Shira Ovide

New York

Writer of The Tech Friend newsletter

Education: Haverford College; Columbia Journalism School

Shira Ovide writes The Tech Friend newsletter. Sign up here. She is the strategy editor for Help Desk, The Washington Post's team of journalists who focus on the impact of our digital lives and empower us to corral technology to serve our needs. Before joining The Post in October 2022, Ovide wrote the On Tech newsletter for the New York Times. She has also been a technology columnist at Bloomberg Opinion and wrote about technology, finance and the media industry for the Wall Street Journal. Ovide lives in New York.
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Latest from Shira Ovide

Never Google ‘free credit report.’ Do this instead.

Never search the web if you're looking for free credit reports. Google ads lead you away from a government-mandated free service.

April 21, 2023

Tech companies don’t deserve your loyalty. Become a free agent.

You're better off if you have the freedom to ditch your iPhone or Windows PC. Here are steps you can take to give yourself tech independence.

April 18, 2023

Hacking your TV remote and 8 other tech tricks we love

Washington Post staff and readers recommend the technologies they love, including an app to settle name debates and closed captioning in live videos.

April 14, 2023

How to file your taxes without selling your soul

TurboTax and H&R Block ask you to give up the ironclad secrecy of your tax return. Why? To help them make more money.

April 11, 2023

Six simple technologies that quietly make life better

Tech doesn't need to be fancy to make your life better.

April 7, 2023

We all should worry about the Dish and Sling TV cyberattack

A cyberattack on Dish Networks froze accounts and may have stolen customers' personal information. How does this keep happening?

April 4, 2023

How to spot the Trump and Pope AI fakes

Here are five clues to spot AI-generated images and why we shouldn't freak out about them.

March 31, 2023

AI doesn’t belong everywhere. Stop using a hammer to make lasagna.

Just because you can apply AI to a task, it doesn't mean that you should.

March 28, 2023

Americans deserve a better message than ‘Trust us, TikTok is bad.’

The risk of TikTok is real but mostly hypothetical. It's time for U.S. officials to make a detailed public pitch for why a ban is in our best interests.

March 24, 2023

Buying coffee with your phone is easy. Paying for the subway is a pain.

A schoolteacher in New York should be able to pay for his subway commute with his phone. Here is why Charles Stewart — and maybe you, too — cannot.

March 21, 2023