Why You Should Use a VPN

Think You’re Safe? Here’s 5 Reasons Why You Should Use a VPN

At LaptopMd we’ve covered security in depth on our blog. Today we want to talk about a hot topic – Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs. Once upon a time VPNs were only for businesses or security experts.

Nowadays, with the rise of censorship, tracking, and internet hacking, VPNs are something casual users are considering, and that’s probably a good idea.

It’s pretty easy to get a VPN app from the Microsoft, Google, or Apple store and install it with a few clicks on a button. Typically only basic configuration is needed. You no longer have to be a security expert to protect your right to privacy.

As you can see from this popular VPN website, VPNs aren’t extremely expensive either. In fact, you can get a pretty robust VPN with strong encryption for as low as the cost of two coffees a month.

Here are five reasons why you probably should be using a VPN:

Device Protection

How many times have you logged onto wi-fi at a coffee shop, store, or airport to take advantage of the free connection? It’s easier than you think for a malicious hacker to sniff out your information, or even fool you into connecting to a fake site, giving them the ability to download malware straight to your computer or phone.

VPN tunnels send data from a server straight to your phone; all data is encrypted. That means that even if you are on an unsafe network, hackers won’t be able to interfere, or even see what you’re doing.

Evade Tracking

VPNs direct all of your internet traffic through an encrypted tunnel. You have the option to choose a server in any location, and choose a different IP. This can be useful if you need to access sites at work or school when the network is severely restricted, blocking various sites, but accessing these sites will enhance your studies or work.

Avoid Being a Commodity

Did you know that internet service providers can now collect and sell your data as they would like? Every time you log online, every move you make is tracked, and monetized. Congratulations, to advertisers, you, as a person are now a product.

Advertisers buy your internet history so they can analyze what sites you visit, where you currently shop, what your interests are and more so that they can make their advertisements more appealing to you.

Actually, more people may be interested in what you are doing online than you think – social media sites, and yes, hackers. A VPN protects you from becoming a product that can be sold.

Access Geoblocked Content

Unfortunately, not all countries are afforded the same privileges as we have in the US. Some countries in the world are subject to censorship or a government controlling what you see online. If you are visiting one of these countries, a VPN will bypass content restrictions so you can access simple streaming services like Netflix and YouTube or your religious or political readings.

Privacy is a Right, not a Privilege

New Yorkers can’t go anywhere without being caught on surveillance camera. We’re followed and watched by advertisers, cell networks and tracked by social media sites and our ISPs. If you believe that privacy is a right, not a privilege, look into a VPN. You don’t have to be doing anything wrong to be spied on.

Your life is not for sale, so you should stop companies from profiting off of it without your permission.

If you’re interested in network security, or internet security, talk to one of our techs today and we’ll be happy to help. We remove Viruses, Malware, do data recovery and love to talk tech in general.


We’re Moving! But not far…

Starting on Saturday, January 5th 2019, LaptopMD will be upgrading to a new office space to better serve the community! You will be able to find us at 247 W 38th st, Suite 602, New York NY 10018.

The new location will only be a few blocks away from our previous location. We will now be centrally located within 5 short minutes from the Penn Station, Port Authority, and Times Square bus stations and subway hubs.

247 W 38th St, Suite 602, New York NY 10018.

Our commitment to provide exceptional service to the community drives everything we do. As such, the move to the new office will help us with our mission to provide excellent care to a greater number of people.

New office, same great care. Remember, we’ve only moved a few blocks away, so starting on January 5th, come visit us at the new location!

Exciting News: New Office, Same Awesome Service!





Laptop MD joins forces with Data Recovery Clinic!

We are excited to announce that Laptop MD now has joined forces with Data Recovery Clinic. Steven, the lead technician at Data Recovery Clinic, has been providing emergency data recovery from hard drives and raids of all configurations for over 23 years.

DRC, established in 1989, attributes their high success rate due to their cutting edge ATOLA data recovery equipment and highly trained technicians in data recovery. They have successfully recovered data from all over the globe and from all types of media. If your data can be recovered, then they can recover it. If you don’t believe us, just ask: NASA, 3M, Lucent, Pepsi Co, Chicago Stock Exchange, Sandia National Labs, CAGEMA INC, Raytheon, Dell, HP, IBM, Compaq, Norton Utilities, and many, many more whose data they have successfully recovered.

With their “no-data no-charge payment system”, it’s a win-win for anyone who has been faced with the disastrous failed hard drive, flash card, or memory stick at the most critical moment. Come to Laptop MD and let us battle “Murphy’s Law” for you.

Save Your Phone When It Gets Wet


We see liquid damaged phones all the time, so here’s a list of what you should do to AVOID needing to see us for liquid damage.

Turn it off immediately!

This might seem like a no-brainer, but you need to turn off your phone immediately if it’s still on.

THAT’S VERY IMPORTANT – even if your phone is still functional, but common-sense tells you that there’s water in your phone, you need to turn it off and take the battery out to get the water out. The water may not be eating away at the metals in your phone yet, but if you don’t do anything to stop it, your phone can have real, irreversible damage soon.

Real damage = real money, as legitimate liquid damage repairs are expensive, and sometimes it’s actually not possible to save the phone and you’ll need to get a new one. Your phone WAS working after taking a dip, but if there’s water trapped in there it’ll die a slow death over the next few days.


Take the battery out

I know iPhones don’t make it very easy to take the battery out, but if you have legitimate cause for concern, you should probably look up a guide on how to open it or take it to a repair shop – they should be able to open it up for you with very little trouble.

If you have a Galaxy or another type of smartphone, it’s probably pretty easy for you to pop the back cover off of your phone.

This is a very important step because it’s much easier for water to get INTO a phone, than for it to get back out. It’ll fill up all sorts of nooks and crannies and will just never evaporate properly, and that’s how you get corrosion inside your device.


Wipe it down

Once you’ve taken the battery out, take out any other types of cards or chips that you can (SIM card for example) and do what you can to dry them. That includes using paper towels or tissues for those nooks and crannies and shaking all that water off and out of your phone pieces as best you can.

You may want to consider using a blow dryer – you can, but be careful! That heat can damage exposed components, so use it with caution.


Leave it out to dry for a little while

Depending on how wet it got/how good you feel about the job you did drying out your phone, this can range from a few hours to a few days.

If you dropped your phone in a lake and it took you ten minutes to find it – you’ll probably need to leave it out for several days, and even then, there’s no guarantee that your phone will work. Sometimes the damage is irreparable.

If you dropped it in a puddle and pulled it out within a few seconds, there’s a solid chance you only need to leave it out for a few hours. You actually might not need to leave it out at all if you did a really good job cleaning it out, but you should probably set your phone down for a few hours to be safe.


Turn it back on – maybe charge it back up!

Leaving it out to dry for a few days is the last “fixing” step – and then you’ll just have to hold your breath and hope for the best. Put your battery and SIM card back in etc. and try to turn it back on.

If it doesn’t turn on immediately, plug it into a charger and see if your phone needs a charge. Give it a little time on the charger. Even if your phone was fully charged beforehand, this could be the “spark” you need.


Good luck!

We hope these techniques get your phone back up to speed, but there are no guarantees!

If you act fast and follow these instructions though, you’ve got a good chance to avoid liquid damage for your phone. There’s a chance that even if your phone doesn’t work, it could just need a new battery!

Sometimes liquid can get into the battery be impossible get out, but a battery replacement is a much, much cheaper option than getting a new phone, or an extensive liquid damage cleaning!


Important: DO NOT put it in rice!


This is a very common misconception, and we understand – it definitely passes the logic test. You also probably got the advice from someone you trust!

Your friend or cousin or sister dropped their phone in water, then gave it the rice treatment for two days and “Viola!” the phone worked again.  That’s anecdotal advice, and if they had left it out drying on the shelf it also would have worked.

The idea of using uncooked rice to suck out the moisture makes sense, but in practice it just doesn’t work as well as open air. Gazelle even did a thorough investigation testing the effectiveness of different household material that are drying agents, and open air was the best.

open iphone

iPhones, Apple, and the Right To Repair Bill



Apple’s anti-consumer moves


Planned Obsolescence




 Removal of the Headphone Jack





What’s Their Goal?





“Right to Repair”







Spectre and Meltdown: Processing Problems

You may have heard recently that many of Intel’s Central Processing Units (CPUs) have a design flaw that could allow malicious attackers to steal private information.  Passwords, emails, etc. could be stolen because of “kernel memory areas” in the CPUs.

However, even though the focus is on Intel’s screw-up, it’s believed that CPUs sold by other vendors may have the same problems. Intel is just taking the heat because they’re the biggest and most reputable name.

What is a CPU?


If you’ve ever seen a CPU (above) – also casually known as a processor – you would know it’s probably the strangest-looking part of a computer.  It’s relatively inconspicuous, but it is regarded as the “brain” of the computer, because pretty much everything needs to run through the CPU.  That’s why keeping the CPU at a low temp takes a lot of work, but is very important (if your computer is overheating it will probably shut down to protect the CPU).

What are the security flaws?


The two main “vulnerabilities” have cool names: Spectre and Meltdown.  They both can be exploited by malicious programs on your computer to get secret information from your currently running programs (password managers, emails).  The nitty-gritty details of it are complicated but the gist of it is pretty simple.

Your processor wants to act quickly and it makes information readily available, in an attempt to give you a faster and more fluid user experience so you don’t need to wait for the information.  These flaws take advantage of that optimization and the software patches to fix it might affect that.

Okay cool, it’s being fixed.


The initial reports from PC Mag were saying that the software fix would be a big problem, and that it could potentially slow down your computer up to 30%.  Intel has pushed back at that statement saying “any performance impacts are workload-dependent, and, for the average computer user, should not be significant”.

So, if you’re a really intensive computer user you might notice your machine slowing down every now and then, but hopefully you won’t.

The Moral: Nobody is Perfect


Everything seems like it can be hacked. The Equifax security breachthe Showtime cryptocurrency mining scandalthe OTHER Equifax security breachKRACK attacksRansomware… there’s a lot of bad hacking-related issues lately and it seems like it might not get better.

Unfortunately, this is just the age we live in right now. We can just stick with our personal best practices. Use a virus removal you trust, keep an eye out for phishing attempts, and update your software frequently.

Pre-order your iPhone X Now!

Many people have said (somewhat justifiably) that the newest iPhone is the same thing as the last one, with a new number.  In fact, some of the newer iPhones have had LESS features than previous iterations cough cough iPhone 7 audio jack cough.

However, my over-used joke aside, the iPhone 7 was incredibly popular and Apple added it to their tally of successful bold moves.  The next bold move is supposed to be the iPhone X.

Forward Progress Must Continue


With Apple releasing two different branches of iPhones at once, people may wonder why?  Well it seems that the iPhone 8 might fit into the typical category of iPhones – it’s the new one but it’s not that special. It’s basically a nicer, newer iPhone 7 with a few more added features that probably won’t affect your daily life too much.

However, the iPhone X is to be their next big step up.  Among a host of other improvements, it has facial recognition software, which is also the main reason you might need to pre-order the iPhone X if you want to get it soon.

Apparently, Facial Recognition Software Requires Precision

It’s the Facial Recognition bit that has production slowing.  It makes sense, given that this truly is a huge step forward.  According to PC Mag, Apple may have had to lower their facial recognition accuracy to make it easier to produce enough iPhones on time.  That means if you want to get the new iPhone X soon, you probably need to pre-order!

Apple Has Denied This


Apple has made a statement about their facial recognition software, saying that they are not compromising its quality and that they fully expect it to become the new “gold standard” in facial recognition technology.

Obviously, they don’t want to admit if they are providing a sub-optimal product, but it is hard to expect the first iPhone to come with this technology to have it perfect.  Just look at how far we’ve come when viewing the iPhone 3 to the iPhone 5, and then from the iPhone 5 to the iPhone 7.

I was just saying how the new iPhone is often just like the old one with some new shine on it, but those subtle changes do ramp up quite quickly. Therefore, it is reasonable to think that in a few years we might look at the iPhone X’s facial recognition capabilities as buggy and imperfect when compared to the iPhone XII, or whatever we’re calling it then.

Trade in your old iPhone for credit toward your new one!


Apple doesn’t mind anymore.




Apple and Samsung are competitors… Right?

Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy series are probably the most popular phones on the market, in a general sense.  I mean it’s really the iPhone by some margin, then the Galaxy is leading the pack left behind Apple’s top seller.  However, while Samsung probably wishes they were leading the market, or at least at a 50/50 split with Apple, don’t worry about them.

Samsung makes money from iPhone sales

In addition to being a massive manufacturer of their own phones, Samsung creates a lot of parts that get used in the iPhone.  This is extremely relevant right now because according to PC Mag, Samsung will get approximately $110 for every iPhone X sold.  So, the new iPhone that is going to keep Apple moving forward, is going to be paying Samsung’s bills too, keeping the iPhone’s closest competitor in the race.

In fact, there are projected to be approximately 50 million Samsung Galaxy S8 sales (which are thought to net Samsung $202) but 130 million iPhone X sales.  You can do the math, that means Samsung would legitimately make more money off of iPhones than their own Galaxies.

But whyiphone x screen

In the simplest of explanations, it’s really a result of supply-and-demand.  Apple wouldn’t be paying Samsung for their parts if they didn’t have to – they probably wish they could be manufacturing every part required for use in their iPhones, but they can’t.  And every recent iPhone uses parts from other manufacturers, the real problem is the iPhone X’s OLED screen.

The iPhone X’s screen is huge and Samsung may be the only potential manufacturer for it due to the enormous demand Apple is needing to fill.  If the iPhone X wasn’t expected to achieve such high sales numbers, they could probably go to a different manufacturer, or try to keep the entire process inside their company.

Samsung wins either way

Samsung stands to lose a lot if they stop providing parts for iPhones, and they can’t guarantee that their phones would then skyrocket in popularity (if the iPhone’s quality suffered as a result).  For the time being, it seems the two competitors are tied together.

Samsung wins either way. Either the iPhone outperforms the Galaxy by a huge margin like expected, and they still make a lot of money from both their own phone and the iPhone.  If the iPhone X doesn’t reach the high projections, the most likely candidate to replace the iPhone X in a consumer’s hand might be the Galaxy S8, which Samsung won’t be upset about either.