Technologies

What’s Free in the Epic Games Store This Week?

This week’s free games are an emergency service simulator and a beat-em-up style racing game that lets you live out your motorcycle fantasies.

Looking to expand your gaming collection with brand new games but without breaking the bank? Then you’re in luck, because we’ve got just the thing for you. With game prices climbing higher and tariffs on the rise, it’s understandable to want something for cheap or, if you’re lucky, for free.The good news is, there’s a great place where you can find free games and pick from many budget-friendly options. Enter: the Epic Games Store.

After Epic Games’ success with the free-to-play game Fortnite, the company decided to go one step further. In 2019, Epic launched its own store to rival Steam. Unlike Steam, the Epic Games Store offers free games every week, including charming indie titles and big AAA releases.

If you’re looking to find out how to access these free games, we’re here to guide you. First, create a free Epic Games account. After signing up, go to the free games section on the Epic Games Store every Thursday at 8 a.m. PT (11 a.m. ET, 4 p.m. BST) to see the week’s selections.

The number of free games you receive each week can change, but you’ll always get at least one. Keep in mind, there might be some breaks during holidays or days when games aren’t announced beforehand. Occasionally, like around Christmastime, Epic surprises us with new free games every day. And the best part? These games are yours to enjoy forever.

While the Epic Games Store is a fantastic resource for gamers, it is only available on PC — so console gamers will, unfortunately, miss out. If you’re a Mac user, you’ll find games available, but it’s a good idea to check that the game is compatible with your device before you download.

What’s the new free game in the Epic Games Store this week? (Aug 14. to Aug. 21)

Hidden Folks

If you’re someone who enjoys figuring out puzzles and don’t get frustrated, no matter how long it takes, then Hidden Folks may be the game for you.

Developed by Adriaan de Jongh and Sylvain Tegroeg, Hidden Folks is a hand-drawn 2D indie game, and as the title suggests, it asks you to find hidden folks. Deceptively simple, this monochrome, casual game is beautiful in its simplicity, asking players to explore miniature landscapes in their hunt for a specific person.

These landscapes aren’t just static. They are completely interactive, meaning that you can open a tent, cut through bushes or climb through windows to find who you’re looking for.

With over 32 hand-drawn areas, 500+ unique interactions and three color modes (sepia, night mode and normal) there’s plenty for you to uncover in Hidden Folks.

Usually $13, Hidden Folks is available for free via the Epic Games Store. At the time of writing, a review score is not available. However, on rival storefront Steam, its overall rating is «Very Positive,» with its most recent score also being «Very Positive.»

Totally Reliable Delivery Service

If you’re a fan of rag-doll physics and shenanigans that’ll have you and your friends laughing for years to come, you should consider grabbing Totally Reliable Delivery Service from developer We’re Five Games.

Who doesn’t love chaos? With Totally Reliable Delivery Service, you and your friends (both online and multiplayer) take on the task of delivering anything and everything to your customers. Unfortunately, your limbs are about as useful as floppy noodles, and you’ll have to overcome that in order to ensure you deliver the best service possible, even if that means sprinting and tripping every five seconds.

However, this isn’t as simple as it may sound. If you collide with something particularly hard, there’s a good chance you’ll be knocked out cold and you’ll fail in your delivery.

Along with needing to deliver your parcels, there’s plenty of different toys, vehicles and other environmental objects that can be used to help you along the way.

Usually $15, Totally Reliable Delivery Service is available via the Epic Games Store. At the time of writing, Totally Reliable Delivery Service has a review score of 4.5 out of 5. On rival storefront Steam, its overall rating is «Very Positive,» with its most recent score being «Mixed.»

What will be free in the Epic Games Store next week? (Aug. 21 to Aug. 28)

Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge

Let me ask you a question: Would you turn down the chance to work at a frog refuge? And if so, here’s my follow up question: What’s wrong with you?

Armor Games Studio dared to ask the question of what it would be like to have a frog sanctuary, and for you, as someone who works there, to look after all the frogs. The answer is Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge, a cozy, creature-collecting game that describes itself as «relaxing» and for «casual» gamers.

Players are able to collect over 500 frogs and add them to their safe haven. As well as breeding and ensuring each frog has a comfortable home, you’ll also be photographing these little critters and decorating their home with native plants and other accessories. Whatever your amphibian friends need to thrive, you’ll be there to help make it happen.

But it isn’t just caring for the frogs, you’ll also be getting your boots muddy to help preserve the frog’s wetland habitat. From digging ponds to let water roam to planting crops to harvest, you’ll have plenty to do in this charming little game.

Usually $20, Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge is available for free next week via the Epic Games Store. At the time of writing, Kamaeru does not have a review score on the Epic Games Store. On rival storefront Steam, its overall rating is «Very Positive,» with its most recent score being «Very Positive.»

Strange Horticulture

If you’ve ever thought, ‘I’d like to try my hand at being a mysterious little proprietor at a local plant store,’ then you’ll be happy to know that such a game exists. Enter Strange Horticulture from developer Bad Viking.

With a name like Strange Horticulture, you shouldn’t be surprised to know that your journey begins in the quaint, but quirky town of Undermere. As the new horticulturist, your job is to find and identify new plants. This seems simple enough, but before you know it, you’re thrust into an occult mystery that goes back decades.

A puzzle game at heart, how players interact with their surroundings directly influences how the story unravels. You’ll also affect the colorful cast of characters you meet, so make sure you’re satisfied with your choices before you do something you might regret.

Will you discover Undermere’s dark mysteries, or will they — and the malignant forces of the town — unravel you first?

Usually $15, Strange Horticulture is available for free next week via the Epic Games Store. At the time of writing, Strange Horticulture has a review score of 4.6 out of 5. On rival storefront Steam, its overall rating is «Very Positive,» with its most recent score being «Very Positive.»

Previous free games in the Epic Games Store

Curious whether your favorite game has been selected as one of Epic’s free games in the past, or wondering what you’ve missed? We have you covered.

Epic Games Store free games in 2025

Strange Horticulture (Aug. 21 to Aug. 28)
Kaemaru: A Frog Refuge (Aug. 21 to Aug. 28)
Hidden Folks (Aug. 14 to Aug. 21)
Totally Reliable Delivery Service (Aug. 14 to Aug. 21)
112 Operator (Aug. 7 to Aug. 14)
Road Redemption (Aug 7. to Aug. 14)
Keylocker (July 31 to Aug. 7)
Pilgrims (July 31 to Aug. 7)
Legion TD 2 (July 24 to July 31)
Sid Meier’s Civilization VI (July 17 to July 24)
Figment 2: Creed Valley (July 10 to July 17)
Sky Racket (July 10 to July 17)
Backpack Hero (July 3 to July 10)
Figment (July 3 to July 10)
Sable (June 26 to July 3)
The Operator (June 19 to 26)
Two Point Hospital (June 12 to June 19)
Ogu and the Secret Forest (June 5 to June 12)
Deathloop (June 5 to June 12)
Tiny Tina’s Wonderland (May 29 to June 5)
Limbo (May 29 to June 5)
Deliver At All Costs (May 22 to May 29)
Gigapocalypse (May 22 to May 29)
Sifu (May 22 to May 29)
Dead Island 2 (May 15 to May 22)
Happy Game (May 15 to May 22)
Touch Type Tale (May 8 to May 15)
Deadtime Defenders (May 8 to May 15)
Super Space Club (May 1 to May 8)
Chuchel (April 24 to May 1)
Albion Online (April 24 to May 1)
Botanicula (April 17 to April 24)
Firestone Online Idle RPG (April 17 to April 24)
River City Girls (April 10 to April 17)
Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms (April 10 to April 17)
Arcadgeddon (April 10 to April 17)
Cat Quest II (April 3 to April 10)
Cat Quest (March 27 to April 3)
Neko Ghost, Jump (March 27 to April 3)
Jurassic World Evolution 2 (March 20 to March 27)
Mortal Shell (March 13 to March 20)
World of Warships: Anniversary Party Favor DLC (March 13 to March 20)
Them’s Fighting Herds (March 6 to March 13)
Mages of Mystralia (Feb. 27 to March 6)
World War Z Aftermath (Feb. 20 to Feb. 27)
Garden Story (Feb. 20 to Feb. 27)
F1 Manager 2024 (Feb. 13 to Feb. 20)
Humankind (Feb. 6 to Feb. 13)
Beyond Blue (Feb. 6 to Feb. 13)
Undying (Jan. 30 to Feb. 6)
Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery (Jan. 23 to Jan. 30)
Escape Academy (Jan. 16 to Jan. 23)
Turmoil (Jan. 9 to Jan. 16)
Hell Let Loose (Jan. 2 to Jan. 9)
Kingdom Come Deliverance (Jan. 1)

Epic Games Store free games in 2024

Sifu (Dec. 31)
[Redacted] (Dec. 30 to Dec. 31)
Orcs Must Die 3 (Dec. 29 to Dec. 30)
Kill Knight (Dec. 28 to Dec. 29)
Hot Wheels Unleashed (Dec. 27 to Dec. 28)
Ghostrunner 2 (Dec. 26 to Dec. 27)
Control (Dec. 25 to Dec. 26)
Dredge (Dec. 24 to Dec. 25)
Darker and Darker: Legendary Status (Dec. 23 to Dec. 24)
Wizard of Legend (Dec. 22 to Dec. 23)
TerraTech (Dec. 21 to Dec. 22)
Astrea: Six Sided Oracles (Dec. 20 to Dec. 21)
Vampire Survivors (Dec. 19 to Dec. 20)
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria (Dec. 12 to Dec. 19)
Bus Simulator 21 Next Stop, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (Dec. 5 to Dec. 12)
Brotato (Nov. 28 to Dec. 5)
Beholder (Nov. 21 to Nov. 28)
Castlevania Anniversary Collection; Snakebird Complete (Nov. 14 to Nov. 21)
Apex Legends Ash Unlock Bundle; Deceive Inc (Nov. 7 to Nov. 14)
Witch It; Ghostwire: Tokyo (Oct. 31 to Nov. 7)
Moving Out (Oct. 24 to Oct. 31)
Kardboard Kings; Invincible Presents: Atom Eve (Oct. 17 to Oct. 24)
Empyrion: Galactic Survival; Outliver: Tribulations (Oct. 10 to Oct. 17)
Bear and Breakfast (Oct. 3 to Oct. 10)
The Spirit and The Mouse (Sept. 26 to Oct. 3)
TOEM; The Last Stand: Aftermath (Sept. 19 to Sept. 26)
Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland; Super Crazy Rhythm Castle (Sept. 12 to Sept. 19)
Football Manager 2024; Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts (Sept. 5 to Sept. 12)
Wild Card Football; Fallout: Classic Collection (Aug. 29 to Sept. 5)
Gigantic: Rampage Edition; The Callisto Protocol (Aug. 22 to Aug. 29)
Death’s Gambit: Afterlife (Aug. 15 to Aug. 22)
Cygni: All Guns Blazing; DNF Duel (Aug. 8 to Aug. 15)
Lumbearjack (Aug. 1 to Aug. 8)
F.I.S.T.: Forged in Shadow Torch; Olympics Go! Paris 2024 Exclusive Outfits Pack (July 25 to Aug. 1)
Maid of Sker; Arcade Paradise (July 18 to July 25)
Floppy Knights (July 11 to July 18)
The Falconeer (July 4 to July 11)
Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition (June 27 to July 4)
Rumble Club Free Game of the Week Bonus; Freshly Frosted (June 20 to June 27)
Redout 2; Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms (June 13 to June 20)
Marvel’s Midnight Suns (June 6 to June 13)
Chivalry 2 (May 30 to June 6)
Farming Simulator 22 (May 23 to May 30)
Dragon Age: Inquisition – Game of the Year Edition (May 16 to May 23)
Firestone Free Offer; Circus Electrique (May 9 to May 16)
Orcs Must Die! 3, Cat Quest II (May 2 to May 9)
Lisa: Definitive Edition, Industria (April 25 to May. 2)
Town of Salem 2; The Big Con (April 18 to April 25)
Ghostrunner (April 11 to April 18)
Thief; The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition (April 4 to April 11)
Islets (March 28 to April 4)
Invincible Presents: Atom Eve; Call of the Wild: The Angler (March 21 to March 28)
The Bridge; Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (March 14 to March 21)
Astro Duel 2 (March 7 to March 14)
Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield (Feb. 29 to March 7)
Super Meat Boy Forever (Feb. 22 to Feb. 29)
Dakar Desert Rally (Feb. 15 to Feb. 22)
Lost Castle; Doki Doki Literature Club Plus (Feb. 8 to Feb. 15)
Doors: Paradox (Feb. 1 to Feb. 8)
Infinifactory (Jan. 25 to Feb. 1)
Love (Jan. 18 to Jan. 25)
Sail Forth (Jan. 11 to Jan. 18)
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (Jan. 4 to Jan. 11)
A Plague Tale: Innocence (Jan. 3 to Jan. 4)
20 Minutes Till Dawn (Jan. 2 to Jan. 3)
Escape Academy (Jan. 1 to Jan. 2)

Epic Games Store free games of 2023

Ghostrunner (Dec. 31, 2023, to Jan. 1, 2024)
Saints Row (Dec. 30 to Dec. 31)
Snakebird Complete (Dec. 29 to Dec. 30)
Cat Quest (Dec. 28 to Dec. 29)
Cursed to Golf (Dec. 27 to Dec. 28)
Human Resource Machine (Dec. 26 to Dec. 27)
The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition (Dec. 25 to Dec. 26)
Ghostwire: Tokyo (Dec. 24 to Dec. 25)
Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition (Dec. 23 to Dec. 24)
Art of Rally (Dec. 22 to Dec. 23)
Melvor Idle (Dec. 21 to Dec. 22)
DNF Duel (Dec. 20 to Dec. 21)
Destiny 2: Legacy Collection (Dec. 13 to Dec. 20)
Predecessor, Gigabash (Dec. 7 to Dec.13)
Mighty Fight Federation; Jitsu Squad (Nov. 30 to Dec. 7)
Deliver Us Mars (Nov. 23 to Nov. 30)
Surviving the Aftermath, Earthlock (Nov. 16 to Nov. 23)
Golden Light (Nov. 9 to Nov. 16)
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (Nov. 2 to Nov. 9)
The Evil Within 2; Tandem: A Tale of Shadows (Oct. 26 to Nov. 2)
The Evil Within; Eternal Threads (Oct. 19 to Oct. 26)
Q.U.B.E. Ultimate Bundle; Blazing Sails (Oct. 12 to Oct. 19)
Godlike Burger (Oct. 5 to Oct. 12)
Soulstice; Model Builder (Sept. 28 to Oct. 5)
The Forest Quartet; Out of Line (Sept. 21 to Sept. 28)
911 Operator (Sept. 14 to Sept. 21)
Spelldrifter (Sept. 7 to Sept. 14)
Cave Story Plus (Aug. 31 to Sept. 7)
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (Aug. 24 to Aug. 31)
Dodo Peak; Black Book (Aug. 17 to Aug. 24)
Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You; Europa Universalis IV (Aug. 10 to Aug.17)
Loop Hero, Bloons TD 6 (Aug. 3 to Aug. 10)
Severed Steel; Homeworld Remastered Collection (July 27 to Aug. 3)
The Elder Scrolls Online; Murder by Numbers (July 20 to July 27)
Train Valley 2 (July 13 to July 20)
Grime (July 6 to July 13)
The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos (June 29 to July 6)
The Hunter: Call of the Wild; Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms (June 22 to June 29)
Guacamelee 2; Guacamelee Super Turbo Championship Edition (June 15 to June 22)
Payday 2 (June 8 to June 15)
Midnight Ghost Hunt (June 1 to June 8)
Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition (May 25 to June 1)
Death Stranding (May 18 to May 25)
The Sims 4 The Daring Lifestyle Bundle (May 11 to May 18)
Kao the Kangaroo; Horizon Chase Turbo, Against All Odds (May 4 to May 11)
Poker Club; Breathedge (April 27 to May 4)
Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna); Beyond Blue (April 20 to April 27)
Second Extinction; Mordhau (April 13 to April 20)
Shapez; Dying Light: The Following — Enhanced Edition (April 6 to April 13)
Tunche; The Silent Age (March 30 to April 6)
World of Warships Starter Pack: Ishizuchi; Chess Ultra (March 23 to March 30)
Warhammer 40,000: Gladius — Relics of War (March 16 to March 23)
Call of the Sea (March 9 to March 16)
Rise of Industry (March 2 to March 9)
Duskers (Feb. 23 to March 2)
Warpips (Feb. 16 to Feb. 23)
Recipe for Disaster (Feb. 9 to Feb. 16)
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider; City of Gangsters (Feb. 2 to Feb. 9)
Hell Is Others, Adios (Jan. 26 to Feb. 2)
Epistory: Typing Chronicles (Jan. 19 to Jan. 26)
Gamedec: Definitive Edition; First Class Trouble; Divine Knockout (Jan. 12 to Jan. 19)
Shadow Tactics: Aiko’s Choice; Kerbal Space Program (Jan. 5 to Jan. 12)

Epic Games Store free games of 2022

Eximus: Seize the Frontline; Dishonored: Definitive Edition (Dec. 29, 2022, to Jan. 5, 2023)

Epic Store free games FAQ

What do I need to do to get free Epic Store games?

To get free games from the Epic Store each week, you must sign up and make an account.

To register as a user for the Epic Store, first head to the Epic Games website. At the top right-hand corner, click the Sign In button and then Create Account at the bottom of the page.

Can I play the free Epic Store games on Steam?

The Epic Store is different to Steam, so the games that you own on the Epic Store will not be available to play on Steam. If you want to play the free games you’ve downloaded from the Epic Store, you must play them via Epic’s launcher.

Technologies

An AWS Outage Broke the Internet While You Were Sleeping

Reddit, Roblox and Ring are just a tiny fraction of the 1,000-plus sites and services that were affected when Amazon Web Services went down, causing a major internet blackout.

The internet kicked off the week the way that many of us often feel like doing: by refusing to go to work. An outage at Amazon Web Services rendered huge portions of the internet unavailable on Monday morning, with sites and services including Snapchat, Fortnite, Venmo, the PlayStation Network and, predictably, Amazon, unavailable for a short period of time.

The outage began shortly after midnight PT, and took Amazon around 3.5 hours to fully resolve. Social networks and streaming services were among the 1,000-plus companies affected, and critical services such as online banking were also taken down. You’ll likely find most sites and services functioning as usual this morning, but some knock-on effects will probably be seen throughout the day.

AWS, a cloud services provider owned by Amazon, props up huge portions of the internet. So when it went down, it took many of the services we know and love with it. As with the Fastly and Crowdstrike outages over the past few years, the AWS outage shows just how much of the internet relies on the same infrastructure — and how quickly our access to the sites and services we rely on can be revoked when something goes wrong. The reliance on a small number of big companies to underpin the web is akin to putting all of our eggs in a tiny handful of baskets.

When it works, it’s great, but only one small thing needs to go wrong for the internet to come to its knees in a matter of minutes.

How widespread was the AWS outage?

Just after midnight PT on October 20, AWS first registered an issue on its service status page, saying it was «investigating increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS services in the US-EAST-1 Region.» Around 2 a.m. PT, it said it had identified a potential root cause of the issue, and within half an hour, it had started applying mitigations that were resulting in significant signs of recovery.

«The underlying DNS issue has been fully mitigated, and most AWS Service operations are succeeding normally now,» AWS said at 3.35 a.m. PT. The company didn’t respond to request for further comment beyond pointing us back to the AWS health dashboard.

Around the time that AWS says it first began noticing error rates, Downdetector saw reports begin to spike across many online services, including banks, airlines and phone carriers. As AWS resolved the issue, some of these reports saw a drop off, whereas others have yet to return to normal. (Disclosure: Downdetector is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)

Around 4 a.m. PT, Reddit was still down, while services including Ring, Verizon and YouTube were still seeing a significant number of reported issues. Reddit finally came back online around 4.30 a.m. PT, according to its status page, which was then verified by us.

In total, Downdetector saw over 6.5 million reports, with 1.4 million coming from the US, 800,000 from the UK and the rest largely spread across Australia, Japan, the Netherlands, Germany and France. Over 1,000 companies in total have been affected, Downdetector added.

«This kind of outage, where a foundational internet service brings down a large swathe of online services, only happens a handful of times in a year,» Daniel Ramirez, Downdetector by Ookla’s director of product told CNET. «They probably are becoming slightly more frequent as companies are encouraged to completely rely on cloud services and their data architectures are designed to make the most out of a particular cloud platform.»

What caused the AWS Outage?

AWS hasn’t shared full details about what caused the internet to fall off a cliff this morning. The likelihood is that now it’s deployed a fix, its next step will be to investigate what went wrong.

So far it’s attributed the outage to a «DNS issue.» DNS stands for the Domain Name System and refers to the service that translates human-readable internet addresses (for example, CNET.com) into machine-readable IP addresses that connects browsers with websites.

When a DNS error occurs, the translation process cannot take place, interrupting the connection. DNS errors are common are common internet roadblocks, but usually happen on small scale, affecting individual sites or services. But because the use of AWS is so widespread, a DNS error can have equally widespread results.

According to Amazon, the issue is geographically rooted in its US-EAST-1 region, which refers to an area of North Virginia where many of its data centers are based. It’s a significant location for Amazon, as well as many other internet companies, and it props up services spanning the US and Europe.

«The lesson here is resilience,» said Luke Kehoe, industry analyst at Ookla. «Many organizations still concentrate critical workloads in a single cloud region. Distributing critical apps and data across multiple regions and availability zones can materially reduce the blast radius of future incidents.»

Was the AWS Outage caused by a cyberattack?

DNS issues can be caused by malicious actors, but there’s no evidence at this stage to say that this is the case for the AWS outage.

Technical faults can, however, pave the way for hackers to look for and exploit vulnerabilities when companies’ backs are turned and defenses are down, according to Marijus Briedis, CTO at NordVPN. «This is a cybersecurity issue as much as a technical one,» he said in a statement. «True online security isn’t only about keeping hackers out, it’s also about ensuring you can stay connected and protected when systems fail.»

In the hours ahead, people should look out for scammers hoping to take advantage of people’s awareness of the outage, added Briedis. You should be extra wary of phishing attacks and emails telling you to change your password to protect your account.

Technologies

A New Bill Aims to Ban Both Adult Content Online and VPN Use. Could It Work?

Michigan representatives just proposed a bill to ban many types of internet content, as well as VPNs that could be used to circumvent it. Here’s what we know.

On Sept. 11, Michigan representatives proposed an internet content ban bill unlike any of the others we’ve seen: This particularly far-reaching legislation would ban not only many types of online content, but also the ability to legally use any VPN.

The bill, called the Anticorruption of Public Morals Act and advanced by six Republican representatives, would ban a wide variety of adult content online, ranging from ASMR and adult manga to AI content and any depiction of transgender people. It also seeks to ban all use of VPNs, foreign or US-produced.

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VPNs (virtual private networks) are suites of software often used as workarounds to avoid similar bans that have passed in states like Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as the UK. They can be purchased with subscriptions or downloaded, and are built into some browsers and Wi-Fi routers as well.

But Michigan’s bill would charge internet service providers with detecting and blocking VPN use, as well as banning the sale of VPNs in the state. Associated fines would be up to $500,000.

What the ban could mean for VPNs

Unlike some laws banning access to adult content, this Michigan bill is comprehensive. It applies to all residents of Michigan, adults or children, targets an extensive range of content and includes language that could ban not only VPNs but any method of bypassing internet filters or restrictions.

That could spell trouble for VPN owners and other internet users who leverage these tools to improve their privacy, protect their identities online, prevent ISPs from gathering data about them or increase their device safety when browsing on public Wi-Fi.

Read more: CNET Survey: 47% of Americans Use VPNs for Privacy. That Number Could Rise. Here’s Why

Bills like these could have unintended side effects. John Perrino, senior policy and advocacy expert at the nonprofit Internet Society, mentioned to CNET that adult content laws like this could interfere with what kind of music people can stream, the sexual health forums and articles they can access and even important news involving sexual topics that they may want to read. «Additionally, state age verification laws are difficult for smaller services to comply with, hurting competition and an open internet,» John added.

The Anticorruption of Public Morals Act has not passed the Michigan House of Representatives committee nor been voted on by the Michigan Senate, and it’s not clear how much support the bill currently has beyond the six Republican representatives who have proposed it. As we’ve seen with state legislation in the past, sometimes bills like these can serve as templates for other representatives who may want to propose similar laws in their own states.

Could VPNs still get around bans like these?

That’s a complex question that this bill doesn’t really address. When I asked NordVPN how easy it would be track VPN use, privacy advocate Laura Tyrylyte explained, «From a technical standpoint, ISPs can attempt to distinguish VPN traffic using deep packet inspection, or they can block known VPN IP addresses. However, deploying them effectively requires big investments and ongoing maintenance, making large-scale VPN blocking both costly and complex.»

Also, VPNs have ways around deep packet inspection and other methods. CNET senior editor Moe Long mentioned obfuscation like NordWhisper, a counter to DPI that attempts to make VPN traffic look like normal web traffic so it’s harder to detect.

There are also no-log features offered by many VPNs to guarantee they don’t keep a record of your activity, and no-log audits from third parties like Deloitte that, well, try to guarantee the guarantee. There are even server tricks VPNs can use like RAM-only servers that automatically erase data each time they’re rebooted or shut down.

If you’re seriously concerned about your data privacy, you can look for features like these in a VPN and see if they are right for you. Changes like these, even on the state level, are one reason we pay close attention to how specific VPNs work during our testing, and make sure to recommend the right VPNs for the job, from speedy browsing to privacy while traveling.

Correction, Oct. 9: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated how RAM-only servers work. RAM-only servers run on volatile memory and are wiped of data when they are rebooted or shut down.

Technologies

AWS Outage Explained: Why Half the Internet Went Down While You Were Sleeping

Reddit, Roblox and Ring are just a tiny fraction of the hundreds of sites and services that were impacted when Amazon Web Services went down.

The internet kicked off the week the way that many of us often feel like doing: by refusing to go to work. An outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) rendered huge portions of the internet unavailable on Monday morning, with sites and services including Snapchat, Fortnite, Venmo, the PlayStation Network and, predictably, Amazon, unavailable for a short period of time.

AWS is a cloud services provider owned by Amazon that props up huge portions of the internet. As with the Fastly and Crowdstrike outages over the past few years, the AWS outage shows just how much of the internet relies on the same infrastructure — and how quickly our access to the sites and services we rely on can be revoked when something goes wrong.

Around 4 a.m. PT, Reddit was still down, while services including Verizon and YouTube were still seeing a significant number of reported issues.