2026-02-12 02:34:45
Jason Momoa will be playing the lead in the forthcoming film adaptation of the Helldivers gaming franchise, according to a report by Variety. The games don't have a story-driven protagonist, so Momoa is likely to play a currently unnamed soldier.
We also have a release date for the Helldivers film. It comes out on November 10, 2027. That's a while from now, but at least it gives fans something to look forward to. The movie is being directed by Justin Lin, who is best known for helming several entries in the Fast & Furious franchise. However, he also directed Star Trek Beyond, proving he can do sci-fi.
Gary Dauberman is penning the script. He wrote both It and It Chapter Two, in addition to the horror film Annabelle and its follow-ups. Dauberman is mostly a horror guy, so we'll have to see how he handles high-octane science fiction.
For the uninitiated, Helldivers is a co-op shooter franchise that's heavily inspired by the movie Starship Troopers. The games are set in a hyper-patriotic dystopia called Super Earth. Helldivers 2 dropped back in 2024, though was recently released for Xbox.
Sony hasn't announced any other actors who will be joining Momoa. We'll keep you updated when more casting news drops.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-helldivers-movie-will-star-jason-momoa-and-hits-theaters-on-november-10-2027-183445038.html?src=rss2026-02-12 02:00:00
Threads users have been complaining about its recommendation algorithm pretty much since the beginning of the platform. At some point, this turned into a meme, with users writing posts jokingly addressed to the algorithm in which they requested to see more posts about the topics they're actually interested in.
Now, Meta is turning those "Dear algorithm" posts into an official feature that it says will allow Threads users to tune their recommendations in real time. With the change, users can write a post that begins with "dear algo" to adjust their preferences. For example, you could write "dear algo, show me more posts about cute cats." You can also ask to see fewer posts about topics you don't want to see, like "dear algo, stop showing me posts about sick pets."
You can track your requests to the algorithm in the app's settings in order to revisit them or remove them. You can also retweet other users' "dear algo" posts to have those topics reflected in your feed. Importantly, "dear algo" requests are temporary and only last for three days at a time, which Meta says is meant to keep the algorithm feel fresher and more flexible.
The rollout of the feature follows a limited test late last year. Now, "dear algo" posts will work for Threads users in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand with more countries coming "soon."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-turned-threads-algorithm-complaints-into-an-official-feature-180000236.html?src=rss2026-02-12 01:15:00
NordVPN is offering a significant discount on its two-year plans, with 70 percent off its Complete tier and up to 78 percent off overall. For the Complete tier, the deal brings the total cost down to $130 for 24 months.
NordVPN regularly appears on Engadget’s list of the best VPN services thanks to its wide server network, strong security tools and consistent performance across devices. NordVPN’s latest promotion puts one of its most comprehensive plans at a price that undercuts many competing premium VPN subscriptions.
The Complete tier includes full access to NordVPN’s core VPN service, which encrypts internet traffic and masks a user’s IP address to help protect online activity on public Wi-Fi networks and at home. Subscribers can use the service on multiple devices, including phones, tablets, laptops and smart TVs, with apps available for major operating systems. It also includes access to NordPass (more on that below), an ad blocker and 1TB of cloud storage. You’ll find similar discounts on all of NordVPN’s other plans: Basic, Plus and Prime.
Beyond the basics, NordVPN offers features like threat protection to help block malicious websites and trackers, as well as specialty servers designed for added privacy or faster performance in specific scenarios. In our NordVPN review, the service was praised for its evolving feature set and overall reliability, even as the VPN market becomes increasingly competitive.
Engadget regularly tracks VPN pricing trends and this offer compares favorably with other current promotions. It also appears alongside NordVPN deals featured in Engadget’s ongoing roundup of the best VPN discounts available right now, which compares offers from multiple major providers.
Those looking for additional security tools may also want to note that NordVPN’s Complete plan bundles in extra services beyond the VPN itself. One of those is NordPass, the company’s password management app. NordPass is also discounted as part of a separate promotion, if you’re primarily looking for a password manager rather than a VPN. The Premium tier is currently 50 percent off, bringing the price down to $36 for two years. NordPass Premium adds features such as cross-device password syncing, secure password sharing and breach monitoring, which alerts users if stored credentials appear in known data leaks.
Both offers are available for a limited time, though Nord has not specified an end date for the promotion. If you’re still unsure whether NordVPN is right for you, it offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can change your mind and get a full refund.
2026-02-12 01:06:51
TikTok US just launched a local feed for users to "get the inside scoop on must-try restaurants, shops, museums and events." This is done by leveraging the exact location of people that are using the app and comes after a change in the platform's terms of service that says the app can do just that. The platform's terms of service used to note that it could collect approximate locations, but the sale to US investors looks to have changed that to precise locations.
This is an opt-in feature, despite the app potentially collecting this data whether the feed is activated or not. The feed is set to "off" by default, but can be changed via a trip to settings.
The local feed doesn't show your neighbors or people you might vibe with to help solve that pesky loneliness epidemic. Instead, it prioritizes local businesses and will highlight nearby events, shopping suggestions and restaurants to try.
This looks to be part of a broader push to attract small businesses to the app, both as content producers and as advertisers. As TechCrunch notes, this could also help insulate the company from future regulation and increased scrutiny, as it could point to the many small businesses that rely on its services.
TikTok states that over 7.5 million businesses use the platform in the US to reach customers. However, this data is sourced from an Oxford Economics report from before a group of investors finalized a deal for the US version of the app.
Supporting local businesses is a noble goal, but users will have to consider whether or not the value of a dedicated feed is worth the privacy risk. Oracle is a prominent investor in the new American TikTok, and company founder Larry Ellison once said "citizens will be on their best behavior" when they are being constantly surveilled.
This local feed isn't exactly a new idea. TikTok has been trying something similar in Europe since the tail-end of last year. It has shown up in the UK, France, Italy and Germany.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/tiktok-us-launches-a-local-feed-that-leverages-a-users-exact-location-170651916.html?src=rss2026-02-12 00:52:43
Though the original series is very much done, Netflix is going to squeeze as much juice out of Stranger Things as it can. The company is said to be filming the Broadway production of Stranger Things: The First Shadow so it can offer up a recording on its streaming service.
Several public performances were canceled this week to accommodate filming, according to The Hollywood Reporter. They'll recommence on February 15. Filming is taking place before the original Broadway cast leaves the production next month.
Stranger Things: The First Shadow opened in New York City last year after debuting in London in 2023. It’s been a critical and commercial success, and it has won multiple Tony Awards. The play is a canonical prequel to Stranger Things and it fills in more of the backstory of Henry Creel, who becomes Vecna. The show's final season digs into his past too.
Netflix hasn't indicated when it will start streaming a recording of the play. This was inevitably going to happen at some point, though. Netflix has been busy expanding the Stranger Things universe with spin-off shows, such as the animated series Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85 (which will start streaming on April 23). A documentary that shows how Stranger Things: The First Shadow came together hit the streaming service last year.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/netflix-is-reportedly-filming-the-stranger-things-broadway-show-this-week-165243046.html?src=rss2026-02-12 00:36:10
As frustrating as it is that governments and businesses are running roughshod over our online freedoms, at least we have plenty of good VPNs to keep us protected online. There are so many fast, intelligently designed, full-featured and affordable services on the market that the biggest problem is picking one. For any use case, you can bet at least two providers will be neck-and-neck for first place.
On the other hand, the VPN world is still the Wild West in some ways. It's easy enough to slap a cheap VPN together that the market is flooded with low-quality apps that put more money into advertising than infrastructure. They may look good, but it's all styrofoam under the hood.
I built this list of the best VPNs after intensive testing to help you reorient your focus on the providers that actually deserve your time and money. Which one truly fits your needs is dependent on who you are and what you do online, but if you pick any of my seven recommendations, you can't go too far wrong. If you're interested in a service you can use without paying, head over to my list of the best free VPNs — and if you're willing to pay but want to save money, I keep a list of the best VPN deals updated weekly.
For each VPN on this list, I've shared which platforms it works on, how much it cuts into your download speed, where it offers servers, what other features are included and how much the best available deal costs. At the end, I'll list some honorable and dishonorable mentions, then answer some of the most common questions I hear about VPNs.
Editor's note: This list is up-to-date as of February 2026. We intend to revisit this list every three months at a minimum, at which time our picks may be adjusted based on changes in pricing, features, testing results and other factors.
The VPNs in this section didn't crack our top list above, but we're summarizing them here so you can see their positives and negatives as of the time of our evaluation.
Windscribe is another well-known free VPN supported by paid subscriptions. In many ways, it takes the best from both Mullvad and Proton VPN, with the former's no-nonsense privacy and the latter's healthy free plan. Without paying, you can connect to 10 of Windscribe's server locations on an unlimited number of devices at once. We've just published a full Windscribe review that can tell you more.
Unfortunately, Windscribe didn't copy the most important part of Proton VPN's free plan — the unlimited data. You're only allowed to use 10GB per month, which isn't enough for regular streaming. It's also committed to a cramped and headache-inducing user interface that stands out from the crowd in all the worst ways.
Private Internet Access (PIA VPN) has a deeply annoying name — I assume whoever invented it also likes to hop in their Toyota Forward Motion to grab a gallon of Sustaining Cow Extract from the grocery store — but it's a worthwhile VPN whose pricing provides incredible value. Its monthly and yearly plans are good enough, but its three-year plan is the clincher. Not only is it longer than average, but you can continue to renew at the three-year level, so you won't see an unpleasant price jump the first time you re-up.
PIA's apps have a dark UI reminiscent of Proton VPN, which is always a good thing. It also supports port forwarding, custom DNS and the use of a SOCKS5 or Shadowsocks proxy as a second step in the VPN connection. You can even set the maximum data packet size to help out a struggling connection, as I cover in my full PIA VPN review.
The downside is that your connection will struggle a lot. While well-designed, PIA's apps have a tendency to lag. In my most recent battery of tests, it dragged oddly on my internet in ways that weren't directly reflected in the speed tests. It's also not always capable of unblocking streaming services in other countries, and while its server network offers 152 IP address options in 84 countries, it's heavily bulked out by virtual locations.
TunnelBear has a decent interface, which its target audience of VPN beginners will find very easy to use. Its speeds are perfectly good too, and I appreciate the depth and breadth of its transparency reports. But it's far too limited overall, with few extra features, less than 50 server locations and a free plan that caps data at 2GB per month.
VyprVPN often flies under the radar, but it has some of the best apps in the business and a very good security record (there was a breach in 2023, but it didn't crack the VPN encryption itself). It's also got a verified privacy policy, a solid jurisdiction and runs every connection through an in-house DNS to prevent leaks.
Despite all that, it didn't make the top seven because its connection speeds aren't up to scratch — you'll likely notice a bigger slowdown than average. It also has a troubling history of wild, seemingly experimental swings in its pricing and simultaneous connection limits.
Norton VPN is part of the Norton 360 package that includes the well-known antivirus software and other security apps. It's a nice bonus if you use Norton already, but as a standalone VPN, it falls short. My tests repeatedly showed it dropping encryption and revealing my IP address whenever I switched servers, and not all of its locations managed to unblock Netflix.
This isn't to say Norton VPN is terrible. It has a fairly large server network, user-friendly apps and some cool features like an IP rotator. It also recently revamped its OpenVPN infrastructure to improve speeds on Windows. But you probably won't find those things sufficient to balance out significant speed drops on other platforms or poorly written FAQs. I especially advise against Norton VPN for Apple users, as its Mac and iPhone apps are much more limited than their Windows and Android counterparts.
Choosing a VPN can quickly get you mired in analysis paralysis. We're here to help, but since only you know your particular needs, you should know the major red and green flags so you can make the final call yourself. Every reputable VPN provider offers a free trial or refund guarantee you can use to run the tests below. For more advice and dangers to look for, check out my article on how to tell if your VPN is working.
Compatibility: First, make sure your VPN works on all the platforms you plan to use it on. Most VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, but those apps aren't always created equal — check that the app for your chosen OS is user-friendly and has all the features you need.
Speed: Use a speed testing app to see how fast your internet is before and after connecting to the VPN (I use Ookla's speedtest.net). To check security, look up your IP address while connected to a VPN server and see if it's actually changed your virtual location. Be sure it's using expert-vetted protocols like OpenVPN, WireGuard and IKEv2. Try connecting to streaming services and seeing whether the VPN changes the available content.
Background: Do some outside research into the VPN's origins, especially its parent company, privacy policy and any past incidents. It's a dealbreaker if you can't figure out where the VPN is headquartered (which indicates a lax approach to transparency) or if it seems to have never passed a real third-party audit.
Server network: Look at the server network to make sure the VPN has locations near you and in any countries where you'll want an IP address — e.g. if you need a VPN to unblock Canadian Netflix, look for multiple server locations in Canada.
Customer Service: I also advise testing the customer support options by looking for the answer to a straightforward question. If phone support (versus email and chat) is important to you, make sure to prioritize that — and make sure it's available at convenient times in your timezone.
Pricing: Finally, check prices. See if the VPN is affordable and decide whether you're comfortable taking a long-term subscription for better savings. If you do get a multi-year plan, check what price it will renew at, since many of the cheapest subscriptions are only introductory deals.
To wrap up, let's answer some of the most common questions we get about VPNs. Feel free to get in touch if you have a query I don't cover here.
VPN stands for virtual private network. There are a few different types of VPNs, including corporate VPNs like Cisco AnyConnect, Perimeter81 and NordLayer, which are used to access a single network securely. For this list, though, we're talking about commercial services that let individual users access the internet with an assumed identity.
Whenever you get online, you're assigned an IP address — a digital nametag that tells websites where to send the information you request. For an IP address to work, it needs to be unique, which means it's possible to create a record of what an individual does online.
When you use a VPN, all the data you send to the internet goes through one of the VPN's servers before heading to its final destination. The VPN encrypts the connection between your computer and its server so the data won't trace back to you. Any website, ISP or third party that cares to look will only see the VPN's IP address, not yours. If you're interested in more detail, I've written a whole article on how a VPN works.
The three main use cases for a commercial VPN are security, privacy and entertainment. Using a VPN conceals your real IP address from anyone who might want to use it for nefarious purposes like cyberstalking, DDoS attacks or deducing your real location. It also keeps your ISP from profiling you for ads based on where you live or what you do online.
One side effect of borrowing a VPN's IP address is that you can make it appear as though your connection is coming from another country. You can use this to access streaming content and platforms that are only available in certain regions due to copyright. Changing your location can even get you better prices when shopping online.
Location spoofing can also be used to get online in countries that censor internet access, like China and Russia, as well as certain US states or countries — like the UK — that are adding barriers like age-gating to previously unfettered online access. All you have to do is connect to a neighboring country (or locality) where the internet isn't blocked. If you plan to do this while traveling, make sure you have the VPN downloaded before you go, as some nations prevent you from even loading a VPN's homepage. Make sure you check with local laws regarding the legality of VPN use as well — just because your VPN traffic is encrypted doesn't mean that authorities can't detect that it's being used in a given location.
Whether a VPN is worth the price depends on how much you value those three use cases above. It's no secret that your personal information is profitable for a lot of people, from illicit hackers to corporations to law enforcement. A VPN will not make you completely anonymous, nor is it a license to commit crimes (see the next question) but it will give you a lot more control over what you transmit to the world.
With entertainment, the value is even clearer. You can use a VPN to fight back against streaming balkanization by getting more shows and movies out of a single platform — for example, a lot of shows that have been kicked off American Netflix are still on Netflix in other countries.
A VPN does not make it impossible for you to be unmasked or taken advantage of online. It prevents you from passively leaking information, keeps your IP address undiscoverable on public wi-fi networks and gets you around online censorship.
However, if you share personal information of your own volition, there's nothing the VPN can do. If you reveal your password in a social media post or click a link in a phishing email, that information bypasses the VPN. Likewise, if you do anything sensitive while logged into an account, the account holder will have that information even if you're using a VPN.
A VPN is a critical part of your online security, but it can't do the whole job by itself. Healthy passwords, malware scanners, private search engines and common sense all have roles to play. Never forget, too, that using a VPN means trusting the VPN provider with access to information that's concealed from everyone else — make sure you trust the privacy policy before signing up.
As far as we can determine, all the VPNs recommended in this story are safe to use. As with anything you subscribe to online, due diligence is important, but there's very little inherent risk; generally, the worst thing a bad VPN will do is fail to work, leaving you no worse off than before.
All that said, there are some VPNs (usually offered for free) that transmit malware, and others that pretend to be independent services while all secretly working off the same backend. Always make sure to look up any complaints or warnings about a service before you download it.
Absolutely — almost every VPN has apps for both desktop and mobile devices. A good VPN will redesign its app to be mobile-friendly without dropping too many features. Both iOS and Android natively support VPN connections, so you're free to choose whichever provider you like.
Google One VPN was, as you might expect, a VPN provided by Google. It was launched in 2020 for Google One subscribers and discontinued in 2024 due to lack of use. If you really want a Google VPN, you can still get one if you have certain Pixel models or if you're a Google Fi subscriber.
That said, I don't recommend using a VPN from Google even if you do still have access to one. Google is one of the worst big tech companies at protecting user privacy. While its VPN might not leak, I wouldn't trust it to guard your sensitive information.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/best-vpn-130004396.html?src=rss
