GENIUS TIPS

EXPERT ADVICE - Our resident genius solves your Mac and iOS problems

- HOWARD OAKLEY

Thunderbolt 5's versatility

What might seem the successor to Thunderbolt 4 is really USB4 version 2.0 inside, and brings support for more highres external displays than Thunderbolt 3 (TB3) could ever dream of.

Running in Symmetric mode, each side of a Thunderbolt 5 connection has two transmitters and two receivers, moving up to a total of 80Gbps of data in each direction.

That's ideal for devices like SSDs that need to read and write data, and should deliver up to 6GB/sec.

Switch that connection to Asymmetric mode, or Bandwidth Boost, and your Mac's Thunderbolt 5 port uses three transmitters and one receiver, to deliver a total of 120Gbps downstream to a dock or hub with three 6K displays connected. At the same time it can still return 40Gbps, better than TB3, from other devices back to the Mac, making it faster and more versatile.

Remove an unwanted web browser

Somehow my Mac has acquired an Qunwanted browser named Ecosia. Is it malicious, and how can I get rid of it?

by DAVID ELDER

A Ecosia is benign and well intentioned if sadly misguided, and an attempt to raise funds for climate action.

It comes in two forms, a full browser and an extension that modifies your existing browser's search engine and home page settings.

If you have installed the app, it will be in your main Applications folder, or its namesake in your Home folder, and should be straightforward to locate and remove. Its browser extension is more annoying, but you should find evidence of it in your browser's Settings. In Safari, you'll need to correct the Homepage entry in the General section, then the search engine in the Search section. Once those have been fixed, visit the Extensions section to remove any Ecosia extension.

Ecosia seems to target Chrome and Chromium browsers most, for which you'll need to locate their corresponding controls.