Category: Technology

There’s a lot to like about NordVPN, as I covered in my full NordVPN review. It’s one of the fastest among the best VPNs, and it’s got a bunch of cool, specialized servers for various VPN tasks. But the apps can be frustrating, and beyond that, no VPN is perfect for everyone. If you’ve decided NordVPN isn’t for you, here’s how to cancel your subscription and get your money back.

How to turn off auto-renewal on NordVPN

Even though you’ve decided to part ways with NordVPN, you may want to keep your subscription active while you pick out a replacement service. If that’s the case, you can simply cancel automatic renewal and let your subscription expire at the end of the billing period. If you change your mind before then, you can turn auto-renew back on. Here’s how to do it.

Go to my.nordaccount.com. Click Log in to Nord Account and enter your email address and password.

You’ll arrive at the account overview page. In the left-hand column, click on Billing.

On the list of subscriptions that appears, find NordVPN. Find the line that says “Auto-renewal: ON,” and click the Cancel link next to it.

A warning message will appear. Click Cancel auto-renewal at the bottom-right.

This will turn auto-renewal off. If you decide to turn it back on, just go back to the billing tab of your Nord account overview, find your NordVPN subscription and click Enable auto-renewal.

How to cancel if you subscribed through an app store

If you paid for NordVPN on a mobile device through Google Play or the Apple app store, you’ll need to go to the relevant app store to cancel the subscription. On Android, sign in to Google Play, touch your profile picture, tap Payments & subscriptions and tap Subscriptions. Scroll until you find NordVPN, tap it and hit Cancel subscription. If you want a refund, follow the instructions in “How to get a refund from NordVPN” below.

On iOS, open the settings app, touch your profile picture, then tap Subscription. Scroll down to NordVPN, tap it and hit Cancel subscription. To get a refund for an Apple purchase, contact the Apple support team instead of the NordVPN team.

How to delete your NordVPN account

On the other hand, if you’re sick of NordVPN and already have another VPN lined up, you can cancel immediately by deleting your Nord account altogether. This will also cut you off from any other Nord Security products you might be using, including NordPass and NordLocker.

Go to my.nordaccount.com, click Log in to Nord Account and enter your credentials.

At the top-right of the account overview page, click your email address. In the dropdown menu, click Account settings.

Look at the bottom of the page to find the account deletion controls. Click Delete account.

Nord will send an authentication code to your account’s email address. Enter it.

Follow the onscreen prompts to confirm deletion.

How to get a refund from NordVPN

NordVPN has a standard 30-day money-back guarantee. As long as you bought your subscription in the last 30 days, you can get a full refund. To do so, you’ll need to first cancel auto-renewal on your plan as described above, then contact support to ask for the refund.

You can reach NordVPN support by going to the help center at support.nordvpn.com. To reach the live chat and email ticket options, you’ll need to work your way down to a bottom-level help center article, then scroll down until you reach the section titled “Still having issues?” It’s frustrating, but you can get there by just clicking the first link on every page (or just follow this link and scroll down).

Once you’ve found the buttons, either start a live chat or open the email form. Whichever you choose, explain that you’ve cancelled your subscription and would like a refund. Make sure not to end the interaction until you’ve received confirmation that your refund will be processed. Afterwards, it’ll take up to 10 business days for your reimbursement to go through.

NordVPN alternatives

With NordVPN cancelled, you may be in the market for another VPN. I’ve collected several on my best VPN list (linked at the start of the article), but here’s a few specific recommendations: Proton VPN is the best overall, Surfshark is the fastest and ExpressVPN is good for beginners and great at streaming. Good luck in your quest for a VPN that meets your needs.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/how-to-cancel-nordvpn-and-get-your-money-back-173008588.html?src=rss 

Beats devices have been the more colorful, full-of-personality complements to Apple’s clean-and-minimal gear ever since Apple bought the company back in 2014. Beats earbuds and speakers are the more flexible alternatives to things like AirPods and HomePods, and the new Beats Powerbeats Fit keep that tradition alive. Some six months after the Powerbeats Pro 2 debuted earlier this year, Beats now has an updated version of the Fit Pro to offer folks looking for many of the conveniences of an Apple device in something with slightly more character and versatility. Rather than reinventing the wheel, Beats made small changes on the Powerbeats Fit that ultimately make for a more polished version of its predecessor.

What’s new

If you’re familiar with the Beats Fit Pro, you’ll be familiar with the Powerbeats Fit. Beats kept much of what worked with its previous $200 earbuds here (including the price), making very minor changes to improve the comfort and the overall design. The new buds have 20 percent more flexible wingtips and the charging case is 17 percent more compact than that of the Beats Fit Pro. More on the wingtips in a moment, but first I have to commend Beats for making the charging case feel ever so slightly more premium this time around — and since it’s smaller than before, it’s less cumbersome to tuck in your back pocket. The buds also fit snugly into the charging case with a satisfying snap every time; they always align properly to recharge, something I cannot say about past pairs of the AirPods Pro I’ve owned.

When it comes to the wingtips on the Powerbeats Fit, they appear to be a hair shorter than those on the Beats Fit Pro, and certainly more malleable. I felt the biggest difference in flexibility at the base of the wingtip where it meets the earbud — those on the Powerbeats Fit have a bit more give than those on its predecessor. These small changes make it easy to pop the Powerbeats Fit into your ears and really not fuss with the wingtips at all. They’re present just to provide a more secure fit during intense workouts, and they do just that.

I wore them during strength training, 5K runs and leisurely walks and I didn’t have to adjust them at all once I popped them in. When Beats announced these new buds, the company claimed its design tweaks would also make the Powerbeats Fit more comfortable to wear all day long, not just during workouts. I’ll admit that I didn’t find the previous Beats Fit Pro uncomfortable to wear when not at the gym or on the trail. Yes, the Powerbeats Fit are marginally more comfortable now and the wingtips are more supple, but the change is subtle. If you jibe with the wingtip design to begin with, you’ll safely be able to use the Powerbeats Fit as daily drivers in addition to workout companions.

Notably, the Powerbeats Fit come with one extra pair of eartips in the box (four instead of the previous three), so once you find the eartips that are your best fit, you’ll be off to the races. There are also two new bold colors to choose from, orange and pink, in addition to gray and black.

What’s the same

Thankfully, Beats didn’t mess with all of the good things about the Fit Pro when developing the Powerbeats Fit. The new buds have an IPX4 water resistance rating, which isn’t the highest level of protection out there, but more than enough to withstand your sweatiest training sessions. Onboard controls in the form of physical buttons remain the same, although I didn’t accidentally trigger the buttons on the Powerbeats Fit nearly as much as I did with the Fit Pro. That might be because all the small changes Beats made in the design paid off — I didn’t fuss with the new buds in my ears as much as before, therefore I didn’t accidentally press the buttons as much.

The Powerbeats Fit also have Apple’s H1 chip inside, which enables features like hands-free Siri, automatic switching between devices, Adaptive EQ, Audio Sharing and Personalized Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking. Transparency mode returns here as well, and it remains one of the standout features of any Apple-associated wireless earbuds. And if you do decide to wear the Powerbeats Fit all day long, you’ll likely make even more use of transparency mode as you need to jump in and out of conversations happening around you. In addition, you can keep track of the new earbuds in Apple’s Find My app.

Beats didn’t bill any improvements in sound quality on the Powerbeats Fit, and after listening to them alongside the Beats Fit Pro, I can say they sound almost identical. While listening to some tracks with the Powerbeats Fit, I noticed an almost imperceptible increase in the clarity of vocals, but that’s about it. Bass remains punchy and strong, and the buds get decently loud.

Active noise cancellation (ANC) is also the same on the new buds: strong enough to block out ambient noise around you and people’s voices. While running outside, I still heard the loudest disturbances like passing trucks and oddly sonorous cackling of nearby wildlife, but that’s arguably for the best. If you’re exercising outside, be it in a park or on city streets, you should be at least somewhat aware of your surroundings.

Battery life is consistent here as well, with Beats promising up to seven hours on a single charge (or six with ANC turned on) and up to 30 hours total when employing the Powerbeats Fit charging case. Anecdotally, after a week of using the Powerbeats Fit for an average of one hour each day, the charging case still had 75 percent battery left. If you’re using these all day, every day, you’ll obviously need to power it up more frequently. But if these are primarily your workout companions, you could get a week or two before needing to plug them in.

Wrap-up

The Powerbeats Fit are a fitting update to the Beats Fit Pro. The latter was one of the best devices in the Beats lineup to begin with, and the latest model only improves upon the winning formula. They offer a solid balance of a comfortable, secure design, good sound quality and ANC and handy additional features at a decent price. The latter is arguably just as important as the buds’ ability to withstand a sweaty training session: folks looking for many of the conveniences found in AirPods will find them here in an alternative design, and in a pair of buds that also works just as well with Android devices. If you’re willing to pay more, you could shell out $250 for either the Powerbeats Pro 2 to get that full over-ear hook style, or AirPods Pro 3 — both of which have built-in heart rate tracking But that feature in particular will be more of a nice-to-have than a necessity for most.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/beats-powerbeats-fit-review-deja-vu-in-a-good-way-120058332.html?src=rss 

Links have proven to be a tricky thing when it comes to social media engagement. On platforms like Threads, data suggests that people often don’t click the links in posts, and creators on X have complained that posts including links don’t get as much visibility. X is now trying to solve that. Head of product Nikita Bier shared that the platform is “testing a new link experience” that lets people open a link without leaving the original post entirely, so they can still view the Like, Repost and other buttons. The test is rolling out to iOS users first.  

“To help get better signal, posts will now collapse to the bottom of the page so people can react while you’re reading,” Bier wrote alongside a screen recording of how it will work. As to why posts with links typically don’t perform as well, Bier said, “This is because the web browser covers the post and people forget to Like or Reply. So X doesn’t get a clear signal whether the content is any good.” 

Of course, X has been accused of throttling links to specific sites, and Elon Musk has said in the past that links “don’t get as much attention” on the platform, so tweaking the popups will only go so far in addressing the reach issue. Bier added that posts should always “stand alone as great content so write a solid caption.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-is-testing-a-new-way-of-opening-links-in-posts-to-improve-engagement-211210520.html?src=rss 

We still have a few months to wait before the next Cult of the Lamb DLC, Woolhaven, arrives, but the Massive Monster team just shared a closer look at one of the new experiences the expansion will bring and, oh boy, I cannot wait to play this. In addition to adding a new mountain area with two new dungeons, Woolhaven will introduce ranching, so you can raise animals — the regular, non-anthropomorphic kind — to keep as pets, shear for wool or slaughter for meat (you know, if you have no heart).

Based on the overview video, we’ll get to raise cows(ish), goats and sheep as well as some more unexpected critters like crabs, snails, spiders and turtles. I, personally, am very excited about the snails. You’ll be able to form bonds with and name the animals, and you’ll have to tend to their wellbeing, feeding them healthy foods and cleaning them. Followers will also be able to bond with the animals and have their own pets. As wholesome as that all sounds, this is Cult of the Lamb we’re talking about, so I’m already bracing myself for the inevitable heartbreak of when some unruly follower kills my favorite animals at some point. The video notes that you’ll have to keep them safe from predators.

Woolhaven will be a paid expansion, but we don’t know yet how much it will cost or when exactly it drops. The team has so far only said early 2026.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/this-is-how-the-new-ranching-system-will-work-in-cult-of-the-lamb-woolhaven-194324041.html?src=rss