All posts tagged: defaults

I disabled these 5 Android defaults and my phone finally feels like mine

I disabled these 5 Android defaults and my phone finally feels like mine

Published by skeptic

As I dig around in my Pixel’s settings app, I realize I’ve never really chosen any of them, really. Most of the settings on your Android phone are given to you by Google as defaults, just sitting there and doing things in the background that we never really think to question. So I started turning some of them off. Five settings later, my phone feels noticeably cleaner, less cluttered, and maybe a bit quieter overall. Here’s what I found and what changed after I switched each one off. Related Your Android Phone’s Default Settings Are a Privacy Nightmare—Here’s What to Change Right Now Your Android’s out-of-the-box settings aren’t doing you any favors when it comes to privacy. App suggestions in the dock and app drawer Don’t let Google decide what’s in your dock The Pixel launcher watches how you use your phone and fills the bottom dock with apps it thinks you’ll want to use next. Most people’s docks, though, are full of pinned apps, so they never see this feature in action. It’s running, …

I switched from GNOME to KDE Plasma 6 and I’m not going back to Ubuntu defaults

I switched from GNOME to KDE Plasma 6 and I’m not going back to Ubuntu defaults

Published by skeptic

When I installed and booted into Ubuntu GNOME, I stuck to the defaults, and that was fine for a while. Even though GNOME is a clean, minimal, and modern setup, it was far from perfect. Certain extensions broke, and even something as basic as waking from sleep often felt sluggish. I didn’t expect much better from KDE Plasma 6 when I switched. So it was really exciting to see defaults like panel customization, drag-and-drop that actually worked, and shell stability — features I had begged for in GNOME. KDE Plasma 6 was intuitive and, unexpectedly, fun. My experience with the desktop environment makes me feel that this is officially the year of the KDE Linux desktop. GNOME forced me to rely on extensions KDE Plasma 6 includes what GNOME makes you beg for The GNOME desktop environment is simplistic. This means key features are missing by default, and the only workaround is to patch them with extensions. I started using Dash-to-Panel, DING, and Arc Menu to make it more functional, but each of these solutions …

My Samsung TV’s picture looked wrong for months — disabling these defaults fixed it immediately

My Samsung TV’s picture looked wrong for months — disabling these defaults fixed it immediately

Published by skeptic

Samsung makes some of the best OLED and LED TVs with excellent picture settings to match. I’ve personally used Samsung LEDs for the longest time and recently got a new 55″ LED 4K TV, except that the picture quality didn’t look right out of the box. After living with washed-out colors and inconsistent brightness for months, I finally dug into the settings and realized the problem wasn’t the panel itself. Samsung ships its TVs with several defaults turned on that look impressive in a showroom but hurt picture quality at home. Once I disabled a handful of these and adjusted a few simple settings to extend my TV’s lifespan, the difference was immediately obvious. Turn on Filmmaker Mode Get a cleaner, more accurate picture The first thing I changed was the picture mode. Out of the box, my Samsung TV was set to Standard, which pushes a cooler, blueish white and adds sharpening, motion smoothing, and aggressive contrast processing. It looks punchy, but it’s far from accurate. Filmmaker Mode strips all of that away. It …

Defaults on Art Loans on the Rise

Defaults on Art Loans on the Rise

Published by José Betancourt

To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter. The Headlines COLLATERAL DAMAGE CONTROL. The Financial Times reported that half of non-bank lenders offering loans against artworks experienced defaults in 2024, up sharply from 17 percent two years earlier, according to the Art and Finance Report 2025, published by Deloitte Private and ArtTactic. While this marks an improvement on 2020, when two-thirds of lenders reported defaults during the Covid-19shutdown, it underscores growing stress in the sector. Harry Smith of Gurr Johns said lending is now viable only for top-tier works, as the firm winds down its own small lending operation. The art market has been shrinking since 2022, falling 12 percent to $57.5 billion in 2024, dragging down collateral values and triggering margin calls and defaults. By contrast, private banks reported no defaults, aided by recourse lending. The report estimates the art-backed loan market at up to $40 billion in 2025, rising further by 2027, though non-bank lenders often charge significantly higher interest rates. SCREEN CULTURE. While Australia’s social media ban for minors under the …

Defaults on Art-Backed Loans Soar in Tough Market 

Defaults on Art-Backed Loans Soar in Tough Market 

Published by Jenni Sidey

Half of non-bank art lenders experienced loan defaults in 2024, up from 17 percent two years earlier, according to the Deloitte Private and ArtTactic Art and Finance Report 2025. That said, it’s still better than the chaos of 2020, the first year of Covid, when two-thirds of these lenders faced defaults as the art market all but came to a standstill. Harry Smith, executive chair of art valuers Gurr Johns, put it bluntly: “The market is split between the best and the rest. Lending on the best is fine—lending on the rest? Absolutely not.” His firm, which values up to $5 billion of art used as loan collateral every year, is even shutting down its small lending business. Related Articles Despite a strong showing during fall’s marquee sales in New York, the wider art market has been shrinking since 2022, hit by falling demand from high-spending Asian buyers and general economic uncertainty. Sales fell 12 percent to $57.5 billion in 2024, according to Art Basel and UBS. As a result, the value of artworks used …

5 open-source Android apps that put Google’s defaults to shame

5 open-source Android apps that put Google’s defaults to shame

Published by skeptic

Google’s default Android apps aren’t bad, but they’re not great either. The file manager is still very basic and lacks FTP features, the media player only supports standard formats, and the authenticator app lacks a local-first encrypted export. Then there’s a genuine concern about privacy and data ownership. Open-source alternatives have quietly solved these problems. They offer cleaner interfaces, better privacy, and features Google still hasn’t implemented. If you’ve felt stuck with Google’s defaults because you didn’t know better options existed, these apps are worth a look. Material Files A file manager that actually feels like one Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOfCredit: Yadullah Abidi / MakeUseOf I switched to Material Files as an alternative to Google’s built-in file manager, and I haven’t looked back. It’s a clean, intuitive file manager that does everything Google’s Files app does, plus features that make you wonder why Google hasn’t copied them yet. The interface uses breadcrumb navigation, so you can jump to any folder in your path without repeatedly tapping the back button. The navigation drawer shows all your storage …