⚠️ Delete these 21 VPNs now, some tied to China

Welcome to your tech fabulous Tuesday, {{first_name | friend}}.

💔 Romance scams have gone from “I’m a prince” to full-blown Star Trek fan-flick. A con artist just convinced an 80-year-old woman that he was … wait for it … an astronaut on the ISS who desperately needed $6,750. For oxygen. Literally, “I’m on a spaceship right now, under attack, running out of oxygen.” Yes, she sent the money. At this point, the only thing truly lost in space is common sense. 🪐

👻 Don’t let me ghost you. Emails are weird. One minute we’re connected, the next I’m trapped in some spam dungeon next to fake princes and sketchy time-share offers. Let’s not let that happen. Tap my name at the top of this email and add me to your Contacts, VIPs or Favorites, whatever your inbox calls its cool kids club. That way, I’ll always land where I belong: front and center with your tech tips and daily dose of “Whoa, I didn’t know that!” — Kim

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Using a VPN? Better make sure it’s not on this list.

VPNs are supposed to keep you safe. They encrypt your internet traffic and hide your location from hackers, ISPs and creepy ad trackers. 

But what if the app was secretly collecting browsing data, location, everything you type, anything you do, then selling it all to who knows who?

You guessed it. Researchers just flagged at least 21 free VPN apps for being dangerously insecure and misleading. They look totally different on the surface, i.e., security-centric names, flashy logos and even glowing customer reviews. Spoiler: Some are linked to communist China. 

These VPNs racked up almost a billion downloads on the Apple App Store and Google Play. That’s huge. 

Here are the VPNs to delete right now:

Turbo VPN, Turbo VPN Lite, VPN Monster, VPN Proxy Master, VPN Proxy Master – Lite, Snap VPN, Robot VPN, SuperNet VPN, VPNIFY, VPN Proxy OvpnSpider, WireVPN – Fast VPN & Proxy, Now VPN, Speedy Quark VPN, Best VPN Proxy AppVPN, HulaVPN, PearlVPN, Signal Secure VPN, VPN Guru, SmartVPN, iRocketVPN, and LinkVPN.

Simply deleting these apps isn’t enough. You need to do more. Note: I’ve checked the steps, but these may vary depending on your device’s make, model and operating system version.

📱 On iPhone and iPad:

📱 On Android:

To be extra safe, check your phone’s Location or Background Activity permissions and remove anything the VPN had access to. 

If you want a VPN that protects you, I personally use ExpressVPN, a longtime sponsor of my national radio show. It’s fast, easy to use and has a strict no-logs policy. 

ExpressVPN doesn’t track what you do online. Period. It’s been independently audited (multiple times), runs its own secure servers and doesn’t cut corners or steal your data like those free, shady apps.

If you travel, work remotely, shop online or just don’t want your internet provider watching everything you do, click or tap here to get 4 extra months free when you sign up.

Lauren from San Francisco got a call from her dad … crying and screaming that a man wanted to kill him. The truth? Her dad wasn’t on the line. Plus: Google dodges a breakup, Amazon cuts perks, and an AirTag leads to a luggage thief.

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💿 Leather CD player (15% off): Dust off those old discs. This plays your old CDs and pairs with Bluetooth.

🔌 Tower power strip (20% off): Eight outlets + five USB ports = one neat tower that finally ends desk chaos.

🛒 Crank up your cart: I rounded up 25 more great gadgets over on my Amazon storefront. Go give yourself a treat.

🎭 Deepfake stole her home: A 66-year-old California woman lost her life savings and home after scammers used AI deepfakes to impersonate soap star Steve Burton. You know the drill, Steve said he was in love and they would be together forever. But he needed money. She sent him $81K, then he pushed her into selling her $350K condo for quick cash. By the time her daughter intervened, the house was long gone.

Grok and ye shall find (malicious links!): Scammers have figured out how to trick X’s Grok AI into sharing dangerous links by hiding them in places the system overlooks, making those links look “trusted” when they’re anything but. Some posts have racked up millions of views, which means bad actors get a megaphone straight to your feed. PSA: Never click blindly, even if Grok hands you the link on a silver platter.

💰 Zuck’s $250M hire: Meta just signed a 24-year-old AI researcher to a $250 million four-year deal (paywall link). That’s more than Steph Curry makes to play basketball. Oppenheimer, the guy who made the atomic bomb, made about $150K a year in today’s money. This “spend big, forget profits” vibe feels straight out of the dot-com bubble.

New mental illness alert: Just passing this along. Doctors are seeing a rise in “AI delusions,” people breaking down after endless chats with bots that never disagree. Not schizophrenia, but not nothing. Experts warn this could mark a brand-new disorder. Imaginary friends? Now they charge $20/month.

♣️ Google laid its AI cards on the table: They quietly dropped limits for Gemini. Free users get five prompts per day, 100 images per month and five long-form deep dives. The Gemini Advanced (Ultra 1.5) plan runs $19.99/month and bumps you up to 500 prompts per day, 1,000 images per month and daily high-powered file analysis using Gemini in Gmail, Docs and more.

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Wondering what’s happening up front during your flight? Here’s how you can listen in like a pro. Super cool!

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⚡️ 3-second tech genius: On Facebook desktop, press ? on your keyboard to open a full list of keyboard shortcuts. You can navigate, leave comments, like photos and more without ever touching your mouse.

⚙️ Chrome has its own Task manager: Know which tabs are hogging system resources. Go to the three-dot menu (top right) > More Tools > Task manager. You’ll see Memory and CPU use for each tab. If one’s eating up too much, select it and hit End task.

Add another Touch ID on iPad: Set up a second finger for easier unlocking. Go to Settings > Touch ID & Passcode > Fingerprints > Add a fingerprint. Bonus: Scroll down to Allow Access When Locked and turn off Control Center, so a thief can’t put your iPad in Airplane Mode. Nice one, right?

📺 TV shopping 101: Don’t just grab the biggest one. Get 4K, so the picture’s sharp. Confused? OLED gives you deep blacks and vibrant colors but costs more. QLED is brighter, cheaper and better in sunny rooms. Gamers: Look for a 120 Hz refresh rate or higher, so the action doesn’t stutter.

Check sketchy apps on Android: Before installing something from the Play Store, see what info it collects and shares. Open the app page, scroll down and tap Data Safety. You’ll find whether it gathers personal details, photos, location or financial info, and if your data is encrypted in transit. 

🎬 Adobe Premiere coming to iPhone: The app includes pro tools like multitrack timelines, frame-by-frame editing, 4K support and more. The catch? You’ll need to pay for AI features or extra storage. Preorder it free on the App Store to get it automatically when it drops later this month.

102
The age of Mount Fuji’s newest oldest summit climber. Kokichi Akuzawa scaled Japan’s 12,388-foot peak with his daughter (70), granddaughter and her husband, despite past heart failure, shingles and even a fall. He’s out there bagging mountains while we’re bargaining with ourselves over taking the stairs. There’s some motivation for you.

20,000 corporate employees
Were tested to see if cybersecurity training helps them avoid phishing scams. The result? Their failure rate was only 1.7% lower than people with no training at all. Blame the materials or the teaching, but the real fix is auto-detecting software (paywall link). Send this stat to your boss before they book another mandatory workshop.

$1.5 billion
The biggest copyright payout ever, courtesy of Anthropic. That’s more than some publishers make in a year, and all because Claude was caught with its hand in the pirate library cookie jar. Guess plagiarism does pay, just not in the way Anthropic hoped. If your book was in Anthropic’s pirated dataset, you’re automatically in the settlement class, with attorneys filing the full ~500,000-title list by Oct. 10.

Window shopping

Amazon just gave your camera a shopping problem. Their new Lens Live feature lets you point your phone at anything (your neighbor’s shoes, that weirdly perfect coffee table at the Airbnb or even your dog’s Halloween costume) and Amazon will instantly show you a bunch of look-alikes you can buy on the spot. 

No typing, no guessing, just “see it, shop it.” It even ropes in their AI assistant Rufus to whisper helpful things like “This one’s cheaper” or “Here’s what people really think of it.”

To try it out, open the Amazon app on your iPhone, tap the camera icon in the search bar, then select Style or Scan & Shop (depending on what pops up). Point it at whatever you’re eyeing in real life, and get ready for your cart to fill itself. Android users? Sit tight, it’s iOS only for now.

👋🏻 Goodbye, self-control.

🚀 Hey, before you roll your eyes at that poor woman wiring cash to a “stranded astronaut,” remember this: Romance scams drained more than $1.3 billion globally last year. The scary part? Those scams are getting better with deepfakes of niche micro-celebrities, and unknowing Uber drivers picking up the loot. 

Speaking of… Just got a text that said I won $250 cash or VIP tickets to an Elvis tribute night. It read: Press 1 for the money, 2 for the show. (Mission accomplished. Smile spotted.)

This is the #1 tech newsletter in the United States, and I’m bringing the heat every day to keep you from being parted from your money by the nefarious world of online deviants. Tomorrow, the everyday apps people are using to stalk and harass. You don’t want to miss it, really.

🤗 Until then, go make something amazing happen today. Even a little win is still a win. — Kim

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Photo credit(s): Bing Image Creator, INSIGNIA, Amazon

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