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It starts on the 4 Train, that straight-run subway line from Grand Central to Yankee Stadium, where I start to notice the red shirts. By the time I reach the massive gray stadium, people are circling the Bronx Bomber’s edifice like thousands of red ants, all queuing up for a rare baseball season sight: football (soccer) in Yankee Stadium.

Most of the shirts are for Premier League side Liverpool FC, but there's a smattering of Wrexham kits. Some of them look threadbare, and none feature the club’s newest sponsor: Firefox. The travel and away kits were unveiled just days before — too soon for die-hard fans to show their support for the team and its well-known but, by some measures, marginal web browser.

Walking through Babe Ruth Plaza, I follow behind the red shirts until I’m lined up behind fans who have come from as far as Arkansas and California to witness the pre-season match. None are musing about Firefox’s new Wrexham sponsorship or how Mozilla (Firefox’s parent) took over from United, which itself took over from TikTok.

The Reynolds effect

(Image credit: FX/Disney Plus)

The scrappy Welsh club enjoys outsized notoriety thanks to its owners, actors and entrepreneurs Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, and the popular Hulu docu-series Welcome to Wrexham, which recounts the club’s rise from the ashes and ascent to, as of last season, just short of Premier League status.

While we wait to enter the stadium, the Liverpool team arrives late — following a day of storms and flight cancellations — on a pair of giant red touring buses to hearty cheers from the crowd. Everyone knows Wrexham, but the fans seem to be with Liverpool.

Lance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / FutureHow does a browser and a keeper connect?

As we file in, I have time to think about the connection between Wrexham and Firefox. The kits, which I view later in person and on the field, are quite fetching. On top of the bold, red stretchable fabric is the iconic Firefox flame. It makes me think of the heat Mozilla hopes to generate around its best-known product.

The fit, though, between a scrappy football team and a portal you use to navigate the web, seems tenuous and as ill-fitted as the rectangular pitch they’ve somehow jury-rigged onto the baseball diamond. A covered home plate, third base, and right field jut out awkwardly, and much later a fan tells me the pitch looked kind of messy and maybe not a great experience for some of the players.

Lance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / Future

It’s not that I don’t understand why Mozilla tied its sails to Wrexham. As I write this, Firefox sits, according to StatCounter, at 3.4% of the global browser market share. By contrast, Chrome has 69% and Safari almost 16%. Put another way, the browser wars are over.

It's not that Firefox is irrelevant, but it's not as relevant as it once was. There was a time, maybe 15 years ago, when I was firmly in the Firefox camp. I’d adopted it because I was working with so many developers, who were all using the leaner and (some thought) meaner platform. It was built on the premise of openness, running counter to Internet Explorer (RIP) and the fast-growing Google Chrome.

Over time, though, it started to suffer from the same resource-hogging issues as Internet Explorer. I eventually gave it up and migrated to Chrome, then had a dalliance with Microsoft Edge and have now settled on Chrome on the desktop and Safari for mobile. If I’m being honest, I stopped considering Firefox years ago.

(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)The most obvious answer

As the team took the makeshiift pitch and the stands filled with red shirts, I waited for Mozilla’s relatively new CEO Anthony Enzor-DeMeo and CMO John Solomon to arrive so I could quiz them about product plans and Mozilla’s dive into AI.

Enzor-DeMeo joined Mozilla in 2024 after stints at Roofstock, Better, and Wayfair. In each, the admitted nerd appears to have held positions relating to products, technology, and engineering. Solomon comes to Mozilla from Apple and Beats.

(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

When Enzor-DeMeo finally does arrive, he looks younger than I expected and has a sort of nervous energy. It’s been a busy few days with a lot of interviews, and when I try to ask about Mozilla and AI, he tells me he doesn’t want to do any more. Still, he’s open and affable, explaining that he’s a die-hard It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Rob McElhenney is a series star) fan, so much so that when someone else says they love the show, he asks them to name their favorite episode and then, without waiting for an answer, tells us his.

Still, Enzor-DeMeo was not a closet fan of the beautiful game. Instead, Solomon, who comes from the much more culturally connected Beats brand, suggested this partnership. Enzor-DeMeo watched Reynold’s Welcome to Wrexham doc and thought, “Oh, this makes a lot of sense.”

(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

I stared at him, wondering what he saw that I didn’t. Sure, a partnership with the Red Dragons, as Wrexham are also known (I even spotted their red dragon mascot wandering the pitch and hugging fans) makes some sense. You know, fire, dragons? And this would be Wrexham’s second tech sponsorship after TikTok, which was widely featured in early seasons of Welcome to Wrexham. Mozilla confirmed that as they film the new season, we will see the Firefox brand on display in some fashion.

I looked at Enzor-DeMeo, who was still enthusiastically talking about It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and asked him, “What’s the throughline from Firefox to Wrexham?” Enzor-DeMeo smiled and quickly answered, “Underdog.”

The only thing that would’ve made the moment more perfect is if an announcer suddenly screamed, “Goooooaaaallll!” But I got it.

(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)It's never just about money

If you’ve never seen the documentary, Wrexham AFC was the disintegrating center of a hardscrabble town that, despite over 150 years of footballing history, had been largely forgotten and fallen to the fifth tier of the English league system. Achieving Premier League status, a feat they very nearly accomplished last season, seemed impossible. Until Reynolds and McElhenney arrived.

Sure, there are people unhappy with the way celebrity and money have throw off the balance of a well-worn system, but if you watch the doc, you know that it was never enough to throw money and fame at it. It’s a very human story with equal measures of failure and success.

Firefox is surely the underdog in the browser game. Built on its own Gecko browser engine, it stands apart from Google, Apple and Microsoft, which all have a profit motive in having you use their platforms. Mozilla’s parent organization is non-profit, and although the Mozilla Corp, under which Firefox lives, is for-profit, its revenues are used to fund the non-profit effort.

Like its competitors, Firefox has AI features, letting you access the AI chatbot of your choice in a sidebar, and using AI to help you organize tabs. It does, though, seem a bit less interested in force-feeding AI.

Still, underdog status is no guarantee of a Cinderella story, and as the game drags on with countless missed shots and a handful of fouls, I wonder if Wrexham can embarrass Liverpool in front of its US fans. A moment later, Liverpool manages at roughly 60 minutes in to sail one over the outstretched arms of Wrexham substitute goalkeeper Callum Burton.

There’s no victory for the underdog this time, but it’s the pre-season, and Wrexham and its new sponsor Firefox should have many more chances to win on the pitch.

The new player will be a unified platform for all your local and streaming media.

• Amazon plans to launch 5,105 satellites to support new mobile networks
• The filing with the FCC highlights voice, data, emergency services, and Internet of Things support
• Amazon Leo already has over 390 satellites in orbit, enough to launch the plans ahead of the full deployment

Amazon has confirmed its “low Earth orbit” (LEO) satellite network has submitted an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deploy a constellation of 5,105 satellites which will provide voice, data, messaging, emergency services access, and Internet of Things support for under the Amazon Leo Direct-to-Device (D2D) project.

The application follows Amazon’s merger with Globalstar, acquiring the US satellite telecommunications company’s operations, infrastructure, and global licenses and authorizations.

This step into orbit will see Amazon Leo’s existing satellites work alongside the Globalstar HIBLEO and C-3 satellite constellations, kicking off early D2D project support ahead of approval for the full network of comsats.

High-speed, low-latency

Much like Starlink, the Amazon Leo network is intended to bridge the connectivity gap between cities and remote communities. It aims to deliver high-speed, low-latency broadband for domestic and enterprise markets, as well as governments, with consumers gaining connectivity via the Leo Nano, Leo Pro, and Leo Ultra high-performance antennae. Meanwhile, mobile devices with satellite-capable chipsets can connect to the satellites without an additional antenna.

Apple iPhones and Apple Watch models are also supported, under a previous agreement to collaborate with Apple. Amazon Leo already delivers data for Emergency SOS, Messages, Find My, and Roadside Assistant to iPhones.

Other partnerships have also been announced that feed into the D2D project. “Telecom operators like Vodafone, DirecTV, Herotel, and Australia’s National Broadband Network [...] it plans to continue working with mobile network operators and other partners to deliver on its long-term vision for space-based connectivity.”

Beyond offering connectivity to remote locations, D2D can enable data support for global fleet management, remote operations for supply chains, and IoT connectivity.

Amazon Leo’s satellites

Following initial deployment in 2025 with 80+ launches with Arianespace, Blue Origin, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance, Amazon Leo is aiming at 5,105 low Earth orbit satellites. These units are connected using optical links, capable of high-speed data transfer, with secure gateways networked across the planet, with fiber connectivity.

The D2D satellites are intended to operate across five orbital “shells” – essentially five groups that share the same altitude and inclination. Three shells will cover the mid-latitude, one shell will cover the high-latitude, and the fifth providing coverage for “near-polar” zones. Mid-latitude zones are the world's most heavily populated regions (North America, Europe, parts of Asia, and southern/central Africa) while the high-latitude coverage aims to deliver high speed internet to the Arctic and sub-Arctic circles.

With increasing demands for mobile data, not just for remote working but also Internet of Things applications, Amazon Leo could prove to be the solution that facilitates home and workplace automation around the world – assuming, of course, that it gets that FCC approval.

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The company’s latest fitness feature is designed to keep runners moving with a tailored audio experience.

Congress allocated $150 million for 250th birthday events. The Trump-backed group that planned the state fair and July 4th fireworks is asking for an additional $10 million in reimbursements.

(Image credit: Kevin Dietsch)

Solo living, solo travel, and solo dining are all being embraced as more adults are choosing to remain single. Many Americans aren't interested in dating, and being single is a symbol of autonomy.

(Image credit: SeventyFour/iStockphoto)

In an unprecedented step, European nations said they would boycott the World Cup unless FIFA reverses a controversial deal to sell minority stakes to the marquee soccer tournament.

(Image credit: Alex Grimm)

Can AI judge human work from robot slop, or is every AI-detection tool out there completely worthless?

When gaming chair maker Secretlab announced the release of its very first home office chair, I wasn't shocked.

There's been a gradual trend with office chair makers like Herman Miller teaming up with Logitech to create a gamer-focused version of the Embody, alongside brands like FlexiSpot and Eureka Ergonomic launching its own line of gaming chairs.

On the flips-side, companies like Boulies, which has a long gaming heritage with its Master series, have branched out into office chairs (I still think the EP200 is the best value all-rounder, after over a year of constant use). With the rise of hybrid and remote working, it seemed like just a matter of time before Secretlab got in on the action.

I've been using mine for over a month now, and, as resident office furniture expert here at TechRadar Pro, I think the company nailed it. It's a world away from the magisterial Titan Evo, and I suspect Evo fans may not appreciate what the Atlas is doing here. But it's one of the top office chairs I've used precisely because it's such a terrible gaming chair.

The anti-gaming silhouette

I'm obsessed with gaming chairs that look right at home in an office. I've covered stealth gaming and office chairs for years. Those understated seats that don't draw attention on a Zoom call with the boss, but are perfect for late-night play sessions (the Corsair TC100 Relaxed is a good budget example).

On that score, the Secretlab Atlas is a total success. Now, it's not a gaming chair. But you can see it's taken inspiration from the Titan Evo. Sit them side by side and it's clear they share the same brand heritage, with those cleanly carved and subtle contours.

However, the design skips on two aggressive elements you'll find on pretty much every gaming chair: the racing-style bucket seat bolsters and the shoulder wings. Both are designed to lock you into position that's perfect for precision play on controller or M+K.

But an office worker needs that unrestricted extra space, allowing upper body movement. Fingers flying over the keyboard, constantly sweeping the mouse, and pivoting at the desk.

So, instead, it's got a sleek look - Secretlab calls it "our lightest silhouette yet", and I totally agree here. Because of that style, I find it works very well in the home office, even smaller ones. I carted it downstairs so my wife could use it in the dining room when she was working from home.

The Atlas blended in so well, feeling more like home furniture than any bulky leatherette bucket chair ever could. Weirdly, despite the higher backrest, it's far less noticeable than her office-engineered Boulies OP180 was.

Secretlab Atlas

Professionally styled in Dune, Cookies & Cream, and Black³, the base model Secretlab Atlas features a SoftWeave Plus Fabric covering over cold-cure foam for a firm, ergonomic fit. It's available in Regular and Large to accommodate your height and weight class.

Built for typing, not chilling

All the best office chairs my team and I have reviewed have one thing in common: adjustability.

Given Secretlab's experience, it's no surprise that the Atlas has plenty to help tailor the sit. That includes mechanisms for tweaking the seat depth, backrest, and armrests, as well as synchronous tilt.

What this means in practice is that you can lean back with your feet on the ground, and the backrest and seat move as one for continued support. Effectively, it's designed to keep your hips open to relieve pressure on your lower back.

It's a world away from the traditional gaming setup, where the backrest tilts and reclines independently. It's absolutely perfect for laying back, playing games, watching movies. But this mechanism also sends you into a horizontal slouch - one of the main reasons why so many modern chairs come with built-in footrests.

However, it's not as adjustable as many of the office chairs I've tested out. When our gaming editor Dash Wood spoke to Vincent Sin, the company's head of product development and industrial design, he explained: "What we found is that more often than not, with task chairs that have a lot of adjustments, it’s very confusing and people often will get it wrong. And I would say that’s worse than having something that automatically adjusts for you.”

But this brings me to the one adjustable element I actually would change. The chair does feel low to the ground - a view echoed in our Secretlab Atlas review.

The Large model does offer slightly more height over the Regular version, but I still think extra height range would've stripped away the only real complaint I have here. As an average man of average height, it's not a deal-breaker for me. But it's definitely something I've noticed during my time with it compared to other office chairs.

(Image credit: Future)The lumbar support gamble

Also missing is the adjustable or dynamic lumbar support I tend to see on more premium office and gaming chairs. The Titan Evo famously uses the 4-Way L-Adapt Lumbar Support System, giving you control over the lower back support.

Instead, the Atlas uses a simplified Re-Curve backrest. Again, Sin said this design choice was intentional. "People don’t know that having too much lumbar support is also a bad thing." Instead, the company pressure-mapped sitters to figure out where back support is needed and where it isn't.

Now, I'm not entirely convinced by that. I still think adjustable support is essential, especially for those who need lower back pain relief. I suspect economics and aesthetics are playing a bigger role here than anyone is prepared to admit.

For a chair costing over $500 / £400, I was a little concerned when I first parked myself into the Secretlab Atlas.

The results, though, surprised me. Maybe Secretlab are right: we are over-engineering modern office chairs.

Why firmness wins for the workday

So far, so gaming and office chair. But there's one major change with the Secretlab Atlas that I think makes it an ideal task chair, but absolutely useless for gaming.

It's firm.

I think a lot of people expect office chairs to feel like a well-worn armchair or a couch. Soft, cushiony, like sinking into a foamy cloud.

That squishiness feels good for an hour or two while working. And it's perfect for gaming - you want to feel snug, even during the sweatiest of battles. But it's not recommended for an 8-hour workday, 5 days a week where you're upright, typing away, maintaining your posture.

Now, I'm not saying you need to sit on a concrete slab at your desk. And the Atlas definitely doesn't feel that way. I appreciate support it has as I work, and actually look forward to sitting on it.

I'm not the only one convinced by it.

My pregnant wife is suffering chronic back pain during her pregnancy. She's hijacked the Secretlab Atlas because her softer office chair just made the pain worse. The Atlas eased the pressure. Her verdict (politely sanitized for this family-friendly publication: "It's ridiculously comfortable."

The Atlas is basically designed for a very different sitting profile. You'll immediately notice the difference coming from a Titan Evo or similar. So, it's not the best gaming chair, but it was never meant to be.

A VPN isn't a silver bullet. It can’t guarantee total security or anonymity online. Instead, it is a tool that allows you to hide your browsing data from your internet service provider (ISP), adopt a virtual IP address, and access geo-restricted content.

However, there are still a lot of misconceptions about what a VPN can and cannot do — a problem made worse by the exaggerated marketing claims pushed by some VPN companies.

Given that, it’s unsurprising that when we analyzed nearly 30,000 Google Play Store reviews of our four top-rated VPNs, a clear trend emerged: a lot of people aren’t getting the privacy and security protection they thought they were paying for.

In part, this stems from users misunderstanding what a VPN does. But it also shows that the industry needs to do a better job of setting realistic expectations.

On the whole, people are satisfied with their VPNs. Across our full dataset, just 35% of overall comments were negative. However, when we isolated feedback related to privacy and security, the proportion of negative comments rose to 41%.

This article is the second in a series investigating the real-world experience of using major VPN services, driven by our exclusive analysis of Android VPN reviews. The first article examined billing and pricing issues.

Lab-tested security vs Play Store reality

Proton VPN received the highest proportion of positive comments regarding privacy and security, with 68% of its feedback on the topic being positive.

That's significantly higher than Surfshark, which recorded a positive sentiment rate of just 31%. ExpressVPN (54%) and NordVPN (34%) sat in between.

It's worth noting, however, that all four services offer essentially equivalent protection and are among the most secure VPNs available. They all feature advanced encryption and proprietary protocols, and have been audited by third parties to confirm their security credentials.

So what’s causing the disconnect between our lab tests and real-world user experience? It seems that for many, it stems from several myths about what a VPN can actually protect you from.

Myth #1: A VPN stops every 'hacker'

When analyzing the Play Store reviews, we noticed that a significant number of people were concerned about the threat of hackers. And for obvious reasons — people lose money, privacy, and their health to malicious actors online every day.

Unfortunately, a VPN can't help in every scenario, and that seems to have left many disappointed.

One Proton VPN reviewer, for example, alleges it is the “worst app ever” because they had “been hacked by someone else while using this VPN.” Meanwhile, a NordVPN comment says that “hackers” had “managed to set up a way of getting passed [sic] the VPN on all my devices.” Another simply says: “got hacked the second day, don’t trust.”

However, others proudly claim that their VPN “protects my identity from hackers.”

Like most things, the reality is somewhere in the middle. While a VPN protects your data in transit (encrypting the data between your device and the server you’re connecting to), it does nothing to protect data you’ve already handed over to a third party — like an email address or password stored on an external database.

A standard VPN also won't stop you from falling victim to phishing scams, where an attacker tricks you into voluntarily entering your credentials on a fake website. However, VPN companies are increasingly releasing products to help prevent this.

If you're looking for more details on what a VPN can and can't do, check out the cheat sheet at the end of this article.

Myth #2: A VPN offers bulletproof protection

In our tests, these VPNs have never leaked an IP address. That would be a big deal. Yet across Play Store reviews, a surprising number of people report that their VPN appeared to fail.

One NordVPN reviewer said the app “did not hide my IP address from being tracked,” while a comment about Surfshark claimed it “failed to hide my IP address at least twice in the first 3 weeks.” Another noted that their VPN “leaks IP after some time [...] giving you a wrong sense of privacy and security.”

It’s impossible to diagnose the specific issues at play without more context. However, true encryption failures are extremely rare, particularly among well-regarded providers.

In reality, most reported leaks stem from configuration errors (like not having the kill switch enabled), browser tracking or basic steup errors. To make sure your connection isn't dropping data, always enable your app's kill switch and verify your real IP address is hidden using a diagnostic tool like Cloudflare's trace page.

If you’ve checked your settings and still suspect your VPN is genuinely leaking your IP address, leave a comment below and our team will see if we can help troubleshoot it.

Myth #3: A VPN equals total anonymity

Exaggerated marketing claims around online privacy seem to have influenced reviewers throughout the data. Some accuse providers of betraying them, writing reviews like "do not trust this app for privacy," while others complain about the amount of telemetry data collected by the apps themselves.

However, these reviews highlight an uncomfortable truth: masking your IP address only goes so far. Cookies, browser fingerprints, device information, language settings, and SIM card regions are all routinely logged, analyzed, and leveraged by advertisers and platforms to track your identity regardless of your IP.

A VPN is an important first step in improving your privacy, but if you continue to use services that monitor your every move, it’s not enough on its own. Check your browser, the services you use and you might find that there are other factors at play revealing your identity.

‘Not a catch-all’ — VPN providers' defense

We reached out to each of the VPN companies mentioned in this report for comment.

Proton VPN, NordVPN, and Surfshark all acknowledged that a VPN is not a catch-all solution for every digital threat. Instead, they highlighted additional security features they offer and noted that many reported issues stem from configuration errors and non-IP tracking rather than a failure of the VPN.

ExpressVPN did not respond to our request for comment.

Proton VPN highlighted its NetShield feature, which blocks ads, trackers, and malware domains. Addressing leak complaints, the company explained that genuine tunnel traffic does not leak, and that reported issues typically occur when split tunneling, connection dropouts, or browser extensions leave specific traffic outside the encrypted connection.

Surfshark pointed to its Web Content Blocker — which it says blocked nearly 1.2 million phishing and malware sites in the past month — and its Alternative ID tool, which generates email aliases to protect contact details.

Meanwhile, NordVPN, which said that it "does not advertise complete immunity," highlighted its next-gen antivirus and credential leak monitoring tools. It added that perceived IP leaks are frequently down to device configuration rather than an IP exposure.

Combined, it's clear that leading VPN companies are developing more comprehensive and effective cybersecurity products to accompany the core VPN technology. However, if the limitations — as well as the benefits — of these additional tools aren't communicated clearly, the industry risks creating the same expectation gap it appears to face with its core technology.

What a VPN can and can't do — A cheat sheetA VPN can:

• Encrypt your browsing traffic: Shield your internet activity from your Internet Service Provider (ISP), network manager, or public Wi-Fi admin.
• Spoof your location: Replace your real IP address with one in another location, making it harder for sites to track your physical whereabouts and help you access geo-restricted content.
• Bypass local network blocks: Circumvent restrictions imposed by Wi-Fi administrators, government censors, and geo-fenced content.
• Prevent bandwidth throttling: Stop ISPs from slowing down your speeds when they detect specific activities like streaming or torrenting.
• Secure DNS requests: Direct web address lookups through private, encrypted DNS servers to prevent ISP-level logging and DNS leaks.
• Protect your IP address against DDoS attacks and IP tracking by hiding your actual home IP address during gaming or P2P connections.

A VPN can't:

• Protect the data you share: It can't stop companies from collecting data you submit directly or protect that data if those companies suffer a breach.
• Prevent phishing: It can't stop you from falling for phishing, text, or phone scams, although many providers now offer tools that help on top of the VPN.
• Make you completely anonymous: Web cookies, browser fingerprinting, and account logins can still track your identity online regardless of your IP address.
• Block hardware-delivered malware: It offers no protection against threats introduced directly to your device via physical hardware (like infected USB drives).
• Protect against digital forensics: It cannot shield files or logs stored directly on your physical device if it is accessed with forensic tools.
• Remove existing infections: It cannot retroactively clean malware or spyware already installed on your system.
• Stop OS-level zero-day attacks: It can't stop sophisticated, nation-state spyware that exploits underlying vulnerabilities in your device's operating system.

Methodology

We collected almost 30,000 user reviews published on Google Play Store since the beginning of the year for the four VPN providers featured in this report using the google_play_scraper library.

As individual reviews often address multiple topics (e.g. streaming and security), we broke reviews down into sentence-level units. This expanded our analysis to over 47,000 entries, with individual entries permitted to sit across multiple categories when suitable.

Each sentence was assigned to specific categories using regex keyword filtering, and analyzed for sentiment using a pre-trained BERT model that took into account the user’s star rating.

While all machine learning sentiment pipelines carry a minor margin of error, every VPN provider was subjected to the exact same pipeline to ensure consistency and fair comparison. Human review was also conducted throughout.

Data processing scripts were developed in Python with AI assistance, and all final outputs were manually reviewed.

Health trackers collect some of our most private information, but data security is spotty among leading smartwatches, smart rings and other devices.

The news comes as two key Republicans are withholding their support over concerns about the Justice Department's deal with President Trump.

(Image credit: Win McNamee)

I don’t often consider ditching Android, but GrapheneOS, a privacy-focused alternative, poses an interesting question: what security features am I missing out on by using Google’s mobile operating system (OS)?

GrapheneOS is an open-source mobile OS, designed for Google Pixel phones (and soon Motorola devices), that promises better security capabilities like improved sandboxing, exploitation protections, and more complete vulnerability patching.

But what compromises does GrapheneOS ask you to make for all this added security — and more importantly, are they worth the trade-off? I spent a month testing GrapheneOS on a Pixel 8 Pro to find out.

The first glance

Switching to an alternative, specialized OS is never going to be as simple as setting up a regular Android phone. That said, after only 10 minutes setting up GrapheneOS via the GrapheneOS website, I quickly found myself looking at something that, at a glance, resembled the Android I normally use.

The GrapheneOS home screen is near app-less, but it’s by no means unfamiliar. The software keeps the functionalities of the Android app drawer and quick control panel, and the menus are near-identical. App icons also retain a similar design to Android proper.

Yes, it’s a strange feeling to load up an Android phone that doesn’t have a single drop of ‘Google’ about it. There’s no Play Store, Gmail, or Docs to speak of in GrapheneOS by default. But, if anything, this is an instant reminder that this software aims to take control of your data from Google and give it back to you.

What’s more, since the choices are now yours when it comes to your data, you can always choose to reinstate the tools you need.

Getting to grips

(Image credit: Future // Rob Dunne)

And so, my first port of call when using GrapheneOS for the first time was to reinstall the Google Play Store from within the software’s own App Store. That might seem like a bonkers move, but here’s why doing so is crucial.

GrapheneOS’s App Store is limited. Aside from a few essentials such as a calculator, camera, and the like, there’s little there. The key inclusions? Accrescent, a private app store primarily filled with open-source solutions to everyday phone uses, and the Google Play Store and Play Services.

But GrapheneOS sandboxes the Google Play Store and Play Services much like it would any other app. This means that, unlike on regular Android where, as several legal cases have proven, Google can pinch data as it likes, GrapheneOS restricts its background capabilities and general permissions.

This gives you control of all the usability features you’d see on the front end, such as notifications and location or network access, and there’s no need to worry about unwanted Google access behind closed doors.

What this also means is that, if you’re truly privacy-conscious, you can still install VPNs, antivirus software, password managers, and more that’d otherwise be out of reach if you relied on only what’s available directly.

Preventing overreach

One of the core principles of GrapheneOS is stopping unnecessary data sharing and reducing the risk of attacks that come from unnecessary data collection and coding. As a result, no app downloaded in GrapheneOS is quite what you’d get on regular Android, but thankfully, you’ll probably never notice — for two key reasons.

Key permissions, such as network or microphone access, are the user’s to permit before using an app, meaning you can ensure the apps you use have only the permissions they need. Meanwhile, background problems such as covert data sharing and storage risks are handled automatically by GrapheneOS.

In short, you can install all the apps you need, use them as normal, and know they’re not collecting or spreading your data in ways you’re unaware of. What’s more, aside from a few instances I’ll cover later, GrapheneOS is near flawless at policing this data.

If you’re after other, more technical protections, you can dive into settings. Aside from the regular Android options, you also get a new area called ‘Exploit Protection’. Here, you can set up your phone to protect against threats such as juice jacking (stealing data or installing malware via USB ports), or unwanted Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections

With all of these options available, what quickly became apparent is how integral such settings are to keeping security measures from impacting everyday use. GrapheneOS’ features were explicitly in my control to ensure apps functioned properly without overreaching, and background processes either needn’t be tampered with or could be set once and left. All without remotely impacting overall device efficiency.

I used GrapheneOS with a Pixel 8 Pro for a month, and I never once noticed my battery life drain more than usual, nor encountered any unexpected performance dips. This is despite me using the phone for gaming — enabling only the Google services required to do so — streaming, and everything else I’d normally expect to do on my device.

The inevitable compromise

(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)

Compared to other privacy-focused mobile solutions, GrapheneOS is without a doubt one of the least detrimental to your mobile experience. But it’s not perfect.

First off, if you want to use it, you need a Pixel phone. Ironically, despite the OS aiming to give you some distance from Google’s overreaching services, its devices are the only ones with the required security capabilities to install GrapheneOS properly. So if, like me, you’re used to literally any other Android device, you’re out of luck (though Motorola phones are supposedly joining the ranks soon).

Second, GrapheneOS is not flawless at everything. In the time I spent using the software, banking apps and Android Auto (once downloaded) proved to be near-impossible to get to work regularly. There’s a bunch of support available on the GrapheneOS website if you’re willing to tinker to fix issues, but again, it’s not quite the seamless compatibility you’d get with regular Android.

Would I make the switch to GrapheneOS?

From a month of using it, it’s easy to see why GrapheneOS is gaining traction. It’s super secure, even going as far as to patch VPN vulnerabilities before regular Android gets the chance, and, unlike the best privacy-focused phones, using it with a premium Pixel phone means there’s far less of a drop in performance.

That said, its current restriction to Pixel phones is far from ideal for techies, and there’s still just enough incompatibility with certain types of apps to be a frustration day to day. Google Pay doesn’t work, leaving you needing to use alternatives such as Curve or a paired smart watch; many banking apps limit functionality, and you’ll likely be left wondering if any app-related problems you encounter are down to the OS.

It’s also unfortunate that, as yet, there’s little reason not to make the Play Store your first install. Open-source app-lovers will find some comfort in the options available in the Accrescent store, but even, so there’s very little to choose between. Before you know it, your ‘Google-free’ phone is more of an Android device on a tighter leash.

So while GrapheneOS is brilliant in some aspects compared to most privacy solutions, it definitely leaves me wanting more. For now, it’s a ‘no’ from me.

Given time and wider compatibility, it’d be easy to recommend GrapheneOS given its added security capabilities in a world of growing threats. But with the availability of tools such as VPNs and antiviruses on regular Android, non-security-focused individuals are unlikely to see enough difference to warrant the current frustrations GrapheneOS can bring.

Imagine you’re a company. You’ve got sensitive data you need kept safe, and you’ve got a cloud service provider that’s protecting it. But do you know how far that protection goes, and at what point it’s your turn to take over?

The sheer number of data breaches due to human error, specifically database misconfiguration, suggests that many don’t know that they, not the provider, are responsible for securing all the data properly (or are unsure how to do it).

In this article, we’ll look into the shared responsibility model: what it is, why it’s relevant, its benefits, its limits, and what happens when companies disregard it.

What is the Shared Responsibility Model?

The Shared Responsibility Model is a security and compliance framework that defines the divided responsibilities of cloud service providers (CSPs) and their customers. This means that each has their own tasks in maintaining security.

In short, the provider is responsible for securing the underlying cloud infrastructure, but the customer needs to secure their own data, configurations, and any applications they may have.

In more detail, the provider takes care of:

• Physical security: Secures physical data centers and hardware.
• Host infrastructure: Secures and maintains networking, servers, and storage.
• Data protection: Provides encryption for data in transit and at rest, but does not secure customers’ data.
• Applications: Potentially provides app hosting platforms or tools, but does not secure customers’ apps.

On the other hand, the customer secures everything they own:

• Data protection: Secures, classifies, backs up, and encrypts its own stored information properly.
• Information access: Manages secure access to sensitive data, user accounts, permissions, and multi-factor authentication.
• Configuration: Sets up firewalls and network settings properly.
• Applications: Develops, maintains, and configures apps and their secure application codes.

(Image credit: Future)The first step is defining it - now meet your provider

It would make things a lot easier if these rules and divisions were standardized, so when you understand them for one provider, you understand them for all. Alas, that’s not the case.

The above guidelines are general because the model somewhat differs between providers, and this lack of uniformity contributes to security gaps between the provider and the customer.

That said, make sure you understand your full responsibilities with each provider you use. For example, AWS says “customers should carefully consider the services they choose as their responsibilities vary depending on the services used, the integration of those services into their IT environment, and applicable laws and regulations.”

AWS makes a clear distinction between these responsibilities, saying that the customer is in full charge of managing the guest operating system, including updates and security patches. They must also configure the AWS-provided security group firewall and manage any other application software they own.

(Image credit: aws.amazon.com)

Microsoft further explains that responsibilities vary depending on where the workload is hosted: on software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), or in an on-premises datacenter.

However, “for all cloud deployment types, you own your data and identities,” it says. “You're responsible for protecting the security of your data and identities, on-premises resources, and the cloud components you control.”

(Image credit: learn.microsoft.com)Google Cloud’s ‘Shared Faith’

Google Cloud went with yet a third approach, differentiating between the shared model of other providers and its own “shared faith”:

Given that understanding the shared responsibility model properly in order to secure one’s data can be challenging, “Google believes that the shared responsibility model stops short of helping cloud customers achieve better security outcomes,” it writes. “Instead of shared responsibility, we believe in shared fate.”

The explanation of this approach focuses on “partnership” between the provider and the customer for increased security, as well as offering support and resources to help organizations secure data on their end.

The provider states that “a key component of shared fate is the resources that we provide to help you get started, in a secure configuration in Google Cloud. Starting with a secure configuration helps reduce the issue of misconfigurations, which is the root cause of most security breaches.”

(Image credit: Future)Why does shared responsibility matter, and what happens when companies disregard it?

The shared responsibility model is meant to provide a division of security, compliance, and ethical duties. The number one goal is to cover all bases to ensure all security controls are managed, thus preventing security gaps and potential breaches.

Should a breach happen, this shared control system is theoretically designed to help contain it faster and more efficiently. I say “theoretically” because security gaps do exist, as we’ll see later.

Additionally, the model is designed to ensure that neither the provider nor the client duplicates security steps unnecessarily, wasting their time and effort.

Finally, the security and infrastructure cost is much lower than managing one’s own cloud, and the deployment speed is much higher.

Overall, the model provides the benefits of the public cloud without having to maintain its infrastructure.

According to AWS, this shared model “can help relieve the customer’s operational burden as AWS operates, manages and controls the components from the host operating system and virtualization layer down to the physical security of the facilities in which the service operates.”

However, failing to follow it for any reason carries significant risks:

• data breaches
• cyberattacks
• financial loss (ransomware, regulatory fines, remediation costs)
• legal liability and potential lawsuits
• reputational damage.

The first is the one you should be the most worried about: should it happen, all the others will follow.

Simple misconfiguration mistakes can lead to data breaches, and unfortunately, this happens all the time.

Cracks in the model

This is a good time to discuss the issues with this system, and the first one is certainly the problem of misunderstanding, which leads to overlooked responsibilities and, subsequently, to security gaps in the customer’s databases, hence between the provider and the customer as well.

This issue results in misconfiguration - the direct culprit for most cloud security breaches.

Understanding responsibilities in a constantly changing environment is difficult. Sometimes organizations try to follow it, but overlook something. Sometimes they’re not even aware that they have this responsibility, presuming it all falls on the provider. And often they fail to protect certain data that may seem less relevant, such as backup files.

Either way, the end result is the same: databases are left unprotected and exposed for all to see and download.

This is so far from being theoretical that it’s nearly the norm. Just recently, security researcher Jeremiah Fowler discovered yet another unprotected database, with 666,369 records, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses, and hashed passwords of the Tribeca Festival employees and attendees.

Potential consequences are massive and far-reaching for both the organizations that failed to protect the data and the individuals whose data was exposed.

Other issues in the shared model system include getting full visibility into the cloud environment, a lack of effective integrations that sustain and improve collaboration, challenges integrating tools and platforms, etc.

And if you’re managing security in a multi-cloud environment, that’s a larger beast to deal with.

Final thoughts

Protecting data is neither only the cloud service provider’s job nor that of the company. Rather, the job is divided between “mine” and “yours”. Generally speaking, providers protect what they’ve created, their house, so to speak. Customers are in charge of making sure all their own data and related services in the rented rooms are properly secured.

This is more easily said than done, given that, despite the many advantages of sharing this responsibility (including significant time and cost savings), mistakes happen a lot for many reasons, and the customers’ databases end up exposed. It’s a key issue to overcome if this model is to function successfully long-term.

In 2025, Hisense introduced RGB mini-LED to the market and since then, most TV brands have thrown their hat into the RGB TV ring. TCL, Samsung, LG and Sony are major names who have adopted the new technology, which was dubbed as being a potential ‘OLED killer’, thanks to boasting higher brightness and bolder colors, and claiming to deliver black tones to rival the best OLED TVs.

One of those new TVs has just entered our lab: the Sony Bravia 7 II. The more affordable model of Sony’s RGB TVs, sitting below the flagship Sony Bravia 9 II, the Bravia 7 II is priced fairly similarly to rival mid-range OLEDs. So, I decided to see how the Bravia 7 II would fare against the five-star LG C6, one of the best TVs I’ve tested in 2026 so far.

For these tests, both TVs were set to their respective, out-of-the-box Filmmaker Modes. For the Bravia 7 II, this was called Professional in SDR/HDR, and Dolby Vision Dark when displaying Dolby Vision content. On the LG C6, it's just the Filmmaker Mode.

Colors

While the Bravia 7 II (left) does deliver impressive colors with solid brightness, the C6 (right) colors look bolder, shown with the Lumas from The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. (Image credit: Nintendo / Universal Pictures / Future )

Starting with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, both the Bravia 7 II and C6 demonstrated excellent color reproduction. In the opening scenes, the Lumas’ colors are richer and deeper on the C6, whereas they were brighter on the Bravia 7 II, which worked well for highlights on screen such as when Rosalina uses her wand.

While most colors were a bit punchier on the C6, I did find that yellows and golds actually appeared more vibrant and eye-catching on the Bravia 7 II, shown by the light from the fire reflecting in Rosalina’s hair and face.

Later scenes showed that the C6 had much bolder reds, shown in Mario’s hat and overalls. The C6’s colors also looked more accurate for the most part to me, though during an early scene where Mario and Luigi ride through the desert, I was drawn to the Bravia 7 II’s warmer color tone, with the desert sand looking more true-to-life on the Bravia 7 II, whereas it looked too red on the C6.

There was no denying though the C6’s color handling allowed for more texture and saturation within them, which worked well for this animation.

There's a nice balance to the Bravia 7 II's (left) colors in Speed Racer, but the C6 (right) has the vibrancy edge once again. (Image credit: Warner Bros / Future )

Moving to a movie with some real-life elements, Speed Racer, both TVs did a great job reproducing the movie’s over-saturated, cartoonish color profile. The ’60s-inspired, often-garish color of people’s outfits and the decor of the Racer family home really popped on both screens. S

imilar to Mario Galaxy, the C6 demonstrated deeper, bolder colors, while the Bravia 7 II showed brighter colors. In the scene in the park where Speed first meets Trixie when they’re both children, the red of Trixie’s dress is punchier on the C6, but the green grass is more vivid on the Bravia 7 II.

In some instances, the Bravia 7 II’s colors did look a little washed out, bordering on too-pale, which was exaggerated by comparing it directly to the C6’s color depth. Reds appeared slightly orange on the Bravia 7 II compared to the C6, a similar story to what happened when I compared the Samsung S95/S99H with the G6, with the former showing orange-tinted reds.

Still, color reproduction is one of the selling points for RGB TVs, and while I felt that the Hisense UR8 (that company's own more affordable RGB mini-LED TV) didn’t stack up that well for color against the Samsung QN80H standard mini-LED when I tested the UR8 and QN80H side-by-side, the Bravia 7 II is putting up a solid fight against the LG C6 OLED (which is a superior TV to the QN80H).

Contrast/dark room viewing

The C6 demonstrates deeper black levels in The Batman, with strong contrast, while the Bravia 7 II has a nice balance itself. A note: the C6 does not appear to have this much of a blue/green tint in person. (Image credit: Warner Bros / Future )

The Batman is something of a torture test for TVs due to its low brightness, which means dark tones can look inaccurate. While OLEDs do a better job displaying it generally, recent models such as the LG G6 have over-brightened the dark tones at times — but the C6 has always handled it well, so it's a great test against the Bravia 7 II.

Watching scenes from the Batcave early in the movie, both TVs demonstrated strong contrast with a great balance between light and dark tones. The C6 had a higher perceived contrast as its black tones were much deeper, thanks to OLED’s pixel-dimming abilities, which meant the dark surroundings that contrasted with the overhead lights and lights from Bruce’s equipment create a higher dynamic range.

Still, the Bravia 7 II demonstrated strong backlight control, better than almost any standard mini-LED TVs I’ve tested this movie on. I also praised the Hisense UR8 for this, so it certainly looks like RGB TVs have unlocked better contrast and dark area control for LED TVs.

Both TVs have strong contrast, and while the Bravia 7 II (left) has better balance in places, its backlight created some clouding that the C6 (right) did not suffer from. (Image credit: Warner Bros / Future )

In the subway fight scene, the C6 once again proved to have the better black tones, accurately capturing the gloomy tone of the film. However, on the Bravia 7 II, more details such as Batman’s armor and the texture of the back wall were legible, thanks to showing them in slightly higher brightness (more on that in a while), compared to the C6.

The C6 itself showed the occasional sign of black crush compared to the Bravia 7 II. For out and out contrast though, I preferred the C6’s look, but the Bravia II was impressive.

Watching in a dark room, the C6 has the benefit of no backlight, meaning there was no ‘cloud’ effect, where a backlight is obvious over a dark scene. While the Bravia 7 II did show the odd moment of clouding, again it showed excellent backlight control compared to the competition.

There was also very little blooming in the scenes I tried; it only became obvious when a bright menu appeared on the bottom of the screen. Even the Bravia 7 II’s viewing angles were solid, not showing anywhere near the level of blooming a standard mini-LED TV would when watched way off-angle.

Both TVs delivered accurate, rich black tones in this scene from Alien: Romulus but the C6 (left) has the advantage thanks to its self-dimming pixels. (Image credit: 20th Century Studios / Future )

I decided to try one final black level test, using the scenes of space from Alien: Romulus. As expected, the C6’s black levels were inky and deep, delivering strong contrast against the stars.

Again though, the Bravia 7 II’s black levels were very good for a backlit TV, although there was some graying on occasion.

I did notice more blooming on the Bravia 7 II in this film however, most prominently whenever bright, white text appeared against black backgrounds. Still, the Bravia 7 II fared better with this movie than I thought.

Brightness

The Bravia 7 II's much higher fullscreen brightness means large areas of the same color (the snow here) look much brighter than on the LG C6. (Image credit: Future)

I'm about to get into brightness measurements, but there's a caveat. For my testing, I profile a Klein K-10A colorimeter and Jeti Spectral 15VA spectroradiometer for the best accuracy — and for some reason, I could not get the two’s Delta-E results to line up completely when preparing to measure the Bravia 7 II.

The same equipment worked fine with other TVs when I checked it, so it suggests there’s something odd with the 55-inch Bravia 7 II unit I tested, or perhaps with the way the equipment interacts with it.

Before my full review, we’re getting a different, 65-inch unit in, and I will measure it again — however, I'll provide the measurements I took so far for reference, because while the Delta-E wasn't perfect, it wasn't too far off, so they should be instructive. (And the LG C6 measurements have no issues.)

Brightness results for these two TVs are actually quite surprising. In Filmmaker Mode, the C6 registered 1,427 nits of peak HDR brightness in a 10% window, while the Bravia 7 II registered 1,218 nits peak HDR brightness in its equivalent Professional mode. I was surprised to see that the C6’s peak brightness was higher, as I thought an RGB mini-LED would hit much higher numbers than an OLED.

Looking at fullscreen HDR brightness (a 100% window), this is where the real difference lies. The C6 hit 247 nits in Filmmaker Mode, while the Bravia II registered 957 nits in Professional mode. This is a huge difference — this is the area where mini-LED in general trump OLEDs, though 957 nits is especially high, even

Seeing how this translates into real-world viewing, it shows mostly in bright scenes or scenes with a lot of white. Watching snow scenes from the Spears & Munsil demo footage, a shot of some horses in heavy snowfall is significantly brighter on the Bravia 7 II compared to the C6, giving it a more realistic look.

Again, the Bravia 7 II benefits from higher fullscreen brightness for this image, even though the C6 can achieve higher peak highlights in places. (Image credit: Future)

Another shot of a cliffside during the daytime again looks much brighter on the Bravia 7 II compared to the C6. As the cliff takes up a large portion of the image, the Bravia 7 II, which is brighter in measured areas like 50%, 75% and 100% compared to the C6, means the image looks brighter overall on the Bravia 7 II.

In scenes from Speed Racer, the C6’s peak brightness means white highlights look glossier, such as on the shell of the Mach 5, and colors have more punch in highlight areas, such as the red M on Speed’s helmet. But as the Bravia 7 II has higher fullscreen brightness, the picture does look brighter overall on the Bravia 7 II.

Although the Bravia 7 II has higher fullscreen brightness, in this scene from Lawrence of Arabia, the brightness appears much closer between the two. (Image credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment / Future )

Finally, using a scene in the white-sanded desert from Lawrence of Arabia, this is one movie where the C6 and Bravia 7 II are much closer in brightness in real-world movies. As Lawrence rests on a rock, the sands behind him look punchier on the C6. His metallic watch had slightly more pop too, although this was minimal.

When the sands take up more of the screen, as a stranger approaches Lawrence and his guide, the C6 once again had higher perceived brightness for me.

In this instance, it seems to be related to both TVs color profiles. The Bravia 7 II’s warmer color tone, giving it the brown/orange tint you expect from this type of picture mode, blends more with the desert, whereas the C6’s red tone gives the desert a little more pop.

In terms of bright-room viewing, where you're contending with reflections, the Bravia 7 II is better overall, although the C6 does handle brighter scenes well, such as the ones from Lawrence of Arabia.

With darker movies, the Bravia 7 II is the better option, but it is still prone to mirror-like reflections (the Bravia 7 II doesn’t have the same anti-glare screen as the step-up Bravia 9 II). However, they weren’t as noticeable as the mirror-like reflections from the C6’s even glossier screen.

A step forward, but not quite there yet

The C6 (right) is still my pick, but this RGB vs OLED battle is getting more closely fought every time (Image credit: Nintendo / Universal Pictures / Future )

Whenever I’ve compared standard mini-LED and OLED, OLED has often come out on top, thanks to its richer black tones and contrast, more refined image and deeper, bolder colors. RGB has been touted as the latest big rival to OLED, and the Bravia 7 II gives the C6 OLED a really good fight.

When smaller RGB TVs first joined the market this year, with the tech itself only arriving in 2025, I thought prices would be inflated. While the C6 is the better priced TV right now, with a 55-inch model costing $1,499 / £1,499 / AU$2,995, a Bravia 7 II isn’t priced too differently, with a 55-inch model costing $1,799 / £1,799 / AU$2,995. (Though LG TVs tend to get more aggressive discounts than Sony TVs, so LG might retain the edge over time.)

For now, the C6 is still the TV I recommend between these two, because it offers the crisper look, bolder colors and more dynamic contrast I’m looking for, as well as a cheaper price. But, there’s a lot to like about the Bravia 7 II and if this is a sign of what’s in store for RGB TVs as the tech develops, OLED will need to watch its back.

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Square Enix is gearing up to kick off a brand new era of Final Fantasy 14 with the release of the Evercold expansion. The beginning of the "Godless Realms Saga" story arc, it arrives after the epic conclusion of a decade-long saga, and follows on from Dawntrail which laid the groundwork for this new adventure.

Game producer and director Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida has already teased the new threat players will face in the DLC, which I'm beyond excited for, as well as a number of incredible quality-of-life system updates, new content, and improvements to outdated gameplay features.

It's looking to be a mighty expansion that will hopefully draw in even more players when the massively multiplayer online game (MMO) officially hits Nintendo Switch 2 next month, but there are a few things I'm particularly eager to experience.

Buckle up, we're saving the world again

(Image credit: Square Enix)

Final Fantasy 14 story spoilers ahead

After a decade of buildup, the Shadowbringers and Endwalker expansions saw the pieces of an overarching story finally come together and conclude the Hydaelyn-Zodiark saga, resulting in one of the best Final Fantasy stories ever to be told.

While some events were wrapped up with resolute endings, some lingering questions were left open that presented new possibilities for the MMO, and it all starts with the Reflections: mirror worlds created by the Sundering, a great calamity that saw the Source shattered into 13 Shards.

Players have visited other Reflections in past expansions, but in Evercold we'll visit the Fourth Reflection, which was beset by a calamity of ice. This means an entire new world to explore, and from the trailers and concept art, it appears that SE is leaning heavily into the fantastical style I adored in Shadowbringers and Endwalker, and drawing from what looks like Norse mythology for inspiration.

A new, unexpected threat to all Reflections has also emerged with the recent release of Patch 7.5, the Solstice, which will bring about the natural Rejoining of the Shards and threatens to wipe out all life on the Source and its Reflections.

(Image credit: Square Enix)

"In the time of the Ancients, Etheirys was divided across ten and three reflections to avert a terrible calamity," the expansion description reads. "Thus, for twelve thousand years did the star survive, and by its enduring hope did the Warrior of Light at last thwart its Final Days. Yet victory comes at a cost, and fate now demands its due.

"Faced with the new threat of the Solstice, the Warrior of Light is summoned to the Fourth reflection. But what do they hope to gain from wandering a world lost to ice?"

It's a bold move on the writers' part to thrust players back into a situation where they'll be dealing with the end of the world again; however, Dawntrail's subsequent patches have done a great job of building the foundations to make it a story worth telling.

I'm a FF14 player who looks forward to new story content most of all, and in Evercold, with the way the main scenario has been playing out, I'm certain our trip to the Fourth will open new avenues to explore and deepen the lore of the Ancients, which had been drip-fed to us over the years. In particular, the mystery behind the creation of Ethos, the key that opens up the path to these Reflections, and how this new ability to world-hop will play into the larger story.

Alongside these huge stakes, we've got a new "big bad" to face, the Winterers and the Ascian Halmarut, who are working in the shadows to prevent the Solstice.

Halmarut is unique in that she is sympathetic to mankind's current state and will do anything to ensure it survives the Solstice; however, her plan of controlled Rejoinings comes at the cost of mass death and destruction, believing that it's better to sacrifice some lives so humanity has a chance. But as the Warrior of Light, we can't go along with that idea.

Interestingly, unlike other Ascians before her, Halamurut encouraged the player to find their own way to deal with the Solstice. The Ascian was only introduced in recent patches, but given how superbly the writers developed its past villains (namely the best Final Fantasy baddie ever, Emet-Selch), I'm eager to see how SE will handle another multidimensional antagonist with a world-ending goal.

Raid content galore

(Image credit: Square Enix)

FF14 has always excelled at crossover raid content, whether that be the Yorha: Dark Apocalypse Alliance raid series, developed in collaboration with Nier developers Yoko Taro and Yosuke Saito, or the major raid series inspired by previous Final Fantasy games, like Final Fantasy 3, Final Fantasy 8, Tactics, and more.

Dawntrail's major Alliance raid series, Echoes of Vana'diel, wrapped up with the latest patch, a 24-player crossover celebrating Final Fantasy 6, that offered incredible bosses and a challenging yet rewarding experience.

For Evercold, SE revealed that the Alliance raid series will be based on the hit series Evangelion, titled "Ghosts of Desire", which acclaimed director and animator Mahiro Maeda will join as a special guest artist and designer. Like the Nier raid series, I'm expecting a high-quality experience with some unbelievable boss encounters that push the boundaries of the MMO; however, I'm more excited about the eight-player raid series SE has just announced at FanFest EU.

In the next expansion, FF7 Remake series director Naoki Hamaguchi and Yoshi-P took to the stage to unveil "Beyond the Lifestream," a FF7-themed raid series.

It feels like I've waited years for a proper FF7 collaboration, and the series will come just in time for Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, the final installment in the remake series.

Ahead of Evercold's release, FF14 will also be getting a FF7-themed adjacent feature in the MMO's Gold Saucer on October 28, Keybound Brawler, a new mini-game that will reward players with a glamour bundle inspired by Tifa and Barret's outfits from FF7; a teaser for what's to come.

While SE has yet to share the full raid details, I'm expecting the usual crossover gear (I'm begging for Cloud, Sephiroth, and Aerith outfits, please!), elaborate boss fights inspired by some of FF7's most iconic moments; a confrontation with Safer-Sephiroth while a remixed medley of the FF14 and One-Winged Angel themes plays in the background is surely a given.

Raid maps are also always incredible in FF14; I remember my first time entering the first raid of the YoRHa series and being blown away by the scale of the set pieces and attention to detail, so with Hamaguchi's team working alongside the FF14 team, I'm anticipating something next-level; hopefully a recreation of the dystopian metropolis of Midgar?

It's time for improvements

(Image credit: Square Enix)

FF14 has been running for more than a decade after it was rebooted into A Realm Reborn in 2013. Since then, the MMO has seen innumerable changes, including to Jobs, a huge graphics overhaul that modernized the game's visuals, not to mention the upcoming expanded character customization options that players have been yearning for.

But some things have always remained the same, primarily the battle system and activity features. With the release of Evercold, FF14 will receive a significant overhaul with the introduction of the 'Reborn' and 'Evolved' modes.

Reborn mode will be based on the current combat system and Job mechanics, while Evolved mode offers greater emphasis on "job identity", updating combat rotations and changing some abilities, and will only apply to existing Jobs.

It's an exciting new change, because while Jobs occasionally get rebalanced, this is the first time the game is getting a significant gameplay revamp that will allow long-time players to experiment with a new way of playing, and newcomers have two options at their disposal.

What's more, the expansion will also see an overhauled gear progression system with the introduction of 'Adventurer Activity.' In its current state, FF14 requires players to log in every day to complete daily roulettes to earn XP and accrue their weekly cap of 450 Allagan Tomestones, which are exchanged for high-level gear; however, this can be a downside, especially for players who can't log in every day.

(Image credit: Square Enix)

With Adventurer Activity, this redesigned framework will change from a daily to a weekly-based reward system, remove the exhausting grind of completing daily roulettes, and instead offer more player freedom.

Adventurer Activity (which may look like a battle pass system, but Yoshi P insisted it absolutely is not!) will let players complete a series of missions to amass activity points instead, whether it be dungeons, PvP, Trials, and more, and SE is even considering allowing unearned points from previous weeks to be collected if players miss out.

This is perfect for people like me who sometimes don't really feel like running roulettes and also gives players a chance to explore other content they wouldn't normally engage with.

Final Fantasy 14: Evercold will arrive in January 2027 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and Nintendo Switch 2.

The “Seems like AI slop” button will help LinkedIn train its AI-detection tools.

• Microsoft launches MAI-Cyber-1-Flash, its first in-house cybersecurity model.
• It also reveals Project Perception, an agentic system whose red, blue, and green agents find, triage, and patch vulnerabilities
• The launch comes days after OpenAI said its models escaped a sandbox and attacked Hugging Face

Microsoft has unveiled two significant security announcements - MAI-Cyber-1-Flash, the first cybersecurity model it has trained in-house, and Project Perception, an agentic defense system that finds vulnerabilities, decides which ones matter, and writes and deploys the patches.

The launch took place days after OpenAI disclosed that its own models had broken out of a sandbox and hacked Hugging Face, which makes the timing either unfortunate or pointed.

With Microsoft claiming a 96% score on CyberGym, an industrial benchmark for cybersecurity, nearly 12 points above Anthropic's Claude Mythos 5, while promising as much as 50% savings in token cost, the company says it is bringing what it calls a 'well-tuned, multi-model system with access to uniquely rich historical training data',

A competitive product with excellent timing?

The Hugging Face incident drew much attention, not all of it was negative: as it painted OpenAI's models as more capable than the company's own assessments had suggested. It also sharpened a question researchers have been raising for years: what happens when a model becomes capable enough to defeat the controls placed around it?

Microsoft's answer is well-timed and two-pronged, claiming to be both cheaper and more capable than the alternatives, though the performance figures are, so far, Microsoft's own.

MAI-Cyber-1-Flash, is a sparse mixture-of-experts transformer with 137 billion total parameters, five billion active, and a 256,000-token context window, built as a cybersecurity fine-tune of MAI-Code-1-Flash, itself developed from a MAI-Thinking-1 mid-training checkpoint.

It is designed to handle up to 90% of the tasks inside MDASH, Microsoft's multi-model vulnerability harness, with OpenAI's GPT-5.4 reserved for the hardest 10 percent.

Microsoft says that split costs about half as much as its previous best MDASH configuration. For now, it runs only within MDASH and is available to approved MDASH customers through an Azure AI Foundry private preview, with no standalone API.

Project Perception is the wrapper around it, drawing on MAI-Cyber-1-Flash for its first workflow alongside frontier models such as GPT-5.4. Three classes of agent split the work: red agents probe for paths an attacker could take, blue agents investigate and decide what constitutes meaningful risk, and green agents remediate and harden.

A chart from Microsoft showing how Project Perception splits security and operational tasks across coordinated multi-agent teams (Image credit: Microsoft)

On the specific failure that let OpenAI's models loose, Microsoft took the precaution OpenAI did not, as it says all benchmark testing ran in a network-isolated environment with no access to production systems, the public internet, or external services.

OpenAI's sandbox, by contrast, kept one route outward in the form of an internal package-fetching service, and its models found a flaw in it, escalated privileges and worked across the research network until they reached a machine with internet access. Microsoft says its isolation held. Nobody outside Microsoft has verified that.

The harder question is not containment during testing. Project Perception moves the work out of a research network and into customer production environments, where green agents are authorized to change live systems as their normal function.

There is no sandbox to escape, because acting on real infrastructure is the product. And attribution is difficult even when someone is watching: Hugging Face detected the intrusion within days and reported it to law enforcement, but had no idea who was behind it until OpenAI said so.

It also could not get help from the leading American models, which read its defensive requests as offensive ones and refused. It ended up defending itself with GLM 5.2, a Chinese open-weight model, running on its own infrastructure.

For now, the industry's answer to dangerous capability remains narrower distribution, and the one documented case of a defender needing that capability urgently ended with them reaching for a model nobody had gated.

While AI is shaking up all industries, few have been impacted as visibly or as quickly as web design.

No longer can agencies charge for time on repetitive tasks that can easily be farmed out to AI. This creates a challenge for businesses that need to prove their value to clients that are now eyeing up cheaper, faster solutions to their needs.

I caught up with Itai Sadan, CEO and Co-founder of dedicated agency website builder Duda. We talked about Duda's new vibe coding tool, how it fits into his vision of the future of website building, and how he is seeing agencies demonstrate value through consultation and creative talent in 2026.

Firstly, tell us a little bit about the new AI tools you have rolled out across Duda. Why has Duda focused on launching these tools for agencies now?

AI has lowered the barrier to creating a website, but it has not solved the challenges agencies face when delivering websites at scale.

Agencies still need to produce work that reflects a client's brand, collaborate efficiently across teams, maintain quality standards, and do it all within a business model that supports healthy margins. We built our AI capabilities with those realities in mind, rather than adapting generic AI products that were never designed for professional web creators.

Our approach combines the speed of AI generation with the capabilities agencies already rely on in Duda.

Website generation turns a prompt into a production-ready starting point while preserving access to Duda's drag-and-drop editor, performance, SEO foundations, and the flexibility to refine every detail before launch, either by prompt or by simply clicking with a mouse, which is many times faster and more cost-efficient.

Duda Vibe expands those possibilities with an AI-native environment for creating websites and applications that remains fully connected to the Duda platform.

Agencies can collaborate with their teams and clients, white label the experience under their own brand, and operate with the predictable pricing and workflows they depend on to scale profitably. Our goal is to help agencies take full advantage of AI while strengthening the systems and processes that make their businesses successful.

AI tools, like those you have just rolled out, remove considerable admin work within agencies; should agencies be adjusting pricing models to reflect this?

In many cases, agencies will have an opportunity to deliver greater value than before, and their pricing should reflect the outcomes they create, not the time they save.

Itai Sadan, CEO and Co-founder of Duda

I don’t think AI changes the fundamental value proposition of an agency. Clients aren't paying for time spent on repetitive tasks. They're paying for expertise that produces measurable business outcomes, whether that's more qualified leads, more appointments, or more online sales.

There's no shortage of website builders, and now even AI coding tools, built specifically for small businesses to use themselves.

What an agency brings is the ability to translate business goals into digital results. That includes understanding how a website should be structured, how it should be written to attract and convert visitors, and how it fits into a broader marketing strategy that may include SEO, paid advertising, social media, and other services. AI can accelerate many parts of that process, but the quality of the outcome still depends on the experience and judgment of the agency using it.

When I speak with agencies, they don't tell me they're working less. They tell me they're spending their time differently. The hours saved through automation are being reinvested into higher-value work, whether that's providing a more consultative client experience, expanding the services they offer, or helping clients adapt to new opportunities like AI search.

That's been Duda's philosophy from the beginning. We've always focused on removing the repetitive work so agencies can spend more time on the work their clients actually value.

As AI continues to improve efficiency, I believe that principle becomes even more important. In many cases, agencies will have an opportunity to deliver greater value than before, and their pricing should reflect the outcomes they create, not the time they save.

AI can make errors. For example, it may interpret a brief incorrectly, which could lead to significant additional work for agencies to fix. How much oversight do you recommend agencies give AI tools? Are there systems and processes you recommend to limit potential issues down the line?

I often compare AI to an exceptionally talented intern. Give that intern a clear objective, the right context, and the supporting materials, and they'll produce impressive work.

Itai Sadan, CEO and Co-founder of Duda

We've tried to address that challenge at the platform level.

With Duda Vibe, for example, the planning stage interviews the agency before it begins generating anything. That additional context consistently produces better results because the AI is working from a clearer understanding of the project's goals and requirements.

We're also continuously improving the models behind our AI website generation so they can interpret briefs more accurately and produce websites that require less refinement before launch.

That said, AI should never be treated as a substitute for professional review. We recommend that agencies establish a quality assurance process for every project, just as they would with work created entirely by humans.

Duda's AI Copilot can assist with that review by identifying areas for improvement before a site goes live, while our Optimization Center continuously audits websites for common SEO, accessibility, and AI search optimization opportunities that might otherwise be overlooked.

AI is most effective when it's used throughout the entire workflow, not just at the point of creation.

I often compare AI to an exceptionally talented intern. Give that intern a clear objective, the right context, and the supporting materials, and they'll produce impressive work. Give them a vague brief, and they'll fill in the gaps with their own assumptions. That's why we encourage agencies to be as specific as possible.

Duda supports rich prompting with reference documents, images, and other project assets so agencies can provide the context the AI needs from the very beginning. The better the guidance, the better the outcome.

Vibe coding tools like Bolt of Lovable make it easy for anyone to build web apps, but lack agency-level infrastructure. How is Duda Vibe tailored to better meet agency needs compared to generic vibe coding tools?

Most vibe coding tools are designed to help an individual create an application as quickly as possible.

Agencies need much more than that. They need a platform that supports collaboration, client management, security, governance, and long-term maintenance across dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of projects. That's the gap we set out to address with Duda Vibe.

Duda Vibe is fully integrated into the Duda platform, giving agencies a centralized workspace where they can manage every project, whether it was built with our traditional website builder or in Duda Vibe.

Teams can collaborate throughout the development process, clients can securely review their own projects through a fully white-labeled experience, and agencies can continue using the workflows they're already familiar with.

Beyond development, Duda Vibe includes the operational capabilities agencies depend on, including automatic version history, secure data storage, reliable hosting, and performance insights that help them monitor both site performance and AI visibility over time.

We're still in beta, but our roadmap is firmly focused on the needs of agencies and the way they work.

One feature I'm particularly excited about is bringing our popular inline commenting workflow to Duda Vibe. Clients will be able to leave feedback directly on the project, just as they do today in our website builder. Once the agency reviews and approves a request, Duda's AI Stack will understand the context of that comment and carry out the requested changes automatically. It's another example of how we're applying AI to reduce the operational overhead of working with clients, not just the time it takes to build an application in the first place.

Although great for quick builds, vibe coding apps can lack the architecture, stability, and security required for long-term success. How does Duda Vibe help agencies maintain web apps without creating technical debt?

The technical debt challenge with AI-generated applications usually isn't the code itself. It's everything required to run and maintain that application over time.

Itai Sadan, CEO and Co-founder of Duda

The technical debt challenge with AI-generated applications usually isn't the code itself. It's everything required to run and maintain that application over time.

Many AI coding tools can generate a working prototype in minutes, but agencies are often left responsible for hosting, security, authentication, payments, infrastructure, and long-term maintenance. That's where technical debt begins to accumulate.

Duda Vibe takes a different approach. Every application is built on Duda's managed platform, so agencies have a foundation they can depend on long after the application is launched. Hosting, security, DDoS protection, high performance on metrics such as Core Web Vitals, platform updates, and other operational capabilities are built in from the start.

We also provide native services for capabilities like authentication, eCommerce, payments, and other backend functionality, allowing agencies to rely on platform services rather than AI-generated implementations for some of the most critical parts of an application. That reduces complexity, improves reliability, and significantly limits the technical debt that can accumulate over time.

Our view is that AI should accelerate development without shifting long-term maintenance risk onto agencies. The platform should handle the operational complexity, allowing agencies to focus on building applications that deliver value for their clients.

The ability to create custom widgets opens the door to creativity. What tips would you give agencies that want to use this feature to create ‘signature’ widgets to differentiate themselves from competitors?

Clients generally don’t know what their agency’s website builder can and can’t do out of the box, so it’s important for agencies to not get too caught up in individual widgets.

What makes a great website is how all of those widgets come together on the canvas and how well that collage of widgets meets the needs of the client. A great way to differentiate is to focus on the latter: the client’s needs.

For example, one agency building on Duda used the Widget Builder to generate an interactive carousel of 3D beer cans for a brewery. Not only did this look great, but it really elevated the overall design of the website. It was a nice touch that showed a level of care that I’m sure the client appreciated.

For agencies looking to stand out, I’d recommend double-clicking into the needs of the client. Breweries are in the hospitality industry, so a level of showmanship is beneficial online, but that same widget showing a rotating carousel of 3D toothbrushes would be odd to see on a dentist’s website. Understanding your client’s industry, then building widgets specifically for that vertical, is a great way to stand out and showcase expertise.

What do you think the biggest challenge will be for agencies when it comes to using AI over the next 12 months? How do you recommend agencies overcome these challenges? 

Agencies need to be able to produce something better than if an owner asked Claude to create a website for their business—which is not as easy as it sounds.

Itai Sadan, CEO and Co-founder of Duda

Agencies are being impacted by AI from dozens of different angles. Whether that’s changes to the way they work or the rise of AI search impacting how their clients get found, it’s an extremely adaptive and exciting time to be an agency. Staying ahead of it all is going to be the biggest challenge.

Take website building, for instance. The floor is going to continue to rise. Agencies need to be able to produce something better than if an owner asked Claude to create a website for their business—which is not as easy as it sounds.

Platforms like Claude are getting better each and every day. Whether that’s a better experience, a better product, or both, agencies need to be prepared to add something special that AI can’t offer by itself.