What’s your favorite thing about Instagram? It is that thing where you open the app, start looking at a post you find interesting, but before you’re done, something new loads in its place, and you lose that first photo or video forever? Yeah, that’s my favorite thing, too.

Oh wait, no, I actually hate it—the constant refreshing is beyond annoying. But I have some news: As it happens, Instagram is no longer doing this! Huzzah. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, recently announced in a story on his page (preserved on Threads here from user _blunderchief) that the company has ended this not-so-refreshing practice.

Why did Instagram constantly refresh?

According to Mosseri, the app’s tendency to reload once you returned to it wasn’t a bug but a feature, internally called “rug pull.” It was designed to do two things: First, Instagram is constantly loading content, which takes time, so it decides to show you something that’s already downloaded first—that would be, say, the Reel you started watching as soon as you opened the app. Once the new content loads up, the app would then push it out instead. Not only is that good for Instagram’s load times, it’s good for engagement, which is the second reason the company kept the practice in place for so long.

It makes sense, from a pure numbers perspective: If you’re watching a Reel, that counts as one view. If your app suddenly reloads upon your visit and presents you with a new video, that’s now view number two. Multiply that by Instagram’s half a billion daily active users, and that’s a lot of extra engagement.

That extra engagement came at a cost, however: the sanity of the app’s users (which, let’s be honest, probably isn’t exactly on firm footing these days anyway). I don’t know about you, but when I open the app and see something worth engaging with, I, um, want to engage with it. So, when a new post or Reel presents itself instead, I feel instant rage. Seeing as Instagram has no straightforward watch history to speak of, if you didn’t catch what account it was from, that post or Reel is then likely lost forever.

Going forward, things should be better, but Instagram is not the only social media company that worked (or works) like this. If you ever use X (even when it was called Twitter), you know the pain of constantly losing the post you were reading to a random mid-feed refresh. This sort of behavior makes these apps, which are supposed to be somewhat entertaining to use, an experience in frustration: You’re always on your back foot, never confident you’ll be able to engage with everything that pops across your feed.

As for Instagram, let’s also hope the feed stops refreshing so much when switching between apps. Just as I hated losing a Reel right when I opened the app, I also hate how often I lose something I was watching because I went to respond to a message in another app before finishing it.

Smart heaters produced by Govee and GoveeLife were voluntarily recalled this week due to testing that revealed some models can overheat, potentially causing fires or burns. This affects over 500,000 units in the United States and Canada. Multiple models are included in the recall, most of which came to market in the last year.

Affected models:

• H7130 (including the H7130101 variation)

• H7131

• H7132

• H7133

• H7134

• H7135

You can locate the model number on the bottom of your Govee smart heater on the UL label. If your model is one of the affected ones, you can receive a refund—you do not need to return the unit, but will need proof of destruction (a picture of the heater cord cut) for the refund process. It doesn’t matter if the product is already out of warranty. Once the cord is cut, it should be thrown out or recycled (do not upcycle it or donate it; it is a fire hazard for whoever adopts it, too).

During the refund process, you will be asked for your personal information and order information. You can find additional tips for locating your order number on the recall advisory page here. If you need additional help or have questions, you can reach out to Govee directly.

I tested and reviewed two of these heaters over the last year, and while the tower heater inspired some critical comments about the design, I have used and enjoyed the smaller Smart Heater Lite for the last year and will be sorry to see it go. But go it must.

Phenylephrine is both the most common decongestant on pharmacy shelves, and arguably the worst at its job. If you’ve ever bought something like Sudafed PE (instead of asking for the original formula Sudafed that they keep behind the counter), you know the stuff. Last year, the FDA’s advisory panel ruled that phenylephrine should no longer be considered an effective drug. And finally, the agency is making plans to pull it from pharmacy and grocery store shelves.

The medicines will remain available for the time being, but the FDA has proposed an order, which CBS News reports will be open for comment until May 7, 2025. After that time, the agency is expected to give manufacturers time to remove or reformulate their products.

Which cold medicines have the useless medicine?

The ingredient that has been found ineffective, phenylephrine, is the one that you’ll find in off-the-shelf cold medicines like Sudafed PE, Mucinex FastMax, and Dayquil, to name just a few. (We have a list of more brands and products below, and a guide to the best cold medicines here.)

Phenylephrine is supposed to be a decongestant, reducing the stuffiness of your nose and sinuses. It proliferated in the cold medicine market after pseudoephedrine, which actually works, was forced behind pharmacy counters due to a 2006 law. (It can be used to make meth, so sales are restricted—but it is still available without a prescription. You just have to ask for it, and show your ID.) Even Sudafed, whose very brand name is a reference to pseudoephedrine, came up with a reformulated version of its medicine so it could keep something on the shelves. Phenylephrine is the “PE” in “Sudafed PE.”

Phenylephrine is the one that, according to the FDA panel, doesn’t work. It has never worked. The only reason you bought Sudafed PE is because you were looking for Sudafed and figured this was it.

Phenylephrine isn’t just in Sudafed PE. It’s actually the most popular oral decongestant (oral meaning that it’s given as a pill or syrup). Some other over-the-counter medicines that use phenylephrine include:

• Tylenol Sinus & Headache, Tylenol Sinus Severe, Tylenol Cold & Flu, Tylenol Cold & Flu Severe, Tylenol Cold & Head Congestion Severe

• Theraflu Severe Cold Relief, Theraflu ExpressMax, Theraflu Multi-Symptom Severe Cold

• Mucinex FastMax, Mucinex NightShift, Mucinex SinusMax,

• Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold and Flu (both Day and Night formulas), Alka-Seltzer Plus Severe Cold and Cough PowerFast Fizz

• DayQuil, NyQuil Severe Cold & Flu, Nyquil Severe Cold & Flu Honey, DayQuil Severe Cold & Flu Honey

This isn’t a complete list, but if you’re reading it thinking “well, that’s pretty much every cold medicine that says it will relieve your stuffy nose,” that’s about right. If you want a cold medicine that works, you’ll need to show your ID and get the pseudoephedrine.

What is the difference between phenylephrine and pseudoephedrine?

Both are sold and (for the moment) FDA-approved as over-the-counter decongestants. In brief: pseudoephedrine works well at its job, but there are restrictions on purchasing it. Phenylephrine is more widely available, but does not work well at its job.

Pseudoephedrine is the active ingredient in original Sudafed, and it constricts blood vessels. As a cold medicine, this allows it to reduce congestion in your nose. It’s called pseudoephedrine because it’s related to the stimulant ephedrine, as in ephedra (ma huang). It’s also chemically similar enough to methamphetamine that you can use it as an ingredient for making meth…which is why you can’t buy unlimited amounts of it at the pharmacy. Since 2006, federal law has required pseudoephedrine to be kept out of reach of customers. Pharmacists must make a record of who has bought pseudoephedrine, and you’re limited in how much you can buy in a single day and in a month.

Phenylephrine is also supposed to be able to constrict blood vessels to relieve congestion, but studies show it breaks down in the body, and little to none of the active ingredient ever makes it to your nose (unless you take phenylephrine as a nasal spray). When pseudoephedrine’s sale was restricted, cold medicine manufacturers made phenylephrine-containing replacements. And they were right to bet on them, financially at least: If you don’t know that the good Sudafed is behind the counter (or if it’s late and the pharmacist has gone home), you’ll buy Sudafed PE and figure it’s the same thing. It is not.

How can they sell a cold medicine that doesn’t work?

That’s a good question, and it’s one that doctors and scientists have been asking for years. For example, here’s a paper from the Annals of Pharmacotherapy titled “Why Is Oral Phenylephrine on the Market After Compelling Evidence of Its Ineffectiveness as a Decongestant?”

The FDA considered taking phenylephrine off the market in 2007, but ultimately decided it could stay while more research was done. One possibility was to test larger doses of the drug. In the more recent meeting, the FDA panel decided that would be unsafe; large doses can affect people’s blood pressure.

If you’re curious about the scientific basis for the conclusion that phenylephrine doesn’t work, you can read the briefing document that the FDA panelists considered before voting. It points out flaws in older studies that had suggested the drug works, and it includes results from placebo-controlled trials that show phenylephrine doesn’t work any better than a pill containing no drug at all.

The document also makes the case that you and I will be better off if we’re not wasting our money on a drug that does nothing (and that may have side effects or that we might be allergic to, which are always risks with any drug).

What should I do if my favorite cold medicine gets pulled from the market?

First off, this isn’t happening overnight. The FDA is still taking comments and won’t act until at least next year. (It knows that drug manufacturers will not be happy.)

But if you’re used to buying one of the products that contains phenylephrine, and if that product does get pulled, you’ll basically be in the same situation we are all in now: having to look for other decongestants, or go without. As we’ve explained before, the best cold medicines are the pseudoephedrine behind the counter for congestion, the honey in the grocery aisle for cough, and regular acetaminophen or ibuprofen for fevers and body aches. (Please do not buy homeopathic cold medicines; they aren’t what you think they are.)

That said, there are other ways to treat congestion besides pseudoephedrine. If your congestion is allergy-related, antihistamines can help. Irrigating your nose with saline (for example, with a neti pot) seems to help. Phenylephrine in a nasal spray probably works, and isn’t going anywhere. And don’t forget that you can always talk to your doctor, or even the pharmacist at the drugstore, to ask about other options.

You can get this Samsung Chromebook on sale for $79.99 right now (reg. $229.99) through November 10. The budget laptop runs on a 1.1GHz Celeron N4000 processor with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. It has an 11.6-inch HD display, over twelve hours of battery life, and built-in virus protection, and it’s also built to withstand bumps, drops, and extreme temperatures. It’s a good choice for young students, and it’s $150 off because it’s in grade “B” condition, meaning it has some cosmetic wear on its body but no scratches on its screen.

You can get this refurbished Samsung Chromebook on sale for $79.99 right now (reg. $229.99) through November 10 at 11:59 p.m. PT, though prices can change at any time.

Early Black Friday sales are in full swing, with the likes of Amazon, Best Buy, and now Target competing for your attention. Black Friday isn’t technically until Friday, Nov. 29, but as is often the case, major retailers are rolling out deals a bit earlier. This specific Target sale goes on until the end of the day on Nov. 9. I’ve rounded up some of the best tech deals they have after vetting them with price-tracking tools to make your life a bit easier. Here is what should get your attention.

Beats headphones start at $100

If you’re looking to get some stylish, quality headphones, it’s hard to beat Beats. The Beats Studio Pro is currently $169.99 (originally $349.99). This matches the lowest price I’ve ever seen them. You get comfort, premium accessories, and spatial audio with head tracking. Apple users can use the hands-free Siri access, but everyone can use the one-touch pairing on iOS or Android devices (through Google Fast Pair), which gives simultaneous connections with up to two devices, and a transparency mode that lets you hear your surroundings.

If you’re looking for a cheaper option, the Beats Solo 4 are available for $99.99 (originally $199.99), also the lowest price I’ve seen them. They don’t offer as many bells and whistles and are on-ear headphones (as opposed to over-ear headphones, which are bigger and cup around your ears), but at their current price, they’re a great value.

An LG OLED TV for under $1,000

It’s a good time to pull the trigger on an OLED TV if the 55-inch is the size for your living room. The LG 55″ Class 4K OLED Smart TV is currently $999.99 (originally $1,499.99), the lowest price it has been. At its current price, it’s a better value than even the best budget OLED TVs of 2024. It has a 3840 × 2160 (2160p) resolution, WiFi 5, 4 HDMI inputs and 2 USB ports, and the usual amazing picture quality, colors, viewing angles, and motion blur that you can expect from an OLED TV.

The 9th gen. iPad is under $200

The 64GB 9th generation iPad has been steadily coming down in price over the last few months, but it hasn’t gone below its current $199.99 (originally $329) price. This iPad was considered the best iPad for most people by PCMag and received its Editors’ Choice award in an “excellent” review. While it is three years old, it’s not yet on the list of Apple products no longer getting software updates, so it’s still safe with software updates for a couple more years. It weighs 1.1 pounds and its 10.2-inch screen has a sharp 2,160 by 1,620 pixel resolution with a battery life that gives you around five to six hours of juice.

When I first started taking spin classes almost a decade ago, I was convinced that one of the teachers at my gym was subconsciously broadcasting the state of her love life with each playlist, just based on how often we moved from mushy love songs to sad love songs to songs about being an independent, confident boss, then back again. When I eventually got certified to teach cycling classes myself, I realized I was right: The urge to express your inner feelings through a playlist, then work through them at the gym, is a strong one—but I try not to subject my own students to the details of my inner world.

As someone who is literally paid to make energetic playlists a few times a week, I know a thing or two about how to get the most out of the music you blast at the gym, but the rules I follow for my classes are different than the ones I have in place for my own personal cardio pump-up playlists. I’ll tell you what I do, plus what Teddy Savage, National Lead Trainer at Planet Fitness, recommends.

How to select your tunes based on your cardio method

First of all, my old spin teacher wasn’t totally wrong in her approach: if you’re going through something, tap into it for gym motivation. If you’re hyped up on love, go for love songs. If you’re nervous about a job interview, pick songs that make you feel like a winner. That part is easy and working out while you connect with your emotions is a great way to work through whatever is going on in your life.

That said, you need some structure. In spin, I focus a lot on beats per minute, or BPM. To get people’s heart rates up, I want quick beats, fast feet, and lower tension on the bike, but I want fewer beats per minute to cool down or when we’re climbing a “hill” by increasing the tension on the knob. There’s a lot of weedy thought that goes into all that and you don’t really have to worry about it. As a general guideline, if you’re doing cardio on a bike, lower BPM is considered 120 to 125; you can challenge yourself and get that heart rate up by scooting up into the 130 to 150 range. I use a website called SongBPM, which can pretty reliably tell me the BPM of any song. Again, though, getting too intellectual about this isn’t really necessary; just remember faster songs make you move your legs faster.

It goes out the window when you start running on a treadmill or climbing a stair machine, anyway. In spin, we can hit each beat easily with our feet, but you’re not going to be able to do that on a treadmill nearly as easily or safely. Instead, you need to prioritize finding songs that get you excited, keep you moving, and keep your energy up. My first tip: Look for songs with a long, maybe even emotional bridge if you want to power through higher tensions on a bike or higher speeds on a treadmill, elliptical, or stair climber. Build up that tension or speed during the verses and chorus and when the bridge ends, cut it back down.

“If you’re preparing to do more of a HIIT [high-intensity interval training] style workout that’s going to push you to your limits, you want to add some good up-tempo cuts with some banging baselines,” says Savage, who also suggests motivational or happy lyrics, if you’re into them. “On the other hand, if it’s going to be more of a steady-state cardio type of workout, you might want to opt for a group of feel-good songs that are great for creating imagery with lyrics that tell a story or seem to whimsically take you from the treadmill to a concert where you and your friends are having the time of your lives.”

Go for something new rather than the old favorites

You don’t need me to tell you what kinds of lyrics you like or remind you that you’ll push yourself harder to faster, more intense beats, but there’s more to selecting your songs than all that. When I am working out, I need to be distracted, since I’m not one of those people who draws motivation and joy from the actual working-out part. Sometimes, I do this by watching a compelling, dramatic show on my phone, but on days I opt for music, I need to find a way to trick myself into getting distracted. That means I don’t listen to my favorite songs much at all, as counterintuitive as that may seem.

In spin, it’s very important I teach to song I know by heart, so I can easily cue the other riders. I don’t want to have to think too hard about what is coming next when I’m keeping an eye out for other people’s form and wellbeing; I need the music to blend into the background so I can focus on the class. When I’m working out alone, though, I don’t want it to blend into the background because then, I start to think about how much I don’t want to keep running. To trick myself, I look for remixes, mashups, and sped-up versions of songs I enjoy. Hearing something familiar with a twist keeps me engaged and curious about what is coming. Plus, those versions of songs are usually faster or have stronger bass lines than the originals, making them better for working out all around.

Another option is using AI to find songs similar to ones you already know you enjoy and work out well to. On Spotify, I do this by selecting a song I like and know I would enjoy running to, then hitting the three dots in the upper right corner and selecting “Go to radio.” That creates a whole playlist of similar songs, some of which I might know and many of which I don’t. Distraction achieved.

Other things to keep in mind when making your gym playlist

Savage points out that variety is the spice of life, so you should routinely update your playlist and add new music to keep workouts fresh. I couldn’t agree more. You can follow my spin playlist on Spotify, if you want, since I change it around every two or three days for class; Planet Fitness offers some playlists to follow, too.

One thing I’ve noticed works well for me is designating certain genres for certain tasks. In the same way you might carve out a designated space in your home to study or work, differentiating the music you listen to when you perform certain tasks can help your brain recognize when it’s workout time. On the elliptical, I find myself listening to commercial rap from the early 2000s a lot, which is not what I listen to when I’m running errands. Conversely, I’ve had a few truly strange out-of-mind experiences when I’ve been dancing at a club and a song I use in my spin classes comes on. My silly little Pavlovian brain is always momentarily confused. I’m wearing heels and holding an amaretto sour but… am I about to count down into a sprint? It feels weird to hear those songs and not have my feet strapped into some bike pedals. Harness the lizard quality of your brain by setting aside a genre or two that is just for working out. That way, when you hear those songs, you instinctively know it’s time to haul ass up the stair climber.

Finally, make the playlist longer than you think it needs to be. Per Savage, “The worst thing to have is a playlist that isn’t long enough and you wind up having to repeat songs… Boring! If anything, you want to have the full run time of your playlist to be longer than your expected routine, so that you have more than enough runway to hit your reps, take your breaks, and have a little dance party in between sets.”

For what it’s worth, I always stick some random songs at the end of my spin playlists so there’s still music blaring as people are leaving. It’s disorienting to go from an all-beats assault on your ears to silence and if it happens while you’re in the middle of a workout, you’ll only lose focus by having to pull out your phone and find something new to listen to quickly.

Having spent the better part of a decade being infamous for its RAM usage, Chrome is now on a bit of an apology tour. Recently, the browser has added many performance features to help curb its memory usage, but Google’s efforts to improve Chrome’s performance go beyond that. Some features are there purely to save RAM usage and increase speed, but some will also limit resources to increase your battery life, and then there are features that help make the browser the feel faster.

Some of the gains, unfortunately, come at the cost of privacy or other functionality. I’ve been testing these out for the better part of a week, including the new performance issue alerts feature, and here are my favorite settings and tricks for optimal Chrome performance.

Keep an eye on your tab memory load

Chrome suddenly really cares about RAM (memory) usage. Even when you simply hover over a tab, you can now see how much RAM it’s using. It’s quite useful to know when a single tab is using more than 1GB of memory.

For a more detailed list, use Chrome’s Task Manager. Go to Menu > More Tools > Task Manager. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Shift + Esc on Windows, or right-click in the empty place in the tab bar and choose Task Manager from the menu. From here, you can find any tabs that are using too much memory and click the End Process button to get rid of them.

If you don’t want to see memory use when hovering over a tab, you can disable it by going to Settings > Appearance > Show memory usage on tab hover preview card.

Suspending inactive tabs can help you save memory

Memory Saver mode used to be an on-off switch. But now, you can customize Chrome’s RAM saving feature depending on how you browse and how powerful your system is.

When enabled, Chrome will automatically suspend inactive tabs, giving more resources to tabs that are active. Inactive tabs are shown using a dotted ring icon around the website icon in the tab bar (you can disable the ring under Settings > Performance > General > Inactive Tabs Appearance). Hover over any inactive tab to see how much RAM has been freed up by rendering it inactive, can click on it to bring it back to life.

If you’d rather your important work sites not be suspended, go to Settings > Performance > General and add them to the Always keep these sites active list.

To adjust the timeline for when tabs go inactive, navigate to Chrome Settings > Performance > Memory Saver, where you will see three options: Moderate, Balanced, and Maximum.

Your choice will come down to how powerful your PC or Mac is and how you use your browser. If you’re really starved for active memory, you can switch to the Maximum setting, where Chrome will set tabs to inactive tabs in the shortest period of time possible.

But if you have a relatively modern computer and what you’re looking for is the feeling of a fast browser, you should either switch to the Moderate setting or disable Memory Saver altogether. Chrome is fantastic at quickly resuming inactive tabs, but still, it takes some time.

Sadly, Chrome doesn’t provide you with any more specific options for when tabs will be suspended, so you’re left to trust the browser’s internal algorithms to do the heavy lifting for you. Still, in my testing, I’ve found Memory Saver’s Balanced setting to be quite helpful.

During testing, I found that allowing Chrome to suspend inactive tabs helped me resume my workday better. I pretty much never turn off my aging M1 MacBook Air, and the experience of coming back to work after a day of research and dozens of open tabs is now less daunting. Because most of the heavy tabs that take up more than 100MB RAM are inactive already, resuming my MacBook Air from sleep mode and starting up work is essentially lag-free. For this reason alone, it might be worth accepting the sluggishness that can come with waking up an inactive tab.

Use Energy Saver when on your laptop

Performance vs. battery life is always a delicate balance. But here, too, Chrome offers you a choice.

Under Settings > Performance > Power, you’ll find the Energy Saver switch, which has two options underneath it:

• Turn on only when battery is at 20% or lower

• Turn on when your computer is unplugged

To prioritize performance above all else – like smooth scrolling and fast video frame rates, toggle off Energy Saver altogether. Alternatively, to prioritize battery life, toggle it on and click the box to enable it whenever your computer is unplugged.

For most people, I suggest turning Energy Saver on but only enabling it when your battery is down to 20% or lower.

When Energy Saver mode is active, you’ll see a green leaf icon in the toolbar. You can use this to quickly disable Energy Saver mode anytime, especially when you’re in video calls or sharing your screen, where you might need some extra power.

Make Use of Extended Preloading

This is one of those features that will make you feel like your browser is much faster that it really is. Chrome has a feature called Extended Preloading that can be enabled from Settings > Performance > Speed.

When enabled, a larger array of websites and webpages are preloaded, even before you visit them. The preloading happens in the background through Google’s servers, so there’s very little lag between when you click the link and when the page opens. Because this request is being pre-loaded via Google’s servers, you are sacrificing your privacy, though. Google will use your cookies to figure out which sites you visit often, and which should be preloaded in the background.

By default, Standard preloading is enabled, which works for fewer sites. To turn preloading off completely, uncheck the toggle next to Preload pages.

Get performance issue alerts

Google Chrome’s newest performance feature will proactively alert you when browser tabs are taking up an unhealthy amount of memory. Let’s say you’re watching a 4K video on YouTube, but it’s stuttering even though you’re on a strong internet connection. Google can figure out whether the problem is due to a memory crunch and can alert you which tabs are causing the issue through a speedometer icon next to the address bar. Simply click on the icon and then Fix now to set those tabs to inactive.

The tabs will still stay in your tab bar, and you can always click them again to reload them.

This feature can be enabled from Settings > Performance > General > Performance Issue Alerts.

Apple’s laptops tend to stand the test of time, especially since they switched to their M-line chips, as Lifehacker’s Senior Tech Editor Jake Peterson explained in his piece about how well the M1 and M2 Apple chips are chugging along, years after they were first introduced.

The 13.6-inch M2 MacBook Air in particular, is a powerful machine that will meet the needs of most every casual user—especially with an upgrade to 16GB of RAM (to again cite Jake, it could be “the last laptop you’ll ever buy.”) And right now, that 16GB model is down to its lowest price yet, according to price-checking tools: $799 (originally $999) on Amazon.

All four of the colors (Space Grey,” Midnight, Silver, and Starlight) are discounted, making it an easy pick for my favorite Amazon deal for today.

The 8GB M2 MacBook Air dropped to $999 in April, shortly after the new M3 laptops were released. It was a great value for your money at that price. Then, October Prime Day brought yet another hefty discount, dropping the machine to $749, where it’s still hanging around in the run up to Black Friday. Throughout that time, though, the 16GB version hand’t received any significant discounts. Now it has.

As impressive as the price for the 8GB M2 may seem, paying just $50 more for double the RAM is an outstanding value. (If you already have an M1, here are the difference between the M1 and M2, to help you decide if the upgrade is worth it for you. If you’re comparing the M2 and the M3, you can see our full breakdown here.)