Google’s Safe Browsing now comes integrated into Android apps

Google’s Safe Browsing can now protect you from phishing attempts and harmful programs even if you’re not visiting websites on Chrome. Google Play Protect has added Safe Browsing to WebView, the component that allows Android apps to display web content, by default. Since developers don’t have to do anything to activate the feature, their apps will come integrated with the ability to warn you if you’re visiting a URL with potentially malicious content.

The capability is powered by the same underlying technology as Chrome on Android and will trigger the same red screen warning and network error. It can tell you if a website will prompt you to install dangerous software or to reveal sensitive info. Some developers will be able to customize the behavior, as well, but bottom line is that you might see the Safe Browsing screen more frequently in the future.

Source: Chromium Blog

Best Buy Offering Up to $350 Off MacBook Air Models

Best Buy is continuing its recent string of solid deals with a new discount offering up to $300 off select MacBook Air models, bringing the cost of the entry-level model down to just $699.99. Students and parents of students can sign up for Best Buy’s Student Deals program to knock an additional $50 off on all eligible models.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

• 1.8 GHz Core i5 with 128 GB storage – $699.99 / $649.99 with Student Deals
• 1.8 GHz Core i5 with 256 GB storage – $899.99 / $849.99 with Student Deals
• 2.2 GHz Core i7 with 512 GB storage – $1,249.99 / $1,199.99 with Student Deals

This is likely a very short-term deal, so be sure to take advantage of it quickly if you’re interested in picking up a MacBook Air. It’s part of Best Buy’s larger Computing Savings Event that runs through Saturday with a rotating selection of deals.

Best Buy’s other weekly deals are still ongoing, including up to $200 off MacBook Pro models (up to $250 off with Student Deals), discounts on iPhone 7 and 6s models, and an iPad trade-in program. And as always, head over to our full Deals Roundup for even more deals.

Related Roundup: Apple DealsTag: Best Buy
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Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra review

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Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra

Sony is in the middle of some major changes with its smartphones. The Japanese company announced an all new redesign debuting on its flagship Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact smartphones at Mobile World Congress. But the XZ2 and XZ2 Compact aren’t the first Sony phones in 2018 — at CES, Sony unveiled the Xperia XA2 Ultra, a mid-range device that’s a blend of Sony’s old and new design philosophies.

But just because the phone doesn’t feature Sony’s new design style, that doesn’t mean it has no merits. We’ve found it to offer solid performance, good battery life, and it has a capable camera. Still, those features alone may not be enough to make the device worth it at its $450 price tag. Let’s take a closer look.

Still an outdated design

Sony hasn’t changed its smartphone design for the past four years. It’s finally happening with the XZ2 and XZ2 Compact, but the XA2 Ultra largely conforms to its old standards. The phone is chunky, heavy, and has sharp corners that aren’t inviting. Its 6-inch screen makes it a monster when it comes to size, especially since it doesn’t follow the modern “bezel-less trend” we’ve seen on other phones.

On the back of the XA2 Ultra, you’ll find a single camera, along with a fingerprint sensor. That’s right, there’s a working fingerprint sensor on this phone. Why’s that surprising? Sony has been notorious for deactivating the fingerprint sensor on previous devices — only for the U.S. market. The company routinely said it was due to business decisions. We’re happy to see it present, but the sensor placement is a little too high for our liking, making it tough to reach.

Unlike most smartphones coming out these days, there’s no technology on board to unlock the phone with your face beyond Android’s Smart Lock, but hey, we’re just glad the fingerprint sensor works.

On the right edge of the phone is where you’ll find a power button and volume rocker, as well as a dedicated camera shutter button. You can hold down the camera button to launch the camera when you’re not in the camera app, and you can then use it to snap a photo.

We’re over Sony’s outdated design.

On the top there’s a headphone jack, which won’t be present on the company’s upcoming XZ2 and XZ2 Compact flagships, while the bottom is where you’ll find the USB Type-C port and a bottom-firing speaker.

Plenty of other phones have 6-inch displays these days – but generally those displays come out to the very edges of the phone’s frame. The benefit here is you get a large screen, and a smaller footprint. For example, the iPhone X has a 5.8-inch screen, but it’s physically smaller than the 5.5-inch iPhone 8 Plus. Not Sony. You get the old-school large screen with thick bezels surrounding it. It just looks so outdated.

There’s still something interesting in the top bezel, however. Most modern smartphones launch with dual-camera systems (sometimes even three) on the rear. Sony’s differentiating itself with the XA2 Ultra by adding a dual-camera system on the front of the phone instead, and there’s even a flash. We’ll dive into what that means a little later.

Christian de Looper/Digital Trends

Then there’s the LCD screen, its size makes it a joy to play games on, or watch shows on Netflix. The 1,920 x 1,080 pixel screen resolution isn’t as sharp as we’d like, but we didn’t find any problems with it. The colors are a little dull, but the phone gets bright enough for use in direct sunlight.

We’re over Sony’s outdated design. The XA2 Ultra is not a good-looking phone, and we’re not fans of its bulk and weight. The display is satisfactory, but nothing to write home about, and we’re largely just happy to have a working fingerprint sensor.

Under the hood

The Xperia XA2 Ultra is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 processor, coupled with 4GB of RAM and your choice of 32GB or 64GB of internal storage. There is a MicroSD card slot if you need more space.

In day-to-day use, the XA2 Ultra hums along without any problems. Even when we put it under stress with a lot of multi-tasking and mobile gaming, the phone hardly showed any signs of slowdown. Asphalt 8 only stuttered a little here and there, while Oceanhorn ran smoothly. Most people will be satisfied with the performance this phone offers.

Here are a few benchmark results:

• Geekbench 4: 868 single-core; 4,196 multi-core
• AnTuTu: 88,204
• 3DMark Slingshot Extreme: 825

Benchmarks aren’t the final word on performance, but the scores we achieved are in-line with other sub-$450 phones. But the problem with the Xperia XA2 Ultra is the competition. If you’re willing to shell out an extra $50, you can get a much more powerful device, such as the Essential Phone. The $500 phone from the creator of Android scored a massive 157,705 on AnTuTu, and the OnePlus 5T, which also costs $500, comes in even-better with a score of 180,588. Both phones use a significantly more powerful processor, the Snapdragon 835.

If you have $450 to spend and no more, then the XA2 Ultra may well be the phone to get. We think it’s worth shelling out just a little bit more for the upcoming OnePlus 6, which should cost the same $500 as its predecessor.

Mediocre camera

Like the camera on most budget phones, the XA2 Ultra needs very good lighting to produce decent photos. The 23-megapixel rear-facing camera struggles to capture a good amount of detail, photos look very flat — with not much depth to them — and colors look a little dull. Photos in general do not look sharp, and the camera constantly struggles with HDR: If the sky is too bright, the foreground is too dark, and vice versa. We’re honestly far more impressed with the camera from the $200 Honor 7X.

In lower light, results are a less than ideal. Shots taken at dusk were dark and underexposed, and in general we stayed away from bothering to take more photos in these kinds of environments. A Pro mode is available if you want to take greater control of the camera to make it work in varying lighting conditions.

Unlike some older Sony devices, there’s no 960 frames-per-second (FPS) super slow motion feature on the XA2 Ultra. If you do want slow motion capture, the phone is capable of handling it at 120fps, which looks great. Video can be shot at up to 4K resolution, though if you turn that option on you’ll get a warning saying the phone’s temperature may go up and the app may shut down.

The most interesting feature on this phone is the front-facing camera, which is a dual-sensor camera with one 16-megapixel and one 8-megapixel wide-angle sensor. You might think that the two sensors work together to create effects like a selfie Portrait Mode — they don’t. Instead, the phone uses the main camera for standard selfies, but you can switch to the other camera for a 120-degree wide-angle lens to capture group selfies. We wish this dual front-facing setup did something a little more interesting, but the group selfie mode is certainly handy when you need it.

With the lights off and blinds closed in my office, the phone did a stellar job at illuminating both my background and my face.

The front-facing flash is quite unique as well. It uses a feature called Slow Sync Flash, which doesn’t just illuminate your face, but the background environment too. Most selfie flashes light up your face and hides the background in darkness, but the XA2 Ultra doesn’t. The feature works well, even in zero-light situations. With the lights off and blinds closed in my office, the phone did a stellar job at illuminating both my background and my face.

Overall, the camera is not worth the $450 price tag. We’re not fans of most camera phones under this price range, except perhaps the $200 Honor 7X, but your best bet is the OnePlus 5T or the upcoming OnePlus 6 for a far superior camera experience at a similar price range.

Software

The Xperia XA2 Ultra runs Android 8.0 Oreo, but it’s plastered over with a Sony Android skin. It doesn’t look as clean or minimal as stock Android, but there’s certainly nothing terribly wrong about it.

Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra Compared To

Nuu G3

Nokia 7 Plus

Samsung Galaxy S9

Cat S61

OnePlus 5T

HTC U11 Life

Google Pixel 2 XL

ZTE Blade Z Max

ZTE Max XL

Meizu M3 Max

ZTE ZMax Pro

Blu Pure XL

Huawei Mate 8

ZTE Grand X Max+

LG G Flex

What we strongly dislike, however, is the amount of bloatware pre-installed on this phone. Not only does it add to the clutter, but it also takes up a fair amount of storage space. In the 32GB available on our phone, we can only use around 19GB thanks to all the bloatware.

Not all of the included software is bad, however. For example, there’s an included FM Radio app to listen to the radio, and if you’re an avid PlayStation gamer, then the PlayStation app may be of use to you.

A full day of battery life

Perhaps the best thing about this phone is the battery life it offers. The battery comes in at 3,580mAh, and even with relatively heavy usage, we ended a full day with at least 20 percent charge remaining.

The phone easily lasts through a normal weekday.

We took the phone off of its charger at 9 a.m., and by 7 p.m. the phone still had around 41 percent charge left. That’s with heavy use during the day, including browsing the web, listening to music, watching videos, and playing games. That’s better than some flagship phones, and you should have no problems going through an average work day.

The battery charges pretty quickly too, largely thanks to Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 technology. In our testing, we were able to get 50 percent charge in a little more than 35 minutes of charging.

Price, availability, and warranty

The Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra is available now unlocked from Amazon and Best Buy, where it’ll set you back $450.

You get a one-year limited warranty that covers manufacturer defects and failure under normal use. Safe to say, if you’re someone that tends to drop your phone a lot, you’ll still want to get a good case for it.

Our Take

The Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra is a solid mid-range phone that’s pushed lower down the ladder because of the competition. You get good performance for the price, and day-long battery life. It also has an outdated and boring design, a mediocre camera, and the software isn’t pleasing to use.

Is there a better alternative?

If your budget is a strict $450, then the XA2 Ultra may be your best choice. You may want to take a look at the HTC U11 Life, which has only slightly worse performance, but offers a much nicer design and has features like Bluetooth 5 and IP67 water resistance.

We strongly recommend you think about the $500 Essential Phone (which is currently on discount for $400). It has a beautiful design, excellent build quality, and clean and speedy software. The camera isn’t as strong as other flagships, but it has improved over software updates. Your best option is to wait for the OnePlus 6, which will debut in May. It will likely carry a $500 price tag, but it will be superior to the XA2 Ultra in almost every single way.

How long will it last?

The Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra should last a standard two-year smartphone cycle at least, though if you’re careful with it you could get even more use out of it. Sony does a solid job delivering software updates, and we assume the XA2 Ultra should receive them for the next two years.

Should you buy it?

No. We recommend waiting for the OnePlus 6. If you’d rather not wait or you have a strict budget, the Essential Phone is our second favorite pick.

Putting Kim’s face on your phone case might make you a true Kardashian

On Tuesday, April 17, LuMee officially launched its Kimoji X LuMee iPhone case collection in collaboration with celebrity Kim Kardashian West. As the self-proclaimed “Queen of Selfies,” it only makes sense that she partners with the one company that specifically sets out to make your selfies even better.

Available for iPhone 6 and later, each phone case features a variety of different emojis you would find in the Kimoji sticker packs. To kick off the collection, the first case available for purchase has Kardashian West’s infamous crying face plastered all over it. Let’s just say it’s a great alternative to googling Kim Kardashian’s best ugly crying scenes — but we recommend that too.

If an extremely upset Kim Kardashian isn’t your vibe, you’re in luck because there are three other designs the collection has to offer. You can instead opt for a case with the word “Lit” sprinkled all over it. For those having trouble deciding on just one Kimoji to flaunt on their iPhone, there is also a case that includes a collage of them — available in either pink or black.

As part of its Duo lineup, Kimoji x LuMee cases include front and back LCD lights — allowing you to add light to your photos regardless of whether you’re using the front-facing or rear-facing camera on your smartphone. With lights on both sides of the case, the company says you will have a light that isn’t as harsh as a camera flash which could reduce red-eye in photos.

In terms of protecting your phone, LuMee cases are made of durable plastic and have soft, rubberized edges on the front. The cushioned corners act as somewhat of a bumper should you drop your precious Kimoji case.

Each Kimoji x LuMee case will cost you $80 — which seems like a lot for a smartphone case. But in comparison to the standard LuMee Duo case, you are only spending about $10 more.

While the “Kim Crying” case is now available for purchase exclusively on Kimoji.com, you will have to wait for the rest. But if you want to get a headstart, you can pre-order the other designs on LuMee’s site. The entire Kimoji x LuMee collection will officially be on sale starting May 3.

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Otterbox celebrates ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ with three new phone cases

Like previous Star Wars movies, Otterbox is celebrating the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story with the launch of a slew of new Otterbox Symmetry phone cases. There are three cases in total, each of them celebrating a different aspect of the film.

First up, you have the Millennium Falcon style, which shows the Falcon itself on the back above text that reads “The All-New Millennium Falcon.” The case is blue white and blue. The second case is built for Chewbacca fans, and basically shows Chewie’s face on the back, with a black background. The third and final design basically shows different symbols from the Star Wars universe, including the Star Wars logo, among others.

Want to get your hands on the new cases for yourself? Thankfully, they’re available for a slew of popular phones, including the iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. Android fans can still get the cases too — though only if you have the Samsung Galaxy S9 or Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus. Prices for the cases vary depending on the phone that you have, but cases for the smaller phones come at $45, while the larger phone cases come at $55.

This isn’t the first time Otterbox has celebrated the release of a Star Wars movie. In fact, the three new cases join a number of other case designs, including designs of Darth Vader, the Star Wars logo, Stormtroopers, BB-8, and more. Not all cases are available for every phone, but if you have an iPhone 8 or iPhone X you have access to a wide selection of cases. Cases for the Galaxy S9 are available, though the selection is a little more limited, and if you have another Android phone, you’re largely out of luck.

The Otterbox Symmetry series, according to Otterbox, is designed to retain a relatively slim and sleek form while still protecting your device from bumps and scratches. The series isn’t the most protective — but it should work just fine for most day-to-day use. As Otterbox points out, the Symmetry series doesn’t protect against water — though thankfully most of the phones it’s built to protect are water-resistant in the first place.

You can get the new cases for yourself straight from the Otterbox website.

See Otterbox x Star Wars Solo collection

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Xiaomi should bring its air quality monitor to India immediately

Xiaomi’s $75 air quality monitor is an essential commodity for the Indian market.

Air quality in India has deteriorated over the course of the last decade, with Delhi being a prime example of just how bad the situation is in the country. Last winter, the capital witnessed particulate matter (PM2.5) in excess of 500 (that’s because most of the instruments could only record up to 500), making the air toxic. For most major metropolitan cities in India, an air purifier is as essential as an air conditioner or water purifier, and there’s no shortage of products catered to this segment.

Air quality is also terrible in China, with Beijing often credited as the most polluted city on Earth. Xiaomi has been offering a variety of air purifiers in its home market for some time now, and introduced the Mi Air Purifier 2 back in 2016. The company also sells an air quality monitor in China, and having used it for the past month, I’m convinced that Xiaomi should bring the product to India in the near future.

The air quality monitor is the most straightforward Xiaomi product I’ve used yet — it is essentially a small cube with a laser sensor at the back that measures air quality. There’s an OLED display that tells you the PM2.5 count in real time, and you can also hook it up to your home’s Wi-Fi network and see the air quality statistics via the Mi Home app.

Xiaomi’s air quality monitor is portable, reliable, and affordable.

Like most Xiaomi ecosystem products, the air quality monitor is made out of ABS plastic and has a single button at the top for switching the unit on and off.

There’s also the option to link it to Xiaomi’s air purifier, and you can set up rules where the air purifier automatically switches on if the air quality exceeds a certain threshold, and vice versa.

At just 62 x 37 x 62mm and coming in at 100g, the air quality monitor is portable enough that you can use it anywhere, and the battery is good for over two hours of continuous operation (it charges over MicroUSB). I was wary of the device’s performance initially, but it posted results that were consistent with that of a $165 Laser Egg.

For a long time, Indian customers have been enamored by two Xiaomi products outside of its phones — the Mi TV and the Mi Notebook. Xiaomi introduced the former in the country earlier this year, and there’s no word on when (or if) the latter will ever show up in the subcontinent.

It’s easy to see why these are the two products that Xiaomi fans covet the most. TVs and laptops are generally overpriced in India, and with Xiaomi offering the same great value for money with its TV range and the Mi Notebook series as its phones, there’s a lot of interest around these products.

That said, Xiaomi has been very strategic about the products it launches in India, with the manufacturer taking a calculated approach instead of launching its entire portfolio in the subcontinent. In that context, it makes sense for the company to introduce its air quality monitor in India — there’s an addressable need for such a product in the country, and the $75 price tag is a bargain for the quality on offer.

The air quality monitor is particularly useful if you already have the Mi Air Purifier 2, but even if you’re using an air purifier from a different brand, it’s a great product to quickly measure the air pollution in your vicinity. For now, you’ll have to resort to buying the air quality monitor from the likes of Gearbest, but if there’s one product that Xiaomi needs to bring to India immediately, it’s this one.

See at Gearbest

Dropbox gets full-screen iPad navigation and drag-and-drop for iOS

You know how an iPad’s screen real estate is wasted on Dropbox? Well, it’s wasted no more. The file hosting service has rolled out a pretty meaty update for Apple devices, which includes full-screen file navigation for Cupertino’s tablets. Just collapse the preview pane to see files’ full names, so you can be sure you’re clicking on unbelievablylengthyfilename01 instead of unbelievablylengthyfilename02. You’ll also notice that you can now drag and drop files around when you tap and hold them — so long as your device is running iOS 11 — making it easier to arrange them a certain way or organize them in folders.

Another feature bundled with the latest update is the ability to grant access to files while you’re on the go. If a classmate or a colleague asks for permission to access a specific document while you’re on mobile, for instance, you can grant them access through the push notification that pops up. Finally, Dropbox says it has added the ability to edit text for over 120 types of file extensions, giving you a way to edit documents without having to open them on another application or on a computer. All these features are now available on iOS — since they sound especially useful for trips and vacations, simply update your app before you go.

Source: Dropbox

Want to hide your Pornhub browsing? Use digital currency to make payments

Pornhub visitors wanting to keep their monthly subscription off the credit card bill now have an alternative form of payment — cryptocurrency. More specifically, the biggest porn stash on the internet now accepts Verge Currency payments for all goods provided by the site, including the Pornhub Premium subscription service. The move to cryptocurrency is the site’s solution for the need to remain innovative while protecting privacy. 

“Not only is this an exciting announcement for us and the adult entertainment industry, it’s exciting for the crypto space,” Pornhub Vice President Corey Price said in a statement. “History has proven that the adult entertainment industry plays a critical role in adoption for innovative technology. We saw that with VHS, Beta Max, credit card payment icons and, most recently, VR goggles. We expect to see widespread adoption of crypto and blockchain in short order.” 

First launched in 2014 as DogecoinDark, Verge Currency aims to bring private payments to businesses and individuals. It’s an open-source platform designed for “everyday use” and supported by community members versus other cryptocurrencies funded by private companies and initial coin offerings. Verge relies on a TOR-based component that hides your IP address while a second I2P component sends data through an encrypted “tunnel” across the network. 

What is interesting about this specific cryptocurrency is the Wraith Protocol — a technology that enables users to switch between public and private ledgers on the Verge blockchain. With this feature turned on, the blockchain explorer doesn’t see your transaction, thus it’s not linked to your public address. But if the feature is switched off, the blockchain explorer will see your transactions linked to your public address. 

“Verge integrates Tor in its Core, Electrum, and Android wallets, thereby eliminating any single point at which the communicating peers can be determined through network surveillance that relies upon knowing its source and destination,” the Verge Currency site states. 

Along with the main Pornhub site, both Brazzers (adult HD videos) and Nutaku (adult gaming) will start accepting Verge Currency as well.  

The news follows the site’s move to secure HTTPS connections in March 2017. The site said the switch was due to an ongoing effort to increase confidentiality and privacy for visitors. It was also in response to the repeal of internet privacy rules that previously prevented internet service providers from selling browsing histories. 

After that, Pornhub optimized its platform for the visually impaired, such as providing enlarged text, adding keyboard shortcuts, providing customized color contrasts, text descriptions, and more. The company even launched an interactive sex toy portfolio in January combining virtual experiences with adult-oriented fun. These toys not only link to specific videos on Pornhub but also synchronize with each other across the internet. Clearly, Pornhub is trying to stay ahead of the competition.  

“Here at Pornhub, we have always strongly valued innovation and privacy,” Price said. “Our acceptance of Verge is an affirmation of our dedication to innovation and privacy. [We] think Verge, with its focus on anonymity, is the best option whether for privacy, convenience or both.” 

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IRS E-File system crashes on Tax Day, promises to reopen within 8,000 years

The day you’ve been waiting for is finally here. April 17 is Tax Day, America’s favorite holiday, and to celebrate, the Internal Revenue Service experienced an outage. It’s all fixed up now, so congratulations, you can pay your taxes!

Earlier on Tuesday, the website claimed the E-File system was down for scheduled maintenance, with plans to go back up sometime between April 17, 2018, and December 31, 9999.

As Vox points out, it’s likely the E-File outage caused the confusing “scheduled maintenance” error, and it ended up going back up well before its quoted restoration date millennia in the future. The IRS Direct Pay system was also down, so anyone who owed on their taxes was unable to make payments. Again, the system is back up now, so go pay what you owe.

The outage was likely the result of an influx of last-minute tax filings, overwhelming the IRS’ electronic filing system, despite the fact that the IRS sees a massive wave of traffic on Tax Day every year as people scramble to get their taxes in under the deadline.

Reportedly, third party solutions like TurboTax were unaffected, since you can file your taxes through a third party and they’ll just submit them to the IRS’ E-File system when it goes back up.

When we first reported on the outage, the IRS E-File page displayed a simple warning that the system was down.

“The MeF System is down, we are working on this as a priority,” the IRS E-File page warns.

It’s back up now, both the direct pay and E-File systems are fully operational, and it appears the IRS is even extending filing deadlines on account of the unscheduled outage.

“We’ll make sure taxpayers have extensions once the system comes up to make sure they can use it, and it in no way impacts people paying their taxes,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said, according to Bloomberg. “It was just a technical issue we’re working through.”

So, to reiterate, you can now pay your taxes online again and you might even be looking at a bit of an extension. Still, probably get in there and file your taxes before the system goes down again.

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HQ Trivia for Android: Everything you need to know

What you need to get started with the hottest trivia game for Android!

We love trivia games. Whether they be on the television or at the table-top, quiz and trivia games have been a long-time favorite for a lot of people. HQ Trivia is the evolution of everything from those old black and white shows from yesteryear through to today’s newest tech, all mashed together into one heck of a fun app.

HQ can be a lot of fun, and with a chance to win real money — a lot of it — everyone is playing! There are 800,000 to one million players regularly tuned in to the twice-daily show and the most hyped games now regularly surpass two million players, as they did when Dwayne Johnson hosted a $300,000 game to promote Rampage.

April 17, 2018 — App updates and… Robert De Niro on HQ?!?

HQ is starting to roll out a major update to the game that lets you connect with friends in the game. iOS should have already received the update with an update for Android app promised to come “soon”. The new features let you add friends via their username or through your phone contacts. You can keep tabs on how you rank among your friends and swipe right during the game to see who made it past that savage question on Q5.

HQ also teased a special surprise for the April 18 game. See what you can make of these cryptic tweets:

There is a common thread among these tweets that will tell you about a special surprise we have tomorrow… who can figure it out first?

— HQ Trivia (@hqtrivia) April 17, 2018

Nothing has been officially confirmed as of yet, but Twitter users were quick to piece together the clues and conclude that it all points to Robert De Niro co-hosting the next episode. Following up the success of Dwayne Johnson’s guest appearance on the app last week, it would make some sense considering the appearance would coincide with opening night of De Niro’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Interested in participating in the HQ phenomenon? Here’s everything you need to get started having fun and winning some cash.

What is HQ Trivia?

Think of HQ Trivia as a live game-show app. It’s very much like Jeopardy! except you don’t have to fly to a TV studio to get in on the action and play.

Twice on weekdays at 3 pm and 9 pm Eastern, a host hands out multiple choice questions on a wide range of topics and you answer as best you can. Get all 12 correct and you win a share of the pot. Get a question wrong, and you’re out for the session and will need to wait until the next round to try again.

You watch and play right from your phone, as it happens in real time, against hundreds of thousands of other players. Prizes range from a few dollars to a whopping $20,000 we saw given away in that Super Bowl game and it goes straight into your PayPal account. It’s a lot of fun and a chance to win real money — two things we all love. Prizes for Sunday night games now regularly top out around $25,000

How to download HQ Trivia

That’s the easiest part! HQ Trivia for Android is officially out of beta so all you need to do is fire up the Google Play Store app!

Downloading and installing HQ Trivia is completely free.

Download HQ Trivia from Google Play (free)

How to sign up

You’ll need a unique username and a phone number to get started with HQ Trivia.

You sign up right inside the app and it is the first thing you’ll be asked to do when you open it. When a game isn’t in session, opening the app tells you when the next one starts and lets you see your total winnings or look through the leaderboards.

Be sure to read the terms and conditions before you go any further, and after you’re properly signed in you are asked f you’d like to receive push notifications letting you know when games are about to begin so you can get in on the action.

How to play

Right now HQ Trivia is free to play and free of any ads. Make sure you’re signed in on your phone and every day at 9 pm and weekdays at 3 pm all you need to do is open the app to get started.

You’ll be asked a question and given three possible answers. Questions cover just about every topic imaginable and just like the game shows you’ll see on TV they can be hard or they can be easy, but get progressively more trivial as the game goes on. Answer correctly before the 10-second timer runs out and you move to the next question. Get it wrong or take too much time and you’re out of the game, but can keep watching to see how many people win.

There’s a live chat during each game if you want to be a little social, but you can also swipe it off the screen if it gets too distracting. Even if you get eliminated early you can keep watching — and finding out how many lucky dogs make it to the winner’s circle is the fun part!

Extra lives

Like any good game worth its salt, HQ Trivia gives you extra lives.

If you have an extra life while you’re playing a game, you get a chance to answer a question wrong or take too much time and not be ejected from the game. If that happens and you have an extra life on your account, you’ll get the option of spending your extra life to stay in the game. You can only spend one extra life per game so make them count!

You earn extra lives by referring your friends to HQ Trivia. For example, if you used the referral code mousemachine I’d get a free life. Go ahead and try, I’ll let you know if it worked.

How much can I win?

A lot! While HQ Trivia is free to download and play, you can win real money if you make it to the end of a game.

The cash prize for a basic weekday game starts at $5,000 and is split evenly between everyone who survived the 12-questions. On the rare occasion that everyone is eliminated, the prize rolls over to the next game. It keeps going until someone wins. Sunday games are typically in the $25,000 range or more and often go up to 15 questions and HQ has started regularly involving a special guest host for Wednesday games with the cash pool rising exponentially. Most recently, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson hosted a $300,000 game in part to promote his film Rampage, and HQ regularly drops hints about future surprises on Twitter.

HQ used to have you wait until you hit the $20 mark you can cash out via PayPal, but they’ve changed the rules so you can cash out your winnings no matter the prize amount. You won’t need to enter a credit card or pay anything to play.

Update April 2018: Added information about the Robert DeNiro rumors and updated the guide with the latest figures from the biggest HQ games to date.