🕵️ The app store’s worst roommate: Cybercrime crew VexTrio Viper has been publishing fake VPNs, RAM cleaners and dating apps in official stores, pulling millions into their ad-and-scam trap since 2015. That store badge? Just lipstick on a hacker pig. Treat the app store like a public bathroom: Use it, but don’t touch anything without checking first.
This phone is made in the USA
Adobe Firefly
“Kim, I love my iPhone 16 but hate it’s made in China and apps track everything you do including your bowel movements. Is there a phone made in the USA that doesn’t track you?” — Paul in Tampa, Florida
Well, Paul, there’s exactly one, the $1,999 Liberty Phone from Purism. If the name makes you want to stand up and salute, you might sit right back down when I tell you the rest.
📱 Parts
First, it’s made in California with mostly American parts. Key components though, like the screen, battery and camera, are from China, South Korea and India.
The Liberty Phone has a 5.7-inch LCD display at 720-by-1,440 resolution (yes, 720p in 2025). The iPhone 16 has a 6.1-inch OLED screen at 2,556-by-1,179 resolution, with over three times the pixel density.
The Liberty Phone is like an Etch A Sketch but grumpier.
It’s 9.5 ounces compared with your 6-ounce iPhone. The Liberty Phone battery is lame, barely gets through a full day.
🚀 Performance
The Liberty Phone runs on an NXP i.MX 8M chip, a processor used in things like smart thermostats. It’s slow. Combine that with just 3GB of RAM, and you’ll feel the lag.
The iPhone 16 runs on Apple’s new A17 chip with 6GB of RAM. It’s like comparing a scooter to a Porsche.
📸 Camera
The Liberty Phone gives you a 13MP rear camera and 8MP selfie cam. There’s no portrait mode, no low-light correction, no HDR.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Windows folks, Ctrl + Shift + Esc. This instantly opens Task Manager, skipping that annoying Ctrl + Alt + Delete screen. Use it to see what’s hogging your system or to shut down frozen apps faster than you can say, “Why is Chrome using 2GB of RAM?”
📱 The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is here: It’s thinner than ever at 8.9mm closed (compared to the Fold 6’s 12.1mm). You get an 8-inch inner screen and a 6.5-inch outer. There’s also a 200MP main camera, 10MP selfie, up to 16GB of RAM and storage from 256GB to 1TB. The catch? It starts at $2,000. Yikes.
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🏁 $28,000 down the drain: A guy from Ohio found a used Dodge Ram on Facebook Marketplace. He’s smart, so he asked for the VIN, ran three checks and called the original dealership. It all checked out. A couple weeks later, six cops showed up. The scam is called cloning. A thief swaps the VIN on a stolen vehicle with a clean one, sells it and moves on. Poor guy is on the hook for the loan.
Almost three years after the iPad 10: Apple’s new base model iPad 11 is coming this spring with a chip upgrade from the A14 Bionic to A17 Pro (about 40% faster), double the RAM (4GB to 8GB) and Apple Intelligence. If you don’t care about AI, the 10th-gen iPad is 20% off right now.
We may earn a commission from purchases, but our recommendations are always objective.