performance – PSafe Blog

If Your Smartphone Could Fry an Egg, Learn How to Cool it Down

PSafe Newsroom — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 22:00:00 +0000

You wake up in the morning and pull your smartphone off the night table, immediately checking the news, weather, and all your social media platforms. Throughout the day, you use your phone so much it barely retains a charge by the evening. Sounding familiar? Smartphones have become our daily workhorses, but if you feel like dropping it because the heat is too much, it’s time to look at how to cool down your device.

Not only can a hot device be miserable day to day, but the extreme heat produced could shorten the life of the battery, processor, and other internal components. Let’s look at a few ways your phone might be overheating and how you can improve the situation, so both you and your smartphone can get on with life.

Fancy Ginormous Cases
While some of us love to adorn our phones in leather for its prestige or solid cases for ultimate protection, your choice of a case could actually be stressing out your phone. Materials like leather don’t breath and allow in airflow, while a lighter silicone or rubber case does.

Reconsider the case for your phone and make a switch. We all want a beautiful and protective case, but if your phone is suffocating, it’s likely overheating in the process.

Intense Chatting, Playing or Watching
The advent of the wireless internet is probably one of the best inventions since avocado toast, but it has been and continues to be a power-magnet. If you find yourself engaging in heavy online activity such as streaming video content or scrolling through Instagram for a few hours, there’s a good chance your device will heat up from the work of the chip.

Are you an intense gamer? While our devices have become experts at reproducing previous generation console quality, their form factors were never designed with maximum ventilation in mind. When gaming, you’re challenging both your CPU and GPU to work to their fullest extent.

Similar to when using your Wi0Fi card like there’s no tomorrow, you may find yourself with little battery life and a hot phone in your hand. Take it as a sign to get up, stretch your legs, and have a break from the screen.

Running Endless Applications
In the end, everything comes back to basics. Your phone could just be overheating because it has too many processes running in the background. Android phones have the ability to switch between multiple apps, well before other mobile options on the market did. However, with great power comes responsibility, and your overheating phone might mean closing what’s happening in the background.

Apps hogging up memory and sucking up power is an ongoing problem. Luckily, you can download an app like dfndr security, which includes a cpu cooler feature to cool down your Android by closing background apps with a single tap. If you are a gamer, the function can do double duty to reduce lag time and free up more resources for your epic gaming battles.

Ugh, Sluggish WiFi? Here’s How to Fix It

PSafe Newsroom — Tue, 27 Mar 2018 12:00:43 +0000

Has your WiFi been slower than usual lately? There could be a number of reasons why your router has been lagging as there are downfalls to modern routers and the places where you get online. One good way to check how fast your Internet is and whether your WiFi has been having any issues is through dfndr security’s wifi check feature, which can help solve this problem.

Here are some reasons why your Internet connection may be slower than usual.

Your Equipment Is Outdated
It possible that you’re still using yesterday’s hardware to power your WiFi today. Learn more about your router as “AC” routers offer the latest technology, while “B,” “G” and “N” models need to be updated. The bottom line is that they ensure your Internet is faster than with other models, while also offering more features.

The maximum spectral bandwidth of N routers is only 4 x 40MHz, while AC routers have it at 8 x 160MHz.

Is Your Router Behind an Ikea Shelf, Rethink That
This may seem like an odd one but the location of your router may affect its performance. If there are objects blocking your router in relation to where you use the Internet, that can affect performance. The tip: place it in an unobstructed area. Also, placing your router as high as possible helps it broadcast far and wide in your home.

The same applies for distance–if you’re too far away from your router, your WiFi may be considerably slower than usual.

Use an Iron-Clad Password
If you use an easy password to guess or no password at all for WiFi, it can be easy for Internet thieves to gobble up your WiFi, which will slow it down considerably. Don’t let this happen and always change the factory default password of your router. If you want to CSI your router history, use a program called WiFi History View that displays every device that’s accessed your online connection.

Microwave Popcorn Messes Up WiFi?!
This is a rare one but it’s possible that microwaves are able to interfere with your router if you have an old one. Both WiFi waves and microwaves operate on 2.4 GHz, and they can potentially overlap with each other. The same concept applies to Bluetooth as this connection also travels on 2.4 GHz.

Finally, Christmas lights can cause issues as the lights may emit an electromagnetic field that interferes with your WiFi. Take those down fast after the holiday season is over!

Check Security Settings Frequently
Sometimes, fixing slow Internet boils down to changing your settings. Having an Open network or using WEP could slow your bandwidth due to the fact that these types of networks aren’t secured. By having an unsecured network, others can steal your WiFi or hack it easily.

You should also avoid WPA and TKIP settings as these are old protocols that lack security. Stick with WPA2 and AES, which are newer, more secure settings that will boost your WiFi speed.

Pump Up Your Gaming in 2018

PSafe Newsroom — Sat, 24 Mar 2018 12:00:09 +0000

The gaming world is as exciting in 2018 as it’s ever been, but Android devices are not always capable of churning out the processing power necessary to fire up a game. There are apps out there that help improve a device’s gaming performance without a hassle, such as dfndr performance, which has a game booster feature to ramp up your gaming.

The game booster tool frees RAM memory from other apps to optimize your gaming experience, helping your games run faster. Here are some other tips you should try to pump up your Android’s gaming ability.

Ramp Up Gaming with ‘memory booster’
It’s of paramount importance that your phone is running on all cylinders in order to improve the speed at which you game, while also reducing lag time. The ‘memory booster’ feature from the dfndr app helps turn your device into a gaming computer by allowing you to close background apps that are running in order to free up RAM memory. This functionality can help you avoid crashes or freezes.

The Hidden ‘Developer Options’ Setting
You could also boost your gaming ability through a hidden Android setting called ‘Developer Options.’ In order to access it, go to the Settings screen, then hit the About phone option at the bottom and click on it. Then, find the Build number and tap it a few times, which will show you a notification that says “You are now 3 steps away from being a developer.” Tap it several times more and then the device will say that you’re a developer.

In the Developer options, there’s a hidden setting that is capable of improving your gaming performance. Scroll down and find the Force 4x MSAA (multi-sample anti-aliasing) option, which ensures that your games will be rendered at their best possible quality because it ensures your device operates at its highest power.

A Solid Pair of Gaming Headphones
There are a number of gaming headphones that can enhance your gaming needs such as the Turtle Beach Earforce M3, as these lightweight headphones offer an immersive gaming experience thanks to their high-quality audio capabilities.The Kingston HyperX Cloud Gaming Headset is another solid choice, which improves the sound of your favorite apps.

Try this Bluetooth Game Controller
Another great way to bolster your game experience is a controller that makes you feel as if you’re playing on a console. The Steel Series Stratus XL has the right weight for your Android gaming needs as it is not too heavy and it looks like an Xbox controller. It has two joysticks, a d-pad and the four main action buttons (A,B,X,Y). A pretty rad way to up gameplay.

Your Dying Android Smartphone Needs a Bit of Spring Cleaning

PSafe Newsroom — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 12:00:47 +0000

Your phone has enjoyed the winter, eating mounds of turkey, not worrying about mowing the lawn, and drinking as much hot chocolate as it desired – or wait, was that you? Ah, yes, your smartphone – the gadget in your pocket – it’s also been working hard tackling endless holiday photos, downloading the season’s latest apps, and researching the perfect recipe for cranberry sauce.

With all that work being carried out by your smartphone, it might be time for a bit of cleaning – a fantastic start to the spring season! Here are some tips to get you started on your journey and speed up your device.

Remove Those Duplicate Photos and Videos
We all love grandpa, but do we really need twenty different photos and videos of him carving the turkey? No doubt, after a long holiday season, our smartphones are stuffed more than the holiday bird. Take the time to delete duplicate files from your device and free up some extra space. Not only will your device’s overall speed increase, but you’ll have more room for those epic spring photos you have planned – you know, of the blooming nature and beautiful sunsets.

Delete Your Once Used Holiday Apps
How many new applications did you download this season? Six different cooking and recipe apps so you could impress your mom, along with that gigantic app your nephew needed to download to control his new robot toy. Now that the season has passed, it’s time to ditch those holiday focused apps. Deleting applications will free up more space on your device, and clear up background resources. The result? A faster device with less loading time and your nephew can always redownload his app when he remembers that $300 toy he played with for five minutes.

Update to Ring in the Spring
You’ve had more important things to do this winter season than update your phone – Mariah Carey singing ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ live when the New Year’s ball dropped, for instance. But, now that the holiday is over and Mariah’s been packaged away for another 365 days, you should take the opportunity to update your device. Head to your Android’s settings to download the latest software. Not only can an upgrade fix security flaws within your device, but new tweaks can improve your device’s overall performance.

Quickly Boost That Phone
If your phone is feeling sluggish and bogged down, download an enhancement app such as dfndr performance for Android; it features abilities such as a memory booster feature to stop resource hogging applications, which will free up RAM and helps prevent crashes or lags.

And that’s all she wrote. Take some time to follow these steps, so your favorite pocketable friend is will be a bit faster and you can be ready for what new adventures lay ahead – like your actual spring cleaning!

Is Your Phone Constantly Overheating? Read This

PSafe Newsroom — Sat, 17 Mar 2018 12:00:45 +0000

If your Android phone is constantly overheating and feels warm this could be problematic and might be a sign your phone could freeze or shut down while using it. Plus, the components of your device could become damaged if it’s constantly overheating. There are a number of ways you can cool down your device. One way is to use dfndr performance’s CPU Cooler feature:

A large usage problem is when you have multiple apps running in the background, contributing to overheating. The CPU Cooler feature allows you to close apps with one tap. Super, duper easy. Now here are some other ways you can cool down your phone when it overheats.

Slow Down That Gaming and Chatting
A common way devices overheat is when they are being overused, especially when graphic-intensive games and apps are constantly running on the device. These apps can eat at your phone’s RAM, CPU, and GPU, causing the battery to work harder than usual.

A good rule of thumb when playing games and using apps that hog your phone’s processing power is to take a 20- to 30-minute break every one to two hours after opening these apps.

Keep Those Apps Under Control
Another good solution to your problem is to make sure your apps are up to date. There’s a reason why apps need to be updated constantly–developers often find bugs in older versions of apps that could suck your device’s processing power and slow down its ability to operate. Make sure you update apps when prompted.

Also, consider uninstalling older apps or games that no longer suit you as these can slow down your RAM memory and make your phone hot, hot, hot!

Check the Pulse of Your Battery
One of the most common reasons devices overheat is due to faulty batteries. A way to check for this problem is to look at whether or not the back of your device is heating up more than the front. Also, most Android devices come with a feature that lets you check your battery health.

Go to your dial app where you make phone calls and type in *#*#4636#*#*. You will see a “Battery information” option that displays the health of your battery and its temperature. Its health should be “Good,” while your temperature should be between 25 to 40 degrees Celsius; anything above 40 is too high.

Charging It Full Seems Smart, Right?
Another sign of a faulty battery is if your device overheats when you charge it. Follow the instructions above if this is happening to you, but also make sure you’re not placing your phone at a spot where it’s not receiving any air. Android devices come with fans too, not just laptops and these only work when the fan isn’t blocked by a cushion or something else.

You should also make sure that you’re not charging your device while using apps with powerful graphics because that’s another way to cause overheating.

Remember: all these factors go to aging a device you rely on a lot and may not have the cash to replace batteries or buy a new phone, so the lesson here? Treat it nicely once in a while.

How to Analyze Junk Files on Your Smartphone

PSafe Newsroom — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 19:30:06 +0000

Before, junk mail would creep into inboxes without notice, often mixing in with your important emails from friends, family, and work. Unsurprisingly, this frustrated many Internet users who fell into Internet schemes and cybercrime. Now, most email services prevent this frustration by filtering out junk mail into a spam folder that’s outside of your inbox. But since smartphones have become more sophisticated, there’s also been an increase in junk files on phones, too. Consider using dfndr performance’s quick cleanup feature to remove junk files from your device:

The quick cleanup feature cleans trash, cache and temporary files to free up internal memory and SD card space. With the rise of email access on different devices like your smartphone and tablet, you need to remember to activate the spam folder. Or, in other cases, it needs to be set up on your phone in general. Below are some basic guidelines for activating, accessing, and analyzing your junk email folder.

Finding Your Junk Email Folder
As mentioned, a junk mail folder will save you many headaches. However, it’s important to make sure that the junk mail is setup correctly. You don’t want important emails going in there! The first step is to find your junk email folder. Finding your junk mail folder is easy. Simply go to your email client of the account requiring the junk mail folder. Bring up the folder list, or whatever shows various folders such as Inbox, Drafts, etc. on your phone. In the folders, you should see a Junk or Spam mail folder. Just click and you’re there!

Customizing Your Junk Email Folder
Moving right along, you’re now in the junk email folder. In that folder, you’ll likely see a lot of messages. Hopefully most of them, if not all, are actually junk mail. As mentioned, you don’t want important emails in that inbox! However, if you do see important emails in your junk email inbox, click on the message or messages in question and find the “Not Spam” button. Click that and those messages should start appearing in your inbox. Additionally, if you have spam or junk messages appearing in your inbox, simply find the “Mark Spam” button. Click and send them to your junk email folder!

What to Do After
Unfortunately, there are often more junk emails than important emails. This means that your entire inbox, not just the junk email folder, can get filled up quickly. This means less storage for important mail. If you notice you’re close to exceeding the amount of space in your inbox, consider investing in an inbox cleaner. Inbox cleaners detect unimportant emails, effectively cleaning them from your inbox. This will save you time, money, and inbox space!

Change the Speed of Your Android Games in 5 Easy Steps

PSafe Newsroom — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 13:00:50 +0000

If you’re a mobile gamer, you know that you’ll do anything to win. That means inviting friends to play, sometimes paying for extra features, or bringing out all the stops to get your own high score. These extra features can put a strain on your phone’s performance. The first step you should take to speed up your games involves using dfndr security’s game booster feature. Click here to reduce loading times and to eliminate lag while playing games on your device:

Besides this juicy tip, did you know that it’s possible to change the speed of your Android games, enabling you to get a higher score and reach new levels? Better yet, you can do it in five easy steps.

Step 2: Change the Mouse Speed
If you didn’t already know, you can change the mouse speed on your Amazon device, enabling you to scroll faster in games like fruit ninja or others that require a quick cursor. While this doesn’t technically alter the speed of the game, increased cursor sensitivity helps to build things up.

Step 3: Change the Animation Scale
This is another feature you may not have known about. In the settings, you can change the animation scale. This means that you can speed up or slow down the animations in the game, which can help to improve performance.

Step 4: Change Your Clock Speed
Another sure-fire way to alter the speed of the games you’re playing is to change your device’s clock speed. Now, your device will think time is running faster or much, much slower. By doing this, you can trick the game into running one way or another, depending on if you need to wait for a long time, or if you need to slow down the clock.

Step 5: Clean Up Your Device
If your games are running slowly, and if you find your phone overheating, don’t panic. Especially if you have an older phone, you may find that games run more slowly or tend to lag when you least want them to. By cleaning out your old files, removing photos, and deleting unused apps and data, you can make your phone run much more smoothly, which means a faster and easier gaming experience. Click here to use quick cleanup to instantly clear files from your device:

Why Does Your Phone Notify You When It’s Fully Charged

PSafe Newsroom — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 00:00:17 +0000

Sometimes when your smartphone is charging, you can walk away from it if the outlet isn’t nearby, or forget about it as you get busy with other things. Forgetting about it can easily overcharge your battery. First, keep your phone nearby to monitor the charging process. Second, consider activating the total charge feature to notify you that your phone is fully charged enough and should be unplugged:

While the total charge feature is a smart solution, you may be wondering why it’s important that your phone alerts you when the battery is charged, read on for the primary reasons.

It Has Stopped Charging
Many people may not know that your phone will stop charging once it reaches full battery. Once your battery is fully charged on your smartphone, the charging circuit will disconnect. This means that the charging circuit will not reconnect until the battery level on your phone has dropped to 95% or lower. This happens to prevent phones from charging once they’re at full battery. Your phone will issue a notification that it has reached full charging so that you know that your phone will no longer be charging.

However, with some phones, there isn’t a risk of leaving your phone on the charger once it’s reached full battery. The phone will simply stop charging until the battery lifes begins to dip down and then once it’s low enough, it will begin charging again.

So You Know When It’s Done
This one is the most obvious, but your phone notifies you so that you know when to unplug it. If your phone didn’t notify you when it reaches full battery, you might not know when to unplug it and use your phone. It simply makes things much easier. You can also use Total Charge to monitor your phone’s charging process and alert you when it’s done:

It Could Overheat
Some people have noticed that their phone tends to get hot while it’s on the charger. In order to prevent your processor from running overtime and heating up, you may want to take your phone off the charger. This is why your phone notifies you when your battery is fully charged. It’s difficult to tell if your phone’s battery or your charger is the reason your phone is overheating so if you notice your phone gets hot when charging, unplug it and take it to get looked at by a professional.

These Are the Top 4 Cities Worldwide for Free Wi-Fi

PSafe Newsroom — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 22:00:25 +0000

Traveling abroad is never a smooth process, and locating reliable Wi-Fi — on top of typical travel dilemmas — can often be stressful. However, many cities around the world have taken steps toward installing broadly accessible Wi-Fi networks. When using these Wi-Fi networks, keep in mind that public networks can come with a host of security flaws. Be sure to run a the Wi-Fi Check feature on your phone once you’ve connected to a new network:

The Wi-Fi Check feature will check the download speed, DNS security, and network security of your public network. It’s a great way to see if you’re using a safe and reliable network. Continue reading to find out a few of the world’s top cities with free and reliable Wi-Fi access.

Taipei, Taiwan
After installing nationwide Wi-Fi in 2011, Taiwan became one of the first countries to offer free Wi-Fi to its citizens. A few years later, the nation expanded its “iTaiwan” network to tourists, as well. By visiting a Taiwan Tourism Bureau Center and presenting their passport as an ID, visitors can register their phones to the foreign network. Taiwan offers approximately 5,000 individual hotspots, many of which are located in tourist destinations, transportation hubs, government offices and cultural establishments. Taipei is heavily populated by hotspots, featuring hundreds of locations all easily locatable through the city’s hotspot map.

Tel Aviv, Israel
Also a leader in the installation of citywide Wi-Fi, Tel Aviv offers 80 separate free Wi-Fi locations for tourists and locals. Most major tourist and transportation locations sport hotspots, many of which are concentrated in the city’s center. Tech users wishing to take advantage of this should connect to the “free_tlv” network. The free Wi-Fi imposes no limits on network usage for users.

Kansas City, Missouri
Although this might be an unusual travel destination, Kansas City’s recently installed public Wi-Fi networks are a sure draw for tech users. This installation is part of an initiative to shift the city towards smart infrastructure. Built and managed by the Sprint network, the Wi-Fi hotspots will feature upload speeds of 130 Mbps and download speeds of 150 Mbps. While the network is available to locals and visitors alike, city officials have said that their main reason for the network is to benefit low-income and underprivileged citizens.

Helsinkl, Finland
This Finnish city’s Wi-Fi network requires no account or password, and imposes no usage limits. The public network offers download speeds of 24 Mbps and upload speeds of 21.8 Mbps. These speeds are fast enough to allow for fast and high quality HD streaming and video calling. The network is available for access in most public spaces and government-owned buildings.

The Top 3 Mobile Gaming Apps That Make You Think

PSafe Newsroom — Sun, 17 Sep 2017 18:00:51 +0000

If you’re tired of playing mindless games, you’re in luck — there are plenty of challenging brain games out there. There are so many apps to choose from that it can be difficult to know which ones will actually help improve your brain and cognitive functions, though. Here’s a list of the top 3 gaming apps to download to improve your brain. Just make sure that all of your brain-training apps are running smoothly by optimizing your gaming experience with game booster:

Improve Your Cognitive Functions With Lumosity
Lumosity is an app that consists of over 50 fun and bright mini-games focused on training your attention, flexibility, memory, speed, and problem-solving. It’s pretty easy to see that this app is great because more than 85 million people have played Lumosity worldwide. When you first download the app it gives you a test to figure out your base-level cognitive function, determines which areas you need the most improvement, and creates a daily plan for you.

Every day Lumosity compiles a brain workout that’s made up of three mini-games that will really make you think. With so many great testimonials from people saying it improved their response times and made them think more efficiently, there’s no reason not to try it out!

With Elevate You Will Learn Real-World Skills
Elevate is perfect for the person looking to improve themselves and learn very useful skills. For most adults, it’s been a while since they’ve learned listening, writing, speaking, reading, and math skills. But Elevate goes beyond just teaching you statistics or math that you won’t really use in your everyday life.

With Elevate they teach you sum estimate that you can use when calculating the bill at a restaurant without having to reach for your calculator app. And if you want to improve your vocabulary, you’re in luck because Elevate asks you to type in synonyms for words, which really makes you think about words you don’t use frequently.

Tetris Will Improve Spatial Intelligence
You may not think about Tetris making you think because it’s a classic game that’s been around forever. But studies have actually shown that spinning your block to fit the designated shape actually improves spatial intelligence. Even 60% of Tetris players report dreaming about the game, which proves that the brain works out how to beat the game and make sense of it while you sleep.