Tom's Guide Awards 2025 nominations — Submit your products now
Our Hero awards recognize big-picture innovation, the best brand of the year, admirable efforts in diversity and sustainability and more. We're excited to celebrate the people and companies that receive the highest honors. However, we also want to highlight products that provide excellent value since we understand that being able to find great tech for a bargain is important to many consumers.
Some new categories in 2025 include the best mirrorless camera, best drone and others related to photography. At the same time, we've expanded our dedicated AI award section this year to highlight all of the continued innovations in the growing space.
The awards are free to enter and will be judged by Tom's Guide's resident specialists, but we still need your help to create the ultimate shortlists. Click here to nominate your favorite products of the year.
Companies can enter here for the Tom's Guide Awards, and submissions are free. We are taking nominations between now and June 30. We will announce all of the Tom's Guide Awards 2025 winners the week of July 21.
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Tom's Guide
6 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
Forget Verizon — one of my favorite cheap carriers is bringing back family plans
As the person responsible for evaluating the best phone carriers at Tom's Guide, I find that there's a lot to like about Visible, the Verizon-owned wireless service that offers lower-cost coverage on its parent company's network. But if there's a knock against Visible, it's the carrier's lack of family plans offering discounted rates when you add more lines. That's about to change later this month, as Visible announced a new Inner Circle program that allows groups of people to save money on their monthly cell phone bills. Best of all, the people included in your Inner Circle plan don't even need to be family members — anyone can link together their Visible data plans and reap the benefits of lower rates. Starting August 21, customers can pool together up to seven lines at Visible on a single account, with Visible offering discounts on its two premium plans for accounts with two or more people. With Visible Inner Circle, you can save $5 on the cost of either a Visible Plus or Visible Plus Pro plan, two unlimited data offerings that normally cost $35 and $45 a month, respectively. The standard Visible unlimited data plan keeps its $25/month cost, even on Inner Circle plans. Regular monthly cost Monthly cost with 2 or more Visible Inner Circle accounts Plan details Visible plan $25 $25 Unlimited data Visible Plus plan $35 $30 Unlimited data with no speed caps, fastest 5G service Visible Plus Pro plan $45 $40 Unlimited data with no speed caps, fastest 5G service, 4k video streaming The potential to lower the price of the Visible Plus plan via Visible's new family plan offering seems especially intriguing, since I consider Visible Plus to be the best unlimited data plan you can get right now. The regular $35 rate is already pretty low for unlimited data — it's a fraction of what you'd pay for comparable plans at AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon — and Visible stopped putting a cap on the amount of high-speed data you can enjoy with Visible Plus. Even modest savings of $5/month through Visible Inner Circle make a great plan already more appealing. Visible says that Inner Circle members can mix and match different plans. In this scenario, I could have three other people in an Inner Circle group, with one of us subscribed to the standard plan, while two others pay for Visible Plus and the fourth signs up for Visible Plus Pro. The first person would pay $25/month, the Visible Plus subscribers would pay $30 each for their service, and the Visible Plus Pro subscriber would pay $40. Visible Inner Circle family plans: Available August 21 @ VisibleStarting August 21, you'll be able to pool up to seven different lines of data in an account, with $5 monthly discounts on Visible Plus (normally $35) and Visible Plus Pro (normally $45) unlimited data plans. Each account can handle its own billing and manage its own account, giving you greater flexibility than more traditional family plans. Besides the discounted rates, the other noteworthy thing about Visible Inner Circle is the ability to add anyone — not just family members — to your family plan. That means anyone from roommates to distant relatives can pool their wireless plans together. Even though the accounts are connected, billing can be assigned separately, with each member of your Inner Circle responsible for their own plan. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. It all sounds very similar to the old Visible Party Pay program the carrier offered half a dozen years ago, where accounts could be grouped together for significant discounts. Visible dropped its Party Pay program as it expanded to offer more plan options, so it's good to see a similar program return, even if the per-line discounts are more modest this time around. The ability to create family plans that aren't necessarily restricted to family members will make the new Visible offer appealing to some customers when it debuts next week. That said, the best family cell phone plans I've found offer more significant discounts the more lines you add. For example, a four-line plan at Total Wireless — another Verizon-owned carrier — reduces the per-line cost of unlimited data to $27.50, totaling $110 per month. Still, in this day and age, flexibility counts for a lot, and Visible's soon-to-launch Inner Circle program certainly offers that to a wider audience than just immediate family members.
Tom's Guide
7 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
National Public Data is giving out your address and phone number — here's how to stop them
Though it has been dormant for most of the year, the website National Public Data has reemerged with new owners. As reported by PCMag, the website was well known for a major data breach that occurred last year in which millions of Social Security numbers were leaked online, resulting in a barrage of lawsuits against the former site owners, Jericho Pictures. The breach exposed at least 272 million Social Security numbers and 600 million phone numbers and after the lawsuits were filed, the site went dormant until recently when it went live again as a people finder site. Although there is nearly no information about the new owners of the domain aside from it being registered to a Florida-based VPN service called 'Perfect Privacy,' it's acting as a free search engine to let people search for information on others. The new National Public Data lets users look up anyone's personal information including addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, relatives, location, age, workplace and criminal records – all for free. While the new site claims to have no affiliation with the previous owners, they're also not very forthcoming about where they're gathering their data aside from stating that it's being collected 'from publicly available sources including federal, state and local government agencies, social media pages, property ownership databases and other reliable platforms. After the data is in our hands, we verify and filter it to make sure it is indeed accurate and up-to-date.' Now, just because they may be getting the data from legitimate sources and verifying it doesn't mean that you want them to have it or be make it readily accessible and easy to find online. If you would like National Public Data to remove your data from its site, you have that option as there is an opt out form you can use to delete your profile data. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. When PCMag tried it, they reported that it seemed as though their data was immediately removed from the site. However, it does appear that many users would likely be unaware of this option, which makes it easy for sites like this to continue posting their information online. Additionally. there are certainly data removal services like Incogni that can help you delete your online data as well as identity monitoring services that can help you monitor where you data appears online. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
Tom's Guide
8 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
Your Nespresso machine might have a secret 'Expert Mode' setting — here's how it works
Nespresso's Vertuo line offers a huge range of drink sizes at the touch of a button. Its smart tech automatically adjusts dispensing time depending on your pod of choice, extracting the ideal amount of coffee for the size and roast of your Nespresso capsule automatically. But you might wish you could override that smart tech from time to time. Perhaps you have some XL pods lying around, but prefer espresso-based drinks. Or maybe you just discovered a new favorite Nespresso flavor, but it's not available in your go-to drink size. It's a hidden feature, but your Nespresso machine may well allow you to override its pre-set dosing, and it couldn't be easier to use. The setting is called "Expert Mode", and it's available on a selection of Vertuo machines. Here's how it works. If you have a Nespresso Original machine, the answer is no. These machines will only brew a single or double shot as standard, but some do allow you to change the dose size depending on your preferences. But if you have a Nespresso Vertuo machine, your machine probably will work with Expert Mode. Expert Mode is available on the following machines: The only Vertuo machine it won't work on is the Nespresso Vertuo Plus (pictured above), which is the brand's earliest iteration of its Vertuo line, and doesn't come with the more up-to-date settings. If you have a compatible machine, all you need to do to activate Expert Mode is allow the machine to heat up, and then double-press the brew button. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. When you do this, the button should flash blue, which indicates that you've successfully switched the setting on. From there, your machine will brew a more concentrated shot of your pod automatically. This is especially ideal for the summer months, where you may want to enjoy an espresso-based iced coffee but find yourself stuck with oversized pods that brew a long, hot mug of Joe. It also brews a more concentrated drink by default, which is a win for those who need a strong coffee to kickstart their morning. The size of the drink your machine will brew in Expert Mode is still dependent on the size of the pod you've used. According to Nespresso, the setting is designed for those who want to pair their favorite blends with milk-based drinks like latte or cappuccinos. That means it will brew a smaller shot of coffee in order to leave room in your mug for some steamed milk. The pod will brew as follows: Did you know about this extra Nespresso feature? Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
