Don’t Buy a Cheap Chromebook on Black Friday Without Checking the Update Expiration Date

Black Friday sales are almost upon us, and it’s a foregone conclusion that Chromebooks will feature prominently in many retailers’ sales. Many of these computers are already a good value without any discounts, but Black Friday sales can make them worthy of an impulse purchase. However, you’d do well to make sure that laptop is worth buying even for a pittance before you pull the trigger.

One of the primary selling points of Chromebooks is how little you need to do to maintain them. You just log in with a Google account, go about your business in the Chrome browser, and know that Google will occasionally update the core components silently in the background. If you want to get fancy with Linux apps or the Play Store, you can do that as well. Google rolls out updated support for those features in new versions of Chrome OS, too.

Chrome OS updates are important not only for delivering new features, but they’re also vital for keeping your device safe. There’s nothing much living in Chrome OS to be hacked or infected by malware, but the Chrome browser could be exploited as you wander around the internet just like it could on Windows or macOS. When Chromebooks are supported, they get automatic updates and are always secure. Those updates don’t last forever, though.

Before you buy any Chromebook this holiday season, there’s a quick and easy way to make sure it’s worth buying. Head to Google’s Chromebook update support page, and find the model number (it’s organized by vendor). You might see several devices with very similar names, but one has four more years of support and the other expired last summer. Maybe another only has another year and change of updates remaining.

You should consider those dates the expiration date of a laptop. If you see something on sale but it’s only got a year of updates left, just imagine you’re paying the asking price for a year of using that computer. Does it still seem like a good value? Then by all means, buy it.

Continue reading

190,000 Ceiling Fans Recalled After Blades Fly Off, Hitting People

King of Fans is recalling some 190,000 ceiling fans sold through Home Depot after the blades began detaching during operation.

Linus Tovalds Blames Intel for Killing ECC RAM in Consumer Systems

Intel stripped ECC RAM support off its consumer products over a decade ago, and Linus Torvalds is still unhappy about it.

Astronomers Find Oldest Supermassive Black Hole in the Universe

This recently spotted object is the oldest known quasar in the universe, with a supermassive black hole more than 13 billion years old. In fact, it's so old and huge that scientists don't know exactly how it could have formed.

The First Black Hole Ever Discovered Might Be Even Larger

Scientists have been looking for black holes ever since general relativity predicted such an object could exist. Cygnus X-1 made history in 1964 as the first likely candidate black hole. Astronomers have revisited Cygnus over the years, and a new analysis suggests the first black hole spotted by humanity might be larger and farther away than believed.