT-less).

For $150 per month, you get 50 GB ($3 per GB) of traffic for residential IPs; $275 monthly equals 100 GB ($2.75 per GB), while you’d need to set aside $11.25 each month if you want 3 GB ($3.75 per GB) of traffic for the lowest plan.

Static residential proxies, priced by the number of IPs, monthly traffic, or the number of dedicated IPs required, start from $0.27 monthly per IP (that’s if you require 8,000 IPs and 50 GB of traffic). Furthermore, 500 IPs cost $165 monthly ($0.33 per IP), but 10 IPs cost $4.7 (that’s $0.47 per IP). In other words, the greater the number of IPs, the lower the unit cost of each IP.

The pricing for mobile proxies begins at $4.50 per IP with the 500 GB plan, and the price goes up per IP with the lower traffic requirement. Similar to static proxies, datacenter plans are also offered on a GB, IP, and dedicated IP basis. They start at $3,800 for the 10,000 GB plan, or $0.026 per IP if you go with the 4,000 IP option.

If you decide to go with the pay-as-you-go option for residential proxies, it’s priced by 1 GB, each costing $4. For mobile proxies, the price is $8 per 1 GB, while the static dedicated ISP and datacenter proxies don’t have the pay-as-you-go option available.

There’s a 14-day money-back guarantee if you’re not entirely satisfied with the service, although it’s not offered for every pricing plan. That said, you can first take it out for a spin during the rather short three-day free trial with 100MB of traffic before making a final decision.

All things considered, Decodo runs a pricing model that favors bulk users over individual ones and small businesses. So, if you run a large organization that needs many IPs and gigabytes, you’ll find the platform cost-effective due to the significant discounts. Otherwise, it might be expensive.

Features

Of course, registration is the first step, which you can complete with an email address, a Google account, or a GitHub account. Your account dashboard conveniently has all features located on the left, which you can easily sift through. Whether you need residential proxies, ISP proxies, or scraping, you can select the option on the left menu.

Decodo's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

Once you settle on a plan, you can add users either as proxy users or team members. And with administrative privileges, Decodo provides you with full control over the IP resources you’ll allocate to each proxy user. For example, you can give a user 1 GB of data and another 10 GB. Each user from your organization has unique credentials to access Decodo.

You can create and customize proxy connections from your dashboard. Your first order of business will be to choose a sticky or rotating proxy. Sticky proxies change at set intervals (up to 24 hours), while rotating proxies change with every connection request. Then, you can choose an IP from a specific country/city or a random one as your proxy. With these options set, you can start utilizing Decodo’s online protection.

Let’s dive deeper into the features of this app:

Residential proxies

Residential proxies route your web requests through real home internet connections rather than anonymous server hubs. This setup is ideal for evading localized geo-blocks or checking out regional search results.

Decodo heavily emphasizes that its proxy fleet is entirely "ethically sourced," meaning home users explicitly consent and are compensated for sharing their bandwidth. You can target traffic across 195+ global locations, with the largest concentration of active nodes located in India, the US, Germany, and the UK.

Our testing confirmed that their residential pool boasts exceptional connection uptime and swift, hitch-free speeds.

Static residential (ISP) proxies

Combining the speed of a datacenter proxy with the legitimacy of a home connection, static residential proxies solve the issue of long web automation sequences or managing multiple social media accounts. Whereas standard rotating IPs would get you flagged, Decodo's ISP proxies from premium internet service providers like AT&T, Verizon, Orange, and Tele2 lower block rates via permanent IPs.

They deliver an impressive 99.99% uptime, latency reaction times under 0.2 seconds, and full HTTP(S) / SOCKS5 protocol integration. Decodo offers them as shared ISP proxies for flexible scaling and dedicated ISP proxies for an exclusive single-user IP per project.

Mobile proxies

To mimic smartphone traffic, Decodo gives you access to a dedicated (and ethically sourced) mobile proxy pool of over 10 million real 4G/5G mobile carrier IPs covering 160+ locations and 700+ network providers. The bulk of this mobile network is concentrated across the United States (3.9 million IPs), Germany (1.2 million), the UK (940,000), and India (720,000).

Mobile proxies are highly resilient against blocks because web platforms are naturally hesitant to ban cellular IPs, which frequently rotate among hundreds of real users. Decodo boasts a 99.75% success rate with its mobile proxies, which makes them a key asset for mobile application testing, localized ad verification, bypassing content geo-restrictions, and heavy web scraping.

Datacenter proxies

When sheer speed and high-bandwidth processing matter more than stealth, Decodo's datacenter proxies are a good bet. These are offered as shared versions (aimed at projects with tight budgets for data collection) and dedicated versions (exclusive IPs for consistent identity), and count half a million IPs with a <0.3s response time and 99.94% success rate.

While Decodo’s shared datacenter servers span a wide array of global regions, its 100% dedicated datacenter servers remain strictly limited to US locations. For those engaging in data-driven scaling, the platform supplies real-time stats to keep track of your effort.

Site Unblocker

Described by Decodo as a proxy-like solution, Site Unblocker is an advanced web extraction tool built to act as an all-in-one scraper. Instead of writing complex custom scripts to manage connection retries or bypass security walls, the Site Unblocker automates the hard work.

It uses browser fingerprinting to forge unique browser identities for each request and handles dynamic JavaScript rendering without requiring resource-heavy headless browsers. The tool also features automated IP rotation to make sure you bypass target anti-bot blocks.

Scraping

Arguably, the biggest advantage of having Decodo in your software lineup is its automation-oriented approach. The service provides APIs and scraping templates that let you automate website data collection instead of doing it manually by yourself for every site.

This includes search engine results pages (SERPs) like Google (fully updated to cleanly parse the latest AI Overviews layouts), eCommerce websites, and social media. As of late, you can also effortlessly extract real-time responses from public AI tools, as well as YouTube video transcripts and channel metadata.

All of the above fall under the umbrella of Web Scraping API. It automatically handles all the infrastructure knicks and knacks, from IP switching to CAPTCHA bypassing, courtesy of machine-learning fingerprint rotation. It uses a flexible credit system to keep costs optimized, as developers can configure request complexity on the fly. That way, teams only pay for advanced residential pools and scraping power when targeting a highly locked-down website.

Beyond traditional HTML and JSON payloads, the API delivers diverse data outputs like screenshots, tables, CSVs, XHR, and clean Markdown tailored specifically for AI integrations.

Decodo's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

When it comes to social media scraping, users can choose between real-time synchronous queries or asynchronous callbacks, paying exclusively for successful results via automated retries. The API does a commendable job of transforming dynamic social streams into cleanly parsed, structured JSON or HTML payloads.

For instance, you’ll be able to track the engagement rates of influencers working with your brand, monitor your competitors’ follower numbers, or discover trending content in real time or at a specific time. The YouTube scraping engine allows efficient extraction of raw video transcripts, backend schema metadata, and engagement metrics without getting throttled.

Those eyeing eCommerce scraping will get the option to extract product data from over 50 major marketplaces, including Amazon, Walmart, and eBay. Doing so allows businesses to securely pull real-time data on pricing, full product listings, images, and customer reviews.

Developers can instantly deploy over 100 ready-made scraping templates to monitor dynamic pricing shifts, track localized stock levels, detect counterfeit items, or aggregate clean AI training datasets. Scraping tasks can be scheduled in advance, and you’ll receive an email notification once they’re done.

Decodo's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

Last but not least, the SERP scraping API provides an automated pipeline designed specifically to extract structured data from major search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Baidu. This allows businesses to scrape localized search engine results pages down to the city or zip-code level with 100% successful data delivery guaranteed through automated retries.

AI workflows

Decodo recently introduced a free, prompt-based AI Parser alongside a rapid Fast Search API. The system uses simple, natural language prompts to instantly translate unstructured web data into clean JSON or LLM-friendly markdown. This native formatting greatly contributes to development speed, as it strips out layout noise and drastically lowers token consumption when feeding live web data directly into an AI context window.

The ultimate evolution here is Decodo’s transition into an autonomous data-enablement platform natively integrated with AI ecosystems like LangChain, n8n, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP). For example, by supporting an MCP server, Decodo enables AI agents running inside environments like Claude or ChatGPT to autonomously navigate the web, switch proxy nodes, and handle scraping blocks completely on their own via natural language commands

(Image credit: Decodo)Ease of Use

Decodo’s user interface is easy to navigate. On the desktop, all features are arranged on the left side, and you can easily access your desired feature with a single click. With a white background, black text, and colorful buttons, the whole setup is pleasing to the eye.

Along with the website interface, Decodo offers a Proxy Checker that lets you test up to 10,000 proxies after uploading them with one click.

There are also browser extensions for Google Chrome and Firefox, which give you access to features like one-click IP rotation, customizable session length, and seamless switching between proxies. Additionally, they include WebRTC Leak Prevent to stop WebRTC from bypassing your proxy, masking both your real IP address and location.

Like the main Decodo interface, the extensions are easy to navigate.

Decodo's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

Decodo makes it easy to integrate its proxies with various third-party tools, such as eCommerce purchase bots, scraping software, SEO tools, and external proxy managers like MuLogin and AdsPower. The backend is all covered, so you just need to carry out a few steps to kickstart the integration from the intuitive dashboard.

Customer Support

Excellent customer support is one of Decodo’s strengths. This support begins with extensive technical documentation for its features. You can find tutorials and user guides concerning all features, with detailed screenshots illustrating the instructions. You can learn everything about the app in the Help Center, from a basic introduction until you reach more complex aspects.

Decodo has a YouTube channel with video tutorials about its features. This channel allows users to learn about the platform more interactively and has dozens of illustrative and engaging videos.

Decodo's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

Of course, customer support can’t be left to the customer alone. If you need help, Decodo's support team is available via live chat. You can contact the support team 24/7 and get speedy answers, although the response time varies depending on your time zone. You can also reach Decodo’s support team via email (for non-urgent inquiries) and expect a response within 24 to 48 hours.

Other complementary support resources include Decodo’s GitHub repository with code samples and a Discord channel where you can connect with other users and share solutions to common issues. Decodo also holds frequent webinars to help users learn the ins and outs of this platform and general trends in the proxy software market.

The Competition

There’s no shortage of competition in the proxy software sector. Decodo has robust competitors like IPRoyal, OxyLabs, and WebShare. It outshines many competitors by providing a broader range of global IP addresses and complementary features like the AI workflows and scraping APIs. However, our main issue is with Decodo’s pricing– it’s significantly more expensive than many rivals, especially for low-volume users.

If you’re a bulk user needing hundreds of proxy IPs, Decodo is an ideal tool. However, it’s too costly for individuals or small enterprises needing a few dozen IPs at most.

Final verdict

There are solid reasons why Decodo gets tagged as one of the better proxy networks in the game. It’s fast and reliable, offers a rather sizable IP pool, and the dashboard is clean enough that you won't pull your hair out setting it up. Plus, the company throws in a ton of great built-in tools to help you smash through aggressive anti-bot blocks and handle heavy scraping workflows.

The only real catch is Decodo’s focus on bigger dev teams and enterprise-level scaling. In case you're running a small operation or just tinkering with a solo project, some of the price tags will likely make you flinch.

We've also highlighted the best proxy and best VPN

• Meta is crossing the border to build a data center in Alberta, Canada
• The data center will have a 1GW capacity and cost $9 billion to build
• It will eventually lead to 300 operational jobs, Meta says

Meta has announced its ambition to build a $9 billion datacenter in Alberta, Canada, with a 1GW capacity.

The project, which was announced in a Meta blog post, is set to be built just outside of Edmonton in Sturgeon County, with the construction expected to take two to three years.

Meta says the data center will support around 3,000 jobs during construction, and then 300 operation jobs when the data center is up and running.

1GW AI-optimized data center

Alongside the data center, Meta has announced that it will improve local infrastructure with a CAD $60 million in roads and water services. The project will also see its electricity usage matched with “100% clean and renewable energy,” with the full costs of the data centers’ energy use covered by Meta.

“This specific location met the factors we typically look for: good access to infrastructure, a robust electric grid and access to energy, a strong pool of talent, and a great set of community partners that helped us move this project forward,” a Meta spokesperson told CNBC.

The project marks Meta’s first data center venture in Canada, and will join a fleet of 32 other Meta campuses across the globe. Alberta was also chosen because of its lenient regulatory environment, allowing the construction to be approved with a comparatively small amount of legwork.

Meta also hopes “to plan for and meet our energy needs years in advance of this data center coming online” by working with Canadian energy services such as Greenlight Limited Partnership, Altalink, Capitol Power and the Alberta Electric System Operator.

The AI capacity offerings from Meta come relatively late in the game compared to industry leaders such as Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft, prompting it to undertake an aggressive buildout across the US and elsewhere.

Meta is also reportedly venturing into the cloud computing industry by selling excess capacity at some of its completed AI data centers in order to offset the costs of construction. Meta predicted that it would spend between $125-145 billion on AI and data centers in 2026.

If you're looking for a cheap portable power station this summer for camping, festivals, or just a little home backup unit for charging essential devices, the Bluetti Elite 30 V2 is our top pick.

Right now, Bluetti's Elite 30 V2 portable power station is down to $219 (was $299) at Amazon. And after putting this device through its paces, we found it a spectacular option for anyone who needs to top up and recharge smaller devices without spending too much.

Calling it a "spectacular option", we scored this one 4.5 stars after testing, and awarded it a Highly Recommended badge. For an all-rounder designed for power backup when you need it, there's not much to dislike, especially at this price. In the UK, the 288Wh unit also has a modest discount, dropping to £230 (was £239) at Amazon, too.

Today's top portable power station deal

288Wh | 600W

There's a lot we liked about the Bluetti Elite 30 V2, which scored 4.5 stars and earned a Highly Recommended badge in our review. We found it ultra-compact, and does very well everything a power station of this size and capacity needs to do.

In the UK: now £230 (was £239)View Deal

In our final verdict during our review of this unit, we said "The Bluetti E30 V2 is a compact, easy-to-use jack-of-all-trades power station. An all-rounder for general usage with spectacular port options, impressive output, and even more impressive lift." Bonus points, too, for including a built-in handle for extra portability.

The battery here uses LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate) chemistry rather than the NMC lithium-ion found in older compact power stations. It's a meaningful upgrade for longevity: BLUETTI rates the Elite 30 V2 for 3,000+ charge cycles, which works out to roughly a decade of regular use, backed by a 5-year warranty.

At 600W of continuous rated power and 1500W in "Power Lifting" mode for resistive loads, it can run laptops, mini fridges, and CPAP machines comfortably, and briefly handle higher-draw appliances like kettles or hair dryers. The 288Wh capacity keeps things compact, but it's worth sizing that against what you actually plan to run — this isn't built for multi-day off-grid power, more for day trips, emergencies, and topping up devices.

Charging is fast for the category: 0-80% in around 45 minutes on AC power via Turbo mode, or a full charge in about 2 hours on standard. It also accepts up to 200W of solar input if you pair it with a compatible panel, though the solar charging cable is sold separately.

Port selection is generous for something this size: two USB-C outputs (140W and 100W), two USB-A ports, two AC outlets, two DC5521 ports, and a 12V car port — nine outputs in total. The built-in UPS function switches over in under 10 milliseconds, so it can sit between your wall outlet and sensitive electronics as automatic backup during outages.

Also consider: More portable power station deals

1070Wh | 1500W

We recommend this one for camping this summer - it's practically built for the job. In our review, it also earned top marks, making it one of the best of its class.

In the UK: now £379 (was £549)View Deal

1024Wh | 1800W

Earning top marks in our tests, we awarded this portable power station an Editor's Choice badge thanks to its compact design, versatile charging options, and robust performance.

In the UK: now £579 (was £699)View Deal

• US: Shop all the portable power stations at Amazon
• UK: See all portable power stations at Amazon.co.uk

Inspired by diving birds, roboticists built the lightweight machines to move from water to air. The design may one day lead to robots that can monitor and sample the coastal ocean.

(Image credit: Raphael Zufferey)

Moving home is such a pain, and that's doubly true when half of your possessions are tech gadgets. I just spent weeks moving my belongings between two flats on opposite sides of London, and it would've taken half the time if I didn't have to shift countless large boxes that were 10% gadget and 90% packaging to keep said gadget from breaking.

Eventually I finished moving to The Ladder, as the area is called (not funny, since most tenants still aren't on it), and as soon as I had my foot on the rung, as it were, my turntable and hi-fi kit was the first thing I set up. The deposit had barely gone through before my Sony PS-LX310BT was on the cabinet and some Edifier M90s were either side.

That's right, the very first thing. Before I unpacked my clothes. I still haven't unpacked my books or computer. Getting some tunes going was the most important task.

This wasn't just because I wanted to enjoy some music while I unpacked, though, or because I wanted to claim the good speaker spots in the living room before my flatmate moved his own turntable in (OK actually, that was part of it). No: it's because getting your hi-fi set up in a new flat can save you loads of faff later on down the line.

Pride of place

(Image credit: Future)

Speakers aren't something you can just dump anywhere in your living room and get a good experience. A lot of thought needs to go into where they're placed.

Stereo speakers like mine need to be placed so they're spread evenly across a room, to put the listener in the sweet spot betwixt the two, not hidden together in a corner. You want to make sure they're placed on a surface that won't offer unwanted resonance, aren't too close to a wall and are, ideally, at ear level.

If you set up a living room and then bring your hi-fi kit into it, the ideal placement for all of this may already be taken up by other things. Books or DVDs or fancy liqueurs can hog the shelf space on which a speaker would ideally do best.

In my old apartment, the only convenient space for a turntable was on a shelf in the corner of the room. Reaching it to swap a record was a chore, and so I didn't bother using the player as much as I otherwise would.

That's why I thought it important to give my hi-fi set-up priority space in the room. Now, everything else can be place around it.

I'll admit, it wasn't perfect. As you can see in the pictures, I put my speakers on the same cabinet as the turntable. Great for taking pictures, not so great for music, because vibration interference might affect record playback. Unfortunately, it's the only place in the room where I could equally space the speakers, so it's something I'll have to make do with.

A mess of cables

(Image credit: Future)

"There's nothing as fun and sexy as cable management" is what I would say if I wanted to say something totally wrong. I hate the whole process of cleaning up wires and cables, and so often ignore it, leaving trails and black snakes and wire rat kings running like veins around my house.

(I know some people find great satisfaction in cable management and maintenance, with some cables ties and so on, and that's fair enough. It's just not my cup of tea. You can try and help me with mine, if you want though).

Unfortunately, this can quickly become a problem with a hi-fi set-up, when players and speakers need cables for power, cables for music, cables for the sake of it sometimes. I've created some pretty hideous messes in the past.

Sometimes, that makes moving house quite a pain, because you're left tangling or untangling countless wires. It's why I thought it important to set up everything quickly when I moved: I could refresh my cable situation, making sure I had all my audio cables in position before any annoying extras needed to be added.

I'm glad I did, because in the week I've moved here, the behind-the-cabinet area has turned into a nest of vipers. If I had to add my turntable now, it'd give me a migraine trying to work out what goes where.

That's especially true of power plugs, which are few and far between in any rental flat. Where I've plugged in the turntable and speakers, I also have to find space for a refrigerator, internet router, separate internet box (yeah, my ISP really likes taking up power points apparently), and various other things.

Since I've yet to buy a splitter, I'm constantly playing musical chairs with the plugs, removing and replacing them to find space for my laptop charger or projector. Thankfully, since the turntable and speakers were there first, they're too embedded to remove.

Where do the records go?

(Image credit: Future)

When I first set up my turntable and speaker, I thought those pieces of kit getting central spots would be the end of my space issue. I was wrong. And I'm not just talking about the fact that my flatmate and I have far more UK pint glasses than our kitchen storage can cope with.

Records. I'm talking about records. They're pretty big, aren't they? A lot bigger than my Spotify collection, that's for sure, because that takes up zero space.

Partly, I'm talking about how tall and wide records are. They just don't stack on all shelves, so you need to be smart about where you place them.

But the biggest problem for my flatmate and I soon became just how many records we have between us. We must have far north of 50 collectively, which makes them hard to fit on any kind of shelf.

Unfortunately, I didn't think of this ahead of time, and we only realized the issue when we'd already settled in the living room. Where were our records going to go? We'd already filled the crevices in the cabinet with bowls and plates, and reaching the shelves required a stretch, so that was no cigar.

It took some reorganization to carve out a space for them in one of the cabinet's areas, and that's only a half measure, because I had to sacrifice about three-fifths of my collection to the black void that is my unpacked room. But our favorite records are within reach, at least.

If I'd have thought this far in advance, I'd have saved some more cabinet space for records. But it just goes to prove the point: a hi-fi system takes thought, and if you don't bring it into your home before anything else (yes, including bowls and cutlery and little ramekins of the sort I have far too many of), you end up having to totally reorganize when it's too late.

Mountain bike enthusiasts have been working for years on an ambitious 485-mile, multi-use trail called The Velomont that will span the length of the state. They're making sure it's friendly for people people with disabilities, particularly cyclists.

(Image credit: Zoe McDonald)

New plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Elon Musk's SpaceXAI and Stability AI say the companies' AI tools were used to make sexually explicit images of them as children.

(Image credit: Pablo Vera)

If you just need a reliable Windows laptop for everyday use, this Lenovo deal is a genuinely good price - it's an easy recommendation for remote and hybrid workers, and for my money, it ticks all the boxes for general business work.

So, right now, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i has dropped to £499 (was £599) at Argos. For an all-rounder business laptop, this one of the best budget picks around for under £500.

Inside, the machine is equipped with an efficient Intel Core i5 13420H processor and 16GB RAM, so essential office tasks, photo editing, browsing, and streaming won't be a problem - no slowdowns or sluggishness here.

Today's top Lenovo laptop deal

This ultra-portable work laptop features all the core specs I'd expect from a business-centric or home laptop, making it the ideal companion for anyone running office apps, web browsing, and video calls with the team.View Deal

This is a budget-friendly configuration built around Intel's Core i5-13420H, an 8-core, 12-thread chip from the 13th-gen Raptor Lake-H family, with four performance cores boosting up to 4.6GHz and four efficiency cores.

The 15.3in WUXGA (1920x1200) IPS panel uses a 16:10 aspect ratio, which gives you a bit more vertical space for documents and browsing than the more common 16:9 laptops in this price range. It's rated at 300 nits with an anti-glare coating, with decent contrast and color accuracy (provided you calibrate it). That makes it ideal for creating images for, say, your work's social media pages, though I wouldn't recommend it for colour-critical tasks required by creative professionals.

16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD is a sensible balance for this price point — enough headroom for normal multitasking across browser tabs, office apps, and streaming without feeling cramped. The laptop weighs 1.59kg and measures 17.9mm thick, with Lenovo quoting up to 14.5 hours of battery life, though real-world use — especially on the Intel variant — will likely fall short of that figure.

Connectivity is fairly standard for the budget class: two USB-A ports and one USB-C port, all capped at 5Gbps, plus HDMI 1.4 (so no native 4K60 output — you'll need the USB-C port's DisplayPort Alt Mode for that), a full-size SD card reader, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth round out the wireless side.

Also consider

This IdeaPad features a bigger jump in RAM and storage with an AMD Ryzen 7 chip and 24GB of memory for those that need more power and a smooth workflow.View Deal

• See all laptop deals at Argos.

• CERT/CC discloses CVE‑2026‑11405, a critical 9.8/10 flaw in multiple Tenda router families caused by a hardcoded backdoor credential
• Attackers can bypass normal login checks and gain full admin access with the hidden password, regardless of configured username or password
• Tenda has not responded; CERT/CC advises disabling remote web management and limiting local exposure, though these are only partial mitigations

Multiple Tenda router families carry a critical vulnerability that allows malicious actors to log in with admin privileges without knowing the credentials, experts have found.

The CERT Coordination Center disclosed a vulnerability in Tenda routers which it described as an undocumented authentication backdoor caused by a hardcoded credential.

The flaw is tracked as CVE-2026-11405 and was assigned a severity score of 9.8/10 (critical). CERT/CC allegedly tried reaching out to the manufacturer, to no avail.

How the vulnerability works

Explaining how it works, CERT/CC says that the attacker would first try to log into the router’s web management interface normally. Even if the credentials are wrong, the firmware would not automatically reject them, but would rather check a second, hidden password, stored internally. If the attacker knows the hidden credential, they get full admin access, regardless of the configured admin password or username.

The username doesn’t even matter, as long as the password is supplied. Obviously, CERT/CC did not say what the password was, but with a little reverse-engineering of the firmware, it can be exposed either on the dark web, or to the general public.

Tenda is a Chinese company building budget networking gear, popular mostly in India and adjacent markets, where its products are popular in homes and among small businesses.

The flaw thus still affects multiple firmware versions, including FH1201, W15E, AC10, AC5, and AC6 router families. To make matters worse, CERT/CC added that the full list of affected models is probably even bigger.

Tenda is yet to comment on the findings. In the meantime, CERT/CC recommended users disable remote web management, if possible, to make sure the vulnerability cannot be exploited remotely, at least. The organization also suggests limiting local network exposure, but stresses that this is not an entirely bulletproof solution.

Via Tom's Hardware

• Universal's new movie SOULM8TE is coming to digital platforms on August 1
• The plot is very similar to recent horror hit Obsession
• SOULM8TE is a spin-off to the 2022 movie M3GAN, focusing on more adult themes

If you haven't seen Obsession yet, you need to. It's performed incredibly well at the box office and has become one of the most successful new movies of 2026. I was so impressed by it that I've been desperately wanting a similar thriller to watch next, and SOULM8TE seems like the perfect choice.

SOULM8TE follows a grieving engineer tasked with testing a ruthless tech giant’s new AI companion where he programs her to be a sentient soulmate. I'm sure absolutely nothing will go wrong there.

Instead of getting a theatrical release, you can watch SOULM8TE at home from August 1. It won't be available on the best streaming services just yet, and instead you can purchase it from these digital platforms.

Take a look at the trailer below to see what's in store.

Disturbing romance stories are on the rise

Sophie Thatcher in A24's Companion. (Image credit: Warner Bros.)

We have seen a lot of stories like this in recent months, and I'm definitely enjoying the trend of romance with a dark twist.

Companion is another movie with similar vibes to SOULM8TE, as it follows a woman named Iris who learns she is actually a companion robot who is controlled by her boyfriend via his phone.

That lack of autonomy is a terrifying thing, and audiences definitely have an appetite for these thought provoking tales centered around relationships, consent, and a rise in technology such as AI.

Whilst Obsession doesn't feature the android aspect, it does explore the horrors of a woman not being in control of her own actions due to supernatural intervention by a magical toy. There, someone's wish turns into a living nightmare.

If SOULM8TE doesn't interest you, there's plenty more horror movies for you to enjoy. Recently, Backrooms got an extended cut which is now in theaters or you can check out my guide to the best horror movies on streaming services in July.

If you need a lot of storage without spending a fortune per terabyte, I've spotted a solid option to have on your radar.

Right now, the UnionSine 16TB desktop hard drive is now $423 (was $470) at Amazon. It's not the biggest discount in the world, but at this price, it works out to roughly $26 per terabyte, which is competitive for desktop-class HDD storage.

The drive uses a USB 3.0 MicroB connection rated for theoretical read/write speeds of 130-270MB/s, with UnionSine using an ASM chip solution aimed at broader compatibility across Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and TV/DVD/Xbox devices.

Today's top desktop HDD deal

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It's built around a 12V/3A external power supply, which is standard for desktop drives this size, and includes anti-vibration silicone internally to help keep noise down during extended use.

One important caveat: UnionSine isn't an established name in the storage space the way Seagate or WD are. If brand reputation and multi-year warranty support matter more to you than price per terabyte, it's worth weighing that against more established alternatives.

For anyone prioritizing raw capacity per dollar over brand pedigree, the UnionSine 16TB at $422.99 is a reasonable buy, though the discount itself is modest.

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I've tested dozens of inexpensive earbuds to find the best values. These are my current top bargain picks, almost all of which cost less than $100, and some less than $50.

• Bosses are seemingly confused that mass AI in favor of human workers isn't always a success
• AI operating costs are often higher than expected
• However some firms are happy to adapt and refocus where needed

Bosses are being left confused at the high cost of moving to AI-centric models, with many seemingly baffled that replacing human workers with agents isn't instantly saving them huge amounts of money, new research has claimed.

A new KPMG report found nearly a third of business leaders reported some difficulties with getting to grips with AI operating costs in their organizations.

The news comes as several major AI providers, including the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI, have moved some services toward usage-based billing, rather than flat-rate subscriptions, in recent months.

Making AI effective

The report saw KPMG survey 2,145 senior leaders across 20 countries, finding 29% were struggling to understand the rise in operating costs as they looked to scale AI across their business, with a similar proportion also highlighting a limited understanding of AI costs and economics as a major challenge to deploying AI agents.

"As usage-based pricing models become more common, many organizations are still building the capabilities required to forecast, monitor, and manage AI spending effectively," KPMG said.

When things do go wrong, the report highlighted how leaders were often unclear who should take responsibility, particularly in the case of hallucinations or errors by AI models.

It noted that why having human leadership be accountable is important, "governance ultimately succeeds or fails through day-to-day operating practices."

"Organizations need clear rules for when employees can intervene, who owns AI-related costs, how AI outputs are reviewed and what happens when systems fail. While most organizations report having at least some governance mechanisms in place, relatively few describe these practices as fully embedded," the report said.

When costs have outweighed the expected value, the report found a surprising amount of contrition from its participants, with nearly half of organizations saying they had rephased AI deployments in that case.

"These actions do not signal reduced confidence in AI," the report warned. "Rather, they suggest a growing willingness to evaluate where AI creates meaningful value and where it does not. Organizations appear increasingly focused on concentrating investment where expected returns are strongest."

"We’re seeing a clear divide between organizations with leadership accountability at the top and those without," added Steve Chase, KPMG Global Head of AI and Digital Innovation, KPMG International.

"These companies are seeing materially better results across the board such as greater confidence, higher value realization and established ROI."

Amazfit Active 3 Premium: One minute review

Amazfit has been a company I’ve been keeping an eye on since their Bip 3 ‘budget’ smartwatch blew through all my expectations (and then some), followed by a slew of other watches across a range of price points, aiming to undercut the likes of Garmin — but most notably the $99 / £99 Amazfit Active 2, which earned five stars in our review. So when they put the word “Premium” on a product, it piques my curiosity.

Not only does the Amazfit Active 3 Premium have a bunch of excellent features that rival some of the biggest in the business, like excellent sleep and fitness tracking, but it’s also a fantastic-looking smartwatch.

The ‘Premium’ moniker signifies the addition of the super-tough sapphire glass coating, and the inclusion of the NFC payment feature. This was the distinction that the Amazfit Active 2 Premium used to separate itself from the base Active 2: however, there is no base Active 3, so even though this watch uses the ‘Premium’ model distinction, it’s the only watch in its range.

Despite this, it’s not an expensive buy. Sure, it’s pricier than the older Active 2, but it’s still undercutting the cheapest Apple and Garmin watches while delivering performance that belies its price. Another excellent example of a fitness tracker from Amazfit, a company which has by now shown itself to be a serious contender in the fitness tech space.

Amazfit Active 3 Premium: Specifications

Component

Amazfit Active 3 Premium

Price

$169 / £169 / AU$239

Weight

54.6g

Case/bezel

Metal and plastic hybrid

Display

1.32-inch AMOLED display

GPS

Dual-frequency GPS

Battery life

Up to 12 days

Connection

Bluetooth

Water resistant?

5 ATM

Amazfit Active 3 Premium: Price and availability

(Image credit: Amazfit)

• Starts at $169 / £169 / AU$239
• Not Amazfit’s cheapest, but still cheaper than many rivals
• Available in three color options

It’s hard not to look at the Amazfit Active 3 Premium and not feel as though there’s a catch somewhere when it comes to its price, but it really is a sub-$170 / £170 / AU$250 fitness watch with the kinds of features and accuracy you’d have spent double that for not long ago. Our review unit is the Atlas Blue model, but it’s also available in Apex Silver and Aero White.

• Value score: 5/5

Amazfit Active 3 Premium review: Design

(Image credit: Future)

• Heavier than some alternatives
• AMOLED display

Regardless of your color choice, the Amazfit Active 3 Premium is a looker. It has a circular body with a metallic finish, with the underside color-matched to the bands for Atlas Blue and Aero White (Apex Silver would be my pick, but the whole body is silver with a black strap).

The strap itself is the standard polymer-style you’ll have felt on just about any other smartwatch, but the fact that the Amazfit Active 3 Premium uses a pin system like a more traditional watch adds a touch of class (and some minor fiddliness). It’s got a 1.32-inch display, which isn’t large —but it’s the same size as the Amazfit Active 2. I didn’t feel like I was losing much in terms of screen space compared to some of Amazfit’s larger watches, but I was surprised to find it’s slightly heavier than the Coros Nomad I tested recently.

With that said, I’m not sure I’d consider it rugged. I wasn’t prepared to hurl my review unit to the ground to test its durability, despite its sapphire glass and scratch-resistant coating. It might not be the watch you’ll want to take on an ultramarathon, but it’ll stand up to runs, rides and gym workouts with ease.

• Design score: 4.5/5

Amazfit Active 3 Premium: Features

(Image credit: Future)

• Full-color maps
• HybridCharge is great
• 170 sports modes

Ok, so the Amazfit Active 3 Premium is a looker, but does it have the smarts to back it up? Despite the relatively low price, the answer is a resounding yes. You’ll need to use the Zepp app, and while I’ve tested it before and found it to be a little cumbersome, I am pleased to report that (at least in the time I’ve been away), it’s much slicker these days.

You can use it as a dashboard, and there are badges to collect that include step goals, monthly targets, and much more.

Fitbit Premium’s Daily Readiness Score has led the charge to distill a bunch of complex metrics into an easy-to-read number that calculates how hard you can push your workout on any given day, and Amazfit’s version is called “HybridCharge”.

It takes into account sleep, heart rate, activity, and recovery, as well as subjective inputs like stress, health, and more, to help you make a judgment on whether today is a workout day or a rest day, and it does so pretty well.

One day during testing, I’d struggled to sleep and had an early start at work, and the app and watch understood that maybe I needed to take it easy and recover that day. It’s something you used to need a premium subscription for with other manufacturers, but I’m glad to see it’s included in the price of the product here.

PAI is also back, so those looking for a quick look at a glance to see how their natural fitness is holding up can check it out by testing their heart rate zones. The watch supports basic notification features, and of course offers that NFC payment digital wallet feature for convenience. A barnstorming inclusion is full-color maps, offering turn-by-turn navigation. This is a premium feature crammed into a value package, offering turn-by-turn navigation during runs, rides and walks.

• Features score: 4.5/5

Amazfit Active 3 Premium: Performance

(Image credit: Amazfit)

• AMOLED display
• 12 days of battery life
• Excellent accuracy

Performance is uniformly excellent across the board with the Amazfit Active 3 Premium. Fitness tracking offers a deep suite of metrics, including running ones like stride length, ground contact, and just about anything else you could possibly ask for as a runner. And, if you’re just learning what all of these measurements are, fear not: Everything is handily explained within the Zepp app.

When you’re done, the app also does a great job at showcasing your fatigue level, which then feeds into the aforementioned HybridCharge metrics.

I very rarely check my sleep outside of Apple’s Sleep Score number, but the Amazfit Active 3 Premium does make me want to dig deeper — and offers plenty of data to do so. I was surprised at how often I was getting up in the night without realising it, and the Aura section of the Zepp app even includes relaxing music to help you settle back down.

Battery-wise, Amazfit claims you can get 12 days from a single charge. In my experience, it’s been closer to 10 days, but it’s still very respectable given the amount of data it’s collecting day in, day out. The AMOLED display is plenty bright for just about everything, even direct sunlight.

The only minor gripe I have with the Amazfit Active 3 Premium is that it doesn’t automatically offer to track a workout if you start walking/running/doing anything. As someone who still forgets to hit the button before setting out, it’s nice when devices like the Apple Watch give a nudge.

• Performance Score: 4.5 / 5

Amazfit Active 3 Premium: Scorecard

Category

Comment

Score

Value

Simply outstanding.

5/5

Design

Iterates on the proven Active 2.

4.5/5

Features

Lots of sports modes, tracking and HybridCharge.

4.5/5

Performance

Bright screen, responsive battery, accurate metrics.

4.5/5

Amazfit Active 3: Should I buy?Buy it if...

You want a watch that looks good

The Amazfit Active 3 Premium is one of the best-looking and still affordable watches around.

You’re looking for a deep dive into your fitness metrics

The Zepp app has a whole bunch of data, and makes it easy to sift through and spot patterns across weeks or even months of use.

Don't buy it if...

You’re looking for smartwatch features

Alas, there’s no contactless payment functionality here, nor can you run third-party apps a la an Apple Watch.

You’re going off-trail

The Amazfit Active 3 Premium is unlikely to take a battering as you scamper up rockfaces and the like.

Also consider

Garmin Forerunner 70

Garmin's new budget running watch

Read our full review

Apple Watch SE 3

Apple's cheapest watch is a little more expensive, but still offers great value for iPhone users.

Read our full review

How I tested the Amazfit Active 3 Premium

I’ve been testing the Amazfit Active 3 Premium while walking, hitting the gym for weights and cardio (primarily using the cross trainer), and wearing it for just about everything in life.

I tested the GPS across various areas of London and more remote areas like the countryside where I live, and wore it to bed, too. I tested many of its measurements by pairing it with my Apple Watch Series 11 on the opposite wrist.

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(Image credit: Finn Gomez)

While the AI data center boom is undoubtedly an opportunity for the fiber industry, it also presents something of a challenge.

Sure, investment in network infrastructure is rarely a bad thing. I can’t help, however, getting flashbacks to the early 2000’s - operators pouring billions into fiber, without proven demand.

This resulted in stranded assets, empty capacity, and ultimately, a bust that hampered telecoms for nearly a decade.

This time around, as serious AI momentum continues to grow, with megawatt campuses, GPU clusters, hyperscaler capex announced seemingly every week, the temptation to ‘follow the boom’ is rearing its head again.

I’m optimistic, however, that the industry has learnt its lesson. Not just to avoid overspend, but to be far more targeted about where fiber actually gets built, what kind of fiber is needed, and which partnerships can make new routes commercially viable.

AI demand is real, but discipline will be crucial

There’s no denying AI demand is there, but it's important operators don’t get caught up in the hype and assume it will be everywhere.

It may sound basic, but the industry needs to read the tea leaves carefully. Data centers have never had the luxury of a ‘build it, and they will come’ approach. The strongest sites tend to sit where demand, power, fiber and customer ecosystems can all be brought together. Things are changing however; data centers are on the move.

Fiber investment therefore, should focus on solid signals, from AI Growth Zones and established data center corridors to cloud on-ramps, internet exchanges and emerging compute clusters. While the latter two have traditionally centered around London (particularly the London Docklands and Slough), the Government’s proposed AI Growth Zones point to a broader regional shift.

Sites in Oxfordshire, the North East, North Wales, South Wales and Lanarkshire in Scotland aim to spread AI infrastructure development away from the capital, bringing data center demand closer to new regional power, land and connectivity ecosystems.

Beyond the Government initiatives investors are also placing bets on other development opportunities outside of the traditional areas.

AI hyperscalers want platforms, not just physical fiber

But even if you do invest in fiber build in all the right places, that’s no longer a guarantee. While location is one aspect (and admittedly, not a ground-breaking one, pardon the pun), there’s a new, arguably even bigger factor that network operators can’t ignore - consumability.

Hyperscalers, neoclouds and AI infrastructure businesses are not always buying connectivity in the same way as traditional telecoms customers. They expect capacity to be identifiable, orderable and scalable at speed. In other words, they want the fiber market to feel more like a platform than a slow procurement exercise.

AI workloads are also pushing future rack-density designs towards 1MW, which places extreme demands not just on power and cooling, but on fiber density and the speed at which capacity can be provisioned.

As these companies scale, providers that can offer API-driven ordering, rapid provisioning, clear visibility of available routes and flexible rerouting will be in the strongest position when capacity decisions are made.

Having fiber in the right place may secure a place in the conversation, but making that fiber easier to consume will increasingly determine who wins the work.

Compute is useless without connectivity

There’s another major factor, however, one that is often overlooked and missed in the media conversation around UK AI infrastructure - backbone connectivity.

As a call back to the opening of this article, AI infrastructure is often viewed as a hardware arms race. With much of the focus falling on megawatts, GPU clusters and hyperscaler capex, with data center capacity treated as a shorthand for infrastructure readiness.

This view missed the wider systems those facilities depend on. Without the right infrastructure backing up development, the UK risks repeating old DC patterns, where new sites sit underutilized due to a lack of customers, or are delayed entirely due to missing fundamental backbone infrastructure. This concern is already starting to bite. According to recent research, 82% of UK DC operators have already delayed new facilities or expansions because of limited access to high-capacity fiber infrastructure.

Take the UK government’s compute ambitions. The UK has said it will need at least 6GW of AI-capable data center capacity by 2030 to support the growing demands of AI. That is a serious statement of intent, but the gap between ambition and deliverability is still understated. The UK’s AI ambitions are often framed in terms of compute capacity, rather than the connectivity and required to make those investments viable.

None of this makes the UK’s AI ambitions unrealistic. But it does mean fiber can’t be treated as an afterthought. Data-center operators, hyperscalers and network providers need to plan connectivity earlier. Developing a clearer view of where capacity exists and where new resilient routes are needed, particularly in more regional locations outside of London or where the landscape is more challenging for development. Alongside how quickly they can be made commercially available.

Interestingly, in recent months we have seen a change in the approach to fiber emerging. Much earlier engagement from the DC developer/operators on fiber availability and timeline to deliver, along with a significant increase in the capacity required from day one, with a much steeper ramp in uptake.

This tells us two things, the forecast in uptake and data movement has shifted, as has the move to further de-risk a development by getting assurance on fiber/connectivity at a much earlier stage.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit

• Paramount+ confirms MobLand season 2 release date as September 18, and releases first teaser trailer
• This comes after Tom Hardy was rumored to be fired from the show following season 2 production issues
• Hardy, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren will returning as leading cast across 10 new episodes

Paramount+ has confirmed that MobLand season 2 will return on September 18, 2026 in its first teaser trailer, which you can catch up with below.

According to the studios, the 10-episode season will see "the Harrigans struggle to show a unified front as rising rivals threaten their fractured criminal empire.

"Harry Da Souza (Tom Hardy), their street-smart and formidable ‘fixer’, must walk a dangerous tightrope when tensions within the family intensify. As violence spills into every corner of their lives, loyalties snap, safety proves temporary, and the battle for power leaves no room for mercy."

Hardy, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren will return to lead the cast, and are joined by Paddy Considine, Joanne Froggatt, Lara Pulver, Anson Boon, Mandeep Dhillon, Jasmine Jobson, Teddie Allen, Emmett J Scanlan, Johnny Flynn, Ophelia Lovibond, Janet McTeer, and Toby Jones.

If anything, this could now confirm that Hardy's role in the show is safe, following rumors that he wouldn't be returning for season 3 after "career suicide behavior."

MobLand season 2 feels stronger than ever after Hardy exit rumors threatened to derail season 3

Let's recap what happened. On May 27, an article from The Hollywood Reporter claimed that if MobLand season 3 were renewed, it would begin shooting later this year — but behavior from star Tom Hardy had "spooked producers".

The source alleged: “He refused to come out of his trailer for hours at a time. He kept the cast waiting, [which is] a power play. Keeping Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren and others waiting is career suicide, I would wager.”

However, a separate source has since told Variety, “Tom was not fired, the door is not closed for season 3 and things are being worked through creatively."

Paramount+ has made no official comment on renewal of season 3, but if it does happen, we can expect news towards the end of season 2's release.

In the meantime, the above trailer has already been described as "ruthless" by fans. As one YouTube comment puts it, "The first season set the chessboard. This trailer looks like someone just flipped the table. MobLand is back and it looks ruthless."

"There is no MobLand without Tom Hardy," a second weighed in.