What Type of Adapter Do You Need?
There are 15 plug types in use across the world. Universal adapters tend to cover all of these types.
Some countries are not usually covered by universal adapters, such as India (Type D), Israel (Type H), and South Africa (Type M or N). You’ll need to buy specific plug adapters for those places. To avoid any surprises when you land, double-check what type you need before you travel.
If you’re visiting just one destination, a basic plug adapter that caters to one plug type is all you need. For trips to multiple destinations or for frequent flyers, a universal travel adapter can prove more versatile. The universal adapters I recommend here have the bonus of including multiple USB ports for charging several mobile devices from a single outlet.
Do You Really Need a Voltage Converter?
Photograph: Simon Hill
Voltage converters are big, heavy, and expensive, and they don’t always work, so it’s probably best to avoid them. The reason you might think you need one is that the AC sockets on all of our recommended travel adapters do not convert the voltage coming from the socket. This means plugging into a UK socket will deliver 220 volts at 50 hertz, which is very different from the 120 volts at 60 hertz you can expect in the US. Don’t worry! Your gear won’t get fried. You just need to make sure anything you plug into one of these universal travel adapters has something like this printed on it:
Input: 100–220V 50/60Hz
That should include most modern gadgets. If your device or charger can’t handle a variable voltage, it’s probably best to leave it at home. Most places provide hair dryers, irons, and kettles, so there’s no need to take them with you. It’s often cheaper to buy a set with the correct plug at your destination and save the luggage space and hassle.
If you are determined to try a voltage converter (again, I recommend you don’t), the Ceptics 2,000-watt Travel Voltage Converter ($70) seems to work well. It has a special 2,000-watt outlet for hair dryers, but only ones that work via a mechanical switch (anything with an electronic circuit board for automatic switch-off or temperature control won’t work and is at risk of being fried if plugged in). It also has two outlets that go up to 200 watts, one USB-C port, and three USB-A ports, though the ports do not support fast charging.
For USB-C and USB-A ports, retractable cables, and wireless charging, travel adapters and chargers usually state the wattage they can deliver. If you’re interested in getting the fastest rates possible, you’ll want a charger and cable that can deliver the maximum wattage to your device. A laptop might want 100 watts, while a phone only needs 30 watts. There’s no need to worry if the charger can deliver more wattage than is required because the device will dictate how much power to draw. If the wattage is lower than required, most devices will simply charge slowly. You can find out more about charging standards like Power Delivery (PD), Quick Charge (QC), and others in my guide on how to fast charge your phone.
Can Travel Adapters Go in a Suitcase?
Can I Buy Travel Adapters at the Airport or Hotel?
You certainly can buy travel adapters at the airport, but like everything else, they will be far more expensive than they should be, and your choice will be limited.
Some hotels have travel adapters, and some even have outlets for other countries (or USB-A and USB-C ports), but most do not, so don’t bank on it. You can always check with your hotel or accommodation before you depart, but it’s safer to snag a travel adapter to take with you.
Test Your Travel Adapter Before You Go
Seriously, nothing is worse than thinking you’re being very clever by packing light and getting to your hotel to discover that your gadgets refuse to charge. Between the adapter, cable, and your device, plenty can go wrong, so do a quick test with everything you are taking before you set off.
How I Test Travel Adapters
Anytime I fly for work or vacation, I take a few travel adapters and chargers with me to test. I also test them for longer periods at home in the UK. I have power stations and power strips with US and EU outlets to test those plugs. I test each charger with a variety of devices (iPhone, Pixel, iPad, MacBook, AirPods). I try charging with every port and outlet simultaneously to see if the charger gets warm. I assess the charging rates, durability, size, weight, and usability of each device. If there are any special features, I test them too.
Photograph: Simon Hill
There are many travel adapters out there. These are a few others I tested and liked, but they missed out on a place above for one reason or another.
Epicka Air 40W for $27: I’m not keen on this style of folding design because it’s a bit fiddly to use, and the prongs sometimes fold back if you bump them when you plug it in. That said, it is a bit slimmer than some of the sliding-prong adapters above, and you get one USB-A and three USB-C ports (limited to 40 watts in total).
UGreen Travel Plug Adapter for £17: This travel adapter is for UK folks visiting Europe, and it’s a solid option with a fixed plug (no mechanism). It has only two USB-A and one USB-C port for smaller devices, and it’s very bulky. I prefer the OneBeat above for this type of design.
Statik SmartCharge Pro for $100: This is a nice combo device that includes a 15,000 mAh power bank and a 60-watt wall charger. There are fold-out US prongs and slide-on adapters for the UK, EU, and AU. You also get one USB-A port, one USB-C port, a fold-out USB-C cable, and a wireless charging pad on top that works with your iPhone or Apple Watch.
D-Link 65W Multi-Port GaN Charger (DCP-651) for $40: If two USB-C ports and a USB-A port are enough for your travel needs, this affordable D-Link charger could be for you. It comes with interchangeable plugs for different countries. The 65-watt limit is enough for overnight charging a laptop and a couple of smartphones.
Aunno Universal Travel Adapter for £17: Affordable and compact, this sliding prong travel adapter is a decent choice for folks in the UK. The prongs slot securely in place with a release button, and you get two USB-C ports and two USB-A ports, though the wattage is limited.
Arsmel VisaPro All-in-One Travel Adapter for $80: This chunky power adapter can charge laptops or multiple small devices with a whopping 170-watt maximum output. It works with any outlet in the US, UK, or EU, thanks to sliding plugs that slot in securely, and you can spin the prongs on the US plug to support the total number of countries (more than 200). I love the mecha-inspired paint job too. There are four ports along the bottom: two USB-C ports rated at 140 watts, with the third USB-C and USB-A ports rated at 18 watts. It supports PD 3.1, QC 3.0, PPS, FCP, and SCP, and has a 10-amp fuse.
Satechi GaN Travel Charger for $120: Most of us only take small gadgets when we travel, so a compact, multi-port wall charger could be the best way to pack light. It plugs directly into the wall and comes with four interchangeable travel adapters for the EU, UK, and Australia, plus a mesh bag to store them. There are four USB-C ports that you can plug your gadgets into, including laptops like the MacBook Pro, tablets, phones, and wearables. With support for Power Delivery 3.1, the first two ports can supply up to 140 watts, and the bottom two ports up to 45 watts. However, the maximum output when all four ports are used simultaneously is 145 watts.
Baseus 70W Universal Travel Adapter With Retractable Cable for $50: This excellent travel adapter is almost identical to our top pick from Ceptics, offering up to 70 watts, sliding prongs to cover more than 200 countries, and a built-in retractable USB-C cable, not to mention a USB-C port and two USB-A ports. It also has a snazzy black-and-yellow finish. It only misses out because it’s slightly more expensive, but if you can snag one on sale or prefer the colors, it’s a solid option.
Epicka Universal Travel Adapter for $20: Our budget pick for many months, this travel adapter from Epicka is still a solid option. The sliding plugs cover 150 countries, and there are four USB-A ports on the bottom and a 15-watt USB-C port on the side. There’s also an 8-amp fuse with a spare, and this adapter is RoHS-, CE-, and FCC-certified.
Masterplug Visitor to UK Travel Adapter (3 Pack) for £12: For visitors to the UK, this simple trio of adapters accepts European, American, Australian, and Asian plugs. They are single-outlet adapters with 13-amp fuses inside, and they work perfectly. These are the adapters I use for long-term testing of devices from the US and elsewhere that lack UK plugs. If you forgot to buy an adapter before arriving in the UK, you can find this affordable three-pack at any Argos store.
Anker European Travel Plug Adapter for $14: One of our favorite portable charger brands, Anker, also makes travel adapters. This one plugs into most European outlets to provide a single grounded US outlet, a USB-A port, and two USB-C ports. Unfortunately, the three USB ports max out at 15 watts total, so it’s best for overnight gadget charging, but I appreciate the temperature and overload protection. There is also a UK version ($16).
Epicka Hybrid European Travel Plug Adapter for $16: This handy adapter turns one outlet into four and includes four USB ports (two A and two C). It has fold-out Type A prongs, but you can also slide on a fold-out Type C plug for use in Europe. While the USB ports support QC 3.0 or PD 3.0, they max out at 20 watts in total. I prefer the OneBeat adapters recommended above.
You can do better than these travel adapters.
EZQuest WorldTravel GaN 5 Port With PD Wall Charger for $35: This travel adapter has a generous four USB-C ports and one USB-A port with a familiar slide-out prong design that covers more than 150 countries. There’s also a built-in 10-amp fuse and a spare. It has RoHS, CE, and FCC certification. It works fine, but it’s kinda boxy, and the sliders don’t lock in place as securely as some of our other picks. There’s also a 65W version ($60).
Rolling Square Pocket Travel Adapter for $30: I admire any attempt to shrink travel adapters down, but the three-pronged UK plugs are usually the obstacle. Rolling Square’s solution is to have a flip-out third prong, but you’ll need a good fingernail to unhitch it. This charger has a single USB-C port capable of delivering up to 30 watts and is a compact option that covers the US, UK, and Europe.
Ceptics 65W World Travel Adapter for $35: This versatile adapter comes with Type A, B, C, E/F, G, and I slide-on plugs. They fit onto the rectangular brick and plug directly into the outlet, or you can attach them to the optional 5-foot cable. The brick has one grounded US outlet and a second non-grounded outlet, with one USB-A (30-watt) and two USB-C (65 and 33-watt) ports at the other end. It works fine, and it’s affordable, but it’s bulky and ugly.
Ceptics Travel Power Strip for $35: Much like the World Travel Adapter Kit 2 above, this small power strip offers two grounded US outlets, but it has only one USB-A and one USB-C port, and instead of plugging directly into the wall, a cable attaches to an interchangeable plug head with Type A, B, C, E/F, G, and I adapters. The adapters can be stiff to change, but they work well otherwise.
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I will continue to make the case for a 100 Justice Supreme Court because we need to get to the point that no single Supreme Court Justice matters. As it stands, each individual Justice has way too much power, and when they go mad with it, they can undermine the very structure of democracy. And while I’m sure some people will insist this is sour grapes about cases not going the way I want, it’s not that. I can accept rulings I disagree with, where I can see and understand the Constitutional logic behind them. For example, while I agree that the post-Citizens United change in campaign finance has been disastrous and needs to be fixed, I think the actual ruling in that case is not just defensible, but correct on the law (i.e. I think the fixes to campaign finance should come from elsewhere, not from getting rid of that ruling).
Similarly, while the underlying hatred and bigotry animating the decisions in 303 Creative and Chiles v. Salazar are deeply problematic, the actual rulings make some level of Constitutional sense on First Amendment grounds.
But the Roberts Court keeps handing down rulings that have no basis in any actual Constitutional principles, and are instead very clearly ideological and results-driven approaches to deciding cases. The Dobbs decision on abortion, most famously, but also (obviously) Trump v. US in which the Supreme Court effectively ruled that Trump could violate any law he wanted while President. And now we can add to that Louisiana v. Callais, which effectively brings back Jim Crow segregation and turns the Fifteenth Amendment into a dead letter.
If you want deeper analysis on just how fucked up this ruling is, I’ll point you to voting law expert Rick Hasen’s writeup in Slate, where he calls it “the worst ruling in a century.” But even more useful is his follow-up piece on just how cowardly Alito’s reasoning is:
In Callais, Alito purported to overturn no precedent, claiming he was merely “updating” a framework that the Supreme Court constructed in the 1986 Thornburg v. Gingles case to determine when a redistricting plan violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting minority representation. This follows his 2021 majority opinion in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, where he purported to provide mere “guidelines” for determining when a state violates Section 2 in passing a law related to voting or voter registration.
In both cases, however, Justice Alito made it impossible for plaintiffs to win their cases, leaving Section 2 on the books, but essentially toothless. Since Brnovich, as I showed in a recent law review article, no plaintiffs have brought successful suits under Section 2 challenging a law alleged to suppress votes. Justice Elena Kagan’s exasperated dissent in Callais cited this research and rightly predicted the same fate for redistricting claims under Section 2: “The consequences are likely to be far-reaching and grave. Today’s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter.”
But I want to focus on something a bit different, which is just how hypocritical many of the recent decisions are. The supposedly “conservative” Justices contradict themselves over and over again to reach the motivated result they are seeking. We’ve already seen some of this in other rulings, such as when the court decided that nationwide injunctions by district courts were bad… but only when they were used against Trump (after blessing many against Biden).
In Callais we see more of the same. Remember, just two years ago in the Loper Bright case, this same Supreme Court pretended to stand on principle against the administrative state by arguing that the executive branch had way less power than it had previously suggested in its old Chevron case, arguing that the power of Congress to define things rather than delegate decisions is key. Well, the Fifteenth Amendment explicitly says that “Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation” in order to make sure that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race….”
So in one case it’s left for Congress to legislate to clarify governmental power, and in the other Justice Alito and the other conservatives on the Court have decided they can take that Constitutionally granted power away from Congress — not based on any actual Constitutional reason, but because they’ve concluded that racism is over. That’s literally the crux of Alito’s argument, in which he notes that:
By 2004, the racial gap in voter registration and turnout had largely disappeared, with minorities registering and voting at levels that sometimes surpassed the majority. Black voters now participate in elections at similar rates as the rest of the electorate, even turning out at higher rates than white voters in two of the five most recent Presidential elections nationwide and in Louisiana.
Of course, this is both highly misleading and beside the point of what the Constitution actually says in the Fifteenth Amendment, which gives that power to Congress to decide. It’s misleading because he cherry-picked “two of the five most recent” elections to obscure the fact that it wasn’t true in the last three — elections that occurred only after the Court had already hollowed out the rest of the Voting Rights Act.
As we discussed last year in the Texas redistricting case, the Supreme Court has made it clear in previous rulings that it’s totally legal to gerrymander for partisan reasons, just so-long as it’s not explicitly for racial reasons. The problem in Texas was that its legislature had initially rejected the (already flimsy and obviously pretextual) partisan reasons for redistricting until the Trump DOJ threatened them over the racial makeup of districts, leading to the last minute decision to redistrict, solely in response to the warning about the racial makeup of districts from the Trump admin. The lower court (in a ruling issued by a Trump appointed judge) found that to be a violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
But, bizarrely, this Supreme Court also tossed out that ruling on the shadow docket (naturally) in December, claiming it had to do this because it was too close to the election in Texas to toss out the redistricted maps… even though the election was many months away and the “redistricted” maps had only been created a few months earlier. Literally none of it made sense. That ruling was just a stay to allow the redistricted maps for the 2026 midterm elections, but the case technically continued over whether or not there could be an injunction against the maps.
In an absolutely bizarre ruling on Monday (right before this Callais ruling) the Supreme Court effectively further rejected the challenge to Texas’ redistricting by simply citing its original shadow docket ruling, even though (1) the issue before the court now is different and (2) that original shadow docket ruling was based on no significant briefing or oral arguments. Court watcher (and shadow docket coiner/criticizer) Steve Vladeck notes that this is a dangerous power grab by the court:
I can’t remember a prior case with this kind of (true) summary reversal—where the Court just reversed a three-judge district court on the merits without any detailed explanation.
The original (already questionable) order was procedural, and apparently deemed necessary due to the “emergency” nature of an election that wasn’t happening for months and for which there was plenty of time to adjust. But to then claim to rule on the merits of the case by simply pointing back to that other emergency ruling, without more detailed briefing and without explanation, is bizarre.
But remember: the stated basis for the December ruling was the supposedly imminent 2026 midterm primaries. And then look at what happened in Louisiana after the Callais decision, where Governor Jeff Landry literally declared a “state of emergency” to suspend the already ongoing primary election in order to initiate redistricting, based on the Callais ruling.
So if you’re playing along at home, in Texas they redrew the Congressional maps in August of 2025 for blatantly racial reasons (as called out by a Trump-appointed judge in November, who provided a ton of evidence). In December of 2025, the Supreme Court said that those racially-biased new districts had to stay because it was too close to the 2026 midterms (which were still months away) to try to redistrict (despite the ability to easily go back to the pre-August districts which were the existing districts). But now, in late April, based on this new Supreme Court ruling, Louisiana can magically stop elections in which voting has already occurred in order to redistrict to create more racist gerrymandering.
And all this because Alito and Roberts are happy to literally ignore the Fifteenth Amendment when they don’t like the results.
That is what results-driven judicial decision-making looks like. And it’s why the court is viewed as increasingly illegitimate across the board.
I can live with the Court issuing principled rulings I disagree with. But here there are no principles on display beyond “we’re racist and we want to deprive non-white people of their vote.” The Supreme Court makes it clear that it is illegitimate with such a move, and not worthy of any respect at all.
And that won’t change until we get real reform, such as by shifting the Court so that no single Justice (or small clique of Justices) has so much power.
Filed Under: 14th amendment, 15th amendment, callais, constitution, discrimination, john roberts, louisiana, motivated reasoning, racism, samuel alito, supreme court, voting rights, voting rights act
Cache is the most underrated word in PC gaming, and this chip is built around having more of it than almost anything else on the market.
That’s the promise the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D has always made, and at $324.99 down from $449, saving you $124.01, it’s now a far easier one to act on.
The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D has dropped by nearly a third, offering a speed boost for your PC without the high cost
A near‑third price drop on the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D means one of the most capable consumer CPUs is now firmly in “why not upgrade” territory.
The story of Ryzen 7 7800X3D begins with AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology, which stacks an additional layer of cache directly onto the processor die, taking total cache up to a remarkable 104MB across L2 and L3 combined.
What that means in practice is that the processor can hold far more game data close at hand, reducing the number of times it needs to fetch information from slower system memory during a demanding gaming session.
The result is smoother frame rates in CPU-limited titles, the kind of real-world gaming uplift that raw clock speed alone has never been able to deliver quite as reliably or as consistently.
Underpinning all of this is AMD’s Zen 4 architecture, built on a 5nm process, which brings eight cores and sixteen threads to bear at a base speed of 4.2GHz across the Socket AM5 platform.
The 7800X3D draws 120W under load, which is relatively disciplined for a high-performance desktop processor, though it is worth noting that no cooler is included in the box, so factor that into your overall build budget.
This deal makes the most sense for anyone already on AM5 or planning a new build around it, and who wants a processor that will hold its own in demanding games for years rather than months, at a price that no longer requires a painful compromise elsewhere in the build.
SQUIRREL_PLAYLIST_10148964
Long-time Slashdot reader Anne Thwacks frequently uses YouTube’s subtitles “not to disturb others in the room, or because my hearing is not very good.” But they say there’s a new problem.
“The subtitling is terrible!”
Almost every sentence has a huge error. Proper names are more often wrong than right. Non-English place names are almost always mangled to barely recognizable. And no effort whatsoever is made to use context to figure out whether a place name is Russian or Arabic, and often complete garbage is used in place of a common French, Spanish or Italian name!
If AI actually works (I have my doubts about this), surely it would be possible to figure out language contexts. If it is about an event in Italy, then expect a lot of Italian names! If it is about the Russia-Ukraine war, then expect places in Russia or Ukraine to be more plausible than mindless gobbledygook! Does YouTube not know that there are places in the world that are not in America? (However, plenty of names of people and places famous in America are also regularly screwed up.)
They argue the subtitles are “appallingly bad” — and that “the situation seems to be getting worse,” wondering why the problem isn’t addressed with some basic spell-checking. (“I’m sure that the vast majority of foul-ups could be fixed by the use of a dictionary.”) Have any Slashdot readers seen similar problems? A friend of mine noticed that YouTube’s subtitles even bungled this innocuous song from the 1966.
ANNETTE FUNICELLO: “If your love is true love, you can tell by his touch.”
YOUTUBE SUBTITLE: “If your love is too lava, you can tell by his touch…”
Share your own experiences and thoughts in the comments. And do you think YouTube’s subtitles are “appallingly bad”?
Criminal IP partners with Securonix to integrate Criminal IP’s Threat Intelligence into ThreatQ, allowing organizations to incorporate external IP intelligence into their existing workflows, helping security teams accelerate analysis and response with more actionable context.
Unlike traditional intelligence feeds, Criminal IP provides visibility into how assets and infrastructure are exposed across the internet. By embedding this data into ThreatQ, organizations can incorporate real-world context into investigations without disrupting existing processes.
ThreatQ centralizes and prioritizes threat data from multiple sources. With Criminal IP integrated, organizations can enrich this data with continuously updated, exposure-based intelligence, strengthening investigation and response workflows without added complexity.
Within the integrated environment, Criminal IP’s threat intelligence APIs automatically enrich incoming IP indicators in ThreatQ with contextual data such as maliciousness scoring, VPN and proxy detection, remote access exposure, open ports, and known vulnerabilities.
Powered by ThreatQ’s data-driven orchestration engine, organizations can configure automated workflows that continuously evaluate incoming indicators against Criminal IP’s threat database.
This ensures that threat context remains current without requiring manual analyst effort, supporting faster triage and more consistent prioritization.
Integrate Criminal IP’s exposure-based threat intelligence into ThreatQ to enrich IP indicators with real-time context.
Automate analysis with maliciousness scoring, VPN/proxy detection, and infrastructure insights to accelerate investigation and response within a unified workflow.
The integration allows analysts to access Criminal IP intelligence directly within the ThreatQ interface, enabling real-time validation of suspicious IP activity without switching tools. By combining exposure data with infrastructure-level insights, teams can assess risk more effectively within their existing workflows.
Analysts can also perform on-demand Criminal IP lookups directly from indicator detail views or investigation boards, providing immediate access to additional context during active investigations.
Criminal IP further enhances ThreatQ’s investigation graph by revealing relationships between IP addresses, associated infrastructure, and attack activity, helping analysts better understand connections and patterns across threats.
By integrating Criminal IP’s intelligence into ThreatQ’s scoring framework, organizations can align risk evaluation with their specific operational environment. This enables more precise prioritization and supports more effective decision-making during investigations.
Enriched data can also be visualized through dashboards, providing clearer visibility into maliciousness trends, VPN usage, and risk distribution across indicators.
The integration highlights the growing importance of exposure-based intelligence in modern threat analysis. By continuously monitoring and analyzing internet-facing assets and IP infrastructure, Criminal IP provides differentiated visibility that extends beyond traditional indicator-based approaches.
“This integration enables organizations to bring IP reputation and exposure intelligence directly into the ThreatQ platform, supporting faster analysis and more effective response throughout the investigation lifecycle,” said Byungtak Kang, CEO of Criminal IP. “By integrating our intelligence into existing workflows, security teams can improve visibility and make more informed decisions without adding operational complexity.”
“This collaboration strengthens the role of IP intelligence at critical points of investigation and decision-making,” said Scott Sampson, Chief Revenue Officer, Securonix. “By combining ThreatQ’s orchestration and prioritization capabilities with Criminal IP’s real-time threat data, organizations can accelerate enrichment processes, reduce manual workloads, and focus on the most relevant threats within their environment.”
Through this partnership, Criminal IP and Securonix enable security teams to operationalize threat intelligence more effectively by integrating automated enrichment, workflow orchestration, and precise prioritization within the ThreatQ platform.
Criminal IP is a cyber threat intelligence solution operated by AI SPERA that provides decision-ready IP address and domain reputation data to security teams worldwide.
By continuously scanning the global internet, Criminal IP aggregates and contextualizes threat signals across IPs, domains, URLs, and attack infrastructure, covering malicious indicators, known vulnerabilities, exposed assets, and attacker behavior.
Criminal IP’s mission is to give organizations real visibility into their cyber landscape and accelerate threat detection and response by delivering the intelligence needed to outsmart attackers. For more information, visit www.criminalip.io.
Securonix is transforming security operations with the industry’s first Unified Defense SIEM with Agentic AI, built to decide and act across the threat lifecycle with a human-in-the-loop philosophy. Its cloud-native platform unifies detection, investigation, and response, while enabling Sam, the AI SOC Analyst, and a productivity-based AI operating model for the SOC, so organizations can measure and govern AI by the analyst work it delivers. Helping enterprises become Breach Ready and Board Ready, Securonix delivers accountable, outcome-driven security operations at scale. Recognized as a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for SIEM and a Customers’ Choice by Gartner Peer Insights™, Securonix delivers trusted security operations for global enterprises. Learn more at www.securonix.com.
Sponsored and written by Criminal IP.
A new disclosed cPanel flaw tracked as CVE-2026-41940 is being mass-exploited to breach websites and encrypt data in “Sorry” ransomware attacks.
This week, an emergency update for WHM and cPanel was released to fix a critical authentication bypass flaw that allows attackers to access control panels.
WHM and cPanel are Linux-based web hosting control panels for server and website management. While WHM provides server-level control, cPanel provides administrator access to the website backend, webmail, and databases.
Soon after its release, it was reported that the flaw was being actively exploited in the wild as a zero-day, with exploitation attempts dating back to late February.
Internet security watchdog Shadowserver now reports that at least 44,000 IP addresses running cPanel have since been compromised in ongoing attacks.
Numerous sources told BleepingComputer that hackers have been exploiting the cPanel flaw since Thursday to breach servers and deploy a Go-based Linux encryptor for the “Sorry” ransomware [VirusTotal].
There have been numerous reports of websites impacted by the attacks, including on the BleepingComputer forums, where a victim shared samples of the encrypted files and the contents of the ransom note.
Since then, widespread exploitation and ransomware attacks have been spotted, with hundreds of compromised sites already indexed in Google.
The Sorry ransomware encryptor is designed specifically for Linux and will append the “.sorry” extension to all encrypted files.
BleepingComputer was told that the ransomware uses the ChaCha20 stream cipher to encrypt files, with the encryption key protected using an embedded RSA-2048 public key.
Ransomware expert Rivitna says the only way to decrypt these files is to obtain the corresponding private RSA-2048 key.
“Decryption is impossible without an RSA-2048 private key,” Rivitna posted to our forums.
In each folder, a ransom note named README.md is created, instructing the victim to contact the threat actor on Tox to negotiate a ransom payment.
The ransom note is the same for each victim of this ransomware campaign, including the Tox ID “3D7889AEC00F2325E1A3FBC0ACA4E521670497F11E47FDE13EADE8FED3144B5EB56D6B198724,” which is used to contact the threat actor.
It should be noted that a 2018 ransomware campaign utilized a HiddenTear encryptor to encrypt files and append the .sorry extension. This current campaign uses a different encryptor and is unrelated.
All cPanel and WHM users are urged to immediately install the available security updates to protect their websites from ransomware attacks and data theft.
The attacks have just started, and we will likely see increased exploitation over the coming days and weeks.
AI chained four zero-days into one exploit that bypassed both renderer and OS sandboxes. A wave of new exploits is coming.
At the Autonomous Validation Summit (May 12 & 14), see how autonomous, context-rich validation finds what’s exploitable, proves controls hold, and closes the remediation loop.
“Scientists have created a miraculous new way to stop fires from spreading through neighborhoods using nothing but sound,” reports the New York Post:
Former NASA engineers with California-based Sonic Fire Tech found that using sound waves can snuff out blazes and potentially be used to stop another Pacific Palisades inferno… The technology works by targeting oxygen molecules using low-frequency sound waves that vibrate them, stopping the fire from growing. “Sound waves vibrate the oxygen faster than the fuel can use it, and break the chemical reaction of the flame,” Remington Hotchkis, Chief Commercialization Officer at Sonic Fire Tech told The Post.
The San Bernardino County Fire Department recently tested out the equipment using a backpack version and the results were incredible. Video shows firefighters fighting small blazes on a shrub and a stove top fire with the technology putting it out… In the home application, the system would be alerted/activated if there was a fire, sending the sound waves through a home duct system, essentially snuffing out the blaze. The sound waves can reach as far as 30ft from a home, the report noted. The sound is also harmless to pets and humans.
The article includes this quote that an executive at the company gave local news station KMPH. “Our former NASA engineers are rocket scientists, and they say it seems like magic, but it’s just physics.”
These three Prime Video shows have one thing in common. They are all brilliant, criminally overlooked, and none of them got the audience they deserved. A broken spy who processes trauma through folk songs. A woman who survives a car crash and can’t decide if she’s gifted or unraveling. And a small Ohio town sitting on top of a machine that quietly warps everything around it.
Prime Video built something quietly remarkable with all three, and then apparently forgot to tell anyone, but they are still worth a watch.
We also have guides to the best new movies to stream, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best free movies, and the best movies on Amazon Prime Video.
John Tavner is an intelligence officer assigned to stop Iran from going nuclear. His cover is a job at a Midwestern industrial piping company. That setup sounds like a straightforward spy thriller, but Patriot is one of the strangest, funniest, and most underrated Prime Video TV shows you’ve ever seen.
John processes his unraveling mental state by writing and performing folk songs, which the show uses as a kind of Greek chorus for the chaos around him. The comedy is bone dry, the plotting is absurdist, and the emotional core is genuinely devastating. It ran two seasons and despite an IMDB rating of 8.2, the series got cancelled, but the people who found it have never stopped being angry about it.
You can watch Patriot on Prime Video.
Undone is the kind of Prime Video series that makes you question why more animation isn’t made this way. The show uses rotoscoping, a technique where animators trace over live-action footage frame by frame, to create something that feels like a waking dream.
Rosa Salazar plays Alma, a young Mexican American woman who survives a car crash and starts experiencing time non-linearly. Her dead father begins appearing to her, asking for her help. The show never fully commits to whether Alma is gifted or experiencing a psychotic break, and that ambiguity is exactly where it lives. It earned 8.2 rating on IMDB and still barely made a dent in mainstream conversation.
You can watch Undone on Prime Video.
Based on the paintings of Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag, this underrated TV series on Prime Video is unlike anything else. Set in a small Ohio town built above a mysterious scientific facility called the Loop, each episode follows a different resident whose life quietly intersects with the unexplainable.
There are no villains, no chase sequences, and very little explanation. What the show offers instead is atmosphere, longing, and a quietly accumulated grief that hits you only after the credits roll. It picked up two Emmy nominations and an 7.4 on IMDB and somehow still slipped through the cracks entirely.
You can watch Tales from the Loop on Prime Video.
There are hundreds of soccer apps in the App Store and Google Play. Most are forgettable. A small number have become genuinely useful tools that serious fans check before, during, and after every match. This guide covers the best of them in 2026 — organized by what you actually want to do, not just ranked in a list.
No single app does everything equally well. The honest answer for most fans is two apps: one for live scores and stats during the match, and one for news and previews between gameweeks. Everything below is rated on what it actually does best — including what it does poorly.
The biggest development in soccer fan apps for 2026 is the FIFA and DAZN partnership that relaunched FIFA+ as a free global platform ahead of the World Cup. The new FIFA+ combines what was previously a limited free-tier app with DAZN’s streaming infrastructure, creating a single destination for live matches, on-demand replays, highlights, and original documentaries — all at no cost.
The platform carries live content from more than 100 men’s and women’s leagues, with behind-the-scenes access from national teams and major clubs. For World Cup 2026, FIFA+ is the global home for tournament content, including match archive, player profiles, and exclusive video — making it the most important new soccer app of 2026 for fans who want professional-quality content without a subscription.
Best for: Fans who want free live matches, replays, and World Cup content on any device. Limitation: Does not carry top domestic league matches in most major markets (Premier League, Champions League, etc.) — those rights remain with national broadcasters.
These three apps dominate the live score category — but they’re not interchangeable. Each has a distinct strength, and the right choice depends on whether you prioritize speed, depth, or range.
Flashscore is the fastest live score app available, and it covers the widest range of competitions and sports of any tool in this category. If you follow multiple leagues simultaneously or want to track matches across different sports during the same evening, no other app matches its breadth. The interface is dense but efficient: fixtures, results, league tables, and H2H records are all one tap away.
Best for: Multi-league fans, fast score checking, fans who also follow non-soccer sports. Limitation: UI is data-heavy and can feel overwhelming for casual fans. In-match stats are shallower than SofaScore.
FotMob covers live scores, fixtures, tables, match stats, and personalized news from over 500 football leagues. Its edge over the competition is design: it’s the cleanest, most navigable soccer app on mobile. Match pages are well laid out, push notifications are reliable and configurable (goal, lineup, kickoff, final), and the player performance ratings system — where FotMob assigns a match rating to every player — is a feature fans check consistently after full-time.
Best for: Fans who want one polished app for their primary team or league. The “My Teams” personalization layer makes it the best daily companion for following specific clubs. Limitation: Less deep on expected goals (xG) and advanced stats compared to SofaScore.
SofaScore is the most data-rich live soccer app available to general consumers. During a live match, it surfaces possession, xG (expected goals), shot maps, player heatmaps, pass accuracy, duel success rate, and a live match timeline that logs every event in sequence. SofaScore ranks best for broad match coverage and live event data among independent evaluations of 2026 football stat tools. The player ratings system covers over 5,000 leagues — a scope that few competitors match.
Best for: Tactically engaged fans, analysts, journalists, and FPL players who use xG and heatmaps as part of their research. Limitation: The free tier is ad-supported; some advanced filters are behind the paid tier. Less polished visually than FotMob.
OneFootball is the best app for fans who want editorial content — match previews, post-match analysis, transfer news, and club-specific coverage — rather than raw scores. It covers over 100 international soccer leagues and competitions with live commentary and breaking news. For the 2025/26 season, OneFootball added individual player match stats, heatmaps, and shot charts — significantly closing the gap on SofaScore for stat-focused users who prefer a news-first interface.
Best for: Fans who want context alongside scores — club news feeds, manager quotes, pre-match analysis, and transfer rumors curated by competition. Limitation: Live scores are slightly slower to update than Flashscore or FotMob. Stats depth still trails SofaScore for advanced metrics.
If you play Fantasy Premier League — and with tens of millions of managers globally it’s hard to avoid — the official Premier League app is the authoritative tool for managing your FPL squad, tracking points, and researching player history across 30+ years of match data. For 2025/26, the Premier League introduced meaningful rule changes: points now reward defensive contributions (not just clean sheets), and managers receive two full sets of chips across the season, including the new “Wildcard reset” mechanic that gave veteran players new strategic options mid-season.
Beyond FPL, the app includes official match highlights, the full Premier League fixture list, club news, and historical stats — making it a useful general companion for EPL fans even if you don’t play fantasy.
Best for: Fantasy Premier League players — no third-party app fully replicates the official FPL interface. Also strong for EPL-only fans who want an official, ad-light source. Limitation: Coverage is limited to the Premier League; no use for following other competitions.
Most fans don’t need seven apps — they need two or three that serve different moments in the matchday cycle. Here’s a practical structure by fan type:
| Fan Type | Primary App | Secondary App | Optional Add |
|---|---|---|---|
| Casual EPL fan | FotMob (scores + news) | Official PL App (FPL + highlights) | FIFA+ (free streaming) |
| Multi-league follower | Flashscore (breadth + speed) | OneFootball (news by competition) | SofaScore (deep stats) |
| Tactical / stats-focused fan | SofaScore (xG, heatmaps, ratings) | FotMob (notifications + match UI) | OneFootball (previews + context) |
| Fantasy Premier League player | Official PL App (team management) | SofaScore (player form research) | FotMob (live GW scoring) |
| World Cup 2026 casual fan | FIFA+ (free streams + content) | FotMob (scores + fixtures) | — |
For more on where to find full live streams beyond what FIFA+ carries free, see our guide on the best official soccer streaming services by region — which covers Peacock, Paramount+, Stan Sport, beIN, and the other major paid platforms in detail.
A note worth adding: the App Store and Google Play are full of apps with “Soccer 2026” or “Football Live” in their titles that are either clones, data scrapers, or ad-farms built to rank on search. The apps in this guide are independently developed, widely used, and actively maintained. Before installing any soccer app not mentioned here, check: when was it last updated? Does it have a verified developer? Is the review score based on genuine engagement or padding? These are small checks that save frustration. If you want to go deeper on how technology shapes the fan experience more broadly, our overview of how technology has transformed the soccer fan experience covers smart stadiums, AI officiating, AR tools, and streaming infrastructure in one place.
For live streaming, FIFA+ (powered by DAZN) is the best free option — it carries content from 100+ leagues globally at no cost. For live scores, FotMob and Flashscore are both free at their base tier and cover the vast majority of what most fans need without paying. All three are available on iOS and Android.
FotMob is cleaner and better designed for casual matchday use — great notifications, smooth navigation, and strong player ratings. SofaScore goes deeper on data: expected goals (xG), player heatmaps, pass accuracy, and duel statistics are all available live during a match. For general fans, FotMob is the better daily driver. For tactical or analytically-minded fans, SofaScore provides more useful information.
Yes — the relaunched FIFA+ platform on DAZN is free globally. The trade-off is that it does not carry the major domestic league competitions (Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Champions League) that are licensed exclusively to national broadcasters. What it does carry — international football, women’s football, lower-tier leagues, World Cup content, and documentaries — is genuinely high quality and available without any subscription or registration requirement.
The official Premier League app is the primary tool for managing your FPL squad, transferring players, and tracking points. For research and player form analysis, SofaScore is the best complement — its player ratings, heatmaps, and match-by-match stats are directly useful for FPL transfer decisions. FotMob is useful during live gameweeks for tracking provisional points in real time.
Yes. OneFootball shows live scores, live match commentary, and basic stats for over 100 competitions. For the 2025/26 season it added heatmaps, shot charts, and individual player match statistics. It is slightly slower to update than Flashscore or FotMob during live matches, but for fans who primarily want news, previews, and post-match analysis, it covers all the basics well.
SofaScore, FotMob, and Flashscore all have global league coverage that extends well beyond European competitions — including South American, Asian, and African leagues. FIFA+ is also fully global and covers women’s and lower-tier competitions often ignored by other platforms. For live streaming in MENA specifically, the TOD app (beIN Sports) is the primary option for top-tier European club football.
FIFA+ is the official platform for World Cup 2026 content — free globally, covering live tournament matches, highlights, player profiles, and archive material. The BestFootball 2026 Cup app on iOS is a dedicated competition-tracking tool specifically built for the tournament, useful for bracket tracking and scheduling. All major score apps (FotMob, Flashscore, SofaScore) will also carry full World Cup live coverage.
For scores, stats, news, and some live content — no. FotMob, Flashscore, SofaScore, OneFootball, and FIFA+ all have robust free tiers that cover most of what casual to passionate fans need. Paid tiers on SofaScore and FotMob remove ads and unlock advanced filters, but are not necessary for core functionality. For full live streaming of the Premier League, Champions League, and other top competitions, a paid streaming subscription (Peacock, Paramount+, Stan Sport, etc.) is required — see our regional streaming services guide for details.
Because everything runs wirelessly via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, there is also no cable clutter to deal with. This isn’t just a convenience thing. It means no wires dangling within reach of sneaky toddler hands.
This is where the real test comes in. In split screen mode, the system shows CarPlay and the camera feed side by side, with CarPlay positioned on the left for easier tapping access. It’s a smart layout in theory because you get the best of both worlds, but there are some limitations. To fit the camera feed, the CarPlay interface is significantly condensed. It’s still usable, but small enough that I often touch the wrong icon, especially while driving, when precision tapping isn’t exactly my priority. It’s not a deal-breaker, but you’ll notice it, especially if your fingers aren’t very dainty.
Switching to camera mode gives a full-screen view of the back seat, but it comes at the cost of CarPlay controls. Music still plays and calls don’t drop, but I lose access to inputs like my steering wheel’s “skip track” and “end call” buttons. If you rely heavily on steering wheel controls, the trade-off is noticeable, but I find myself sticking with split screen mode most of the time anyway.
Photograph: Nicole Kinning
One more interface quirk worth flagging is that whenever I tap the screen, Ottocast overlays a back arrow in the top-left corner and a camera icon (the brand’s owl) in the top-right corner. The issue is that CarPlay uses these corners for key controls: the back button in Spotify, the exit button in Google maps, the now-playing shortcut. The Ottocast overlay gets in the way of your tap. It disappears after a few seconds, but if my next tap doesn’t land precisely where I want it, the Ottocast icons pop right back up and get in the way again.
Overall, the Ottocast Cabin Care works best when you treat it as a convenient upgrade, rather than a perfect solution. It solves the problem of being able to check on your kid in the car without turning around, and does so in a way that feels (mostly) seamless in daily use.
To earn a spot as one of Consumer Reports’ thoroughly tested top picks, cars not only have to drive well but also be reliable. Some models prove to be consistently durable and stay at the top of the outlet’s rankings year after year, but some slip down the table as owners begin to report issues. For 2026, Consumer Reports stopped recommending 18 models from 12 different manufacturers, primarily due to reliability concerns.
These models included a mix of EVs such as the Audi Q4 e-tron, which saw owners report a variety of issues with its onboard electrical systems, and gas-powered cars like the Chevrolet Equinox, which suffered transmission issues. The Chevy wasn’t the only car that lost its recommended status due to transmission issues, either, with the Chrysler Pacifica, GMC Terrain, and Ford Explorer all seeing similar problems reported.
Genesis told Consumer Reports that issues with the GV60 and GV80, both of which lost recommended status for 2026, had been fixed. However, owners of some other non-recommended vehicles are still waiting for remedial work to be carried out. Owners of the Chevrolet Traverse, as well as the related GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave, are affected by an all-wheel drive issue that GM currently doesn’t have a permanent fix for. In a bulletin, the company said its engineering department is reportedly working on solving it, but advised dealers to simply clear the fault code and hand cars back to customers for now.
The latest Consumer Reports data highlights several specific car models that have seen a rise in reported problems over the last year, but data suggests that decreasing reliability is a much wider problem. In its latest Vehicle Dependability Study, J.D. Power says that it received the highest level of reports from owners about reliability problems since its survey was launched in its current format.
On average, the 2026 study found that owners reported 204 problems per 100 vehicles after their cars had been on the road for three years. The majority of those problems were classified as infotainment problems, which can include issues with smartphone connectivity, wireless charging pads, and bugs and glitches with the car’s integrated apps. Tellingly, almost all of the cars that lost their recommended status from Consumer Reports suffered from issues with their in-car electrical systems or electrical accessories to some degree.
At the other end of the reliability spectrum, Consumer Reports’ most reliable manufacturers list was dominated by Japanese brands. Toyota, Subaru, Lexus, and Honda all scored highly, with one of those brands dethroning the previous year’s winner as the least-complained about on the market.
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