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How you can install and play Fortnite on Android
Fortnite may have been kicked from the Play Store, but you can still play the game on Android
Epic Games did a big no-no in 2020 by releasing a Fortnite update that circumvented Google's in-app payments. As a result, Google removed Fortnite's listing from the Play Store. The whole fiasco left players with limited options for regaining access to the official Fortnite app.
How to install the Google Play Store on any Android device
It can be tricky, but these steps might just work for you
When Apple released its first iPhone, the device came without the App Store, as the company believed most third-party software should run through the built-in Safari browser. It didn't take long for developers to build third-party app stores, such as Installer.app and Cydia, which weren't under Apple's control. Things have evolved since then, with the official App Store being the go-to marketplace for iPhone users looking to install an application.
Google's new training game teaches your parents Chrome OS so you don't have to
The word 'game' is used pretty loosely here, but it's an excellent interactive tutorial
Learning to use a new computing platform can be difficult for anyone — even seasoned tech fans like ourselves. Years of muscle memory can make switching from MacOS to Windows or iOS to Android an uncomfortable experience. To assist new Chrome OS users, Google has gamified its tutorials, implementing videos, quizzes, and more into a single space to learn about Chromebooks.
11 tips to become a Chrome custom search engine jedi
The ultimate guide to quickly find anything on the web
When it comes to custom search engines on Chrome, I don't joke, I don't play, I don't mess around. It is a Very Serious Topic™ that comes up countless times in our internal Android Police discussions, more often than not when I figure out yet another useful engine that can shave off precious seconds from our daily workflows. That's usually followed by a ten-minute chat about how clever that latest trick is and how I should write a book about custom search engines. Well, short of writing a long book then trying to find a publisher, here is a guide with all the tips, tricks, and smart ideas I've amassed over the last decade. This is the breadth of my knowledge and I have chosen to bestow it upon you, so please, treat it with the utmost respect.
How to find specific parts in a YouTube video without having to watch the whole thing
Using the power of YouTube transcripts
Among many other things, YouTube has become a platform for talks, events, and educational videos, but in contrast to text, it can be hard to find that one relevant part of a clip you want to give another watch. However, there's a simple trick that can help you find the part you are looking for, as long as you remember some keywords from it. You can use YouTube's excellent transcripts.
How to hide people, pets, dates, and certain creation types in Google Photos Memories
Painful souvenirs be gone!
Google Photos doesn't just give us a convenient way to store our pictures all in once place, but also provides some very helpful tools for browsing and organizing them. Memories is a great way to automatically curate your past, and Google continues to flesh it out with more and more collections. But not every image you snap is necessarily one you want to be revisiting all the time, and thankfully Photos is sympathetic to this. In this tutorial, we'll look at all the different ways — new and old — you can hide and disable pics from being highlighted in the Photos app.
How to find your recently uploaded pics on Google Photos, even if they date back many years
Time (and your photos) keeps on slipping
Although I love Google Photos and recommend it to all my friends, I recognize that the service isn't perfect. The user experience could be improved in a lot of ways; for example, the ability to order photos in different ways is missing — you get reverse chronological and that's it. If you're only backing up recent images as you take them, that's not an issue, but if you're uploading older photos, it becomes near impossible to find those images and edit, share, or make albums of them. You might scroll and scroll, try to search for the date if you remember it, and sometimes nothing works. There is one little trick though.
7 killer tricks for your Pixel phone's camera
Hey, Pixel owners: These are the camera tricks you've been missing
Got a Pixel? Then you've got one of the best damn cameras in all the Android land. But hold the phone: Your kickass camera can do even more than you realize.
Facebook just announced that Instagram Lite is now officially available in 170 countries, but there are still many people who don't have access to this much tighter, 2MB small Instagram experience just yet. That applies to countries like the US, the UK, and many more in Europe. But luckily, there's a simple way to get your hands on it right now via our sister site APK Mirror.
How to use and disable Chrome's new tab groups and grid switcher
Not everyone is a fan of this new tab UX
It's been a while since Chrome for desktop introduced support for tab groups. The feature helped bring order to chaos for those who had a habit of keeping umpteen tabs open. After being tested since 2019 on Android, the feature is now rolling out on the mobile platform as well. The update also brings a grid tab switcher to Chrome.
Chrome 88 disables space bar shortcut for custom search engines, but there's a fix
Rolling out more widely
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Chrome 88 brought some quality of life improvements like better password protection and tab search, but more and more people are noticing an unfortunate regression on the desktop version. For ages, it's been possible to add custom search engines (under chrome://settings/searchEngines), which you can invoke with custom keywords followed by hitting the space bar or tab. You could set up "acom" or "tw" for searching Amazon or Twitter right from your address bar, for example. But now, reports are popping up left and right that the space bar shortcut isn't working anymore. People are forced to use tab, making them relearn a years-old habit. Luckily, there's a way to get back to using space, at least for now.
You can disable Reddit's maddening 'Open in app' popup once and for all
The option is just a checkbox away
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Reddit's mobile website is pretty well made, fast, and responsive — if it wasn't for the pesky "See this post in ... Reddit App" popup that slides up from the bottom every time you open a Reddit link someone sent you. But it turns out there's a way to get rid of it, and it was hidden right under our noses the whole time.
Installing apps on Android TV in general, and the Chromecast with Google TV in particular, is usually a simple affair. There are, however, limitations to what you can install directly from the Play Store, as only approved software makes it onto the platform. If you want to color outside the lines and load apps that aren't officially supported, or if you want to force-update an app, you need to use APK files. Sending them to the Chromecast and installing them isn't straightforward, so we'll take you through the process step by step.
This app gives you a local ADB shell, no need for root
Android 10 users need to activate wireless debugging via USB first, though
ADB shell commands are insanely useful for numerous reasons, whether you want to make your Amazon Fire tablet feel more like stock Android, granularly change your phone's animation speed, or bring back the 2-button navigation to the OnePlus 7. To run these commands, you have to set up the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) on your computer and connect your phone via USB or Wi-Fi, which is far from comfortable. That's where a new app comes in: LADB lets you run shell commands right on your phone via Android's wireless ADB protocol. But there are some big caveats for people with older phones that haven't been updated to Android 11 yet.
Tip: The new Google Camera helps you align your phone for perfectly level shots
How to use the new level and crosshairs correctly
Google recently released a big update for its Pixel camera, and it's packed with exciting new features, like a storage saver, better video effects, and some Pixel 5 and 4a 5G exclusives. But there's more — improvements to the existing framing hints are also rolling out. You may have already noticed that there are now two level indicators or two crosshairs, a familiar white variant and a new yellow one. You can use these to get perfectly level shots and top-down pictures. Here's how you do it.
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Android and macOS have never been the biggest friends. While Android app development is an easy feat for Apple's desktop OS, the situation is much different for simple file transfers. There is Google's Android File Transfer application, but the program is hopelessly outdated, finicky, and prone to crashes when you transfer a lot of data at a time. You don't have to rely on Google's tool for transfers, though — there are a ton of third-party apps that solve moving files between Android and macOS much better.
Google is adding tutorial videos to Chrome for Android
The videos will cover web searches, offline support, and more
Google Chrome is already (mostly) simple to use, but there is plenty of functionality that isn't well-documented or easily discoverable. That could be why Google wants to add video tutorials to the browser, which are now being tested in the Chrome Dev and Canary channels.
How to share Stadia games with your friends and family
You can share your library with up to five other players
For most of the service's first year, Stadia players were frustrated by their inability to share games with family members. If you and your kids or spouse (or roommates, or whoever) wanted to play the same game with more than one save file, you had to buy multiple copies. But no more! Earlier this month, Google finally relented and enabled family sharing on Stadia. Here's how to set it up.
How to get Google Photos integration in OnePlus Camera instead of the stock Gallery app
The solution is surprisingly simple
Anyone using a non-Pixel device like a OnePlus phone and Google Photos in conjunction probably knows that this can lead to some annoying issues. When you delete a photo in the camera right after taking it, it's possible that Google still uploads it, making you repeat the deletion process in Photos. The solution is simple on recent OnePlus phones: Just disable the pre-installed Gallery. The camera will then preview your shots right in Google Photos, and the app will respect deleted images right away.
How to use touch controls when playing Google Stadia on your phone or tablet
Because pockets and game controllers don't play nice with each other
Gamers would be hard-pressed to find a single instance where touchscreen controls outperform a handheld controller or mouse/keyboard setup. However, the folks at Stadia understand that players don't always have access to the right peripherals when it's time to play. Here's everything you need to know about how to use the native on-screen touch controls in the Google Stadia app.