Rick's Daily Tips

Tech Tips, Tricks and Tutorials

Tips and information on...
Computers - Smart Phones - Tablets
MS Windows - Linux - iOS - Android
Want to make sure you never miss one of my daily tech tips?
Click here to sign up for my free Rick's Daily Tips Email Newsletter!

How to disable auto-playing videos on ALL sites by default with Google Chrome

Posted on

If you’re like most people you hate it when a video begins playing automatically just as soon as you load a web page into your browser.

Yes, it’s true that many of the most popular sites allow you to toggle a setting to disable auto-playing videos, but not all of them do.

What’s more, it’s a major hassle having to wade through every site’s settings pages to just to disable auto-playing videos, especially on sites that you don’t visit all that often.  [Read more…]

Love Firefox, but wish it wasn’t so slow? Give ‘Pale Moon’ a try!

Posted on

I’ll admit it, I love the Firefox web browser.

I really like the look and feel of Firefox’s browser window, and I LOVE all the great extensions that let me do things with Firefox that I can’t do with any other browser.

But as much as I love Firefox, there’s one thing that has kept me using Google Chrome as my primary web browser instead of Firefox: Firefox can be as slow as cold molasses while viewing some websites. But I have good news…  [Read more…]

Get detailed information about your PC’s hardware with HWiNFO

Posted on

There are several handy free utilities out there that will tell you what hardware’s inside your PC, and one of the best I’ve ever used is HWiNFO.

Like Speccy, HWiNFO is a free program that provides tons of details about your system’s CPU, motherboard, memory and such.

But HWiNFO also provides a live snapshot of the CPU temperature and various system voltages, great information to have if you’re a computer tech or system builder.

Here’s a screenshot of the HWiNFO Summary page:  [Read more…]

How to quickly eliminate several of Facebook’s most irritating annoyances

Posted on

Do you use Facebook on a laptop or desktop computer?

If so, you’re probably familiar with one or more of these common annoyances:

  • Facebook is constantly switching your Newsfeed from “Most Recent” to “Top Stories”
  • You keep seeing the same “Sponsored Posts” over and over again
  • Political posts (and the arguments they generate) get your blood boiling
  • You receive an important message from someone who isn’t on your friends list but Facebook hides it from you by placing it in the “New Message Requests” folder
  • One of your Facebook friends “unfriends” you but you don’t find out about it until much later because Facebook didn’t let you know that your friend had unfriended you

All of these annoyances (and many more) have irritated me at one time or another, and I’m guessing they’ve irritated you as well.

Luckily, there’s a very easy way to eliminate all of these Facebook annoyances and more in one fell swoop… [Read more…]

FastStone Image Viewer: A powerful free replacement for Windows 10’s native ‘Photos’ app

Posted on

Do you have a laptop or desktop PC that’s running Windows 10?

If so, you surely know how frustrating the native Photos app can be.

I happen to like Windows 10 overall, but the Photos app leaves a lot to be desired due to its dearth of features and capabilities.

After my most recent photo viewing session I decided that I really needed to find myself a better app!

[Read more…]

Click here to check out the Newsletter archives.