TikTok Tech Tips are Terrible

I worked at a company that "refurbished" old surface pros and we basically only used hand sanitiser

Years ago when I was working in tech store (and Linus was reviewing pc cases on park benches) I was first surprised about people bringing phones that just had 0% of battery convinced that its broken, there were 1-5 of these everyday. So not that surprised anymore that people can't update their own pc drivers, heck some people even don't know how to turn off the computer without pulling the plug.

Love that he goes from joking to properly showing us how to safely use Spray paint. Caught me off guard but loved how he can transition from being goofy to serious in seconds !

For alot of games, you can also just rebind the left mouse button to the scroll wheel for very fast "clicking". I did this in Fallout 4 with a "Never-ending" double barrel shot gun as that gun fires as fast as you can click, and the Never-ending legendary effect means you dont ever have to reload. It was very fun.

Its the gelification of an evaporating solvent that gives it more time to penetrate. They purposefully do this in art restoration with various solvents to allow more working time and penetration on small areas so something harsher doesn't have to be used.
Hand sanitizer will get just about anything off of a hard non permeable surface. It's also good for getting dried paint out of paint brushes.
I use it for so many things around my house that when 2020 hit I had just under 2 liters of it already in the house.

Something important to know about the last tip is that a clean driver installation also resets your NVIDIA Control Panel settings (and probably also your GeForce Experience settings, but I can't say for sure). I learned this the hard way because I followed this tip elsewhere for a different issue and didn't read what a clean install actually does.

Because of TikTok, I had a customer use a two-part JB Weld for thermal paste. That ruined a perfectly good Ryzen 9 3900x.

My father got some of those hand warmer/power bank things, and to me they seems like they decided to turn their product overheating into a feature

I love how for some of the bad TikTok, you also gave good TikTok alternatives...
The main issue with TikTok is that it's a lot easier to gain views... the videos are so short and easy to go through that it's a lot easier to watch the bad videos...
On Clip-Share, you don't just scroll through videos, you search for them and then the algorithm recommends them to you... so even if you like the bad videos, you'd be stuck in that community and the people who don't like them will probably never see them...

About the drivers thing; A year or so back my friend that I usually game with was complaining about games running really slow, and his hardware was better than needed for some of these games, so I tried to help him figure out why. After testing a few things I looked at his drivers. When I realized that he just hadn't updated his drivers in 4 years, I was actually floored. He's usually pretty decent with computer stuff, so the fact that something basic like that wasn't something he realized he should be doing kinda blew my mind.

WD-40 is another way to remove sticker residue, depending on the material. They used to make WD-40 pens that were great for it

At the beginning of the pandemic when isopropyl became pretty much impossible to find we had to use hand sanitizer at our shop, I was surprised at how well it worked.

It seems like everyone is doing "reacting to tiktok rage bait" videos, it's cool to see someone discussing the proper methods instead of just squealing at intentionally bad content

I actually love that vinyl wrap on the glass, I think it's hilarious that you had to run another adspot for "destroying" their computer though, that was funny

I worked at Staples for a little over 18 months. We'd have people come into EasyTech all the time to have us just update their stuff. Cost them around $30 to do it if they didn't have a protection plan for it (which typically costs $200 by itself for 2 yrs).

I've used the hand sanitizer to take of goo. Honestly thought that wasn't a "trick" It just stays on the surface so you can scrub it more and the gel helps suspend the goo in the sanitizer vs just smudging it on the surface.

I'm actually genuinely surprised at how useful or cool some of these tips ended up being. Wow. Thanks for testing them out - for science!

18:13 To bypass signup walls on article sites, open the Inspector or developer window, find the css for the modal (that layer that darkens or blanks the screen) and set it's visibility to none. Then go up to the body tag and set overflow to scroll.

I've been using hand sanitizer over alcohol on stickers and labels for years, just out of convenience, not knowing it's actually better than alcohol.

When it comes to removing stickers, just use turpentine based solvent. It really does the job. The one I used was mady by Starwax but I think any other would do just as well. Be careful though - it smells like oranges or tangerines but don't breathe it. It's not healthy.

Another great one for hand sanitizer is when you need to apply something with an adhesive backing but one a bit of time to get it into place. Apply a thin layer of it onto the adhesive strip, and you have about a minute to get the positioning right.

The hand sanitiser one is because of the gelling agents acting as surfactants (carbomer in the one you used)
Same thing that helps it spread across a surface also helps it dissolve stuff (i.e. how soaps work) - In practice yeah the 99% is gonna work better, but hand sanitiser is a bit easier to find than the high conc alcohols or organic solvents

I laughed pretty hard, numerous times, during this episode. This was a really good one.

I ❤ u Linus! Honestly your enthusiasm makes me smile during some of my worst ideations

Loved Linus's face when Alex sarcastically says "income is high for some reason". The silent offence he took is gold. 20:37

That vinyl wrapping on the side panel actually looks good. The design would go well with a "Fractal" Design Meshify case.

Actually used the vinyl trick myself for my spare PC, added some wood vinyl to the front to give it a nice finish and it looks really good

I like the one about catching fungus gnats, and other similar bugs with a bowl of dish soap. It creates a breeding ground, instead of killing the bugs. Brilliant people out there.

My preferred method of removing stickers is using a hair dryer. It heats up the glue and loosens it. I wouldn't try it on sensitive electronics tho, I mostly use it to remove shipping labels from packages. Blow dry on hot over the whole label/sticker for up to 30 seconds or until the sticker turns slightly darker. It comes right off with very little residue. But again, I would not try this on electronic devices.

Linus being a curious noob in the hidden menu is the best part of this whole thing for sure.

It's really easy for an established Clip-Sharer to dunk on TikTokers for being ridiculous, but something I appreciate about this video (and LTT in general) is that you went out of your way to shout out TikTokers who are actually giving good advice, potentially sending traffic their way

For any of those interested, drag clicking can actually be used to get up to 50 cps. Pretty cool

I've found hand sanitizer IN SOME CASES can work better than iso, I think it's definitely the thickness of the gel that helps

To put film on, it would be easier to get a spray bottle and fill it with a bit of soapy water. And then you spray the back of the film and the front of the panel. Also cut the film bigger then the panel so you can take a exacto to it after to get a nice edge.

at work I actually found out that hand sanitizer worked decently well at getting sharpie off the plastic cases of laptops and stuff.

I worked at Amazon, corporate doing tech support, and for the laptops that were turned in covered in stickers. We just let hand sanitizer sit on them, and then scrape them off with a razor blade.

I once had a client at a business who was complaining about a keyboard not working. I told them to bring it over, plugged it in and it worked fine. Went over to their desk area and plugged it in and hey presto, it was working. They just hadn't plugged it in properly. Ten or so minutes of their work day, gone for that.

You can actually read NY Times articles by just refreshing the page and then halting the page load before it finishes loading. It looks like the check to add the "sign up" banner is one of the last things that happens, so if you cancel the page load fast enough you can just read the article.

I like how during the hand warming part I was thinking the same thing as Linus right at the start, just use the PC exhaust lol.

Yeah, having systems come in to update drivers is surprisingly common. Those last few ones were pretty good, not going to lie, but dang... That paintjob and the glue thing were just horrible. That was tough to look at, must've been tough to shoot as well.

If you're taking stickers off with alcohol, I recommend soaking a rag/paper towel and setting it on top of the sticker. Will eat into the sticker soften it and makes peeling them much easier

The hand sanitizer most likely worked better because it had water (in addition to isopropyl alcohol) in it. Some substances are more readily dissolved by alcohol, and some are more readily dissolved by water. I'd recommend a 70% isopropyl alcohol (30% water) mixture, which is widely available for purchase. As a bonus, it's less of a fire hazard than 99% isopropyl. Alternatively, you could just add some distilled water to 99% alcohol.

I like how Linus is like "wow that is a terrible way to do that" and then shows a video where they cooled a PC with propane and melted the back of a monitor.

So about the hand Sanitizer one, It happened to me once that I got a big drop of fast dry super glue (the transparent one that is used to glue plastics) and I started to panic, by the time I got to the bathroom to wash my hand it was already dry, I try scrubbing my hand really hard and it didn't work, so in a last ditch effort I used Hand Sanitizer, and I removed it without trouble, apparently many glues dissolve on Hand Sanitizers

The thing about hand sanitizers might be not so much alcohol at all, but the fact that some glue actually dissolves in oils... 8-bitguy is known to use WD-40 to remove stickers (often intact to be reused)... And I think I have seen others use similar methods for removing stickers and glue residue, in the vintage computer restoration.
I once removed stickers from a glass jar, soaked it in water for ages, tried all the usual kitchen tricks, and try as I might, it would have taken forever to simply scrub it off... Then I just happened to try some olive oil, and there just happened to be one bottle out of date and a bit oil left, just sitting there waiting to be disposed of... So there was nothing to lose, and it actually worked. Now it did leave the glass a bit oily, but that is nothing one could not get rid of with a bit of soap.

The thickener in the hand-sanitizer works as a binding agent, for the glue flakes.

i honestly love how you can barely hear the ventilation but he starts basically yelling over it anyway hahahaha

real gamers sit on their hands, we're a natural heater.

Been using plain hand sanitizer to clean stuff forever. It’s always worked 👍

The Samsung debug menu one depends. It’s disabled on some phones (I think based on original carrier). It’s great for repair techs to test when it works

Those battery bank hand warmers are actually so underrated. I've had a dif one for almost 5 years and it's a life saver when you're out in the cold. Cause cold ruins your lithium battery charge, having a warm and charged pocket to keep your phone good while you're skiing on the mountain is amazing.

For stickers, just use olive oil. On anything, you don't need to put much, great especially on books because alcohol will attack the colors, whereas as olive oil will make it only slightly greasy and that goes away by simply wiping. It aggregates the glue residue almost instantly (takes a few seconds for really old stickers).

The way Alex is holding his MacBook at 21:50, I don't need this kind of anxiety in my life.

watching linus learn drag clicking is peak comedy

With the hand sanitizier vs alcohol thing i assumed the tip was because more people have hand sanitizer around than have isopropyl alcohol.

Can't wait for the second course. I'm going to be using my modern times PC like a.. like a cutting-edge tech person soon.

I've used hand sanitiser to take stickers off computers since early 2020 (when hand sanitiser became ubiquitous) and it works brilliantly. I hate cable ties and only use velcro ties.

Hand warmer part for me was the best🤣 Linus knows his audience 🤣

So after doing some research it is indeed the glycerin in the hand sanitizer that helps with the residue. Apparently glycerin will actively decelerate the polymerization of methyl acrylate (the most common adhesive used in stickers) which then allows it to be far more easily dissolved into the alcohol in the hand sanitizer, thus breaking the polymer bonds between the adhesive and whatever the item is stuck to.

Ive used Zoom for 3 years now and can tell you, yes people DO in fact need a dedicated mute button. Not a lot of them but definitely some.

I had my desktop in my bedroom and didn't like getting woken up in the middle of the night because my computer decided to turn on, so I applied one-way garage blackout tint. I accidentally applied it in the wrong direction, but it's no longer blinding in a dark room so I can sleep through it and it looks kind of cool

Hello LTT ! 😀 You can used hand sanitizer, to remove rubber that start to disintegrated.
Worked fine with the back of my old Galaxy Note 3.😎

I legit want to do the rainbow vinyl siding trick on both my computers. I mean they're acrylic side panels, so ANYTHING is an improvement. lol.

I would like an entire long video of Linus teaching me proper painting techniques like I’m a new hire at my first day on the job

About wrapping the side panel window: A friend of mine used the rest of the chameleon tint foil he had left from wrapping his car window and used it on his pc side panel window. It looks fire and I would have never gotten the idea to do this. Amazing

The thing about these is, for example, a child would easily be able to do the first one with any art and craft kits that most children get for birthdays/Christmas. And I can only imagine a parents reaction to glue and glitter all over a VERY expensive work computer and an unknowing child thinking they did their parent a favour ;-;

11:50 personally I've never found rubbing alcohol all that effective at removing adhesive residue, and I don't know why people always recommend it for everything. I'll give hand sanitizer a try next time I need to wipe something down.

For bypassing paywalls, you can use 12ft ladder and it works really well

That "hacking" thing with the command prompt is the kind of things scammers use to show all the viruses you need to get removed.

I would guess the glycerin in the hand san. acts as a tensioactive, which helps capture the "glue particles" and clean it better. As a counterpart, I had great success using WD40 to remove glue from laptops, whiteboards, jars etc. The way it works is the opposite of glycerin, it covers the glue in grease so it doesn't stick anymore and makes it so much easier to clean. then you just clean the wd40 easily with alcohol, no need for strenous rubbing.

Oh my gosh! That “rainbow vinyl hack” and pink washitape/vinyl are stuff I did on my pink “cougar conquer”-like case. It’s not for everyone, but I LOVE my PC and monitors (one of the monitors is borrowed from the studio I work for so I can’t paint it). Some of these are hard to watch, even for a crafty person like myself. Hahaha😂

I love how Alex was like oh wow lmao people taking their PC into a repair shop just for them to update some drivers, when, having worked in a PC repair shop, I can 100% confirm that it’s a painfully accurate depiction of what being a PC tech repair guy is like 😂

Best tape/adhesive remover is called Wildcat TR-60. We use it on pretty much any surface in the amusements industry (pinball/arcade/slot machines/dart boards/etc)

I've been using hand sanitizer for years for removing sticker gunk . It usually seems to work better than isopropyl. As long as it isn't touching any contacts that is, because it can leave a bit of a residue.
To be fair, the first time I tried was out of desperation, and it just kinda stuck

Yes, the glycerine would help dilute the adhesive. I tend to just use an oil (even canola) and then clean that residue off with 99% alcohol.
So, it seems I have no ad topics for me. Google doesn't know what to sell me. Just as I like it. Thank you duckduckgo

Cold hands is actually a problem, and using water as a constant solution would dry them out and irritate them (have to even avoid things like too much time under hot water washing dishes). The best solution for my body, though, is keeping my core warm. My extremeties get cold first, but trying to warm them and not my core doesn't do anything.

To make it a fair test u should have diluted the 99% ipa down to like 70-80% to make it the same alcohol as the hand sanitiser

I remember a repair shop could not diagnose the cause of my instability when I was younger. Years down the road I could. This guy in the last tiktok killed it. Driver and bios updates and default settings for diagnosing is the first thing you do.

I can see why they'd suggest hand sanatiser to remove sticker residue. Most basic hand sanatisers are about 60% Isopropanol, and 40% water as a base. Not all are though.
I'd use it if I didn't have any Isopropanol at hand, but people recommend you do mix it with water to prevent it evaporating too quickly, and Hand sanitiser will get you that far at least.
Hand warmer? I tend to have the oposite problem, my hand stuck to the mouse from sweating where it makes contact.

To remove stickers and residue, you should get proper product for it. Get one of those sticker removal fluids in a spray can and you can simply spray, wait for a few seconds and swipe all the residue off.

I think one of the really good things to remove residue is lighter fluid, but I might be wrong

Love that melted monitor. Looks kinda sick. Would look better with red or silver though.

So that number you dialed to bring up that menu is actually a test mode for Samsung phones it’s called dial in mode or test mode, that image you chose is part of the accelerometer test function. It basically tests the landscape to portrait mode of images, if you go to graphs you can shake the phone and test it that way too. Also there’s more than just one “secret codes” that can be used for different menus or functions. Not sure what value this adds but that’s what it’s there for.

The thing is that a lot of these are intentionally fake "hacks" literally for the purpose of getting younger children to semi-permanently or often permanently damage expensive things around the house, as a "prank"

I think the idea of having different audio from video isn't about attention span, but rather that having two different things makes it impossible to take the whole video in in one watch, pushing the viewer to watch it again, with each loop counting as another view.

I've started using hand sanitizer as after shave when shaving my head since we had an abundance from lockdown... honestly it works way better than normal aftershave ever did..

The last one is serious business! I worked for a repair shop and you'd be surprised of the number of people that come to repair their PC and telling you it's broken or smthng, but all you have to do is upgrading the system or flash Bios or updating the drivers or even uninstall/reinstall drivers, its 70% of the jobs sometimes

To use alcohol effectively to clean off adhesive residue, wet a piece of rag with it and place it over the residue for 10ish seconds before you start scrubbing. The alcohol needs time in contact to work. That's why the hand-san works so well. The added viscosity gives it time to work.

WD40 is great at getting rid of stickers, goo, and whatnot. They even have a type of WD40 that is electronic component friendly that you can clean motherboards etc with it.

Having recently started a new job as a GeekSquad agent, can confirm, you would be VERY surprised the types of things the average consumer brings their devices to repair/tech support for. Talking like forgot their password, then it turns out they have 2FA hooked up to their landline (no texts) or something, and we've got to explain to them 10 different ways that we can't magically fix that.

Part of the problem with the alcohol is the concentration was too high. If you want it to be good at quickly cleaning residue, you need more water in it. Water is a solvent, and combined with isopropyl, it makes cleaning work much better. If you try 70% isopropyl, it will likely clean sticker residue better than 99%. The hand sanitiser will probably still work better though.

I love that some them were actually good tips! Not what I expected.

12:20 there is specialised residue remover that does the job 100 times easier. I had to use some lately to remove the residue leftovers from carfoliation. That stuff comes from hell thou. Need to use it with all safty gear you can imagine in an very VERY well ventilated room or outside.

For anyone wondering about drag clicking, it likely wasn't working well for them as they hadn't lowered their debounce time in the mouse software. Doing so you can hit 60+ cps if you are skilled enough.

I still like to remove sticker residue with a little bit of Virgin Olive oil.. if you slightly heat the residue with a hairdryer it almost always comes right off. Pretty much always using microfiber cloth to prevent any possible scratches. Then a quick wipe with some non streaking screen safe glass cleaner and your done.

hands down the best part of the video is when alex says google has him in the high income category "FOR SOME REASON" and then linus has a slight delay of information processing before realizing what he just heard lmao

I miss the rattle can automotive paints from Dupont. Those really were the gold standard for spray paint in my opinion. Apparently that market segment wasn't sufficiently profitable, so Dupont eliminated it, which is very sad.

The "You'd be surprised" at the end really hit home having worked in a repair shop myself. I've seen some shit lmao.

I loved the "Just use alcohol..."... "IT'S NOT BETTER!?!"

No I actually bust out laughing when you said "if you're a real gamer, you know how to warm your hands" because I have absolutely used the same technique