It's been quite some time coming, but Annapurna Interactive has revealed when Mac gamers can get their paws on one of the most adorable titles of the last few years. Stray is coming to macOS on December 5 via the Mac App Store and Steam. You'll need a fairly recent system, though. Stray will be compatible with Macs that have an Apple Silicon chipset, so if you have an Intel-based machine you're out of luck (unless you check it out on a cloud service or another platform).
Apple has been making a slightly bigger push into gaming, and some notable publishers are bringing their titles to Mac (and even iPhone). Resident Evil Villagearrived on iPhone 15 Pro and some iPad models last week, while Assassin's Creed Mirage, Death Strandingand the Resident Evil 4 remake are all coming to the Apple ecosystem in the coming months.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/stray-is-coming-to-macos-on-december-5-204920804.html?src=rss
Another Meta whistleblower has testified before Congress regarding safety issues on the company's platforms. On the same day that Frances Haugen told Congress in 2021 how Meta could fix some of its safety problems, Arturo Béjar, a former director of engineering for Protect and Care at Facebook, sent CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives an email regarding the harms that young people may face while using the company's products.
Two years later, Béjar was the sole witness in a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing titled "Social Media and the Teen Mental Health Crisis." In his testimony, Béjar claimed he was subpoenaed earlier this year to testify regarding emails he sent Meta higher-ups. He said he realized that since he sent them, nothing had changed at the company.
"Meta continues to publicly misrepresent the level and frequency of harm that users, especially children, experience on the platform," Béjar told the Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law in prepared remarks. "And they have yet to establish a goal for actually reducing those harms and protecting children. It’s time that the public and parents understand the true level of harm posed by these 'products' and it’s time that young users have the tools to report and suppress online abuse."
Béjar was an engineering director at Meta between 2009 and 2015, during which time he was responsible for protecting Facebook users. He supported a team that worked on "bullying tools for teens, suicide prevention, child safety and other difficult moments that people go through," according to his LinkedIn profile.
He testified that he initially left Meta feeling "good that we had built numerous systems that made using our products easier and safer." However, he said that, since they were 14, his daughter and her friends "repeatedly faced unwanted sexual advances, misogyny and harassment" on Instagram. According to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on Béjar's claims, he stated that Meta's systems typically ignored reports they made or responded to say that the harassment they faced didn't break the rules.
Those issues prompted him to return to Meta in 2019, where he worked with Instagram’s well-being team. "It was not a good experience. Almost all of the work that I and my colleagues had done during my earlier stint at Facebook through 2015 was gone," Béjar said in his testimony. "The tools we had built for teenagers to get support when they were getting bullied or harassed were no longer available to them. People at the company had little or no memory of the lessons we had learned earlier."
Béjar claimed that Instagram and internal research teams gathered data showing that younger teens dealt with "great distress and abuse." However, "senior management was externally reporting different data that grossly understated the frequency of harm experienced by users," he told senators.
In a 2021 email to Zuckerberg and other executives laying out some of his concerns, Béjar wrote that his then-16-year-old daughter uploaded a car-related post to Instagram only for a commenter to tell her to "get back to the kitchen." Béjar said his daughter found this upsetting. “At the same time the comment is far from being policy violating, and our tools of blocking or deleting mean that this person will go to other profiles and continue to spread misogyny," Béjar wrote. "I don’t think policy/reporting or having more content review are the solutions.”
Béjar said that along with his daughter's experiences with the app, 13 percent of users aged between 13 and 15 indicated in user perception surveys that they received unwanted sexual advances on Instagram within the previous seven days. While former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg offered sympathy toward his daughter for her negative experiences and Instagram head Adam Mosseri asked to set up a meeting, according to Béjar, Zuckerberg never responded to the email.
"That was unusual," Béjar said in his testimony. "It might have happened, but I don’t recall Mark ever not responding to me previously in numerous communications, either by email or by asking for an in-person meeting."
Béjar told the Associated Press that Meta has to change its approach to moderating its platforms. This, according to Béjar, would require the company to place a greater onus on tackling harassment, unwanted sexual advances and other issues that don't necessarily break the company's existing rules.
He noted, for instance, that teens should be able to tell Instagram that they don't want to receive crude sexual messages, even if those don't violate the app's current policies. Béjar claims it would be easy for Meta to implement a feature through which teens could flag sexual advances that were made to them. "I believe that the reason that they're not doing this is because there's no transparency about the harms that teenagers are experiencing on Instagram," he told the BBC.
Béjar laid out several other steps that Meta could take to reduce harm users face on its platform that "do not require significant investments by the platforms in people to review content or in technical infrastructure." He added that he believes adopting such measures (which primarily focus on improving safety tools and getting more feedback from users who have experienced harm) would not severely impact the revenues of Meta or other companies that adopt them. "These reforms are not designed to punish companies, but to help teenagers," he told the subcommittee. "And over time, they will create a safer environment."
"My experience, after sending that email and seeing what happened afterwards, is that they knew, there were things they could do about it, they chose not to do them and we cannot trust them with our children," Béjar said during the hearing. "It's time for Congress to act. The evidence, I believe, is overwhelming."
“Every day countless people inside and outside of Meta are working on how to help keep young people safe online," a Meta spokesperson told Engadget in a statement. "The issues raised here regarding user perception surveys highlight one part of this effort, and surveys like these have led us to create features like anonymous notifications of potentially hurtful content and comment warnings. Working with parents and experts, we have also introduced over 30 tools to support teens and their families in having safe, positive experiences online. All of this work continues.”
Béjar hopes his testimony will help spur Congress to “pass the legislation that they've been working on” regarding the online safety of younger users. Two years ago, Haugen disclosed internal Facebook research indicating that Instagram was "harmful for a sizable percentage of teens." Growing scrutiny led Meta to halt work on a version of Instagram for kids.
Since Haugen's testimony, Congress has made some efforts to tackle online safety issues for kids, but those have stuttered. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) twice advanced from a Senate committee (in the previous Congress and earlier this year), but it hasn't reached a floor vote and there's no companion bill in the House. Among other things, the bill seeks to give kids aged under 16 the ability to switch off "addictive features and algorithm-based recommendations, as well as having more protections for their data. Similar bills have stalled in Congress.
Last month, attorneys general from 41 states and the District of Columbia sued Meta over alleged harms it caused to young users. “Meta designed and deployed harmful and psychologically manipulative product features to induce young users’ compulsive and extended Platform use, while falsely assuring the public that its features were safe and suitable for young users," according to the lawsuit. Béjar said he consulted with the attorneys general and provided them with documents to help their case.
"I'm very hopeful that your testimony, added to the lawsuit that's been brought by state attorneys general across the country ... added to the interest that I think is evidenced by the turnout of our subcommitee today, will enable us to get the Kids Online Safety Act across the finish line," subcommittee chair Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told Béjar. Blumenthal, one of KOSA's original sponsors, expressed hope that other legislation "that can finally break the straitjacket that Big Tech has imposed on us" will be enacted into law.
Over the last few years and amid the rise of TikTok, Meta has once again been focusing on bringing younger users into its ecosystem, with Zuckerberg stating in 2021 (just a couple of weeks after Haugen's testimony) that the company would refocus its “teams to make serving young adults their North Star rather than optimizing for the larger number of older people.” Recently, the company lowered the minimum age for using its Meta Quest VR headsets to 10 through the use of parent-controlled accounts.
Update 11/7 5:28PM ET: Added Meta's statement.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-whistleblower-tells-senate-the-company-cannot-be-trusted-with-our-children-185616936.html?src=rss
Waze's latest feature focuses on safety and will give you the knowledge needed to make an informed choice about the route you're taking. The Google-owned navigation app has launched crash history alerts, which will send you a notification if you're driving along a crash-prone road. Waze will publish a prompt that says "history of crashes" in-app before you reach, say, a curve that's particularly tricky to navigate. That way, you can slow down or be on the lookout for anything that could derail your vehicle.
Waze
The app decides whether to show you a notification based on reports from the Waze community and an AI analysis of your route, such as its traffic levels, its elevation and whether it's a highway or a smaller local road. It will not show you crash alerts for routes you usually take in order to minimize distractions, which suggests that its main purpose is to give you a heads up if you should drive with more caution than usual in places you're not familiar with.
Waze has released several protective features intended to keep you safe on the route you're planning to take over the years. A few years ago, it started sending out real-time accident data so that you can take an alternate route if needed and first responders can get to accident sites sooner. In 2020, it also rolled out guidance prompts telling you to get in the right spot for an upcoming merge or exit before you get there.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/waze-will-now-warn-you-if-a-road-has-a-history-of-crashes-130011100.html?src=rss
Nintendo's digital game sales are helping the company continue to perform well as the Switch nears the end of its tenure as its flagship console. In its latest earnings report (PDF) from March to September 2023, Nintendo has revealed that it sold 19.5 million copies of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which was released in May. It also sold 2.61 million units of Pikmin 4 after it came out in July, while Mario Kart 8 Deluxe posted 3.22 million more in unit sales after The Super Mario Bros. Movie was shown in April. Nintendo has sold 57.01 million copies of the kart racing game so far.
The gaming company says other Switch titles also continued to grow steadily, including those from other publishers, and that there were 16 games that posted sales of millions of units for the aforementioned period alone. In all, the company's digital sales amounted to 217.5 billion Yen ($1.45 billion) from March to September, which is almost 16 percent higher than its digital sales for the same timespan last year.
"As a result of these factors," Nintendo says, its unit sales for the entire Switch family rose by 2.4 percent year-on-year to 6.84 million units. The only model that sold well and brought the average up, however, was the Switch OLED console. Nintendo sold 32.8 percent more Switch OLEDs this period compared to last year, but it only moved 1.25 million units of the basic Switch model, representing a 44 percent decrease in sales year-on-year. The decrease in sales for the Switch Lite wasn't quite as dramatic, but Nintendo still sold 1.9 percent fewer units.
Going forward, Nintendo intends to release more games so as to entice people to keep playing on the Switch and to buy more than one console for their homes. For this holiday season, it has a few releases in pipeline, including WarioWare: Move It!, Super Mario RPG and add-on content for Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet. Nintendo is expected to release its new flagship console sometime next year and has reportedly started showing developers the upcoming device's ray-tracing capabilities and other more advanced technologies.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/zelda-mario-and-pikmin-give-nintendo-a-boost-as-switch-sales-continue-to-dwindle-112508240.html?src=rss
Xbox has teamed up with a startup called Inworld AI to create a generative AI toolset that developers can use to create games. It's a multi-year collaboration, which the Microsoft-owned brand says can "assist and empower creators in dialogue, story and quest design." Specifically, the partners are looking to develop an "AI design copilot" that can turn prompts into detailed scripts, dialogue trees, quests and other game elements in the same way people can type ideas into generative AI chatbots and get detailed scripts in return. They're also going to work on an "AI character runtime engine" that developers can plug into their actual games, allowing players to generate new stories, quests and dialogues as they go.
On Inworld's website, it says its technology can "craft characters with distinct personalities and contextual awareness that stay in-world." Apparently, it can provide developers with a "fully integrated character engine for AI NPCs that goes beyond large language models (LLMs)." The image above was from the Droid Maker tool it developed in collaboration with Lucasfilm's storytelling studio ILM Immersive when it was accepted into the Disney Accelerator program. As Kotaku notes, though, the company's tech has yet to ship with a major game release, and it has mostly been used for mods.
Developers are understandably wary about these upcoming tools. There are growing concerns among creatives about companies using their work to train generative AI without permission — a group of authors, including John Grisham and George R.R. Martin, even sued OpenAI, accusing the company of infringing on their copyright. And then, of course, there's the ever-present worry that developers could decide to lay off writers and designers to cut costs.
Xbox believes, however, that these tools can "help make it easier for developers to realize their visions, try new things, push the boundaries of gaming today and experiment to improve gameplay, player connection and more." In the brand's announcement, Haiyan Zhang, General Manager of Gaming AI, said: "We will collaborate and innovate with game creators inside Xbox studios as well as third-party studios as we develop the tools that meet their needs and inspire new possibilities for future games."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-will-let-xbox-game-makers-use-ai-tools-for-story-design-and-npcs-083027899.html?src=rss
Lucid's electric vehicles will be able to plug into over 15,000 Tesla Superchargers in North America starting in 2025. The automaker is the latest entry in the growing list of companies pledging to support the North American Charging Standard (NACS), also known as the Tesla charging standard. Lucid will give customers access to a NACS adapter for its current vehicles, which are equipped with the Combined Charging System (CCS), in 2025. The company intends to start building NACS ports into its EVs within the same year, as well, so that newer models no longer need to use adapters.
Ford was the first automaker to announce this year that it was going to give its customers access to Superchargers after the White House convinced Tesla to share its charging network with vehicles from other companies. In the months after that, Mercedes, Volvo, Polestar, Honda, Toyota (and Lexus), BMW, Hyundai and Subaru revealed that they will also give their customers access to NACS adapters and will ultimately incorporate the standard into their vehicles over the next two years.
As TechCrunch notes, Lucid vehicles use a 900-volt charging architecture, which became the basis of a Lucid Air promotion that called it the "fastest charging electric vehicle ever." At the moment, most Superchargers are rated at around 500 volts, and that means charging times won't be as fast as the company promises. That said, Tesla has started deploying V4 Superchargers that offer higher voltage charging in the US, and supporting NACS could convince potential customers in the region to purchase Lucid EVs. As company CEO Peter Rawlinson said, "[a]dopting NACS is an important next step to providing [its] customers with expanded access to reliable and convenient charging solutions for their Lucid vehicles."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lucid-evs-will-be-able-to-access-teslas-superchargers-starting-in-2025-055045292.html?src=rss
There has been another twist in the WeWork saga as the office space rental company has filed for bankruptcy protection. Following reports last week that the company was expected to file for Chapter 11 protection, WeWork's shares were halted on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Monday. According to The New York Times, it described its bankruptcy filing as a "comprehensive reorganization" of its business. "As part of today’s filing, WeWork is requesting the ability to reject the leases of certain locations, which are largely nonoperational, and all affected members have received advanced notice," the company told the publication in a statement.
A number of factors played into WeWork's fall, including trying to grow too fast in its early days. The company has attempted to cut costs in recent years (including by closing several co-working spaces in the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns) while its revenue has grown.
However, WeWork has been toiling in a real estate market that has felt the pinch of inflation and the rising costs of borrowing money. It has also been contending with another pandemic-accelerated change as millions more people are opting to work remotely instead of going to their company's offices. In its most recent earnings report in August, WeWork said it had "substantial doubt" about its ability to remain operational.
WeWork first attempted to go public in 2019, though it withdrew plans for an initial public offering after investors expressed concerns over profitability and corporate governance. Its S-1 filing showed losses of over $900 million for the first half of 2019 and indicated that WeWork was on the hook for over $47 billion worth of lease payments — WeWork takes out long-term leases on office space and rents it to workers and companies on a short-term basis.
That fiasco led to Softbank, which at one point led an investment round into WeWork when it had a valuation of $47 billion, taking control of the company. Softbank pushed out co-founder and CEO Adam Neumann with an exit package that was said to be worth $445 million.
The business eventually went public in 2021 after it merged with a special-purpose acquisition company. WeWork shares cost more than $400 two years ago, but by Monday the price had dropped to under $1.
WeWork has made more attempts to steady the ship. In September, the company completed a reverse stock split. It said this was conducted to help it continue to comply with the $1 minimum share closing price required to stay listed on the NYSE.
Later that month, WeWork said it would try to renegotiate the vast majority of its leases. At the time, CEO David Tolley pointed out that the company's lease liabilities amounted to over two-thirds of its operating income in the second quarter of this year.
On October 31, WeWork said it would withhold some interest payments — even though it had the cash to make them — in an attempt to improve its balance sheet. The company then entered a 30-day grace period before an event of default.
Meanwhile, Neumann has a new real estate venture, this time focused on residential rentals. It emerged last year that he had bought more than 3,000 apartments in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta and Nashville. Flow, the company that will manage those properties, has reportedly received an investment of $350 million from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wework-files-for-chapter-11-bankruptcy-protection-030708470.html?src=rss
PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 consoles will soon drop their X (formerly Twitter) integrations. As such, after November 13, you'll no longer be able to post clips or screenshots directly to X from either system.
According to a notice Sony shared on its consoles (as noted by Wario64) and a support page, users will lose the ability to "post and view content, trophies and other gameplay-related activities on X directly from PS5/PS4 (or link an X account to do so)." Sony added the notice to its website at some point on Monday, according to a cached version of the support page.
It'll still be possible to post your PlayStation clips to X. If you have a PS5, you'll be able to access your recent captures through the PS App and share them to X from your phone. PS4 owners (and PS5 users, if they prefer this approach) will need to use a USB drive to copy screenshots and clips to their computer. Alternatively, you can use one of the several other direct sharing options available on PS4 and PS5, such as YouTube.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ps5-and-ps4-are-losing-x-sharing-options-on-november-13-204747608.html?src=rss
Microsoft is injecting a ton of generative AI-powered features into Windows 11, but it's not all about the Copilot assistant. The company has started to update a string of apps with new AI functions, including Paint, Clipchamp, Snipping Tool and Photos. Microsoft released an update for Windows 11 2023, known as 23H2, on October 31. That update expanded access to Copilot and other AI features.
Microsoft is rolling out the AI updates gradually, so you may not have access to everything just yet. Still, it may be handy for you to know what you can do with the new tools. Here are some pointers on how to use the AI features in each app.
How to use Paint in Windows 11
An AI-infused version of Paint that includes generative AI features is rolling out to Windows 11 users. Microsoft Paint Cocreator taps into the DALL-E model to enable you to create images based on a text description. The feature will whip up just about anything you can think of (within reason).
It's easy enough to get started with Cocreator, as long as you have access to it. To begin with, Cocreator is available in the US, UK, France, Australia, Canada, Italy and Germany. Only prompts in English are supported for now. At the outset, there's a waitlist to use Cocreator. You can join this from the Cocreator side panel and you'll receive an email to let you know when you can start using the feature.
You'll need to sign into your Microsoft account to use Cocreator. That's because the cloud-based service Cocreator runs on requires authentication and authorization. You also need to sign in to access credits; you'll need these to generate images with DALL-E. When you join Cocreator, you'll receive 50 credits with which you can create images. Each generated image costs one credit.
Microsoft
How to install Paint on Microsoft Windows 11
If you don't already have Paint installed, you can download it from the Microsoft Store. Once you have it, open Paint and select the Cocreator icon on the toolbar. From there, you can type in a description of the image you'd like the AI to generate. Microsoft suggests being as descriptive as possible in order to get results that match your concept.
After entering the text, select a style that you'd like your image to be in. Then hit the Create button.
Cocreator will then generate three different images based on your text input and the style you chose. Simply click on one of these images to add it to the Paint canvas so you can start modifying it.
Meanwhile, Paint now supports background removal as well as layers. With the help of AI, you can isolate an item (such as an object or person) and remove the background with a single click. You can also edit individual layers without affecting the rest of the image.
How to use video auto composition with Clipchamp on Windows 11
It should be easier for you to stitch footage together in the video-editing tool Clipchamp. The app will help guide you with automated suggestions for the likes of scenes, edits and narratives. But it's the auto compose feature that may prove most useful for many users. Auto compose is available on the web and in the Microsoft Clipchamp desktop app.
Microsoft says that the media you add to Clipchamp is not used to train AI models and all of the processing takes place in the app or browser. The app's AI video editor (which Microsoft says is useful for everyone) can automatically generate slideshows, montage videos and short videos in 1080p based on the photos and videos you add to it.
If you don't like the first video that Clipchamp offers up, you can check out a different version "instantly" since the app will generate multiple videos for you. Auto compose may also prove useful for professional video editors, Microsoft says, as the tool can generate several unique videos in the space of a few minutes.
Microsoft
After you sign into Clipchamp, click the "Create a video with AI" button. You'll find this front and center on the main page. After you give your project a working title, you can upload media by clicking the "Click to add or drag and drop" button. Alternatively, you can simply drag and drop videos and photos into the media window.
Once you've finished adding everything, hit the "Get started" button.Now, it's a case of letting the AI know what kind of style and aesthetic you're looking for. Styles include things like elegant, vibrant and bold. You'll use thumbs up and thumbs down buttons to inform the AI of your preferences. Alternatively, you can leave the decision up to Clipchamp by selecting the "Choose for me" option. When you're ready to move onto the following step, click the Next button.
Microsoft
Clipchamp will suggest a length for your video based on what it believes are the best combinations of your media. You'll be able to adjust the video length and the aspect ratio before moving on. Before you leave this screen, you can preview the video by clicking the play button.
Next up, you'll be able to change the background music on the "Finish your video" screen if you're not a fan of the track that the AI picked. Click the music button to change the tune. Again, you'll be able to preview your video and audio track. If you're not happy with the video, you can ask for a different take by clicking on "Create a new version."
Microsoft
If you do like the video Clipchamp has created, you're pretty much done at this point. Click the Export button to save the video. From the export page, you can share your video directly to the likes of YouTube and TikTok, or add a copy to your OneDrive storage.
After the AI is done with your video, you can further customize it in Clipchamp. Click on the "Edit in timeline" button and you'll be able to do things like add stickers, captions, animated text and audio files.
In addition, you can enhance your video with AI options including a text-to-speech voiceover feature and automatically generated subtitles. The speaker coach tool aims to provide you with real-time feedback on your camera recordings to help improve your speaking skills and video presentations.
Many Clipchamp features are available for free. But for videos in 4K resolution and other premium tools, you'll need to pay for the essentials plan, which costs $12 per month or $120 per year.
How to use Snipping Tool's AI features
The Snipping Tool is one of the most useful in Windows 11. It's a cinch to capture and share some or all of your display. The app's AI functions should come in useful in a number of ways.
First, the app supports text recognition. If you use the Snipping Tool to take a screenshot of something with text in it, you can click the Text Actions button. At the outset, you'll have two main options. You can copy all of the text and paste it into another app.
Tech Based/YouTube
Alternatively, you can quickly redact private information. The tool should be able to recognize email addresses and phone numbers, and you'll be able to swiftly blue those out. That should save you having to manually cover up text in, say, Paint.
The Snipping Tool should work quite nicely with Copilot as well. As indicated in a Windows 11 promo video, you can paste something you've clipped with the tool into Copilot, then do things like ask the assistant to remove the background from the image.
How to use Background Blur in Windows 11's Photos app
Microsoft
The Windows 11 Photos app has some useful AI features as well. Those include improved search for images stored on OneDrive accounts —- it should be easier for you to find a photo based on content or location where it was taken.
The app’s editing features have been enhanced thanks to AI as well. One of the handier and easiest-to-use tools is the self-explanatory Background Blur (Paint 3D has a similar feature). That can help the subject of your photo stand out. AI separates the background from the subject, but to ensure your data stays on your device, the separation process takes place there rather than in the cloud.
To use Background Blur, first select the image you want to use and open it in the Photos app. Click on "Edit image" at the top of the screen and select Background Blur. You'll then have a few options to choose from. You can opt to enable the blur effect instantly; adjust the intensity of the blur before applying it; or have more granular control by turning on the "Selection brush tool."
Opt for the Selection brush tool and you can manually add denote more parts of the image for the AI to blur out. Alternatively, you can deselect parts of the image that you don't want to be blurred. You'll be able to change the brush size for finer control and modify the brush softness to intensify or turn down the blue effect.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/windows-11s-new-ai-features-how-to-use-paint-clipchamp-snipping-tool-and-photos-191541014.html?src=rss
Surfshark is one of the best VPN services around and there are deals available for its various plans as part of an early Black Friday sale. You can pick up a two-year subscription to the mid-tier Surfshark One plan for $2.69 per month (86 percent off the regular price of a one-month subscription), plus you’ll get an extra four months as a bonus.
Surfshark One is probably the best option for most people. Along with a VPN that Surfshark says you can use across an unlimited number of devices without bandwidth restrictions, you'll get access to features such as antivirus software, data breach alerts (for things like email, credit card and ID leaks) and a privacy-focused search engine.
While we found it easy to set up Surfshark's VPN in our testing, it took us a few attempts before we were able to stream a show from Hulu. So it may not be the ideal VPN if you often stream shows, movies and games. But if you're just looking for a VPN that will help protect you as you browse the web, Surfshark is a solid option.
Meanwhile, Surfshark's basic plan is just $2 per month if you pay for 24 months upfront (that's 86 percent off a month-to-month plan). The company will also toss in three extra months for free. There aren't too many bells and whistles with this plan, but you'll still get a VPN you can use all compatible devices, along with an ad blocker and cookie pop-up blocker.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/surfshark-vpn-plans-are-up-to-86-percent-off-in-an-early-black-friday-deal-162730848.html?src=rss