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If you’ve been thinking of picking up an Xbox Series X, here’s a rare chance to grab Microsoft’s console at a discount: Dell is selling a bundle that pairs the device with a copy of the open-world racing game Forza Horizon 5 for $450. That’s $50 off the console’s usual going rate. Dell offered a similar deal earlier this month, but that didn’t come bundled with a game. Forza Horizon 5, meanwhile, is included with an Xbox Game Pass subscription but typically retails for around $45 on its own (though it’s currently available for $30 at Xbox’s online store). As of this writing, the deal appears to be going in and out of stock, so you may need to act quickly.

As a refresher, the Series X is the higher-performing option in Microsoft’s Xbox lineup. It has a beefier GPU and more RAM compared to the $300 Xbox Series S, which allows it to more consistently play demanding games at higher resolutions and frame rates. Broadly speaking, the Series X is designed to play games in 4K at 60 fps (though some games can go further), while the Series S is aimed more at 1440p or 1080p displays. The Series X also has a disc drive, unlike the all-digital Series S, and it comes with twice as much storage by default at 1TB. You still have to use a proprietary card to fully expand that storage, however, and the console itself is much larger than its lower-cost counterpart. We gave the Series X a review score of 87 when it arrived in late 2020.

Microsoft itself has had its share of struggles producing blockbuster exclusives, particularly when compared to Sony’s first-party output on the PlayStation 5. Still, after a few years on the market, the latest Xbox has built up a fairly diverse lineup of quality titles, with big-budget hits like Forza Horizon 5 joined by smaller-scale gems like Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment on our list of the best Xbox games. You still have access to most major third-party titles as well. 

Looking forward, Starfield, the latest RPG from the studio behind The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, will arrive in September. And while a recent price increase has somewhat dented its value, Xbox Game Pass still pairs well with the console if you tend to hop from game to game. If nothing else, Microsoft’s looming merger with Activision Blizzard (owner of Call of Duty, Diablo and Warcraft, among others) will presumably add to that service, as the company’s prior acquisition of Bethesda Softworks has.

Whether you should buy the Xbox Series X over the PS5 largely comes down to how much stock you put in Game Pass, how much PlayStation-exclusive series like God of War, Horizon and Spider-Man appeal to you, and which platform your friends and family use most often. If you’re already settled on Xbox, though, this is a good chance to save on the best console Microsoft makes. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-xbox-series-x-is-50-off-at-dell-150920162.html?src=rss 

If you’ve wanted a top-tier robot vacuum but were put off by the sometimes outlandish prices, now’s your time to act. Amazon is once more selling iRobot’s Roomba s9+ at a record low of $600, or 40 percent off. That’s the best we’ve seen since Prime Day, and puts it at the same price as a mid-range model like the Roomba j7 or Shark’s AI Ultra.

The Roomba s9+ is still our pick for the best premium robot vacuum. It’s powerful, good at navigating floors (both carpet and hardwood), tackles corners well and empties itself relatively quietly. The slick design also makes it look right at home in an upscale abode. You shouldn’t have to worry about it getting stuck or missing an important mess.

It’s not flawless. The Roomba s9+ isn’t specifically geared to avoid pet poop, so you may need to look elsewhere if your cat or dog routinely leaves unwanted surprises. It’s also louder than newer (if less effective) options like the j7. At this price, though, it’s an easy choice — you’ll get efficient cleaning that frees you for more important tasks.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/irobots-roomba-s9-robot-vacuum-is-back-down-to-a-record-low-price-152658325.html?src=rss 

It’s now easy to show your WhatsApp friends what you’re doing without putting in the effort to create a Story or a similar clip. The service is rolling out Telegram-like instant video messages that let you respond in chat with videos up to a minute long. You just have to tap and hold a button to capture footage, and you can swipe up to keep the recording going while hands-off. 

Videos will automatically play on mute, so you shouldn’t startle anyone until you’re ready to turn on sound with a tap. Like most anything else in WhatApp, the instant messages are end-to-end encrypted to add a layer of privacy. The feature should be available to all users in the “coming weeks,” the company says.

This likely won’t replace Telegram Snapchat for many people. WhatsApp is still dominant in the messaging space, and driven largely by calls and texts. Even so, the feature might be appreciated if you’d rather not switch apps just to send rapid-fire videos. You can quickly share news when text or an audio message won’t cut it, or simply react to a friend with something more personal than a sticker.

There’s an incentive for parent company Meta to act. While WhatsApp has over 2 billion active users as of last year, Telegram is expanding quickly with an estimated 700 million active users each month. Snapchat is still growing despite fierce competition from other social platforms. Apple’s iOS 17 will introduce FaceTime video voicemail to iPhone users, too. While instant video messages might not persuade users to sign up, it might keep WhatsApp fans from drifting toward the competition.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/whatsapp-adds-telegram-style-video-messages-141005605.html?src=rss 

“Tor” evokes an image of the dark web; a place to hire hitmen or buy drugs that, at this point, is overrun by feds trying to catch you in the act. The reality, however, is a lot more boring than that — but it’s also more secure.

The Onion Router, now called Tor, is a privacy-focused web browser run by a nonprofit group. You can download it for free and use it to shop online or browse social media, just like you would on Chrome or Firefox or Safari, but with additional access to unlisted websites ending in .onion. This is what people think of as the “dark web,” because the sites aren’t indexed by search engines. But those sites aren’t an inherently criminal endeavor.

“This is not a hacker tool,” said Pavel Zoneff, director of strategic communications at The Tor Project. “It is a browser just as easy to use as any other browser that people are used to.”

That’s right, despite common misconceptions, Tor can be used for any internet browsing you usually do. The key difference with Tor is that the network hides your IP address and other system information for full anonymity. This may sound familiar, because it’s how a lot of people approach VPNs, but the difference is in the details.

VPNs are just encrypted tunnels hiding your traffic from one hop to another. The company behind a VPN can still access your information, sell it or pass it along to law enforcement. With Tor, there’s no link between you and your traffic, according to Jed Crandall, an associate professor at Arizona State University. Tor is built in the “higher layers” of the network and routes your traffic through separate tunnels, instead of a single encrypted tunnel. While the first tunnel may know some personal information and the last one may know the sites you visited, there is virtually nothing connecting those data points because your IP address and other identifying information are bounced from server to server into obscurity.

In simpler terms: using regular browsers directly connects you and your traffic, adding a VPN routes that information through an encrypted tunnel so that your internet service provider can’t see it and Tor scatters your identity and your search traffic until it becomes almost anonymous, and very difficult to identify.

Accessing unindexed websites adds extra perks, like secure communication. While a platform like WhatsApp offers encrypted conversations, there could be traces that the conversation happened left on the device if it’s ever investigated, according to Crandall. Tor’s communication tunnels are secure and much harder to trace that the conversation ever happened.

Other use cases may include keeping the identities of sensitive populations like undocumented immigrants anonymous, trying to unionize a workplace without the company shutting it down, victims of domestic violence looking for resources without their abuser finding out or, as Crandall said, wanting to make embarrassing Google searches without related targeted ads following you around forever.

Still, with added layers of security can come some additional hiccups, like lag or longer loading times. That could be true for some users depending on what they do online, but anecdotally it’s gotten a lot faster in recent years, and users have said they barely notice a difference compared to other browsers. Sameer Patil, associate professor at the School of Computing at the University of Utah, studied this by having students and staff try out Tor as their main browser. “I was personally very surprised at how many sites and things just work fine in the Tor browser. So not only did they work as intended, but they also were fast enough,” Patil said.

But even if online privacy isn’t your main concern personally, using Tor can help support industries that heavily rely on it. By using the anonymous and secure browser, you’re supporting activists, journalists and everyone else’s privacy because the more people that use it, the more secure it gets, according to Patil. If only certain sensitive groups use it, it’ll be easier to deanonymize and ultimately track down identities. When you’re one in a billion using it, that task becomes nearly impossible.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tor-dark-web-privacy-secure-browser-anonymous-130048839.html?src=rss