You can use Secure Notes in Keychain Access to store confidential information. This information can be completely unrelated to your computer, such as combinations to locks, personal identification numbers (PINs) for bank accounts, credit card numbers, confidential notes, cryptographic keys, and any other information that you want to keep private. Create a Secure Note: In the Keychain Access app on your Mac, select a keychain in the Keychains list. If you’re not sure which keychain to pick, it’s recommended that you use iCloud Keychain to store secure notes. Notes that you create are available and updated across your devices (when you’re signed in with your Apple ID). Choose File > New Secure Note Item. Type a name for the note…

The iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 updates include a number of privacy and security improvements that make your devices safer than ever, with Apple restricting access to photos and calendar events and cutting down further on how websites track you across the web. Private Browsing Upgrades in Safari In Safari, Private browsing windows are now locked and require secondary authentication to unlock and access. If you hand your phone over to someone and they attempt to open your Safari private browsing tab, access will be denied without a Face ID/Touch ID scan or a passcode. The Private tab is locked automatically. Tracking URL Removal Opening up a URL in a private browsing window automatically strips all tracking information added to…

Macworld Waves of extreme heat have already passed across the United States, Europe, and other parts of the world so far this summer. While people are at the greatest risk from high temperatures, your Mac may be even more fragile. (People can be water cooled and no current Mac offers that option—though some have tried.) An iPhone or iPad will warn you when it detects it’s too hot before shutting down, while a Mac may simply suddenly power off. If it doesn’t power down, you may be running it to close to its maximum capability and putting a lot of additional wear in the process on components that might fail later during other seasons. Knowing the temperature is one thing. The other is…

Macworld Do Macs get viruses? Do Macs need antivirus software? The answers to these questions aren’t as simple as they might seem. In this article, we look at the dangers faced by Mac users, and the pros and cons of using Mac antivirus software. Historically, the Mac has been considered safe and secure for a number of reasons that we will go into below, but in recent years the consensus has fluctuated. In its 2020 State of Malware report, Malwarebytes said it saw “a significant rise in the overall prevalence of Mac threats in 2019, with an increase of over 400 percent from 2018.” The following year, the company found that overall malware detected on macOS decreased by 38 percent…

Macworld Do Macs get viruses? Do Macs need antivirus software? The answers to these questions aren’t as simple as they might seem. In this article, we look at the dangers faced by Mac users, and the pros and cons of using Mac antivirus software. Historically, the Mac has been considered safe and secure for a number of reasons that we will go into below, but in recent years the consensus has fluctuated. In its 2020 State of Malware report, Malwarebytes said it saw “a significant rise in the overall prevalence of Mac threats in 2019, with an increase of over 400 percent from 2018.” The following year, the company found that overall malware detected on macOS decreased by 38 percent…

There are a few final useful utilities in Apple's Disk Utility you may not be aware of. Here's how to use them the continued exploration of the macOS tool.In the previous three installments of this series, we looked in-depth at how to use the macOS Disk Utility app, and how to use it to manage devices, volumes, RAID, and images - and how to repair disks.In this final segment, we take a look at a few of the lesser-known Disk Utility capabilities: how to repair hybrid Apple Fusion Drives, and how to use macOS command line disk utilities in Terminal. Read more...