The Verge published the 150th edition of Installer, its weekly consumer tech guide, on Oct. 31, 2026, with editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host David Pierce noting the installment is shorter than usual because he was on a family vacation in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. Pierce wrote that he has been testing the DuckDuckGo browser after readers urged him to add it to his list, and that his new Pebble Index 01 has finally arrived.
For readers, the edition highlighted new gear from Apple and Amazon, what Pierce described as a better way to read books on a phone, a resurrected note-taking app and an absurdly expensive robovac, among other items. The debuts carry particular relevance for US consumers shopping the week's hardware and app releases.
Pierce said he has been reading about job hunting, 30 Rock and crypto detectives, watching a new Pixar short, catching up on VisionQuest, and listening to music on his new CMF Speaker S. He also reported eating what he called a worrying number of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.
The edition included recommendations from Installer community members. One reader, Spencer, said VisionQuest is quite good and credited James Spader with stealing the show, adding a bias as a Blacklist fan. Jordan described using CallMe to coordinate calls with friends by tapping an availability window of 15, 30 or 60 minutes. Ben said he was assembling a Top 10 for WXPN's annual Top 885, this year focused on songs from movies and TV.
Adam recommended the daily logic puzzle game Clues By Sam, where speed and accuracy determine your score and puzzles range from easy on Mondays to Brutal on Sundays. Mango suggested trying older 3D media, such as stereoscopic 3DS games and 3D movies, on Steam Frame. Oscar praised the Vivaldi browser's look, feel and customizations, while James said he was learning about the AT Protocol for a class project and had fallen into mental poker cryptography.
Josh recommended the YouTube channel Digging the Greats by Brandon Shaw, which analyzes albums in long-form videos and recently included a month of listening to music only on an iPod. Nicholas said he moved from Firefox to Librewolf, a Firefox fork that strips out telemetry and AI and pre-configures hardening. Pierce also pointed readers to a video by Byron Seven about designing a laptop sleeve, desk organizer and backpack.
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