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Best Productivity Apps for 2026: Our Expert Tested Picks At the start of each year, PCMag’s editors put dozens of productivity apps through hands-on testing. For 2026, the lineup includes familiar names like Todoist, Notion, and Microsoft 365, along with newer entrants that emphasize both workflow speed and data protection. Below is a summary of our top picks across task management, note-taking, calendars, and collaboration, followed by a few privacy considerations that are increasingly hard to ignore. ...

The AI era is making your old privacy habits obsolete. Here’s what to update now. If you’ve been relying on the same privacy settings and passwords for the past few years, you’re not alone. But the threat landscape has shifted. Artificial intelligence is now routinely used by cybercriminals to automate attacks, create convincing deepfakes, and bypass outdated defenses. The World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026 lists AI acceleration as a key risk, and the evidence is mounting that old privacy habits no longer cut it. ...

AI Health Bots Promise Help—But Their Privacy Policies Are Hiding Something It starts innocently enough: you type a few symptoms into a friendly chat window, and within seconds an AI health bot offers possible explanations, suggests next steps, or even recommends you see a doctor. These tools are convenient, non-judgmental, and available 24/7. But beneath that helpful interface, your personal health data is being collected, stored, and sometimes shared in ways that few users fully understand. ...

Stop Your Browser from Spying on You: 5 Privacy Settings to Change Now If you use a web browser without adjusting its privacy settings, you’re handing over more data than you probably realize. Every site you visit, every search you type, and even your physical location can be collected and sold to advertisers—sometimes without your explicit consent. ...

How to Spot and Avoid Online Shopping Scams: A Third of Americans Have Been Hit If you’ve ever bought something online that never arrived, or paid for a product that turned out to be a cheap counterfeit, you’re not alone. According to a November 2025 Pew Research Center survey, about a third of Americans say they’ve had an online shopping scam happen to them. That’s tens of millions of people who have lost money or personal information to fraudulent sellers, fake websites, or deceptive ads. ...

Update These Privacy Tools Now to Block AI-Powered Cyber Attacks Cybercriminals are weaponizing artificial intelligence to automate phishing, crack passwords in seconds, and evade traditional defenses. The World Economic Forum’s latest Global Cybersecurity Outlook report flags AI-driven attacks as a top concern for 2026. If you’re still relying on default privacy settings or outdated tools, your data is more exposed than you think. Here’s what has changed and what you can do about it. ...

1 in 3 Americans Hit by Online Shopping Scams — Here’s How to Protect Yourself If you shop online, the odds that you or someone you know has been caught by a scam are higher than you might expect. According to a November 2025 survey from Pew Research Center, about one-third of Americans say they’ve had an online shopping scam happen to them. That’s a large number, and with the holiday shopping season ramping up, it’s worth understanding what these scams look like and how to avoid them. ...

Your privacy tools aren’t working against AI threats – here’s how to fix them Artificial intelligence is not only a tool for productivity and entertainment. It has also become a powerful engine for cybercrime. Phishing messages are more convincing than ever. Malware adapts faster. And the tools you once relied on to protect your privacy may no longer be enough. Recent reports from the World Economic Forum confirm that AI is accelerating the cyber threat landscape in ways that demand a serious update to your personal security habits. ...

Stop your browser from tracking you: 5 settings to change right now Intro Most people start using a new browser without touching a single privacy setting. The defaults are convenient: location access is granted, cookies pile up, and passwords get saved automatically. But convenience comes at a cost. Your browser collects far more information about your habits, location, and interests than you might realize. The good news is that a few simple changes can cut down on most of that data collection without breaking your browsing experience. ...

5 Browser Settings to Stop Companies from Tracking You Your web browser knows a lot about you: which sites you visit, what you search for, how long you stay on a page, even details about your device and location. Browsers collect this data by default, and much of it is shared with advertisers, analytics companies, and the browser vendors themselves. ...