Dump the Un-Carrier!

The Bad News: All 3 major carriers now suck!

Under President John Legere, T-Mobile USA was the customer-focused "un-carrier" that offered great pricing, service and performance. That all changed when he left, and now T-Mobile is just another big evil carrier. 

It was bad enough when T-Mobile first broke Legere's promise to 'never raise your price' but now it has gone full evil by forcing subscribers from great legacy plans to new more expensive plans, along with unbundling taxes and fees for new customers. Worse, it slip-streamed it into the Terms of Service, leaving unhappy customers with little recourse. It's now entirely money-focused.

The Good News 

You can switch to a much better carrier and save a great deal of money without losing great network performance, with much better customer service in the bargain. That escape path leads to US Mobile, an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) with access to all three major carrier networks. (It's even possible to switch networks as desired!)

The best part is that you may be able to at least take advantage of the 'Un-Carrier Guarantee' to get your last month of service free when leaving T-Mobile after a price increase. You may have to fight for it, because not all T-Mobile service reps even know it exists, and resist pressure to get you to stay, but you can get it if you persist and act promptly.

One of the best deals that's frequently offered by US Mobile is a full year of Unlimited Starter for only $199 (just $17 per month) all in (no added taxes and fees): Unlimited Talk & Text, 70 GB of High-Speed Data and 10 GB of Hotspot Data on the T-Mobile network, and more. Plus it often has great deals on devices!

Do it, now, and if you use my referral code, you will get a $25 credit! (I get one too.) 

Save & Sync Passwords

Safe Cross-device Password Sync

Safe Cross-device Password Sync

So you've smartly avoided closed-source proprietary password managers in favor of a good free open-source (FOSS) password manager, and you now need to safely sync your passwords between your devices. The best way to do that, given Internet access, is to store securely-encrypted password data in the cloud, which also provides essential backup. (You just need to memorize one unique secure password for that task. All other passwords are available in your password manager.)

My recommended approach:

Computer 

Setup Google Drive to Mirror (or Stream) between your computer and the cloud.
This approach is also supported by other cloud providers (e.g., OneDrive, Dropbox). 
Save your password file there locally and it will be automatically synced to the cloud.
Makes it easy to access with your computer password manager (e.g., KeePass). 

Android

Directly access your password file using Android Storage Access Framework (SAF), which
supports Google Drive and other cloud document providers (e.g., OneDrive, Dropbox).
making it securely accessible to standard Android apps (e.g., Keepass2Android).

Tips

1. With Google Drive set to Stream, be sure to set "Available offline" on your password file.
2. KP2A Tile is a handy app that launches Keepass2Android from a Notification Tile. 

<<>>

Bluetooth Mouse by Lenovo

Lenovo WL300 Bluetooth Mouse

Lenovo Bluetooth Silent Mouse WL300

It's surprisingly hard to find a good (responsive, comfortable) Bluetooth mouse at a decent price point, but the Lenovo Bluetooth Silent Mouse WL300 fills the bill:

• Convenient Bluetooth connection with SwiftPair
• 5-button mouse with silent left and right clicks​
• Sculpted grip for all day comfort
• Sleek and compact 
• 3-level DPI adjustment: 800, 1200, and 1600 DPI 
• Works on many surfaces​
• Long-lasting durability and consistent performance 
• Available in both grey and white color
• Powered with a single AA battery 

Tips

1. Use a Lithium USB-C Rechargeable AA battery
2. Adjust button behavior with X-Mouse Button Control
3. Currently less than $20 on Amazon

Best Car Charger 2025-2026

AINOPE Car Charger

AINOPE 67.5W Car Charger USB-C & USB-A

Finally a powerful car charger that fits nearly within the lighter socket!

• USB-C and USB-A ports 
• 67.5W simultaneous fast charging:
• PD3.1 PPS 45W USB-C 
• QC3.0 22.5W USB-A 
• USB-IF and Qualcomm certified
• Advanced heat control 
• All-metal body 

Google Pixel 9 Pro

Google Pixel 9 Pro

Beauty that's only skin deep 

The Google Pixel 9 Pro is a study in contradictions. On the outside, it is one of the most refined, premium-feeling Android phones ever. On the inside, it is powered by a chip that would be more at home in a $500 mid-ranger than a $999 flagship, that's further handicapped by an out-of-date memory interface.

The heart of the Pixel 9 Pro is the Tensor G4. On paper, it is an 8-core processor built on Samsung’s 4nm node. In reality, it is a chip that barely outpaces its predecessor and gets crushed by the competition in raw power. It only has roughly half the multi-core power of a modern Snapdragon or Apple A-series chip.

Worse, to extend battery life, Google has resorted to aggressive power management, especially of background tasks. The result is a phone that lacks the responsiveness and smoothness of a high-end phone. It's particularly noticeable on speech-to-text, where phone struggles make it painful to the point of being unusable.

It also falls down on AI tasks. Google is pushing its Gemini AI to manage the phone, but it lacks the quick and predictable response of the old algorithmic Assistant (which is fortunately still available).

Is there a better phone? Not if you value the compact size. The better phones are bigger. 

Bottom Line: It's a decent phone if you get it on sale, tune it carefully, and don't push it too hard. 

Note: There is now a Pixel 10 Pro, but it's not much better than the Pixel 9 Pro. 

Power Bank Bargain

Generic is really AUKEY

Update: Sold out on Amazon. Check eBay.

A power bank is a big battery that can be used to power and recharge electronic devices when AC power is not available. Keep one charged to power phones in emergencies, when on an airplane without seat power, when camping or sailing, etc.

Unfortunately, they only last 3-5 years before losing so much capacity that they need to be recycled and replaced. Worse, it's hard to find a high-quality power back with good capacity, longevity and features at a good price.

At the moment, the best power bank for phones (not tablets or laptops) is the

AUKEY PB-N93A USB C Power Bank 20000mAh, PD Ultra Slim Power Bank with 18W PD. It has enough power for 3+ recharges of a typical smartphone and a wealth of good features. But the $60 price is too high for such a simple device that costs little to make.

There's a generic power bank on Amazon for only $16 that looks identical: PB-N93A USB C Power Bank 20000mAh, PD Ultra Slim Power Bank with 18W PD | Amazon.

The best part is that it's not just identical to the AUKEY, it is the AUKEY. 

If you need a phone power bank or a thoughtful gift for someone, $16 is an incredible price!

p.s. It can charge or power a device while itself recharging, so it can be used as a mini-UPS.

OpenVPN for Android

Why OpenVPN for Android is now my recommended OpenVPN client for Android:

• Open Source
• Secure (ioXt certified)
• Fast

Related:

• Recommended VPN 2020
• Free VPN
• Secure Wi-Fi with VPN

Google Voice Ringtone

Beta, thy name is Google.

FIX: Google Voice using Notification sound instead of Ringtone on Android

If you use Google Voice on your Android device, and
incoming calls are not using your desired ringtone, then
here's how to fix the problem:

1. Open phone Settings.
2. Select Apps & notifications.
3. Select Voice (in All apps if not visible).
4. Select Notifications.
5. Under OTHER, select Incoming call.
6. Expand Advanced. (On Android 11. Skip this step on Android 12.)
7. Select Sound
8. Select desired ringtone sound (which should then play) and close Settings.

NOTES

1. Sound will still show "Default notification sound" (a bug), but correct Ringtone should now play.
2. Verified with Google Pixel 4a 5G (bramble) running Android 11. May not apply to other versions.
3. Android 12: There is no Advanced option. Skip Step 6.

YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/LzIIM-coqls

YouTube Music Playlist Shortcut

Google giveth and Google taketh away.

Play Music, originally Google Music, was mature and pretty good. There was really no reason for Google to create YouTube Music and shut down Play Music, forcing a painful transition on users, other than its own organizational convenience (but I digress). 

Part of the pain for users is that (as of this writing at least) YouTube Music doesn't work as well as Play Music, particularly for those using it for cloud storage of uploaded music more than for paid streaming. One of the more annoying issues is that some (not all) video playlists get mixed in with audio playlists, making it harder to navigate audio playlists.

The YouTube Music app for Android, which suffers from annoying pauses even with strong mobile signal, makes things worse by having no way to create Home screen icons for specific playlists, either by widget or by shortcut. (The Play Music app had a widget for a specific playlist.) Fortunately, there is a way to work around this limitation, but it's not obvious. On Android:

1. Install the Website Shortcut app.
2. Open YouTube Music in Chrome browser (not the app), and navigate to a desired playlist.
3. Scroll up to 3 dot overflow menu at right end of Chrome navigation bar to Share that page to Website Shortcut:
1. Add the Playlist name in the Label field.
2. Select a custom icon (e.g., artist photo) if desired (otherwise it will be the YouTube Music icon).
3. Create Shortcut, and install the icon on a Home screen.

Now that Home screen icon can be used to launch the specific playlist (in the app if it's installed rather than in Chrome).

• A good way to organize these playlist icons is to create a Playlist folder on the Home screen.
• Another way is to add a Home screen just for music playlist icons.
• This same technique works for artist, album, contributed playlist, search, anything that can be shared.

The reason for using Website Shortcut is that Add to home screen in Chrome just creates an icon that launches the app, not the desired playlist.

Enjoy!

Chrome Sharing Hub

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Update 3/10/2021: Chrome 89 expired the chrome-sharing-hub flag. To get it back (probably just temporarily), open chrome://flags/ and enable Temporarily unexpire M88 flags.

Sharing on Android

Share functionality on Android has been something of a mess, in that picking a Share target has been clumsy and painful. With Android 10, Google made significant improvements, although it's buggy in that the wrong target app is sometimes launched if you select too quickly (a problem that persists in Android 11).*

Meanwhile, possibly due to that clumsiness, the Chrome team has been working on its own Share solution, called Sharing Hub, and has now rolled it out widely.

What's Wrong with Sharing Hub?

The Sharing Hub provides an array of sharing targets at the bottom of the screen, which sounds like a good idea, except there are a number of problems:

• The array of targets cannot be customized (as of this writing at least). That's only fine if you just want the sharing target choices made by Google.
• If you want some other sharing target, you have to first scroll to the right, then select the More overflow menu to open the standard Android Share menu.
• Opening the standard Android Share menu thus takes two extra selections, which is clumsy and painful, especially if you do it frequently.
• Opening the standard Android Share menu also takes more time that slows things down, making it doubly clumsy and painful.

How To Disable Sharing Hub

Fortunately, Chrome Sharing Hub can be disabled, leaving just the standard Android Share menu:

1. In Chrome, open
   chrome://flags/#chrome-sharing-hub
2. Change the option to
   Disabled

* Work-around for the wrong target app bug is to scroll the standard Android Share menu up before making a selection.

Ad Blocking

uBlock Origin

UPDATES:

1. I now use and recommend uBlock Origin.
2. Firefox (Nightly) now supports uBlock Origin on mobile.

Ads on the Web not only are often annoying and performance degrading, but also can seriously compromise your privacy (by tracking you) and security (as an attack mechanism for malware).

Apologists for ads claim they finance the "free" Web and that some ads are better than others, but those claims are greatly exaggerated, since the Web has many different financing mechanisms including service fees paid by users, and since it doesn't make sense to risk compromising performance, privacy and security.

The best way to deal with ads is to use a blocking extension in the Web brower (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, or Safari).

• The best ad blocking extension (as of this writing) is uBlock, available for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
• If you must use Internet Explorer (not recommended), Adblock Plus is a good alternative, but be sure to configure it to block all ads. (So-called "unobtrusive" ads are not blocked by default.)
• Blocking extensions don't work well on mobile, where ads can be even more of a problem due to data consumption, but Adblock Browser can be used instead of the native browser (Chrome or Safari) to do the job.

Ad blocking extensions won't stop malware on your device from serving ads, so it's also a good idea to scan your device for malware. See Anti-Malware for Windows.

Cell Phone Bargain

Moto G

Great phone. Great service. Great value.

No contract cell phone service is much less expensive than contract service, but you have to buy your own cell phone (instead of having the cost bundled into contract phone service), and an up front cost of several hundred dollars can be a significant drawback.

The Moto G, a breakthrough Android smartphone with solid specifications and an amazing price of only $180 that made no contract cell phone service much more attractive, is now even better: Net10 Wireless has a special Moto G (1st generation) price of only $120 (as of this writing) that makes it a steal! Although it's not LTE (see below), its 4G speed is still quite respectable.

Net10 Wireless is one of the best values in cell phone service, with unlimited domestic phone, text, and data (as of this writing) for only:

• $40 per month with a small amount of high speed data (500 MB)
• $45 per month (on auto-refill) with a substantial amount of high speed data (3 GB)

Tips:

1. With Net10 Wireless, you can choose either the AT&T or the T-Mobile network. AT&T tends to have better network coverage. T-Mobile tends to have higher data speed.
2. The LTE version of the Moto G (with faster data speeds) is available on Amazon for $190 (as of this writing).

Vehicle Mount for Cell Phone

Mountek nGroove Grip Universal

Smartphones can be excellent while driving, especially in vehicles lacking comparable electronics, providing such hands-free services as:

• Phone calls
• GPS location and turn-by-turn navigation with voice prompts
• Playing music and podcasts
• Streaming Internet radio

This works best with a mount that holds the smartphone where it can be easily seen and used. Common mounts attach to windshield or dash with suction cups that can loosen over time and which often obstruct the view. Mounts that attach to air vents partially block the vents and can make them hard to adjust.

If your vehicle has a CD player, a better mounting solution may be the Mountek nGroove Grip Universal, pictured mounted in a Volvo S60 holding a Google (LG) Nexus 5 (recommended) with a Diztronic protective case (recommended). This mount is attractive, solid and secure, tilts and rotates, attaches and removes easily, with no need to remove or modify protective cases. (If you never play CD discs, you can leave the mount attached.)

• Cable is power from a PowerGen Car Charger (recommended)
• Connection to car audio is by Bluetooth in the picture, but cable could be used instead
• App displayed is CarHome Ultra, made especially for driving (recommended)

Best USB Car Charger

PowerGen Car Charger

You purchased a "fast" car charger for your mobile device (smartphone, tablet, etc), but you find that the actual charging rate is slow, possibly not even able to keep up if you use the mobile device at the same time. What's up with that? Is the charger defective? Not really a "fast" charger?

It's the fault of the USB standard, not necessarily the charger. USB was conceived as a connection standard, not a charger standard, and to keep costs down the original standard provides only a modest amount of power, a maximum of 500 mA. But as USB gained traction as a connection standard, it also gained traction in chargers.

500 mA (½ A) is fine for a low power device like a mouse, but insufficient for fast charging of a current smartphone (~1000 mA), much less a tablet (~2000 mA). The USB standard is evolving to deliver greater amounts of power, but adoption takes time, and current USB products could be damaged by high power drain, so device manufacturers have resorted to non-standard tricks for fast charging with USB connectors:

1. Shorted data connection: This is frequently used by Android devices (e.g., Nexus 5), which won't try to fast charge if the data connection isn't shorted, displaying (USB) rather than (AC) on the Battery screen.
2. Non-standard data voltage: This method is used by Apple devices, with different voltages signaling different maximum charging rates. They similarly won't try to fast charge when those voltages aren't present.

Since no standard USB port should do these things, a device can assume it's on a charger rather than a USB host. But since there is no single method, and since both methods can't be used at the same time, a charger that's fast for Apple devices may not be fast for Android devices, and vice versa. So either make sure to choose the right type of charger (which can be tricky), or choose a charger that has both methods, like the excellent PowerGen 4.2A/20W Dual USB Car Charger:

• High power for fast charging even tablets
• Dual ports for charging 2 devices at once, one Android port and one Apple port*
• Good physical design for secure fit and durability
• Compact size
• Great value: $10 at Amazon.com

PowerGen Wall Charger

Best USB Wall Charger

All of the same considerations apply, and PowerGen comes to the rescue here as well, with the PowerGen 2.4-Amp (12 Watt) Dual USB Wall Charger. Another great value: $13 at Amazon.com

UPDATE: There is now a more powerful version: PowerGen 3.4-Amp (17 Watt) Dual USB Wall Charger. Even better value: $10 at Amazon.com

* If a device is connected to the other type of port, it will still charge, but the rate may be slow.

T-Mobile VPN Fix

Virtual Private Networking (VPN) is a secure (encrypted) way of connecting to private resources (business LAN, home computer) over the public Internet. To make a VPN connection, VPN client software typically connects to VPN server software. VPN types include Point To Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP, deprecated but still useful) and OpenVPN (recommended, secure). But you may have a problem making VPN connections over T-Mobile USA wireless data.

The Symptoms: You are able to do things on your mobile device over T-Mobile data (browse the Internet, send and receive email, etc), and you are able to make VPN connections over Wi-Fi wireless, but you are not able to make VPN connections over T-Mobile wireless data. 

The Cause: T-Mobile apparently pushed out a data configuration in late 2013 that set APN Protocol to IPv6. That works properly for most things on mobile devices, but it prevents PPTP (built into Android) and OpenVPN (OpenVPN Connect) clients from making VPN connections.

The Cure: Open Settings > Wireless & Networks > More... > Mobile networks > Access Point Names > T-Mobile GPRS (fast.t-mobile.com) > APN protocol, and change the selection from IPv6 to IPv4/IPv6 IPv4 (see update below).

The Caveat: This cure was tested successfully with a Nexus 5 running Android 4.4.2 KitKat on a Prepaid plan, and it might not work properly on other devices or plans. Use at your own risk.

See Also: Secure Wi-Fi with VPN

Update: IPv4/IPv6 currently causes issues with some websites (example), so try IPv4.

How To Play TuneIn Radio Pro Recordings

TuneIn Radio Pro (Android app) makes recordings in whatever format (MP3, AAC, WMA, etc) a source streams in, but does not create legal container files, making recordings (deliberately) hard to play outside of TuneIn.

To determine the format of a given source, start a manual recording and note the format shown on the TuneIn screen.

To play a recording, copy the file from the TuneIn folder on the device to a computer, and rename the file to give it an appropriate file extension; e.g., .mp3 for MP3 audio. The file should now be playable with VLC Media Player. (See example in Comments.)

To play with other players less forgiving of file format issues, it will need to be converted with a tool like foobar2000 or Audacity.

UPDATES

1. This method does not appear to work with WMA streams. See if MP3 stream is available.
2. In same cases TuneIn makes a recording in multiple file segments, with additional segments named -001, -002, etc.
3. VLC Media Player on a computer can be used to transcode a network stream on the fly to any desired format.
4. As of version 10 (October 2013), recordings appear to have been moved from open storage to protected app storage, which can't be accessed without rooting the phone.

Navas' Rules of Mobile

For Developers and Content Providers
(Parts shamelessly adapted from Google's Android Design)

1. The essence of mobile is movement, not a small screen.
2. Minimize use of resources (data, battery, memory, etc).
3. Make it easy to access either mobile or standard version of content.
4. Optimize standard version of content so it works as well as possible on mobile.
5. Don't presume to know what I want; instead, make it easy for me to get what I actually want.
6. Make me amazing. Do the heavy lifting for me.
7. Only show what I need when I need it, and make important things fast.
8. Simplify my life, get to know me, but let me make it mine.
9. Don't abuse our relationship in any way. Always ask me for permission.
10. Either do it right, or don't do it at all

Note: I plan to expand each rule with a paragraph of explanation, so please do check back.