Latest news with #CalvinWankhede
Android Authority
14-06-2025
- Android Authority
I found a simple toggle to get rid of ads in my Gmail inbox, and I can't recommend it enough
Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority I hate nothing more than advertising online that blends into the rest of the content. That's especially true when it shows up in places where I least expect it, like my email inbox. In the Gmail app, the biggest offender is the 'Sponsored' emails pictured above. These ads often show up like a regular message and look almost the same as any other email — sender, subject line, and all. Some ads are even worse and take up significant real estate to show you product images and prices. As you'd expect from a free service like Gmail, there's no way to disable ads directly unless you shell out for a Google Workspace subscription. But what if I told you that there's a workaround built into Gmail that allows you to get rid of those pesky ads once and for all? Better yet, the solution works across both, mobile apps and desktop, and doesn't require installing any third-party extensions. Let me explain. Gmail's ads only show up in one place Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority To get rid of ads within Gmail, it's worth taking a look at where you're most likely to encounter them: the Promotions tab. Google's email service uses a system called Inbox Categories to separate your email into various tabs: Primary, Promotions, Social, Updates, and sometimes Forums. These categories are enabled by default and are pitched as a way to help you deal with inbox clutter. While these categories may look convenient on paper, they hide a secret: the Promotions tab is where you will find the majority of Gmail's advertisements, if not all of them. The top of the Promotions tab typically houses at least three 'Sponsored' emails and you will find even more after scrolling through a few of your actual messages. Disabling one setting is enough to get rid of sneaky ads within Gmail. Surprisingly, turning off these Sponsored emails in Gmail is as easy as disabling Inbox Categories altogether — detailed instructions below. This setting change causes Gmail to revert to a single, unified inbox. Without the Promotions tab, you won't see any more sponsored messages slotted above your emails. As you'd expect, the biggest downside is that Gmail will no longer send your emails into discrete buckets, and everything will show up in your primary inbox. If you rely on Inbox Categories, this may not be an option for you. But since I try to maintain a zero-inbox lifestyle by reading, deleting, or snoozing emails as they arrive, the lack of categories doesn't bother me much. How to disable Inbox Categories Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority Gmail first introduced Inbox Categories in the early 2010s, and the feature is turned on by default on all accounts. To disable it within the Android app, open the Gmail app and find the app's settings at the bottom of the hamburger menu. Next, select the email address you'd like to change the setting for and navigate to the Inbox categories section. Here, you can turn off one or multiple categories. Of course, the one we care about at minimum is Promotions. On the desktop version of Gmail, the process is a bit different. Click on the gear icon at the top-right corner of the screen to open the Settings sidebar. Next, scroll down to the 'Inbox type' section, select the Default view, and click on Customize. Unselect Promotions and any other categories you wish to remove, and hit Save. Once you save this setting, simply return to your inbox and trigger a reload. You should see all of your promotional emails under your primary inbox now, except without any interspersed ads. This setting syncs across all of your devices, so you don't need to repeat it. Admittedly, this tweak isn't for everyone. If you rely on the Promotions tab to batch-delete marketing emails once a week, removing categories might shift all of that clutter into your main inbox. But if you already check all your tabs regularly or prefer full control, it's worth it. The good news is that you can always go back if you end up disliking the change.
Android Authority
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Android Authority
This forgotten Google app let me explore Tokyo like an open world game, and it's surreal
Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority When I'm planning a trip to a new destination, I try to get a feel for the place before I leave — especially if I'm going abroad. Not that I'm trying to mitigate culture shock, but it's helpful to know what the areas I'm visiting actually look like. I prefer knowing how walkable the area around my hotel is and what kind of restaurants are nearby ahead of time. Google Maps is of course my first choice for this task, and I've spent hours mindlessly tapping away. But there's a better way. Nearly a decade ago, Google quietly released an app that lets you roam around the entire world and actually feel like you're standing in it. I'm talking about Google Earth VR, an app designed for the first generation of PC headsets but still works on modern hardware. It may not be the most accessible version of Google Earth, but it's a one-of-a-kind experience that has stuck with me and still offers first-person perspective immersion like nothing else out there. Google Earth, but you're the main character What makes Google Earth VR so special? The app wastes no time to demonstrate — the welcome tour opens with you suspended high above the Arches National Park in Utah at the crack of dawn. Press a button and time accelerates until the sun rises fully and the red rocks beneath are bathed in a warm glow. You get a few seconds to gaze at this endless vista surrounding you, but it's not long before you're dropped in the middle of Tokyo and surrounded by tall buildings instead. Finally, it shuttles you through a series of notable landmarks around the world, each at different times of day. By the end of the tour, you're familiarized with the controls and left to explore. This is where Google Earth VR shines — you can fly yourself up to float above entire countries or shrink down to ground level and strain your neck to see the top of super tall buildings. You have the option to rotate the world around you, change perspectives, or gradually drift through a city like a drone. It's all smooth movement and you always feel like you're in control. Google Earth VR lets you stand in the middle of a dense city or fly through it like a drone. The Earth VR app also really comes into its own when you're in a city where Google has collected detailed 3D imagery like Tokyo, New York, and Paris. Scale yourself down to street level and it feels like you're physically there, just without the crowds or traffic around you. But even the best photogrammetry looks like an AI-generated mess when you're within spitting distance of it. Buildings turn mushy, cars look melted, and fine detail disappears. Luckily then, the folks at Google employed a genius solution — moving a controller up to your head switches you into Street View. There's no better way to explain it than to say it's like standing in a Street View photo. You're at human height, free to look around with your head naturally. Better yet, you can teleport a few feet at a time to the next street view image or cross the street to see a different perspective. You can 'walk' through an entire city this way, ironically emulating an open world game. Street View in VR: A game changer for travel If you're unable to travel due to mobility limitations, Google Earth VR might be the closest alternative out there — and not in a gimmicky way. It offers a level of presence that flat screens simply can't match. From your own home, you can stand at the base of the Eiffel Tower, hover over the Golden Gate Bridge, or drift above the Sydney Opera House. The app includes a built-in list of famous landmarks that you can visit instantly. Even better, you're not stuck with whatever lighting conditions the real world had when the imagery was captured. With a flick of your wrist, you can rotate the sun's position in the sky to change the time of day, casting long shadows from buildings or nailing the desolate look in a desert at midnight. Google Earth VR lets you visit real world addresses, pop into Street View, and move around in human scale. But even as a frequent traveler, Google Earth VR is incredibly handy. This is because it lets you input any address, just like the Maps app on your phone, so you can quickly zero in on a particular location. If I want to see what the walk from my hotel to the subway looks like for my upcoming trip, I can simply fly down to the ground level and enter Street View. I did exactly this before leaving for Malaysia last year and walking around in Street View helped me realize that the city was far more car-centric than its Asian neighbors. It also helped me realize that one route to my hotel was much more accessible than another. With this information, I picked a different mode of transport that required some more walking but didn't force me to cross an eight-lane road. Of course, you can't get a true feel of the neighborhood without live traffic or pedestrian activity — this sadly isn't Microsoft Flight Simulator with its moving cars. But you can still glean a lot about a place just by looking for clues in the environment. Are shops open during the day? Is the sidewalk well maintained? The list goes on. For even the fundamentals of trip planning, Google Earth VR beats passively browsing maps on a phone. And even though the app hasn't received any major updates over the years, it pulls the latest Street View images from Google's servers. Any businesses or storefronts you see in the app, you will likely still encounter in the real world. See the Earth before Google sunsets it forever Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority I first tried Google Earth VR years ago on an original Oculus Rift, back when true virtual reality was still a novelty and required drilling three infrared cameras into my wall. Still, the sense of scale and freedom it offered was impressive. But I more or less forgot about it — until I picked up a Meta Quest 3 last year and decided to revisit my old Oculus game library. Google Earth VR doesn't run natively on the Quest, though. You'll need a VR-capable PC with a decent GPU and either a USB-C cable or decent router for wireless streaming. The idea is that your PC renders the game and streams the output to the headset. It may seem like a janky solution, but it's the only practical way for most people to experience this app in 2025. Google Earth VR hasn't been updated in years, and I fear it's on borrowed time. Setup complexity and hardware cost aside, Google Earth VR has never looked better than on the current crop of headsets. The improved visual fidelity makes it an almost surreal experience that I think everyone should experience. And yet, the app almost sits on the verge of abandonment today. I was a bit surprised that the app still pulls in live 3D and Street View data from Google's servers, but that access could stop at any moment. So if you're even remotely curious and can still get your hands on the hardware, go see the world while it's still online.
Android Authority
11-06-2025
- Android Authority
Samsung is giving away one year of Perplexity Pro
Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority TL;DR The Samsung Galaxy Store is giving away a one-year subscription to Perplexity Pro. A one-year membership ordinarily costs $200. Perplexity Pro gives you XYZ Perplexity is one of the rising stars in the AI space, offering an AI-infused search engine and chatbot. The company also offers a Pro subscription, and it turns out Samsung is giving away a one-year membership. Redditor TheACwarriors (h/t: Android Police) recently discovered that the Galaxy Store is offering a free one-year subscription to Perplexity Pro. The one-year membership ordinarily costs $200, so you're saving a huge chunk of change. Want to take advantage of this offer? You'll need to apparently uninstall Perplexity if you already have it, then download it from the Galaxy Store. You then need to open the app and create a free account or log in to an existing free account. You should automatically get an email after logging in to the app, telling you that you've been upgraded to Perplexity Pro. Unfortunately, it looks like this promotion is only available to Galaxy Store users in the US. It's also worth noting that the promotion has been in effect for roughly a week now, so you might want to act quickly to take advantage. In any event, it's a fantastic freebie if you've been wanting to try out the service. Perplexity Pro offers 300+ Pro searches a day, access to more advanced AI models, image generation capabilities, unlimited file uploads, and the ability to opt out of AI training. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.
Android Authority
07-06-2025
- Android Authority
I use email aliases to hide my Gmail address, and it's the best privacy move I can recommend
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority Have you ever shopped at an online store once, and then found yourself dealing with a constant influx of marketing spam emails for weeks and even months? Virtually every online service wants me to create an account just to read what's below the fold or browse through a few listings. The result is that on any given day, I'm dealing with at least one newsletter, discount code, 'we miss you' flyer, or privacy policy update email that I don't care about. Sure, most marketing emails have an unsubscribe button, but those never seem to work reliably. I've found that plenty of services refuse to honor my opt-out request and even the honest ones will accidentally leak my personal data from time to time. My frustration might sound like a convenient rant to sell you on a solution, but I've found an entirely free solution to this problem: email aliases. They're a shockingly easy workaround that allows me to hide my real Gmail address from unscrupulous websites and keep my inbox free from spam. Here's how. Email aliases: My favorite privacy trick Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority At its core, an email alias is just an alternate email address that forwards messages to your actual inbox. Creating a new alias takes just a couple of clicks and you can create as many as you want. In fact, each online service you sign up for can get its own unique email alias. These aliases don't have anything in common with your true email address or real world identity, so a website cannot profile or track you against other accounts. When you use an alias, the emails you receive don't go straight to your Gmail or personal inbox. Instead, they first land with the alias provider — a privacy-focused service that acts as a middleman. This provider receives the email on your behalf, strips out any tracking elements if necessary, and then forwards it to your actual inbox. To the sender, it looks like any ordinary email address. But the best part? If you ever find that one of these aliases is responsible for spam, you can simply deactivate that particular alias — and the mail will stop making its way to your inbox. The service can continue sending emails but they will simply bounce back or remain undelivered. It's a far more effective way to unsubscribe from a mailing list. Aliases allow me to stop receiving emails from spammy senders and keep my real address safe. Now, you may have heard about Gmail's limited alias support that allows you to append a + to your email address — for example, yourname+amazon@ While this trick can help you identify which site leaked your address, you can't do much else. Your actual Gmail address is still plainly visible before the + symbol. Most advertisers know about this plus addressing trick and will simply drop it along with any text after the symbol. At best, you can only use the plus addressing trick to filter incoming mail or create multiple accounts using the same email address. Using an alias that only adds a slight transformation to your real email address (like a + symbol) means that any site that scrapes or sells data will still get access to your inbox. Worse still, they can spam your real email and there's nothing you can do to stop them. A privacy-focused alias service allows you to deactivate each email address individually — a big advantage over just plus-addressing your real Gmail address. Have you ever used email aliases? 0 votes Yes, I already use email aliases NaN % Not yet, but I will soon NaN % No, I have no use for aliases NaN % How do email aliases work? Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority The above screenshot shows an email sent to one of my aliases instead of my true email address. See where it says 'rise-unburned-ajar@ That's the alias I generated specifically while signing up for this Best Buy account. Another service would get a completely different address, like 'cavalry-pants-hut@ Even though all these emails eventually reach the same inbox, they can be independently tracked and managed. It's worth noting that any good alias provider only relays your emails from the source to the intended destination. In other words, it does not store a copy of your email, meaning your data cannot be leaked in the event of a data breach. This is why it's important to pick a company with a great privacy and security track record. Trustworthy alias providers don't store a copy of your emails once forwarded. But first, you may think it takes effort to grab a new alias for every sign up form I encounter online, but I have the process largely automated. Most respected password managers, including Bitwarden and Proton Pass, have a built-in email alias generator. It's the same process as generating a unique and randomized password, but for email instead. However, a password manager is not responsible for creating, managing, and routing aliases — you need a trusted service for that. Which email alias provider should you use? Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority If you've ever used an iPhone, some of this might already sound familiar. Apple offers a built-in aliasing feature through its Sign in with Apple option, which offers to hide your email address. Behind the scenes, this simply creates a unique email alias ending in '@ Emails sent to that address are quietly forwarded to your Apple ID-linked email address. If you're an iCloud+ user, you can also generate an unlimited number of aliases manually and on demand. However, this is another ecosystem lock-in opportunity, so I wouldn't recommend using Apple for your email aliases. One of the most well-regarded services in the privacy space is SimpleLogin — an open-source email aliasing tool that was acquired by Proton in 2022. It has since been integrated into Proton's ecosystem, including Proton Mail and Proton Pass. I tried Proton Mail as an alternative to Gmail a few weeks ago and, even though I didn't stick with the platform, the usefulness of aliases stuck with me enough to keep using the feature long afterward. SimpleLogin, Firefox, and DuckDuckGo are the most trusted email alias providers. SimpleLogin gives you 10 aliases for free, and a $36/year subscription unlocks unlimited aliases. It's also bundled with Proton Pass' premium tier, which is handy if you need a password manager or just want to consolidate your privacy tools. That said, there are plenty others. AnonDaddy is another trusted name in the privacy space, and it's open source too. Another solid option is Firefox Relay. It gives you 5 aliases for free and unlimited aliases for just $12/year. If you're in a supported region, it can also mask your phone number — a rare feature that comes in handy for sites that require SMS verification. I personally use DuckDuckGo's Email Protection, which is less feature-rich than some of these platforms but offers an unlimited number of aliases for free. The search engine has a proven track record for privacy and as far as I can tell, there's no catch to the service. The only downside is that there's no central dashboard to view or manage all aliases like some of the other alias providers. But every forwarded email includes a 'Deactivate' button, so I can kill off any alias that gets abused. That's been more than enough for my needs. If you're serious about privacy, SimpleLogin is perhaps the way to go as it's the most mature service of the lot. But if you just want to test the waters or use an alias service occasionally, I can recommend DuckDuckGo too. Late last year, we spotted Google testing its own alias service dubbed Shielded Email. I expect this service to require a Google One subscription, similar to Apple's Hide My Email. But unlike the latter, you will likely be able to generate aliases on any device via the Chrome browser. Still, I'm happy with the setup I have now since I don't have to rely on Apple or Google.
Android Authority
06-06-2025
- Android Authority
ChatGPT wasn't built for this, but it's now the center of my daily routine
Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority It hit me while I was standing in the grocery store with my phone out. I don't use note-taking apps anymore. My shopping list was sitting in a persistent chat with ChatGPT, right where it had created it for me after helping me plan my family's meals for the week. It even specified my daughter's favorite yogurt. This wasn't a one-off. I had slowly started using ChatGPT as a productivity tool for every part of my personal life. It started when I grew tired of juggling multiple apps for notes, lists, and reminders. I didn't want to bounce between half a dozen apps just to get stuff done. ChatGPT, as it turns out, is slowly turning into my super app, and I'm not sure that's what it was designed for. Would you use ChatGPT to manage your daily life? 0 votes Already do NaN % I might try it NaN % Not for me NaN % I didn't even know you could NaN % My use of AI is a little unconventional Nathan Drescher / Android Authority My day starts with a check-in. I open a persistent chat I call 'Today.' It's kind of my central hub. I get it to remember my day's tasks, set priorities, and work through what needs doing. If I tell it what times I have things to do, it's great at arranging my schedule for me. I'll ask it to help organize things by urgency, and it handles it all for me. When something new comes up, I just type it in. No form fields, no UI clutter. I keep a rolling list of time-sensitive items I review throughout the day. I need to remember to check it because ChatGPT doesn't have push notifications, but the low-friction input means I don't forget to capture things, so it evens out. Shopping and meal planning live in another chat. The grocery list gets updated throughout the week. It's easy to meal plan and then have ChatGPT create a shopping list, organized by section of the grocery store. I can input what foods I have on hand and it will spit out some suggestions for quick meals. When I purchase something, I simply tell it, and the AI automatically crosses that item off the list. All parts of my personal life are managed this way. Errands, kids, health. They're searchable, and ChatGPT is great at resurfacing information with a single command. That's more than I can say for a lot of productivity tools I've tried. It works better than it should Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority I don't believe this is what Sam Altman and the OpenAI team had in mind for ChatGPT. And I didn't set out to use it this way. In fact, I didn't find many uses for it at first. I never liked AI-generated slop, whether written or visual. As a journalist and writer, I've been kind of hostile to AI. But then I began using it for web searches, and that evolved into recipes, and budgeting, and then I learned it could take notes, and, well, it just sort of happened. ChatGPT is everywhere. It's always synced. I don't have to worry if something was saved. I don't have to remember which app I saved it in. It's all in one place. There's no UI to learn or settings to tweak. I just type what I need and it does the rest. There's no UI to learn or settings to tweak. I just type what I need and it does the rest. Nathan Drescher The persistent chat format is powerful because it remembers what I told it earlier, and it keeps context better than any standalone tool. Notes and lists can be updated easily. I can even change priorities mid-thread, and ChatGPT picks it up without skipping a beat. Most importantly, it reduces mental overhead. Everything is centralized and handled by something objectively smarter than many people. It's not all roses and sunshine Nathan Drescher / Android Authority All that said, ChatGPT is not perfect. The lack of push notifications is a real pain point I've had to learn to work around. Unlike a dedicated reminders app, which can notify me on my phone, laptop, and watch, I need to manually open ChatGPT and ask it to show me my next reminder. It can send me an email for each reminder, which can then push to my device, but it's a bulky workaround. There's also no integrations with calendars or emails. It cannot handle recurring tasks or automate workflows. If I forget what I put in a note or a task I created, there's no way to get it back. There's no visual structure, either. No kanban boards, no drag-and-drop timelines. This means I need much stricter self-discipline to use it as my second brain. I need much stricter self-discipline to use it as my second brain. Nathan Drescher Finally, it's not built for collaboration. That's why I don't use it for work. It's useless when working with a team or editors, but for personal life management, it's surprisingly effective. The unintended productivity app for me ChatGPT is not a productivity app. Maybe that's why it works so well for me. It's conversational, always available, and adapts to my sometimes crazy day without forcing me to follow a strict system thought out by someone else. It's replaced a lot of my apps, including task managers, note-taking apps, and spreadsheets (although Google Keep will always be on phone). It's good enough that I'm not looking for replacements. This won't suit every kind of user. But if you're like me and prefer to brain dump rather than meticulously organize, then ChatGPT might just be the second brain you didn't know you had.
