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While there are a few other brands, the hard drive market is essentially a three-horse race between WD, Seagate and Toshiba.
Having looked at WD and Seagate NAS HDDs recently, it seemed appropriate to look at what Toshiba offers that’s different to the other two.
Toshiba Electronics Europe launched the N300 NAS drive series in January 2017. By that point, Western Digital and Seagate had been in the dedicated NAS drive market for years. WD Red has been on sale since 2012, and Seagate IronWolf launched in 2016. Toshiba was late to this party, and that certainly coloured its product range from the outset.
The N300 launched at 4TB, 6TB, and 8TB, all carrying a 128MB data buffer and a 7200 RPM spindle. That last detail is the key one. Toshiba did not try to match WD and Seagate on their terms; instead, it went faster.
The N300 range runs at 7200 RPM on every capacity variant, from the smallest to the largest. That decision produces a drive with meaningfully higher sequential throughput. The N300 achieves up to 298 MB/s sustained transfer speed. The WD Red Plus manages around 180-190 MB/s. The IronWolf reaches 202 MB/s. The N300 leaves both behind in raw sequential performance.
And, this newer HDWG740EZSTC model covered here offers 512MB of cache, where older revisions had 128MB or 256MB.
However, there are tradeoffs here. On the hardware side, the additional rotational speed makes the N300 noisier, it generates more heat, and uses more power. That makes it less suitable for a NAS that’s sitting on the desktop, and more acceptable if you have a server room. And, the other awkward aspect of the N300 is that Toshiba has jacked the price up of this drive to around 50% more than what WD and Seagate are asking for the same capacity from some sources.
There are a few deals to be had on the N300, but it does make you wonder whether it's competing with the WD Red Plus and Seagate IronWolf, or the Red Pro and IronWolf Pro?
If only Toshiba would price the N300 more appropriately, it might become one of the best NAS drive options.
Toshiba N300 4TB: PriceWithout doubt, the worst possible place to buy the N300 4TB drive is from Amazon.com and the Toshiba Store on that retailer.
The current asking price there is around $330, which is utterly outrageous. To put that into perspective, in January 2026, the price was $215.62, and in August 2025, it was $154.99. Therefore, it has seen a 212% price increase in just nine months. Given that I wouldn’t believe there is much interest in 4TB drives for Datacentres, this is purely corporate greed in action.
But what’s even more curious is that even in the US, you can get this drive for cheaper, since B&H Photo sells it for $244.99, and Newegg wants $299.
Outside of the US borders, the prices are still elevated but not as excessively. From Amazon.co.uk, the 4TB capacity is priced around the £200 mark, and across Europe on Amazon, it's €237.86, if they have stock.
For comparison, American customers on Amazon.com can pay $194.99 for the 4TB WD Plus drive, and the 4TB Seagate IronWolf is only $189.
In short, wherever you buy the N300, it's seen a much larger price increase than its competitors, and this is true across all regions.
One important difference to note is that the N300 is available in a much larger range of sizes than Red Plus and IronWolf. The smallest N300 is 4TB, and it is available in 6TB, 8TB, 10TB, 12TB, 14TB, 16TB, 17TB, 20TB and 22TB.
The Red Plus only goes from 1TB up to 12TB, and the IronWolf goes from 1TB to 16TB, with some truly odd sizes such as 7TB in between the usual capacity increases.
However, you look at the N300 pricing, this is an expensive drive that tries to go between the Red Plus/IronWolf and the Red Pro/IronWolf Pro product ranges.
What makes this more complicated is that while officially IronWolf Pro drives are made in 4TB capacities, I could only find 12TB and larger. But the 4TB WD Red Pro can be found for $249.99 on Amazon, which is cheaper than the N300 for the same capacity.
What’s genuinely confusing about the N300 range is that if you go looking for drives of a particular capacity, you might find that drive with three different part numbers, one being the retail number, others being OEM, and I managed with some sizes to find ones with 128MB, 512MB and 1024MB caches. Obviously, the larger caches are better, especially on bigger capacity drives.
As an example of how messed up Toshiba is on Amazon.com, clicking “Visit the Toshiba Store” sometimes takes you to Toshiba kitchen products.
These prices need to be more consistent and gouge less.
(Image credit: Toshiba)Toshiba N300 4TB: DesignSince its launch, Toshiba has developed several proprietary technologies for the N300 and has kept them consistent across the product line.
These include Stable Platter Technology, which uses a tied spindle motor to secure the drive shaft at both ends. This reduces system-induced vibration and is directly comparable with WD's 3D Active Balance Plus approach. Both address the same problem, where in a multi-drive enclosure, vibration from one drive affects the others.
Also special to the N300 is Dynamic Cache Technology, a self-contained algorithm with on-board buffer management that optimises cache allocation between read and write operations in real time. From the outset, the N300 has typically had more cache than its competition, so managing the use of that is important for performance.
One of the hidden issues with faster-rotating drives is wear, and on the N300, this is addressed in a few interesting ways, one being Ramp Load Technology. This parks the read and write heads on a ramp outside the platter surface when the drive is idle. It reduces head wear during power cycles and protects the media surface.
Error recovery control has also been present since the original launch, limiting recovery time to avoid RAID array ejections in the same way that WD's TLER does.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)All these features I’ve mentioned arrived with the first N300 drives, but since then, the N300 has undergone some subtle changes, one of which is the introduction of NASLink Technology.
This fine-tunes drive behaviour for rapid data access and includes firmware-level optimisation for RAID performance through improved disk coordination. The more drives you have in an array, the more important it is that they’re all moving to a common beat, and Toshiba has baked that into the N300 via firmware updates.
Having larger arrays improves performance, but it introduces vibrations that can migrate from one drive to those either side of it. To combat this, the N300 also carries three built-in rotational vibration sensors. These detect and compensate for the knock-on vibration effects that become a serious problem once a NAS enclosure has more than four drives installed.
Overall, while Toshiba hasn’t come up with anything like Seagate IronWolf Health Management. In other respects, this is probably the most sophisticated drive serving the home and small-business NAS market.
However, when Toshiba only offers a three-year warranty and 180TB/year workload, it doesn't seem much like it's that special.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)Toshiba N300 4TB: Performance(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)Since Toshiba only provided two of these drives, there seemed little point in trying to work out what array advantages running the N300 offered. Therefore, I went with the same PC analysis that I used on the WD Red Plus and IronWolf drives
Here are my results:
Drives
Toshiba N300
WD Red Plus
IronWolf
Part No.
HDWG740
WD40EFPX
ST4000VN006
Capacity
4TB
4TB
4TB
Cache
512MB
256MB
256MB
Rotational Speed
RPM
7200
5400
5400
AJA
Read
MB/s
282
187
190
Write
MB/s
283
179
185
ATTO
Read
MB/s
291.57
206.24
192.35
Write
MB/s
294.25
197.35
191.76
CrystalDiskMark Default
Read
MB/s
299.18
201.23
200.77
Write
MB/s
300.50
208.26
199.33
CrystalDiskMark RealWorld
Read
MB/s
286.95
212.46
200.22
Write
MB/s
290.01
204.42
199.11
PCMark
Score
651
801
677
Bandwidth
MB/s
99.87
124.49
103.69
MS Winsat
Random 16 Read
MB/s
2.37
1.71
1.6
Sequential 64.0 Read
MB/s
218.38
168.53
158.16
Sequential 64.0 Write
MB/s
289.31
204.65
190.5
Read Time with Sequential Writes
ms
4.810
1.385
1.946
Latency: 95th Percentile
ms
31.620
12.685
34.685
Latency: Maximum
ms
75.357
64.723
62.341
Average Read Time with Random Writes
ms
12.021
5.267
9.898
Aside from PCMark10, all other tests show that the N300 is a country mile faster than either of the alternative NAS drives with the same capacity. I can put those results down to the increased rotational speed and also the 512MB cache on the N300.
One extra test I did perform on a NAS was to take a single drive on a Ugreen NASync DXP4800 Plus NAS, connect to it over a 2.5GbE LAN link, and bench test it from my PC.
I achieved read and write speeds over 285MB/s, which is the practical limit of 2.5GbE LAN ports. That with a single N300 drive, you can saturate a 2.5GbE Link is impressive, and it implies that with four drives in a RAID 5 configuration, you should be able to saturate a 10GbE LAN port. To do that on both WD and Seagate would involve moving up to their Red Pro or IronWolf Pro range.
Based on these numbers alone, the N300 might be worth what Toshiba is asking for it, depending on how your NAS is configured and if raw speed is important to that system.
However, I should also point out that the power consumption on the N300 is dramatically more than on the Seagate and WD drives. The current 4TB N300 draws 7.43W typical under active operating load, where the Red Plus only consumes 4.7W and the IronWolf 4.8W.
And, the N300 will be converting most of that power into heat, regrettably. If you already have a machine room where the cooling isn't coping, then maybe using these drives might not be the best plan.
Toshiba N300 4TB: Final verdict(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)If this drive were cheaper and Toshiba had technology like the IronWolf Health Management scheme, there would be little debate about this being one of the best options.
However, there are a few things about NAS and RAID arrays that make this choice slightly more complicated.
For starters, the majority of NAS are bottlenecked by their LAN connections, so if you only have a NAS with a 1GbE or 2.5GbE LAN port, then you won’t see the improved performance of the N300 over the WD Red Plus or IronWolf. If you do have a 10GbE LAN port, it will be saturated with four drives; extra drives won’t make any difference unless you have multiple LAN ports and bandwidth aggregation.
What you do get with the N300 is internal NAS performance, which, if you are running AI on your NAS, might be a factor. However, most people using their NAS that way use NVMe drives for caching, allowing them to get higher performance from 5400RPM drives. Rebuilds will be quicker, but the value of that comes down to whether the NAS is a point-of-service or other mission-critical function, and it assumes that a drive (or drives) dies in the first place to trigger the rebuild.
The fly in this ointment is the price, because for a four bay NAS, that’s a jump from roughly $800 in storage to $1200, and for that increase, you might consider Pro-level media.
Interestingly, currently the WD Red Pro 4TB is $250, offers 7200RPM spindle speeds, for less than the 4TB N300 on Amazon.com. And deals on IronWolf Pro models undercut Toshiba's pricing at that retailer.
In the UK, the IronWolf Pro 4TB is only £169.99, the WD Red Pro is £234.75, making the £195.15 N300 4TB a better deal than the WD, but much worse than the Seagate drive.
That’s the biggest issue here, because Toshiba aimed this product to hit the open ground between the entry-level NAS drives and the Pro series mechanisms, and now adjusted the price to compete with the premium layer. These Pro drives have 300TB/yr workload ratings and a 5-year warranty, whereas the N300 only has 180TB/yr and a 3-year warranty.
Based on these Toshiba defined ratings, it can't compete on reliability.
While I expect that if I tested the N300 against the Pro hardware, it would do well, since both of the competing brands typically only include 256MB of cache, not 512MB. But those who buy those mechanisms are looking for longevity above all else.
Overall, I liked the N300, as it takes less time to get operational on a NAS and in small arrays, the performance is excellent. But I can’t get on board with Toshiba’s pricing, which seems excessively high in some regions and lacks any consistency.
For more storage solutions, we've reviewed the best NAS devices.
Philips Hue bulbs are a hugely popular smart lighting solution, and with good reason. But if your setup consists only of Hue bulbs (and a hub), you're missing a trick. The brand makes a range of accessories that can make a major difference to how you use your smart lights, and most are very affordable too. I asked the TechRadar team for some of their favorite cheap smart home upgrades, and almost all the answers I got back were Philips Hue accessories, so I decided it was worthy of its own article.
Entertainment Editor Matt Bolton is a big fan of his Philips Hue Smart Button, a compact, simple, wireless switch. "I stuck the Smart Button on my wall next to my regular light switch, giving me a way to control just the lamps in my living room separate to the other lights," he says. "It's so nice and easy, and no rewiring needed."
Matt also makes use of the Philips Hue Smart Plugs, which can be used to integrate non-smart lights into your Hue ecosystem. "I use the Hue Plugs to add little lamps that are too small for Hue bulbs into my lighting setups," he says. "I also use it for my Christmas tree lights every year, so I can plug them in somewhere awkward, but I can still turn them on and off at will."
Senior News Editor Mark Wilson is a big fan of his Philips Hue Tap Dial Switch. This physical switch has four buttons and a dial, and can control nine different actions; it's a more complex alternative to the Smart Button. "I hate using my phone or voice controls for smart lights. My favorite feature is turning the dial to dim my Hue lights — it's so much better than tapping the buttons on other switches," says Mark. "It’s simple to use, while also being really versatile thanks to those four buttons, which can set scenes in different rooms."
Homes Editor Cat Ellis has a slightly different suggestion: if you're finding regular Hue bulbs too expensive, she recommends checking out the much cheaper Essential range. "I put a regular Philips Hue bulb and a Hue Essential bulb side-by-side in identical lamps, and it was almost impossible to tell the difference when shifting colors — I could only really notice a distinction when dialing down the brightness."
A smarter setup Philips Hue Tap Dial Switch Pros- Highly configurable
- Easy to set up
- Wireless with magnetic mount
- Only two color options
- Can be overkill for simpler Hue systems
- Compact, unassuming design
- Simple to use
- Works with Alexa, Google Assistant and HomeKit
- Requires Hue Bridge for control when you're not close by
- No energy monitoring functions
- Simple setup
- Can be mounted on a wall or used as a portable remote
- Customizable buttons
- Time-based control options
- Not as flexible as the Philips Hue Tap Dial Switch
- Only available in white
- Compact design
- Easy to set up and use
- Two wall-mounting options
- Limited functionality
- More expensive than the Hue Smart Wireless Dimmer
The Garmin Forerunner 170 and 170 Music sit nicely between the cheaper Garmin Forerunner 70 and more expensive 570 and 970 duo, the latter of which features on our best Garmin watches guide. As such, both Music and non-Music versions are a bit of a halfway house; not quite cheap enough to be picked up on a whim by budget-conscious consumers, nor expensive enough to be stuffed with top-quality premium features.
However, it is stuffed with plenty of robust fitness features that will suit any active exerciser, especially runners. Sebastian Sawe, who who broke the world record by running a marathon under two hours in London, was toting a Garmin Forerunner 55 — Garmin’s cheapest, most stripped-back running watch.
What you’re paying for here is the Garmin Forerunner 70 — an excellent smartwatch on the cheaper end, and the successor to the popular Garmin Forerunner 55 — with additional smartwatch features attached. These include Garmin Pay, a virtual wallet which lets you pay with cards held on-watch, and the Smart Notifications feature, which allows you to view and manage alerts from a paired smartphone. The Forerunner 170 Music adds an extra 4GB of music storage.
If you’re largely uninterested in these features and you just want an excellent training tool, I’d get the Garmin Forerunner 70 instead, as it’s the best value of the three newcomers overall. But the Garmin Forerunner 170 Music does allow you to hit that Saturday morning parkrun, pay for your coffee, and jog home with headphones in — all without using your phone at all. It’s incredibly convenient, but not a package everyone will need or want.
Still, during my testing I found the watch good to use, comfortable to sleep in, and accurate against testing units like my Polar H10 heart rate monitor. Our writer Michael Sawh found the same with the Garmin Forerunner 70. You can read my full thoughts on the 170 Music below, but whichever watch you choose, you’ll be in good hands.
Garmin Forerunner 170 review: SpecificationsGarmin Forerunner 70
Garmin Forerunner 170
Garmin Forerunner 170 Music
Price
$249.99 / £219.99 / AU$399
$299 / £259.99 / AU$479
$349.99 / £299.99 / AU$549
Dimensions
42.6 x 42.6 x 11.9mm
42.6 x 42.6 x 11.9mm
42.6 x 42.6 x 11.9mm
Weight
40g
41g
41g
Case/bezel
Fiber-reinforced polymer
Fiber-reinforced polymer
Fiber-reinforced polymer
Display
AMOLED 390 x 390px
AMOLED 390 x 390px
AMOLED 390 x 390px
GPS
GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, Beidou, QZSS, SatIQ
L1 GPS, GNSS, Galileo, and BeiDou
GPS, Glonass, Beidou, Galileo
Battery life
Up to 13 days, all-systems GNSS mode: Up to 16 hours
Up to 10 days, all-systems GNSS mode: Up to 14 hours
Up to 10 days, all-systems GNSS mode: Up to 14 hours (6.5 with music)
Connection
Bluetooth, ANT+
Bluetooth, ANT+
Bluetooth, ANT+
Garmin Forerunner 170 review: Price and availability- Garmin Forerunner 170: $299 / £259.99 / AU$479
- Garmin Forerunner 170 Music: $349.99 / £299.99 / AU$549
- Garmin Forerunner 70: $249.99 / £219.99 / AU$399
The Garmin Forerunner 170 without music storage costs $299 / £259.99 / AU$479.
The Garmin Forerunner 170 Music, the upgrade with 4GB internal memory for music storage, costs $349.99 / £299.99 / AU$549. The Forerunner 70, which doesn’t have the 170’s smartwatch features such as Garmin Pay and Smart Notifications, is cheaper at $249.99 / £219.99 / AU$399.
We’re zeroing in on the Garmin Forerunner 170 today, and I think the watch is generally good value for money compared to some of the seriously expensive premium Garmins in the lineup, but perhaps not compared to the 70, which is $100 / £80 / AU$150 cheaper for a very similar watch. If you don’t want Garmin Pay or notifications, you’re better off saving your cash and getting the 70.
None of the Garmins have a particularly wide feature set compared to watches from Apple and Samsung at a similar price point, but their batteries last far longer — up to 10 days for the 170 — and their workout credentials are fantastic. This ensures you can get multiple battery-sucking GPS workouts in each week while still retaining enough smartwatch functionality to matter, all without needing a charge for ages. Each Garmin watch is durable too.
I’d say it’s generally a good value prospect, even if it does edge into the expensive end with the 170 Music.
- Score: 4/5
- Iterates on existing Forerunner design
- Surprisingly dull AMOLED screen
- Elevate V4 heart rate sensor
The Garmin Forerunner 170 looks very much like every other Forerunner, but if this is your first Garmin that won’t mean much. It’s got a five-button configuration — up, down, light, start, stop or select, and back (or lap). You can use these, a touchscreen, or a combination of the two to navigate the watch, which is ideal if you’re wearing gloves.
It comes in a single size, with a 42.6mm screen, and its packing an AMOLED display rather than the duller digital-watch-style memory-in-pixel screen of older watches, but it’s not particularly bright even at full power. It comes with a silicon two-tone strap, and on the back it has one of Garmin’s older heart rate sensors, the Elevate V4. More expensive watches get the more accurate V5, but the V4 has been included here presumably to keep the cost down.
It’s very light, with a listed weight of 41g, and feels like less than that in the hand. A light watch is great for running and collecting wellness info as it’s easy to wear, and this checks the boxes.
Those familiar with Garmin products will be happy to know no liberties have been taken with the design of Garmin’s established software, either on-watch or in the Garmin Connect app. I think it’s the perfect mix of stripped-down and information-heavy, although there are a lot of menus to lose yourself in. The buttons make it fairly intuitive to navigate around for old hands. It’s a tried and tested design, that doesn’t break the mold in any significant way.
- Design score: 4/5
- Advanced running dynamics
- Limited smart notifications functionality
- 170 Music offers mp3 and streaming downloads
Plenty of running features abound here. As the name suggests, Garmin’s included its advanced running dynamics tools such as running power (a measure of your total running effort using motion data as well as heart rate), along with advanced statistics such as stride and cadence data after your run. During workouts, you can set up routes in Garmin Connect with virtual pacers to keep you on time.
You also get the usual health stuff, such as heart rate and sleep score, 80 workout modes (although not all have dedicated metrics or GPS enabled) and reports in the morning and evening that provide information about your training along with the weather and a motivational quote. The Garmin Forerunner 170 gets Smart Notifications, which allow you to answer some tests with simple replies and the Garmin Pay functionality which acts as a virtual wallet like Apple Pay.
The 170 Music’s 4GB of storage allows you to upload tunes directly onto the watch, including by saving playlists from the likes of Spotify. Even without the dedicated Music model, you can listen on apps like Spotify, Deezer, YouTube Music and so on through your phone, and control music on the watch there. The Garmin Connect IQ store has dedicated widgets for these services, along with thousands of other apps from a mixture of big-name brands and enthusiastic amateurs.
Otherwise, what’s missing? I wasn’t expecting full-color maps at this price, just the breadcrumb navigation and route direction common on most Garmin watches without maps, so I don’t feel like the feature is missing, as such.
However, to justify the price increase from the 70 to the 170 Music, I think it needs more hardware features. A microphone like the Garmin Forerunner 570, and the ability to take calls on watch and use Garmin’s simple voice assistant, would better separate it. As is, most people who want dedicated smartwatch features will just get one of the best Apple Watches or best Samsung watches instead.
- Features score: 4/5
- Accurate against a heart rate monitor
- GPS works well against an Apple Watch Ultra 3
- Comfortable and easy to wear day-to-day
I checked the Garmin’s heart rate accuracy against an electrical chest-mounted Polar H10 heart rate monitor — the gold standard of heart rate accuracy — during a 25-minute treadmill test, and was very pleased to report that despite the older sensor, both average and maximum heart rate were within 1-4bpm of the heart rate monitor; a very acceptable margin for error and not a statistically significant one.
GPS was accurate compared to my Apple Watch Ultra 3, and battery life was representative of its claims, with total drain taking just over a week with multiple GPS workouts completed. I feel as though the ‘up to 10 days’ listed battery life is reflective of reality.
Being lighter and smaller than many Garmins I’ve tested, it’s comfortable to wear every day and fine to sleep in.
- Performance score: 4.5 / 5
Category
Comment
Score
Value
It’s not barnstorming value compared to the 70, but unlikely to disappoint.
4/5
Design
Builds on the solid existing Forerunner design with little iteration.
4/5
Features
Rich training insights and smartwatch features.
4/5
Performance
Solid performance against industry standards and contemporaries.
4.5/5
Garmin Forerunner 170 review: Should I buy?Buy it if...You’re a runner
The Garmin Forerunner 170 series shines when your favorite pastime is running in any form.
You want smartwatch features
Garmin Pay and Notifications make it a useful tool outside of workouts.
Don't buy it if...You’re on a budget
The Garmin Forerunner 70 does almost everything you need, for less.
You’re looking for premium performance
Rugged metal bezels, the Elevate V5 heart rate sensor, and full-color maps are the province of pricier Garmins.
Also considerCoros Pace 4
A worthy alternative training tool, the Coros Pace 4 is a fantastic watch.
Garmin Forerunner 70
A better value option if you don't want the 170/Music's smart features.
How I testedI wore the Garmin Forerunner 170 Music for over a week, draining the battery down and using as many of its features as possible. I ran and used it for strength and yoga sessions, tested its smart features, and pitted it against multiple competitor devices, including a chest strap heart rate monitor.
- McAfee flags “Silent Swap,” a malicious Chromium extension disguised as Google Notes that secretly hijacks crypto transactions
- It works as a clipboard jacker, swapping copied wallet addresses with attacker‑controlled ones so victims unknowingly send funds to criminals
- Researchers advise always cross‑checking full wallet strings before sending, as attackers can craft lookalike addresses differing only in a few characters
Researchers have found yet another extension for Chromium-based browsers that is designed solely to steal people’s hard-earned cryptocurrency.
A report from McAfee has sounded the alarm on Silent Swap, a piece of malware hiding inside a benign-looking Google Notes extension.
Victims who stumble upon and download it (most likely through phishing, social engineering, or shady forums and websites), will get an extension that, on the surface, works as intended. It shows a small window where the victim can type a note and save it. They can color-code the notes and search through saved ones. However, this was only made to hide the program’s true intentions, which are to steal cryptocurrency.
Hijacking the clipboardSilent Swap works like a typical clipboard jacker. It monitors the clipboard for strings that look like a crypto wallet - seemingly random strings of 26 to 42 alphanumeric characters.
When it spots one, it replaces it with a different one belonging to the attacker, so when the victim pastes the address into the wallet to send the funds, they are actually sending them to the address belonging to the attackers.
This works because crypto wallets are almost impossible to memorize, and too risky to type in from a piece of paper or a different document, forcing users to rely on copying and pasting.
Once the victim sends the funds, they are almost certainly irretrievably gone. Only if the funds are being sent from a centralized exchange (like Coinbase, for example), and if the victim spots the attack fast enough, can they ask the exchange’s support to freeze the transaction. In all other cases, once the money is sent, it’s gone.
The best way to defend against these attacks is to cross-reference the strings before hitting send. Some people would only check the first and last few characters, but security researchers don’t recommend it, because some clipboard jackers can generate addresses that only differ in a few characters.
- Former Dragon Age lead writer and creator David Gaider says it's "unlikely" the beloved RPG will have a future at EA
- However, he would be open to working on the series again
- Gaider would return to the series' roots and make a "dark and dangerous" game
Dragon Age creator and former narrative lead David Gaider doesn't believe the beloved role-playing game (RPG) series has a future at EA, but would be interested in working on a new game if given the chance.
Speaking to PC Gamer, Gaider said it's "unlikely" we'll ever see another Dragon Age game made by BioWare under EA's control and explained how, while working at the studio, it always felt like "We were always one breath away from the [current] project being shelved."
"The thing that happened is that we kept releasing games, and it would sell much better than they thought it should, and it kept surprising them," he said.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard was the exception, which underperformed for EA. However, the publisher was also reported to have been pushing BioWare to incorporate live-service elements into the game, but when the studio stuck to its RPG roots, CEO Andrew Wilson called it a mistake.
Gaider suggested that the Mass Effect series was EA's golden child, and even if it didn't sell as well the team "got excuses, because it was an action-oriented game. They thought it should sell more. It was slicker."
While Gaider believes Dragon Age is dead under EA's ownership, he would be interested in taking on the series again and returning to what made the dark fantasy series so loved in the first place.
"If you'd asked me that in the past, I would have said absolutely not. That I’d done my time," he said. "I left the Dragon Age team before I left BioWare. After Inquisition came out, I went to [Dragon Age's creative director] Mike Laidlaw and I said, ‘I've told all the stories with mages and dragons and what have you that I have in me. And I could keep going, but if I keep working on this, it's going to become rote, and I think that would be a disservice to the team. So I should step aside, let fresher voices rise’. I don't know if that was the right decision, but it felt right at the time."
He added, "I do like a challenge. So if, out of some weird alignment of the stars, somebody handed the Dragon Age franchise back to me and said, ‘Breathe the life back into this baby’, that'd be a tough one, but I think that'd be an interesting thing to do. To go back to the basics of what made Dragon Age appeal to so many people in the first place. And go somewhere dark and dangerous, and do things that will make people upset. I think that’s what I would want to do with it."
- Huntress uncovers phishing campaign abusing Meta’s business account email infrastructure and impersonating the Meta Agency Partner Program
- Victims were tricked into handing over credentials, which attackers exfiltrated to Telegram for account takeover, scam ads, and targeted phishing
- Meta has since added guardrails that killed the campaign; Huntress published IoCs to help organizations detect related activity
Hackers are abusing one, and impersonating another legitimate Meta service, to try and steal login credentials for people’s business accounts with the company.
Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and more, allows businesses to set up separate accounts and talk to each other. The emails sent from one to another pass through the company’s infrastructure, meaning they are shown as coming from Meta itself.
However up until recently, hackers were abusing this fact to send phishing emails that landed directly into their victims’ inboxes, security researchers Huntress explained. The company even tried to curb this by hardcoding a disclaimer that email senders are not part, or affiliated with, Meta, but crooks found creative ways around this, as well.
Spending moneyThe phishing emails redirected victims to landing pages outside Meta’s ecosystem. These pages were designed to mimic Meta Agency Partner Program, a legitimate initiative that connects businesses with professionals in social media management work.
Those who would fail to see the ruse would end up trying to log into their accounts, instead just sharing their login credentials with the attackers. The secrets would get exfiltrated to a Telegram account under the threat actors’ control, which they could later use for different things, from phishing to malvertising.
“Threat actors can leverage Meta business accounts to spend the victim's money on malicious or scam advertising, or they can take over the account entirely, changing the recovery methods and password, and leverage the account to transmit more targeted attacks at the business' customers or social media followers.” the researchers explained.
Over the last couple of months, the campaign evolved and changed, using different lures and mechanics, but keeping the same end goal. However, Meta has effectively killed it by adding additional guardrails that now make it impossible to run.
- Broadcasters in France, Spain have submitted a formal complaint to FIFA
- Rightsholders labeled the partnership with ExpressVPN as "disastrous"
- ExpressVPN previously refused to implement sweeping anti-piracy blocking
FIFA’s decision to partner with ExpressVPN for the 2026 World Cup has sparked outrage among top European football broadcasters.
La Liga and French media giants, including LFP Media and Canal+, have formally submitted a complaint to football's governing body, slamming the new sponsorship as a "disastrous" message to the football ecosystem, according to reports from French sports newspaper L'Equipe.
"La Liga believes that this agreement is manifestly incompatible with the principles of protecting football's audiovisual rights that should govern the actions of world football's governing body," said La Liga president Javier Tebas.
Rightsholders are furious that FIFA would accept sponsorship money from a company they previously targeted with lawsuits for "facilitating access to pirated content," Tebas added.
In a statement to TechRadar, a spokesperson for ExpressVPN strongly denies such allegations.
"Any suggestion that ExpressVPN has been 'found guilty' of facilitating piracy is entirely inaccurate; we have not been convicted of any such conduct in any jurisdiction," the company told us.
While reiterating that a virtual private network (VPN) is a privacy and security tool — "not a loophole for illegal activities" — ExpressVPN also argues it has already presented a framework to national and EU authorithies to tackle the illegal distribution of copyrighted content, without breaking its no-logs VPN commitment.
For everyday football fans and privacy advocates, this corporate clash highlights the growing tension between rightsholders wanting total control over internet traffic and privacy companies defending open, unrestricted access.
If you are looking to secure your digital footprint, utilizing the best VPN is essential to bypassing unfair network restrictions and ensuring your online activity isn't monitored by your internet service provider (ISP) or third-party organizations.
A clash of privacy and anti-piracy(Image credit: Getty Images)In France, organizations like the Association for the Protection of Sports Programs (APPS) have aggressively pursued court orders forcing ISPs and tech companies to block access to pirated streams.
ExpressVPN has historically resisted these demands, refusing to implement network-wide blocks. This staunch defense of an open internet led to the VPN provider being formally condemned in the country, making FIFA's sponsorship announcement a bitter pill for French broadcasters to swallow.
The situation has escalated similarly in Spain, where La Liga's president has spearheaded a controversial crusade against illegal streaming. La Liga’s heavy-handed tactics have been heavily criticized by digital rights groups, especially after a recent anti-piracy campaign backfired spectacularly, wrongly blocking over 500,000 legitimate websites in Spain.
The Spanish league has also previously attempted to fine individual users and pressure tech platforms into handing over user data. With La Liga’s war on piracy breaking the internet in Spain, privacy experts have warned that your VPN could be the next target.
Despite the immense legal pressure and the latest formal complaint to FIFA, top VPN providers have consistently argued that enforcing rightsholder site-blocks fundamentally compromises the security and architecture of a privacy service.
In fact, NordVPN recently won a crucial legal battle in Spain over La Liga piracy fines, establishing a major victory for user privacy against copyright holders.
Meanwhile, the climate in France remains incredibly hostile for privacy tools.
Earlier this year, a French court backed the LFP and ordered top VPNs to block illegal football streams. This sweeping injunction set a dangerous precedent, forcing the VPN industry to react to France’s aggressive order to block illegal streaming sites and defend the technical realities of zero-logs infrastructure.
Netflix has proved that it has a knack for producing solid original content, from Stranger Things and Squid Game to Bridgerton, but now the platform is again diversifying into new content areas — and its reputation as one of the best streaming services is starting to slip for me.
Starting on August 3, the platform will be adding video content from a number of popular online outlets including Buzzfeed, Conde Nast, and Variety, spanning topics such as lifestyle, food and drink, fashion, and entertainment. Basically, all the video series you can already find on YouTube will be coming to Netflix.
Netflix says subscribers will be able to stream “some of [their] favorite videos from around the Internet without having to leave Netflix,” as the service puts it — with videos ranging from short two-minute watches, to in-depth 20-minute content. The videos will be available to viewers in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand first.
When the new content lands on the platform, you’ll have another way to watch popular internet video series like Variety’s Lie Detector Test and Architectural Digest’s Walking Tour without having to leave the Netflix app.
The Netflix Originals graveyard is growing Netflix axed its sci-fi series The Boroughs after just one season (Image credit: Netflix)Netflix clearly wants to diversify beyond its usual film and TV show offerings. Recently, the service announced its Clips short-form video feed, which is clearly borrowed from TikTok and Instagram Reels. It’s also investing in video podcasts, looking to capture a slice of a market that’s already catered to by Spotify and other services.
I understand that viewing habits are shifting, but Netflix’s attempts at moving into new content feels like a Katy Perry album release, with the streaming giant trying to chase trends for the sake of keeping up appearances, when it should be focussing its time and resources on producing quality original content.
That brings me to the ‘two season problem’.
Netflix has an awful habit of pulling its original shows, even if subscribers love them, after just one or two seasons. The platform just canceled The Boroughs after one season despite it receiving rave reviews — and Stranger Things creators The Duffer Brothers were attached to the project, so a second season was widely expected.
According to the platform, this decision was taken due to production costs (sci-fi is expensive to produce), but somehow Netflix still manages to find enough money to pump into reality shows that receive nowhere near as much critical acclaim as its axed shows get, and which, I’d argue no one really wants.
Although spin-off show Squid Game: The Challenge climbed the Netflix charts, the roaring success of the original TV series helped it massively. But, as our streaming writer Jasmine Valentine says in her two-star review, the second season was “nowhere near as good as its first”. Between this and the pure cringe-fest that was Floor is Lava, you’d think Netflix would’ve learned its lesson — apparently not.
Compared to Netflix, Apple TV is one of the few streaming services that keeps the fire of its original shows burning (Image credit: Apple Tv Plus)Instead, it’s continued to churn out one reality show after the next. I couldn’t make it past the first 20 minutes of Age of Attraction, and now my favorite childhood movie is about to have the magic sucked out of it thanks to a new Wonka-themed reality show.
I’m not the only one who thinks this, my colleague and streaming writer Lucy Buglass is on the same page, telling me “Netflix’s decision to host content from other platforms has been met with criticism, and there’s a good reason for that. Many beloved Netflix shows have been axed by the streaming service, and in 2024 Netflix canceled these 9 shows despite many of them performing well with both critics and audiences.
“When you compare Netflix to other streaming services, it’s shocking how quick they are to abandon their shows. Competitor Apple TV has a lot of faith in its original programming from sci-fi hit Severance, to horror comedy Widow’s Bay, and the moreish drama Margo’s Got Money Troubles. All of these shows have been renewed for new seasons in the future, which is welcome news for loyal fans.
“I’m concerned that Netflix keeps neglecting some great-quality shows in favor of hosting content we can already get elsewhere. Time and time again, TV fans are not getting a satisfying finale because storylines are cut off abruptly after being axed. This only discourages people from watching new shows if they’re going to be left on a permanent cliffhanger.”
Competing against YouTube is going to be quite a challenge for Netflix, and it makes me wonder if it'll be successful in luring more viewers in its direction. But for the time being, I wish it would just focus on quality of quantity.
A printer is an absolute staple of the student set-up. The trick is finding one that a) doesn't take years to print a single page and b) offers good value for money. And this is why I always recommend ink tank printers for college and university students.
I've specifically chosen tank printers like the EcoTank, Smart Tank, and MegaTank lines because almost every one you buy comes with a generous amount of bottled ink in the box that can last for your entire time at college or university (and ink is cheaper to buy if you do need to top up). So, you won't need to blow your student loan on expensive inkjet cartridges like I had to!
Our senior printer editor has extensively tested the best home printers and the best ink tank printers - and based on those reviews, I've hand-picked the 6 top cartridge-free printers for students that performed brilliantly for text and phot printing, as well as offering value for money. For each one, click View details to see our review notes and how they fit into student life.
One quick note: because printers often have different model names in the US and UK, they may appear differently here (I know, it frustrates me too). However, I've made sure the links will take you to the identical unit for your region.
My top back-to-school ink tank printers Epson EcoTank ET-2400Why it's good for students. It's one of the cheapest ink tank printers around, and it's the one I use on a regular basis. It's an all-in-one for printing, scanning, and copying. Print-outs are good across both text and photos, it's compact, and it's quick enough for most. For me, it ticks all the boxes for general use.
HP Smart Tank 7001Why it's good for students. We found this HP printer printed quickly, efficiently, with good results across black-and-white and color text documents, while photos feel fresh and vibrant. It features HP's Self-Heal Wi-Fi and automatic two-sided printing.
Pros- Neat design
- Bluetooth simplifies setup
- HP Smart for desktop
- Plentiful inbox ink
- Flimsy build quality
- Small display
- Feeble paper handling
- No NFC or USB Host
Why it's good for students. A superb budget ink tank printer from Canon here for those that just want a reliable, compact all-in-one without worrying about unnecessary features like automatic two-sided printing, front-loading, and other terribly exciting extras like that.
Pros- Cheap for a MegaTank
- Affordable ink
- Broad paper compatibility
- Lots of inbox ink
- Manual duplex only
- No front paper drawer
- Limited paper capacity
- No ADF, or USB Host port
Why it's good for students. Brother's ink tank printer delivered excellent results during our tests. It really shines when it comes to color documents and photographs, where colors popped off the page, and it showed exceptionally detailed resolution.
Pros- Low running cost
- Versatile paper handling
- Detailed print quality
- Lots of inbox ink
- Small tanks and bottles
- Bottles do not re-seal
- Only 4 paper presets
- No touchscreen or fax
Why it's good for students. Arguably the best of the best right now for the price, we struggled to think of a similarly priced ink tank printer that offered so much ink and so many features. As you'd expect from an EcoTank, it delivered a strong performance across the board.
Pros- Auto-duplex scan
- Low running cost
- 3 years' ink in the box
- User-friendly design
- No USB Host port or NFC
- No multi-purpose tray
- No Bluetooth
- Cannot scan heavy paper
Why it's good for students. It might not be packed with features and it's certainly not the fastest, but for photo printing, this model from Canon excels thanks to six ink tanks offering bright, vibrant results.
Pros- Six-ink color printing
- Cheap to run
- Lots of inbox ink
- Wide paper compatibility
- No auto duplex
- No main paper drawer
- Small 2-line display
- Low paper capacity
All our printers are put through our unique standardized test, which lets us compare the speed, quality, and functionality against the others. This test covers every aspect of a student's printing needs.
To check performance, we use a uniform stack of test cards, text documents, and photos, and a range of paper sizes and types. If the manual says you can print on envelopes, labels, or t-shirts, we put that claim to the test, too. We're looking for crisp fonts and vibrant colors without smudging, smearing, or feathering.
We use a ten-page mixed text and color document to measure print speeds. We never take the manufacturer's word for this, and while they are usually accurate to be fair, we always time it ourselves. So, if you've got a deadline looming, you'll have a pretty good idea if your printer can get the print-outs in time.
Total cost and overall value are a core part of our review process. And this is specifically why we recommend ink tank printers for students. While they're a little more expensive than traditional, cartridge-based inkjets, they deliver better performance and they're cheaper to run for the duration of your course. Bottled ink is a lot more affordable than an inkjet cartridge, and with the amount you get in the box, it can last most of your time at college or university anyway.
- Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 were just ported to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5
- Aside from an upgraded picture quality, they seem otherwise identical to the original versions
- Some fans are convinced that they just don't feel right, however
Yesterday, Activision treated us to the surprise release of not one, but two Call of Duty ports. You can now buy the original Black Ops and its acclaimed follow-up, Black Ops 2, on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 for the very first time.
They upgrade the resolution of both games on these newer consoles (a substantial step up from the 608p native picture quality of the backwards compatible versions available on Xbox) but otherwise seem almost identical to their original incarnations.
Even some big features that many fans thought would be cut, like Black Ops 2's infamous emblem creator, are present and accounted for.
I picked up copies of the two games immediately with my own cash (there's currently an irresistible 50% discount on them if you have PS Plus) and spent the best part of yesterday evening playing on my PS5. Aside from the crisper picture quality, they're just as I remember.
I replayed the original versions of both games pretty recently too, via second-hand physical copies that I bought for my Xbox Series X to refresh my knowledge of both games ahead of the Black Ops 7 launch — this latest entry is a Black Ops 2 sequel, after all.
Some fans aren't as impressed, though, and argue that the games just don't feel right.
"Black Ops 1 PS5 has a serious controller input lag issue that needs to be adressed [sic] and fixed" argued one poster on r/callofduty. "It surely wasn’t this bad on PS3".
"Sounds like the original launch" another fan replied, with someone else chiming in: "The golden days" and a tongue-in-cheek sobbing emoji.
"BO1 always felt hard to aim in even in the old days compared to BO2. Pretty sure this is normal" added someone else.
Another post similarly reckons that "The responsiveness is terrible. I distinctly remember the original Black Ops 1 feeling way crisper than this". The top comment agrees, complaining that "I’m losing every gun fight because my gun doesn’t fire in time".
Although everything feels fine to me, there's definitely a chance that those playing specific resolutions, on specific TVs, or with features like VRR enabled might be having a much worse experience. I expect some patches will be released in the coming weeks if these claims hold water.