Technology

The archive saving home sewing history from the trash

Published

2 years ago

June 20, 2022

The archive saving home sewing history from the trash

Lara A. Greene retains her vintage stitching patterns in plastic tubs, stashed within the first-floor workshop of her previous Victorian residence so she will throw them out the window if her home goes up in flames. Greene has collected no less than 10,000 patterns — presumably 20,000 — because the Nineties. And like different collectors, she is paranoid about dropping them: to fireside, flood, and mice or just the indifference of individuals whose first intuition could be to toss them within the trash.

In 1994, Greene was a 24-year-old stitcher on the New York Metropolis Opera when she was introduced alongside to go to Betty Williams, a fancy dress designer and researcher with a big vintage sample assortment. Outdated patterns are used as references by costume designers, particularly when engaged on interval items, and seeing Williams’ assortment was formative for Greene. It started a decades-long hunt as she looked for the oldest doable examples so as to add to her private archive.

“It didn’t happen to me that patterns themselves had been that previous. I didn’t even take into consideration how individuals prior to now made their clothes, aside from going to a tailor,” Greene says. “As soon as I knew for a indisputable fact that patterns that previous existed, I simply bought lustful for them.”

The Client Sample Archive housed in Carothers Library on the College of Rhode Island. The biggest of it’s variety on the planet, it comprises over 60,000 patterns courting from 1847. Kingston, Rhode Island on April twenty first 2022.

Stitching patterns present a uniquely detailed take a look at the lives of working-class individuals all through historical past that clothes collections held at museums or universities seldom supply. These patterns — flimsy packets of paper coated in shapes, numbers, and symbols — information sewists by way of the method of constructing every part from sweatpants to wedding ceremony clothes. And thru many of the twentieth century, earlier than producers moved manufacturing to capitalize on low cost labor overseas, stitching at residence was a technique to have high-quality clothes for much less cash.

However scholarship round patterns and residential stitching remains to be comparatively underappreciated, typically dismissed as girls’s work or insignificant to trend and artwork. The widespread sample’s ubiquitousness solely provides to its disposability — patterns had been low cost to buy and finicky to protect and had been by no means meant to final.

For the group of classic stitching fanatics, an unassuming web site maintained by the College of Rhode Island is a priceless and irreplaceable treasure. The Business Sample Archive is likely one of the few tasks on the planet that safeguards these paperwork which might be fragile, simply forgotten, and born to die. A labor of affection and insistence on the a part of a small group of historians, costume designers, archivists, and hobbyists, the archive started within the Nineties and features a bodily stash and digital database of English-language patterns unparalleled in its scope and depth. CoPA is residence to round 56,000 bodily patterns going again to the 1800s, together with books, pamphlets, journals, and different associated materials.

“The nightmare for many of us who acquire vintage patterns is that when generations inherit their mother’s or grandmother’s stuff, the paper, the ephemera, the magazines, the catalogs, the paper patterns — that’s simply stuff individuals throw away,” Greene says.

House stitching patterns aren’t meant to be saved for many years — they’re made to be disposable. Patterns are packaged in paper envelopes, with sizing, supplies, and instance clothes illustrated on the sleeve. The sample inside is printed on delicate tissue paper which may tear if a sewist seems at it the improper method. That sample paper is then layered atop material and minimize alongside the printed strains, making reuse and resizing tedious. As soon as items are minimize out of the bigger sheet, it’s simple to lose them — a rogue sleeve or a lacking entrance bodice piece — rendering the sample incomplete.

Verge reporter Mia Sato works on a costume from a classic sample at a makeshift stitching station — her eating room desk.

“They’re primarily ephemeral objects,” Karen Morse, appearing curator of the archive, says of the patterns within the assortment. “The truth that they’re even round in any respect is in a method a contemporary miracle.”

For many of the twentieth century, making your individual clothes was cheaper than shopping for off the rack, says Susan Hannel, affiliate professor of textiles and design at URI. Patterns had been cheap and simply accessible, and for 1000’s of years, stitching was an on a regular basis exercise. And but, most museum collections don’t embrace clothes from on a regular basis, working-class backgrounds — whether or not that’s a piece uniform or a skirt swimsuit sewn at residence utilizing a business Dior sample. For one, home-sewn clothes aren’t as flashy as garments proven on a runway or worn by the rich. And residential stitching performed by girls and working-class households is mostly undervalued.

“[The pattern archive] is what individuals dreamed about sporting, and who they had been, but in addition simply on a regular basis stuff. You simply don’t get these objects in historic costume and textiles collections,” Hannel says. “That’s misplaced historical past.”

The oldest items in CoPA are from 1847, when patterns on this format had been first coming into being, and embrace child bonnets, ruffled wraps, and robes. Although the gathering is usually girls’s items, curators will take patterns for nearly any sort of garment, from clergy robes and Halloween costumes to Cabbage Patch Youngsters doll clothes. The ’40s by way of ’70s are significantly well-represented with 7,000 to 9,000 patterns per decade, when residence stitching was booming within the US.

The biggest of its variety on the planet, the Client Sample Archive comprises over 60,000 patterns courting from 1847.

Although the archive is open for in-person viewing and use, Morse says the net database is the first method individuals make the most of the patterns. Requests for entry vary from hobbyists and residential sewists to designers, researchers, and curators. However distinctive requests illustrate the worth of the gathering past the style business: Morse recollects the graphic novelist who wished to attract characters in period-accurate clothes utilizing the archive as a analysis instrument. She additionally lately had a request from an utilized arithmetic professor who wished to tag clothes at key factors like neckline and hem to see if there was a formulation to clarify adjustments to clothes by way of the many years.

When patterns are donated to CoPA, they’re first examined and in comparison with the present stock, checking for dates, a sample quantity assigned by the writer, and the kind of garment. Older sample sleeves typically didn’t embrace the 12 months of publication, and publishers often reused sample numbers, so CoPA employees use supplemental supplies like business magazines, journals, and pamphlets to expertly date each bit. The back and front of patterns are scanned and uploaded to the net database, and the bodily copies are positioned in a protecting plastic sleeve and saved in a submitting cupboard within the library, the place temperatures are managed, and publicity to gentle is restricted. Although the sample sheets themselves should not digitized, some customers have enlarged envelope scans exhibiting outlines of garment items to create usable patterns.

Donations from establishments and libraries, collectors, publishers, and people make up CoPA’s huge catalog, believed to be the biggest assortment of its variety on the planet. The idea of CoPA comes from Williams, the costume designer in New York, whose assortment was acquired following her loss of life. Pleasure Spanabel Emery, a theater professor at URI who turned the main professional on residence stitching patterns, served because the curator of CoPA after retiring from educating and finally added her personal assortment as properly.

Greene, the tailor and sample collector, has used the net database for her work to analysis how specific clothes had been constructed whereas engaged on stage productions, movies, and TV. With out CoPA, she wouldn’t have been capable of look at the bizarre sample items of a night robe from the Nineteen Thirties or the complexity of an Eighteen Nineties dolman, a kind of outerwear resembling a scarf that wraps across the wearer’s arms. In her work for the 2013 movie The Secret Lifetime of Walter Mitty, Greene used vintage patterns to outfit Ben Stiller’s character in a Forties playsuit. Greene, who focuses on corsets, additionally served as a corsetier for the 2017 movie The Best Showman and season two of the TV sequence Boardwalk Empire, amongst many different productions.

Director of Distinctive Collections, Karen Morse gives a tour of the Consumer Pattern Archive housed in Carothers Library at the University of Rhode Island. The largest of it's kind in the world, it contains over 60,000 patterns dating from 1847. Kingston, Rhode Island on April 21st 2022. — Director of Distinctive Collections, Karen Morse provides a tour of the Client Sample Archive housed in Carothers Library on the College of Rhode Island in Kingston, Rhode Island on April twenty first 2022.

CoPA can also be a well-liked instrument for members of the Classic Stitching Sample Nerds Fb group. The group’s greater than 42,000 members convene to share stashes they discover in attics, exhibit clothes created utilizing decades-old patterns, and ask questions, and CoPA is usually the primary cease for analysis in courting patterns or to search out garment development strategies which might be hardly ever seen at this time. Members type by way of the tens of 1000’s of entries, hoping to discover a match to the sample they lately got here throughout or to dig up extra details about a sample they haven’t been capable of get their palms on.

For patterns unimaginable to search out on the market and never documented in CoPA, the search continues. One significantly sought-after sample is Advance 2795, a 1942 girls’s coverall designed by the US Division of Agriculture that’s not but archived in CoPA. Members of the Nerds group have tried to breed the piece by sharing what they learn about related clothes and experimenting with development.

“I seek for this each single day,” one member wrote in regards to the coverall sample. “I missed out on it as soon as about 10 years in the past. It was in my Etsy cart however offered once I went to take a look at,” says one other. “Been searching ever since!”

Although CoPA shouldn’t be full, those that use the archive say its existence in any respect is a marvel — there may be nothing else prefer it on the planet. As a result of residence stitching was extra accessible than costly ready-to-wear clothes, the patterns in CoPA symbolize swarths of individuals and communities that different college or museum collections don’t, says Charity Armstead, a trend professor at Brenau College in Georgia.

“What’s preserved in museums is usually the perfect of the perfect. It’s rich individuals’s clothes; it’s their greatest costume,” Armstead says. In distinction, CoPA’s concentrate on residence stitching gives important information on what rural and working-class individuals made, wore, and used. Armstead additionally notes individuals of coloration who sewed out of necessity, like Black consumers who had been denied entry to becoming rooms throughout Jim Crow.

“We don’t know essentially who these patterns belonged to. However we do know what teams of individuals traditionally used stitching patterns probably the most,” Armstead says.

The database incorporates particular person donations however has additionally absorbed different collections, like these previously held on the Trend Institute of Expertise. Most sample corporations didn’t maintain constant data of sample designs they revealed or misplaced what they did save as corporations had been purchased out or shuttered, Morse, the curator, says. Butterick, one of many largest publishers of patterns, was an exception; the corporate’s archives now reside in CoPA.

“If we weren’t doing this, the place would all these items go?” Morse says. “FIT determined that they didn’t wish to preserve their sample assortment anymore. What would have occurred if we didn’t take it? Would it not have simply gone within the dumpster?”

Individuals who depend on CoPA can’t assist however fear in regards to the assortment’s future, particularly following the 2018 loss of life of Spanabel Emery, the founding curator. Armstead, who knew Spanabel Emery and visited the gathering in individual, says her loss of life was a big loss to the sphere of analysis.

Funding, too, has induced delays. In 2017, the college shifted the database from being a paid subscription service to being open entry, Morse says, which allowed extra individuals to make use of it but in addition resulted in a lack of earnings that was used to pay college students who labored on the gathering. Cash from an endowment arrange by Spanabel Emery has but to kick in, ensuing within the present “fallow interval.” Morse hopes to rent a devoted coordinator and curator later this 12 months with funds from the endowment.

Greene, the collector and tailor, is now within the strategy of promoting off a few of her 1000’s of stitching patterns that she now not makes use of. Earlier than Spanabel Emery died, the 2 had been discussing how Greene’s huge assortment might be built-in into CoPA, whether or not by way of donations or filling in info gaps. Principally, Greene simply needs to verify CoPA lives on and that these irreplaceable patterns are saved and obtainable to anybody who’s drawn to them as she was.

“I positively don’t wish to be a dragon sitting on my hoard not sharing it,” she says. “I would like it to be documented and helpful and on the market.”

Technology

Two new tech documentaries you really need to see

Published

7 hours ago

November 24, 2024

Press Room

Two new tech documentaries you really need to see

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 61, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, happy Hallmark season, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

I missed you all last week — thanks to everyone who told me you missed Installer, too! Warms my heart, and also makes me feel terrible for not being there, but mostly warms my heart. Let’s get back at it. This week, I’ve been reading about venom and deadly car races and hockey phenoms, setting up the new Mac Mini I finally caved and bought, watching The Day of the Jackal (which is spectacular) and Wolfs (which is fine), devouring the Dark Matter and Say Nothing books before I watch the shows, seeing if Google’s Gemini app can replace my search engine, trying to restart my notebooking habit with MyMind, and listening to the Halt and Catch Fire soundtrack on repeat.

I also have for you a delightful new music-making gadget, a couple of interesting new documentaries, a humongous Alexa device, the next big thing in Dune, and much more.

And I have a question: what’s on your gift list this year? Stuff you want, stuff you’re giving, it’s all fair game. I’m putting together an Installer-y gift guide for next week and would love your ideas! (And fair warning, I’m going to be asking for lots of your recommendations the next few weeks — I have some fun year-end things planned.)

Okay, lots going on this week! Let’s get into it.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into right now? What should everyone else be watching / reading / playing / listening to / air-frying this week? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, tell them to subscribe here.)

The Drop

Surveilled. First, read Ronan Farrow’s latest New Yorker article about how the US government could very easily hack your tech. Then watch this new doc about how this kind of thing is happening all over the world, and Farrow won’t seem so dramatic when he basically advocates hucking your phone out the window.
Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy. This looks like it belongs in the legacy of The Great Hack and The Social Dilemma, which is to say, very alarming and somewhat overstated documentaries about how the world really works. But the tricks companies use to get you to keep spending money, even the obvious ones, are pretty alarming to see laid out like this.
Teenage Engineering’s OP-XY. The OP-1 is still Teenage Engineering’s classic and most iconic synthesizer, but this new synthesizer / sampler / sequencer looks like an even more powerful portable music maker. TE is maybe the only company that makes me wish I were a musician, just so I’d have a reason to buy this.
Dune: Prophecy. My obsession with all things Dune is not a secret if you’ve been reading Installer for a while. So far, this super-prequel isn’t exactly fizzing with action, but it’s dramatic and big and I’m into it.
Year of the Ring. Our friends over at Polygon put together this epic tale about an epic tale: Lord of the Rings. Stories about the books, the movies, the characters, the fanfiction, and so much more. If you’re a Tolkien-head, you won’t want to miss this.
Queue. A perfectly minimalist iPhone podcast app, this one. You add a show, it puts new episodes in a list, you play things from the list. The more I use it, the more I wonder why any podcast app does anything else.
Tokyo Override. Intense commentary about capitalism, fascism, AI, and the surveillance state, dressed up in a stylishly animated story about hackers riding motorcycles in futuristic Tokyo? Extremely into it.
The Amazon Echo Show 21. I’m sorry, but a 21-inch “smart display” is just a TV. But I think Amazon’s idea with these new, bigger Echo devices — which is basically to have one giant screen as the hub of your smart home — is the right one.
One Billion Users. The folks at Techdirt have a surprisingly strong hit rate for fun games. I bought their CIA card game a while back and played the heck out of Startup Trail. This one’s a card game about starting a social network, and it’ll be a hit at my Thanksgiving one of these years.
The JVC HA-NP1T “Nearphones”. Another cool-looking set of open-ear headphones, which let you hear your music and the world around you. And unlike so many others, these don’t cost a fortune! A hundred bucks, in that dark green color, sounds like my kind of thing.
IMG_0001. A few weeks ago, Ben Wallace found a trove of videos on YouTube that had been uploaded directly from iPhones a dozen years ago or so. Riley Walz went and compiled 5 million of the videos, and they’re both incredibly mundane and often weirdly intimate? It’s just, like, people’s real lives, uploaded before anyone knew not to.

Screen share

There aren’t many people who do as good a job explaining tech to regular humans as Rich DeMuro. You might know him as “Rich on Tech” from the teevee if you live in LA, where he’s a tech reporter for KTLA. You might also have heard his radio show / podcast or read his newsletter. I’ve been following his work forever, and we’ve crossed paths a few times at various events as we run to play with new iPhones or Pixel phones.

Like any good reporter, Rich is perpetually using a million gadgets. So I asked him to share his current homescreen and tell me a little about how it all works. I got even more than I bargained for.

The phone: I typically carry three phones with me… my primary SIM is in an iPhone, then I usually have the latest Samsung and Pixel for reference. I answer a lot of questions about these phones on a daily basis for my followers and talk about what you can do with them on my radio show (and podcast!), Rich On Tech. So it’s handy to have them standing by, since the way you do things is slightly different on each.

The wallpaper: My homescreen wallpaper is usually pretty boring. I don’t put a whole lot of thought into it. Sometimes I will have my kids pick something cool for me for the season, but otherwise, my wallpaper can linger for months. I always get it from the app Backdrops. I just head into the “Abstract” category and find it there.

Usually, the wallpapers on my phones will match, but sometimes I’ll change them independently.

The apps: On iPhone: YouTube Music, Notion, Apple News, ElevenReader, Settings, Google Photos, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Claude, Microsoft To Do, JustWatch, Techmeme, Gmail, Email Me, Instagram, X, Phone, Telegram, Messages, Chrome. On Android: mostly the same, plus Samsung Voice Recorder and Voicenotes.

When it comes to my iPhone, I keep it pretty simple with just the apps that I use on a daily basis. I recently switched to YouTube Music from Spotify because it’s included in my YouTube Premium membership. I really like the supermixes that they generate. I still think Spotify is better, but YouTube Music works just fine.

I have tried every single note-taking app in the world, and Notion actually seems to do a majority of the stuff I like. Before that, it was Obsidian, and I liked how it was sort of self-hosted, but Notion is much easier across various devices, and it just works. I have also tried every single to-do list in the world, and once I put something on my to-do list, it’s almost guaranteed it’s not going to be done. There are two things I like about Microsoft To Do: you can start each day fresh with a fresh list just for that day, and you can attach a file to your to-do items.

I use my email inbox as sort of my to-do list, so all articles, random notes, and websites I want to check out later go there first, and I triage when I have time. That means I always have some sort of “email myself” app. On iPhone, I love Email Me, and on Android, I just found a new app to replace my old one, also called EmailMe, but not from the same developer. It basically opens up a Gmail or Outlook compose window with your email address already populated.

Any time I put an article in a read-later app, I never ever get to it. I’m really trying to find a better way for that system, but I love how ElevenReader can read articles to me while I’m at the gym if I want to brush up on things before my radio show.

My preferred AI is Claude. I love how it deals with more summarizations of things and the English language versus image generation and such.

A couple of other apps that I absolutely love: one is an iOS app called Whisper Memos. It will use AI to transcribe what I say with eerie accuracy, and it will email that information to me so I can deal with it later. It’s great for podcasts when you’re in the car and hear something you want to remember. Another is called Voicenotes: it’s more of a digital voice notebook. It’s on iOS and Android, and you can search your notes using AI, sort of like ChatGPT for your notes.

I keep going back and forth on Twitter / X. It’s definitely doomscrolling for me, but I haven’t really gotten used to Threads, nor do I like the idea of one company controlling all of my social media between Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. So I’m still there.

I also asked Rich to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:

Because of my wild work schedule (I work early mornings, so I don’t have the typical downtime at night to just watch some TV), I rarely watch TV shows or movies. I mostly watch when I’m traveling — right now, I’m bingeing That ‘90s Show, which I find easy to digest and silly. But I mostly stick to movies.
Right now, I’m really into the author Teddy Wayne. I loved his book The Winner and have been reading his older stuff.
I also like any sci-fi and have been reading the author T.J. Newman, who was a flight attendant and wrote her first book doing red-eye flights. Cool success story.
As for podcasts, I always listen to Techmeme Ride Home each morning (ironically on my way to work) and check Techmeme in general about a gazillion times a day. Fun fact: I was an editor there for a year or so.

Crowdsourced

Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads and this post on Bluesky. That’s right, we’re doing Bluesky now, too. Come hang out!

“A new timed crossword puzzle game called SnowFall. Love how it takes the elements of a crossword puzzle and throws them at you one at a time. Builds a little anxiety to the unlimited time of a traditional crossword. Starts easy but gets hard fast. Helps fill the pockets of time when I cannot do a full crossword.” – Neal

“Deep in Apple TV Plus this past couple weeks. Silo is back, and the second season of Bad Sisters continues to be compelling TV. Small screen rules going into the holidays.” – Matthew

“Cooked has been a huge help turning my ever-growing collection of social media recipes into something actually usable.” – Dylan

“I switched to Thunderbird on my Pixel device, and it is better IMO than the Gmail app. My biggest complaint with the Gmail app was not being able to see if my other accounts have emails without fully switching over to them. When you open up the navigation pane, you can easily see what accounts have an unread email. (I don’t like unified inboxes, either.) Also, the split-pane view on the Pixel Fold’s inner display is very much welcome.” – Sean

“Trying to decide if I want to splurge on the new Razer Wolverine. It’s finally wireless for Xbox, but then the question becomes whether I can tolerate the software on PC. It’s been fascinating finally seeing wireless Xbox controllers from other brands.” – Luke

“Learning about the fascinating and morbid history of vampire burials with the hilarious Milo Rossi!” – Josh

“Sill, by Tyler Fisher, is a new tool that connects to your Bluesky and / or Mastodon accounts, collecting all links posted to your timeline and displaying the most popular ones in your network. It’s similar to Nuzzel for Twitter and free to use. I’ve been finding it incredibly useful to get a feeling for what’s trending.” – Paulo

“Lately, I’ve been really into KarmaZoo, a unique little multiplayer puzzle platformer that features you, as a cute little pixel animal, wordlessly teaming up with a bunch of other player-animals — each with their own special abilities — to navigate levels as a team. It’s giving and gracious and an absolute blast.” – Dan

“Vehicle Motion Cues on iOS to do two things: 1) Prevent motion sickness using the phone while riding in a car and 2) Remind myself that I should not use my phone while riding in a car.” – Johnson

“I bought a couple of these 3-in-1 chargers from Anker for traveling, and I love them so much. My fiance can never remember to bring both of his cords to charge his phone and his watch when we travel, so I’m very excited.” – Luke

“I’m excited that I scored tickets to see Interstellar in 70mm IMAX for its 10th anniversary. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time, and I just happen to live by one of the few theaters that can play it in 70mm. I’m pumped!” – Tony

“I’ve been getting back into listening to music I actually own. It’s tough to find an aesthetic and useful FLAC-compatible music player on the Mac, but Doppler has been filling that role pretty well. A simple interface and Last.fm scrobbling are my favorite features.” – Russ

“Reeder just added Bluesky account integration! Now, it has Mastodon, Bluesky, YouTube, RSS, podcasts… It is slowly becoming my first and only app open!” – Kelly

Signing off

It’s officially the most wonderful time of the year: Holiday Movie Season! I am almost embarrassed to explain how much I love crappy holiday movies and how excited I get when I both get to begin the rotation of the favorites (The Holiday, Love Actually, Elf, and Home Alone are probably my Mount Rushmore, but there are many others) and the seemingly infinite supply of new ones Hallmark and others crank out every year. I have Us Weekly’s full guide to the season bookmarked in my browser, and I am only slightly ashamed to admit that I just signed up for Hallmark Plus. I promise you this: I will be getting my money’s worth. Just please help me to remember to cancel before New Year’s Eve. And if you have a holiday favorite, send it my way! The worse the better.

Technology

Free email services are costing you more than you think

Published

7 hours ago

November 24, 2024

Press Room

Free email services are costing you more than you think

These days, data breaches and privacy concerns are rampant, so choosing the right email service is crucial.

While free email providers may seem convenient, they often come with hidden costs to your privacy.

Let’s explore why secure email services are becoming increasingly important and how you can make the switch to protect your personal information.

I’M GIVING AWAY A $500 GIFT CARD FOR THE HOLIDAYS

A person typing on a laptop (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

The hidden costs of free email

Free email services may not charge you money directly, but they often monetize your data in other ways. These providers typically engage in data collection and analysis, which can lead to targeted advertising and tracking of your email activity.

As a result, they create comprehensive user profiles that can compromise your privacy and increase your vulnerability to cyber threats. Users often find themselves inundated with ads tailored to their interests, while their sensitive information remains at risk of misuse.

A person typing on a laptop (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

BEST ANTIVIRUS FOR MAC, PC, IPHONES AND ANDROIDS – CYBERGUY PICKS

Benefits of privacy-focused email services

Secure email providers offer several advantages over their free counterparts. One of the most significant benefits is enhanced encryption, which provides better protection for your communications. Unlike many free services that collect and sell user data to third parties, privacy-focused providers do not engage in such practices. They offer an ad-free experience and give you greater control over your personal information. This means that when you choose a secure email service, you are investing in a platform that prioritizes your privacy and security.

HOW TO REMOVE YOUR PRIVATE DATA FROM THE INTERNET

Steps to switch to a secure email service

Switching to a secure email service involves several steps that can enhance your online security. First, you should research and choose a provider that meets your needs by comparing features, pricing and user reviews. Once you have made your selection, create an account with your chosen service; many offer a free tier to get started. After setting up your account, it is essential to enable encryption by following the provider’s instructions.

Next, you can import any existing emails from your old account using the provider’s import tool. Informing your contacts about your new email address is also important to ensure seamless communication moving forward. To further enhance security, enable two-factor authentication on your new account to add an extra layer of protection. Finally, take some time to familiarize yourself with the new interface and features offered by your secure email service.

WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?

A person typing on a laptop (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

HOW SCAMMERS USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA FOR FINANCIAL SCAMS AND HOW TO STOP THEM

The value of investing in privacy

While paying for an email service might seem unnecessary at first glance, it is an investment in your privacy and security that can yield significant benefits over time. By choosing a subscription-based model, you support the development of privacy-focused technologies that prioritize user interests over advertising revenue. This ensures that the service remains accountable to you rather than marketers or corporate investors. Investing in a secure email service also provides peace of mind, knowing that your communications are protected from prying eyes.

Kurt’s key takeaways

In an era where digital privacy is increasingly under threat, taking control of your email communications is a crucial step toward safeguarding your personal information. Secure email services offer a robust alternative to free providers, ensuring that both personal and professional correspondence remains confidential. Although there may be a small financial cost involved in switching to a secure email provider, the long-term benefits to your privacy and security are invaluable.

What are your thoughts on the importance of email privacy, and have you considered switching to a secure email provider? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact

For more of my tech tips and security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Cyberguy.com/Newsletter

Ask Kurt a question or let us know what stories you’d like us to cover

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Answers to the most asked CyberGuy questions:

New from Kurt:

Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

Technology

Microsoft pauses Windows 11 updates for PCs with some Ubisoft games installed

Published

16 hours ago

November 23, 2024

Press Room

Microsoft pauses Windows 11 updates for PCs with some Ubisoft games installed

After installing Windows 11, version 24H2, you might encounter issues with some Ubisoft games. These games might become unresponsive while starting, loading or during active gameplay. In some cases, users might receive a black screen. The affected games are:

• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

• Assassin’s Creed Origins

• Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

• Star Wars Outlaws

• Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora